Toavs, for one, believes that spies will have to spend more time in virtual worlds like WoW, if they want to have a hope of keeping tabs on what goes on inside ‘em. Which means, some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.

All the attention stems from the “nervousness” the Pentagon and other government agents are feeling about the popular MMORPG. There’s even a fictional scenario meant to prove how easy it is to plan attacks on key targets, by using places in the virtual WoW world to represent real ones. The fictional terrorists, all decked out as players, practice their attack within the game world.

Sounds plausible. Not! As any self-respecting net-savvy citizen knows, the possibility for terrorists to plan their badness within WoW is possible. But a little imagination will realize that there are easier ways to do this, other than resorting to pretend farming with like-minded colleagues online. That’s why this report smacks so much of an underhanded effort to paint WoW as a potential terrorist haven, perhaps leading to legislation that will give the good guys more authority to invade the game world.

Waste of tax money, anyone?

Post from: The Gadget Blog