Wednesday, February 6, 2008

9-11 paranoia spilling into VR


Regarding the question of "spillage" between RL and VR (and vice versa) there is this interesting article in the Washington Post ( Wednesday, February 6, 2008; Page D01) about a recent paper by the government's new Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity:

Intelligence Officials See 3-D Online Worlds as Havens for Criminals.

(Brought to you from the same people that consider a nail-clipper a terrorist weapon:)

"The intelligence community has begun contemplating how to use Second Life and other such communities as platforms for cyber weapons that could be used against terrorists or enemies, intelligence officials said. One analyst suggested beginning tests with so-called teams of cyber warfare experts. "

The IARPA paper concurred: "What additional things are possible in the virtual world that cannot be done in the real world? (italics mine)The [intelligence community] needs to 'red team' some possible scenarios of use."

As you remember that is the basic question that I posed to the teams I was able to talk to yesterday.

1 comment:

Bryan Konrad said...

They want more control over the internet. They are not, at the moment, making as much money as they think they can off of it.