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.
From TFA (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the most amazing part of the story is this:
"According to the report, the teen told investigators he'd heard if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep. The teen told investigators he was only testing that theory."
Test successful! Big Brother is watching.
IQ = Retard (Score:2, Interesting)
"According to the report, the teen told investigators he'd heard if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep. The teen told investigators he was only testing that theory."
It makes you wonder...did he perhaps expect Ed McMahon and the Publisher's Clearing House folks to come to the door? (That'd be a trick, and be the first sign of the so-called 'Zombie Apocalypse', but that's another issue).
There were two outcomes, either the cops come (which happened), or nothing happens (which had a fairly equal chance of happening, when you think about it). Flip a coin, you either get a new bunkmate named Louie, Bubba, or Bruno; or you continue to waste your life on WoW.
Re:IQ = Retard (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I'd guess he expected the same I'd expect: That it's a bunch of baloney and no sane person would believe a 14 year old is plotting the end of the civilized world.
Want to be a terrorist and bring the police forces to the threshold of their ability to uphold order?
1. Sign up a few hundred online accounts under false name.
2. Start chatting about how you'll blow up shit.
3. Watch SWAT teams all over the continent bust doors of your false addresses, 24/7
4. Commit the crime you want to commit once they've been doing this for 4-5 days and are so exhausted that they can't even think coherently anymore.
Re:No second chances... (Score:5, Interesting)
The teachers and school administration are actually bullies themselves, and are run by bullies. That's why they never seriously stop bullying (their own progeny!) and always crack down HARD on the bullied.
Re:Had to read the whole damn thing! (Score:5, Interesting)
There was some talk in the news a year or so back about how security services were afraid of terrorists using online chat in games and such to organise.
Who wants a bet the "monitor" was actually another NSA (or similar) program data mining chat logs rather than just someone seeing it on the off chance?
I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but if the actions of security services in various countries across the world have taught us anything this last 5 or so years, it's that the measures they'll go to are suprising - from the Russian FSB murdering Litvinenko in London, to the NSA warantless wiretaps program, to the shooting of Menezes on the tube in London and the subsequent "dissapearance" of the CCTV tapes, to the use of torture by the CIA, and now it appears almost certainly MI5 too.
Re:Watch Your Trash Talk! (Score:3, Interesting)
While more often than not I would tend to agree with your point of view, it should be considered just how far this attitude can be carried.
Would this idea of government non-interference extend to a scenario where someone heard a scream from a neighboring apartment and called a police on an off-chance that there might be a murder in progress and not a TV show? Would it go so far as to extend to a situation in a bar where someone is screaming in your face that they're gonna kick your ass all the way down to Antarctica and you would say: "well nothing to do here since the bar doesn't have a security guard"?
Don't tell me that if you go to a bar you don't have a right to expect to be safe. With some exceptions, I believe that most of the bar owners would say that they count on you to feel safe in their establishment.
I do agree that there are places and situations where the government doesn't have it's place, but security isn't one of them.
If anything I would prefer to have most of the private security firms replaced by real police with real training, responsibility and accountability. I know that this statement sounds naive but 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.
Re:Had to read the whole damn thing! (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, researchers and federal agencies monitor WoW chat -- perhaps partly to catch things like this, but mostly for strange sociological studies.
Re:No second chances... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Actually, I think it IS a horrible and dangerous attitude when a kid says something like that. It may not be much of a threat then, but it shows that the child is being allowed to mature without the necessary coping skills for teenage and adult relationships, which she'll one day have to deal with. I think the parent who taught the kid this kind of attitude should be focused on more than the kid, but definitely, I think kids with this sort of behaviour should be detected, taken aside, and taught a wiser approach to life.
Sheesh. I remember when I was in either kindergarten or first grade, someone was bullying me, and I said to them "The world would be a better place if you were dead." They started crying (at the time, all I was thinking was "Ha! That stopped them."), and went to a teacher, who pulled me aside, and explained to me the actual ramifications of what I had said. Hell, I was in first grade. At that time parents still tell you that the dog "ran away" rather than died, and even if they had, you don't always understand at that age what death really means. But when the teacher told me that what I said was inappropriate, and I asked my parents about it later, I - at least as far as I could at that time - understood what was up and I didn't do it again. That's all that needed to happen. It makes me shiver to think that had that happened today - 20 years later - instead of then, it isn't unlikely that I'd have been hauled away and suspended.
I recall another case in 2nd grade where we were asked to draw a real flag we had seen (either in person or in pictures) that wasn't the American flag. Most people drew the state flag, or the Canadian or British flag. I didn't know any of those. I didn't even know the state flag at the time. But I had seen my parents watching a documentary on World War II (although I didn't really pay attention) so I drew the only other flag I knew - the Nazi one. The teacher took it away, pulled me aside and explained a bit about World War II, and that that particular flag wasn't appropriate, and told me to ask my parents about it when I got home, which I did, and it was clear that it wasn't really appropriate for school. Simple. She gave me a book of flags and I picke a different one and drew it. Kids really can be quite understanding if you give actual explanations beyond "BECAUSE WE SAID SO". Again, today, I'd probably have been expelled before even being told why what I had drawn was inappropriate.
I can think of numerous things that I saw happen to all sorts of students back in school where the "proper response" - the teacher/administrator coming in and being the 'adult' - led to long-standing resolutions where kids understood what was up. Things like suspension were rare and for the most severe cases. But these days you don't see it - the fear of lawsuits, the fear of decision-making, has led to a school culture where a single aspirin pill may as well be 2 kg of heroin, and a plastic knife may as well be a machine gun with cyanide-tipped bullets.
Re:Had to read the whole damn thing! (Score:3, Interesting)
Wat. Stop making baseless conjecture and passing it off as fact, your post is in no way correct.
Get your head out of the sand please. He is probably correct. The most paranoid conspiracy theorist is the government.
U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft [wired.com]
UK Government Needs $20 Billion for Increased Spying Program [breakitdownblog.com]
FBI Looking For Moles For GOP Convention Protestors [crooksandliars.com]
That commenter on your blog may actually be working for the Israeli government [muzzlewatch.com]