Avast, me hearties! I played me fair share o’ World o’ Warcraft, enough t’ know ‘t’s incredibly addictive, an’ enough t’ know ‘t’s nay good fer me when I do. Which, I guess, won’t avast me from tryin’ ou’ Wrath o’ th’ Lich King an’ th’ new Davy Jones’ locker Knight class anyway when ‘t comes ou’.

Yes, that just was my meager tribute to today’s Talk like a Pirate Day

Ingame Map

Washington Map

It’s a fact that there’s 10 million WoW players (by official count), and that not all ingame chat is about the game itself. It’s also a fact however that some CIA folks have seen too many conspiracy movies. You might have heard about it: A Pentagon researcher gave a presentation early this month (via Wired, heise), where he alerted the world to the inherent dangers in such online worlds: Jargon! Coded messages! To the left, you see an ingame map, to the right the overlaid secret attack plan. Boo!

Now … yes. Of course, this is theoretically possible. Of course terrorists could forfeit encrypted mails, a private Ventrillo server, or some other secure means of communication, in favour of in-WoW chat. But it’s a prime example of a movie plot threat, a term coined by security expert Bruce Schneier. He clearly illustrates why defending against those is a very bad idea:

The problem with movie plot security is that it only works if we guess right. If we spend billions defending our subways, and the terrorists bomb a bus, we’ve wasted our money. To be sure, defending the subways makes commuting safer. But focusing on subways also has the effect of shifting attacks toward less-defended targets, and the result is that we’re no safer overall.

Seems those Pentagon researchers haven’t read that, though. Nor have they heard about his later movie plot threat contest (which made it to the NY Times), just you wait until they expand on more of those possible dangers – here’s a long inspirational list.

Terror in Lineage

I particularly like this broken toys post, where the blogger draws parallels in other popular MMOs.

Indeed, the point can be made that they only use the above WoW picture as a clever way to make even politicians realize that “emerging media” are something that has to be watched for potential terrorist attacks. But the main issue remains: However many movie plot threats you watch, however many communication channels you supervise, we’re gladly living in a not-quite-yet-1984 world, which has the downside that terrorists have plenty of communication alternatives.

And once again I’m quoting Schneier, in his brilliant analysis of the subject matter:

My guess is still that some clever Pentagon researchers have figured out how to play World of Warcraft on the job, and they’re not giving that perk up anytime soon.

I guess that’s the best explanation for all this.