Data mining is the process of going through large amounts of information for specific relevant information. This is a process that has long been used in the business industry for product and market research. The
The data mining operations that the report describes include Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD), Tangram, and Video Analysis and Content Extraction. KDD is takes information from different data sources to look for patterns. Although World of Warcraft and Second Life have very little in common, KDD allows analysis of similarities in suspicious behavior and activities in the game. VACE is also a tool for recognizing patterns in video content. Tangram is an evaluation system for known and new terrorist activities. The project will begin with a small effort, and if it proves fruitful may be expanded to a much larger scale.
Skinwalker of Windrunner started a thread on spying for terrorists on the official forums. He believes that this is an attempt to take away civil rights. Most of the responses in that thread have been either been echoing concerns about freedom or lighthearted jests. Aside from faction tensions, I haven't seen any evidence of extremist presence on WoW. To date, there has been no official word from Blizzard on this project
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
2-23-2008 @ 6:53PM
kr3wman said...
If there was really terrorists in Wow, wouldn't it be more useful to search in Asian servers?
...
Then again, I don't really know why would they be searching for terrorism in a game where the main subject is the huge war ready to break at any moment between 2 super powers...
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2-23-2008 @ 10:02PM
Antistes said...
Yes please. Do scan my account, you might as well do the bedroom-drawers while you are at it. Ridiculous.
These kind of suggestions sounds like KGB, Gestapo, Stasi and some of their adorable counterparts. very Chinese-government-ish of The Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
@ 22 I seriously doubt the threat that a chat-channel such as an MMO possesses. If any great terrorist conspiracy would have had the capabilities of launching attacks via WoW they would have done so long ago. I'd rather live one ppm less safe than 1% more controlled anyhow.
Rasp i say! The only ones that have to fear a WoW bombing runs may be the poor citizens of Halaa.
Ps. Isn't #1 a little ... well, borderline racist? It made me feel uncomfortable at least.
2-23-2008 @ 11:22PM
kr3wman said...
I did not ment it to be racist, it was just what I had thought at the moment. Please, Go ahead and rate it down if you beleive it so.
2-28-2008 @ 5:42AM
Prancer said...
Does this mean I will get shipped off to Guantanamo for doing /yell "Allah Achbar", when I got the bomb on Geddon once?
2-23-2008 @ 6:56PM
Tuberon said...
375 LW LFW, free your mats
LFG Destroy America
LF Tailor for [Boots of Blasting]
I mean, really, I knew something was odd about that loot ninja...
This is just a thin excuse for government workers to play WoW and get paid for it... which leads me to ask... where do I apply?
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2-24-2008 @ 4:11AM
Hegs said...
[Boots of Blasting] are bop, but i do have the pattern, so i'm your man if you need a tailor that can craft them, for some unknown reason.
2-23-2008 @ 7:01PM
Keirin said...
Suspicious behaviour... So perhaps they would be tracking particular words. Perhaps not mention words with bomb in them, like BOMB then again or use codewords! And if engineering didn't have it tough enough already! Rough copper BOMB, bronze BOMB.
Well you get the picture ;)
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2-23-2008 @ 7:12PM
kunukia said...
I don't really care what they do. I am assuming they can't be more annoying than the spammers beside the mailbox in IF.
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2-23-2008 @ 7:26PM
Rocky said...
Vent? Gizmo? Skype? Other VOIP?
Conclusion? Someone at the NSA is having MMO withdraws.
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2-23-2008 @ 7:37PM
Matt said...
rooofffl
2-23-2008 @ 7:30PM
Verses said...
Sweet, one more reason to spam "Bin Laden" in trade chat, I guess that fascism is "in" this year.
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2-23-2008 @ 8:21PM
J0ust said...
I'm pretty sure that's blocked anyway?
2-23-2008 @ 7:32PM
icer said...
WTF??????
sorry but only the US government would think of doing something like this...
that's retarded
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2-24-2008 @ 6:58AM
Matdredalia said...
Amen. You hit the head on the nail. Well, okay, China may have thought of it, too.
What's sad is: I'm American and I truly agree that my government is absolutely absurd. It is more or less becoming a totalitarian dictatorship that does not respect the rights of it's citizens. *sigh*
F#*$(&* America.
P.S. We already found the US spies -- it's all those n00bz in Barrens chat saying Bush is a good president.
2-24-2008 @ 6:25PM
Unundead said...
I agree.
This is the same government that's killed 100,000s of innocent Iraqis in an illegal war. They also used depleted uranium giving many of them leukaemia and resulting in their babies being born with multiple birth defects. Not to mention the imminent collapse of the official story of 9/11.
What's that? You don't think the American Government would lie to start an illegal war? Wrong! Files declassified in 2005 revealed that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a lie. That lie led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, letting President Lyndon Johnson declare war against Vietnam. It took 40 years for the truth to come out and for those 40 years most Americans believed what the mass media told them.
The corporate elite who control this world don't care about you in the slightest. Wake up people before all your personal freedoms are stripped away.
2-23-2008 @ 7:34PM
Aichon said...
It sounds like what they're doing is checking to see if people are using MMOs as a communication method since other channels, such as IM or VoiP are probably already capable of being tapped relatively easily.
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2-23-2008 @ 7:34PM
Aichon said...
It sounds like what they're doing is checking to see if people are using MMOs as a communication method since other channels, such as IM or VoiP are probably already capable of being tapped relatively easily.
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2-23-2008 @ 7:36PM
Ancalimon said...
@ roflmao
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2-23-2008 @ 7:37PM
Ancalimon said...
meant @#2
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2-23-2008 @ 7:48PM
Sakerin said...
Oh man, this is the most hilarious thing I have read in quite some time. I laughed so hard while reading this that I almost pissed myself.
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