Loyal readers might remember that the government's spooks are working on software that can spot terrorists lurking in massive, multi-player games, something it dubs the Reynard Project.
THREAT LEVEL just got a copy of the November 2007 proposal for the cutting edge project from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).
In it, Dr. Rita Bush and Kenneth Kisiel from IARPA's Disruptive Technology Office cite the current advantages of terrorism in the online world – anonymity, covert communication channels and the ease of information warfare – as reason to start studying multi-player games and virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft.
The proposal opens with a scenario of what would happen if the nation's intelligence community failed to get a head start:
I had been following the Recruiter through this virtual world for several weeks now and was finally able to catch him in the act of soliciting a new recruit. It took some quick thinking and shape shifting but I was able to follow the new recruit to a primitive training island and watched while he was given some rudimentary instructions. In the meantime, I relayed this new information back to the Intelligence Analysis Center and requested background information on the new recruit.
As I watched the team approach the gate, the requested information appeared in floating billboards (that only I could see) next to each soldier. The information was not good. I have once again been investigating kids who have been trying unsuccessfully for many months to get into this base when I should have been looking for actual terrorists. There has to be a better way of telling them apart.
The rest of the proposal describes the history of online gaming and virtual worlds, describes cyber terrorism as the imminent apocalypse and then speculates on how terrorists will soon be using virtual worlds to train for terrorism in the real world.
That's why Reynard Project is necessary:
The virtual world is rapidly evolving into a close representation of the real world with all the opportunities and consequences of the real world. However, there may be many things possible in the virtual world that can’t be done in the real world. Our challenge is to figure out what these actions are before our adversaries. To do this, we need to be able to recognize the behavior of a real threat and exploit the information that is available to us in the virtual world.
As our adversaries continue to expand their presence and use of virtual environments, we need to keep pace and possibly leapfrog their abilities; else, we will miss the indicators for the next attack.
I, for one, welcome our Second Life overlords.
Also it turns out that Robert O'Harrow at the Washington Post had this story and this document weeks before I did..
Proposal to study virtual world terrorism (.pdf)
Photo: CyberExtruder HT: Anonymous
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