NSA Collect Gamers' Chats and Deploy Real-Life Agents Into WoW and Second Life 293
An anonymous reader writes in with news that some NSA agents were trying to dig up info by joining the horde. "To the National Security Agency analyst writing a briefing to his superiors, the situation was clear: their current surveillance efforts were lacking something. The agency's impressive arsenal of cable taps and sophisticated hacking attacks was not enough. What it really needed was a horde of undercover Orcs. That vision of spycraft sparked a concerted drive by the NSA and its UK sister agency GCHQ to infiltrate the massive communities playing online games, according to secret documents disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.....The agencies, the documents show, have built mass-collection capabilities against the Xbox Live console network, which has more than 48 million players. Real-life agents have been deployed into virtual realms, from those Orc hordes in World of Warcraft to the human avatars of Second Life. There were attempts, too, to recruit potential informants from the games' tech-friendly users."
Well, of course. (Score:5, Funny)
We've read recently that the NSA types are becoming disaffected by their jobs.
So letting them play WoW on company time will help with that, eh?
Sir! Sir! It's an emergency, sir! (Score:5, Funny)
SecondLife?? (Score:5, Funny)
thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
Great excuse to tell your mum (Score:5, Funny)
oh look... (Score:3, Funny)
"Here's yet another way we can funnel tax payer money to private contractors under the guise of our black budget." Brilliant. I bet he got promoted for this.
Re:Well, of course. (Score:4, Funny)
With what a lot of WoW players write, I'm amazed the NSA doesn't sue them for pain and suffering when some poor slob has to look through the stored Barrens chat logs.
On the bright side, it's a promotion for the guy who used to read Slashdot posts for the NSA.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)