WoW Gamer Earns Federal Investigation Achievement 167
barnyjr writes "A teenager could face federal charges after investigators say he made online threats to kill Americans on a plane from Indianapolis to Chicago. According to investigators, a monitor of the online interactive game World of Warcraft saw the alleged threats in an on-line chat and called Johnson County authorities. She told investigators the chatter didn't seem like a game."
I'm not sure who's crazier, this guy or the guy who just became the first World of Warcraft player to rack up 10,000 achievement points.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:3, Insightful)
What? Loose lips? Some jackass made stupidly specific threats against a major flight in the US.
How the fuck should they have responded? Ignore it on the likely chance its some jackass kid, or you know, actually follow up and do their fucking jobs.
I can just imagine the stink you would have posted in the alternate universe of slashdot where the kid is credible and the authorities do ignore it. "Oh how they've failed us. Look, all show, no substance. We need competent security people!"
You're the kind of jackass that will just play devil's advocate with any fucking thing. You first get indignant that there is no measure of increased security only the illusion of such. But then get start throwing around gestapo allusions when they actually do their fucking job and demonstrate that they're actively promoting security.
No second chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wish law enforcement, school officials, and the courts handled the fine gradiations between "stupid stuff kids say," "stupid stuff people, who should know better but apparently don't, say" and "real threats" better than they do. I remember a friend of mine getting suspended in elementary school for saying "I wish you would die" to someone who had been bullying them. Obviously the teary eyed little girl posed a real and imminent threat to the other kid who had at least 30 lbs on her. Then there was the guy in my freshman (high school) english class who was expelled and arrested for some poorly thought out sarcasm. The teacher had sent him to the in-school-suspension trailer for arguing with her about her grading policies. He was still pissed and was insulting her loudly as he left when she said something to the effect of "I feel like I've got the next unibomber right here. I hate watching little psychos like you go through here just knowing what you'll probably become." In response to this ridiculous thing for a teacher to say to a 14 year old student, he said "Oh right, like I'm going to put bomb in your mailbox or something. Are you f-ing nuts?"
Despite the fact that she had provoked him, that everyone in the class had attested to this and stated it was clear he was being sarcastic, he was still arrested for making threats and expelled from the county school district. I really wish our institutions were better at reacting appropriately to stuff like that. Maybe if they could tell real threats from stupid remarks we would be a lot safer from both the mentally unbalanced seeking to do us harm and our government's hamfisted attempts to look like it's doing something.
Re:No second chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Zero-Tolerance.
That's the word of the times. Even though with these policies we still had V-Tech, and other school shootings. It's all security theater to make the ignorant, distracted parents feel like their kids are safe. They'd rather hear terms like "zero-tolerance" than "after investigation that sarcastic remark made to your child was just that, sarcastic and hollow with no intention of following through with the threat."
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:4, Insightful)
How the fuck should they have responded? Ignore it on the likely chance its some jackass kid
Yes.
Oh how they've failed us. Look, all show, no substance. We need competent security people!
Why does everybody think they have a right to be safe everywhere?
And why is it the government's responsibility to make a private trip in a privately owned airplane safe for you, pay for all that security with my tax dollars, and use intrusive government means as part of security?
Make airline security exclusively an airline responsibility: no tax dollars and no governmental intrusions anymore. And I bet if companies had to pay the full consequences of terrorism, they'd find ways to make sure it didn't happen.
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
He should be thankful to the Feds that they did not send in a SWAT team to smash open the door a.k.a Transformers, and drown the kid in a swimming pool.
When will people realize that online equals real world ?
Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, its not as hard or as time consuming as you would think. Granted, he has to be a good, and that does take a certain amount of time and dedication, but when you are a good WoW player, you actually have to play *less* to do more. Almost more importantly than that are the people who you play with. Almost all of those achievements are not his achievements alone, but also a testament to the people he played with who achieved the same things: his raid, his arena team, and his friends in general.
When I was playing, I was in both the best and the worst guilds on the server. The best guilds worked at learning the fights, but still ended their raids on-time with their objectives completed, because once they discovered a strat for the boss or BG, the members executed it flawlessly. The worst guilds had all the strategies already laid out for them, and they still couldn't execute. Most of your time, especially in raids, but also in BGs and even Arena is based on how often you have to play catch up for mistakes you or a teammate didn't have to make.
When you finish raids and BGs on time, you have time to get good at other things. You can learn how to PvP in Arenas and get really good at it. Usually, your awesome guild mates are also on your Arena teams. You can sit around Orgrimmar and be King Turd of Shit Mountain with your gear, and in the end, you still didn't play much more than the mediocre people who can't get it down.
If I ever play another MMO, it will only be with the best people I can find who are willing to get shit done and go home. WoW was my first MMO, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way. If you aspire to be anything in that game, you're only going to get it done with the best people around you from the very start. This guy's record shows that very clearly.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whooops! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No second chances... (Score:4, Insightful)
you call that zero tolerance? according to current laws taking bribes should end in jail time, not just suspending from office.
Several things going on here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IQ = Retard (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all a ridiculous strategy. Think of it as a Denial-Of-Counterterrorism attack; throw up some much 'chatter' and false leads at the time you want to attack. I don't know if anyone has tried it yet, but it wouldn't surprise me.
We need sober, thoughtful investigators unraveling terror networks. Not trigger happy knuckleheads jumping on any and every chance to pretend they are Jack fucking Bauer.
Re:No second chances... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, got to pick you up on this. The 'fire in a crowded theatre' thing is bullshit for three reasons:
1. It was from a ruling against people distributing anti-draft literature in the first world war. A blatant violation of free speech
2. It was overturned just a few years later
3. It doesn't make sense anyway. Honestly, try yelling fire in a crowded theatre, I garuntee the worst that will happen is people chuck bits of their refreshments at you. It isn't the responsibility of a person not to yell 'fire', its the responsibility of all citizens not to panic and trample people to death at the first anonymous, unsubstantiated, cry of danger.
Even aside from you citing one of the biggest chucks of popular bullshit since 'theres no smoke without fire', why can't the kid test the bounds of liberty? He is more of a citizen than you are.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:3, Insightful)
a lot of security companies are simply a collaboration of thugs, looking for an excuse to beat someone up if they're having a bad day/night at work.
And that differs from the FBI/NSA/DEA how?
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the line I have in my mind is:
Threats to people should be protected by "real" police with the authority to use serious force. If you pose a real threat to the physical safety of other people (life, limb, etc) it's justifiable to use deadly force to prevent that threat in the most extreme cases.
Threats to property should be protected by the people who benefit financially from that property, and the force allowed should be limited to non-lethal means, and non-permanent. Catch 'em and turn 'em over to the civil authorities, but the civil authorities should NOT have to provide the protection in the first place.
A plane full of people is a piece of private property, but if it is damaged unduly in flight, people are at risk; the government should therefore take steps to secure it, up to and including deadly force if necessary. Note that I'm absolutely NOT saying that the way flights are protected now is anything but an absolute joke - anyone with an IQ over 80 could likely come up with dozens of ways to inflict mass casualties without even engaging the airline security.
On the case of the idiot this story is about - I think one of the ways to *actually* provide security is pre-emptively investigating potential threats. This kid certainly wasn't a potential threat (though I bet it was funny to watch him pee a little when they came to get him - I often wish Barrens-chat could be punishable by arrest and cavity search). What I *am* glad about is that we're hearing about it, rather than the kid just ... disappeared.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why libertarianism doesn't work:
The downside cost of an action (or failure to act) can be greater to society than the individual actor is capable of reimbursing, while the upside benefit of so acting (or failing to so act) can be substantial.
Remember the financial crisis after 911? From an airlines cost/benefit perspective it's better to scrimp on security, because they personally are unlikely to recoup the cost of security expenditures. However, if even a single airline has sufficiently lax security to attract a terrorist strike, the cost to society as a whole is astronomical. Meanwhile, that one airline folds as soon as it is sued, and your 401(k) suffers.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that would be the FDA and the AMA as, to the best of my knowledge, they have yet to authorize a drug or technique that makes knocking someone out 100% safe. Reactions to anesthetics (the way doctors knock people out for surgery) are one of the most well known ways that people die during, even mundane, surgery. Even when the surgery works, there is an anesthesiologist there the whole time monitoring the patient's condition. This is the real world, not fantasy. Just because the rest of the A-Team gave BA a shot every time they needed to take a flight doesn't mean it's a realistic technique that could be done to every airplane passenger.