More Dots! Cried the Terrorist

Why, here's an interesting article (now being linked all over the Intertubes). It has particularly choice quotes such as "Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments."

I'm expecting that any day now we'll read the following news bulletin:

"A terrorist attack on London yesterday failed due to the lack of adequate healing, several broken sheepings, and inadequate dps. The detained suspects also agreed to testify against each other after one was accused of ninja-looting a nearby electronics store during the attempted attack."

It's easy and fun to mock the basic stupidity of the article and the "experts" who spoke to the paper. I personally would be delighted to see terrorist cells running around trying to kill people by pointing mouses at them and yelling "pew pew pew".

You can always tell when a group of basically entreprenurial experts, policy wonks and bureaucrats are scared that their normal gravy train is in danger of slowing down: they start moving off into "hot" topics to spin them their way.

But more substantively, I think stories like this raise two questions for people with a serious interest in virtual worlds.

1) How do we talk about practices within virtual worlds that have powerful metaphoric analogs in the real world without inviting basically stupid or careless observers to think that the two things are the same? There is "terrorism" of a kind in virtual worlds, and even people who represent as terrorists (especially in Second Life), just as there can be crime, love, sex and yes, rape in cyberspace. The answer is probably to do what Julian did carefully lo these many years ago and make the question of the mimesis between virtual worlds and the everyday world the centerpiece of our use of such metaphors and descriptions.

2) How do we keep an empirical lid on claims about the emplacement of virtual worlds within the real world, about insisting that the virtual is just a cultural, social, or representation space that is always within the larger social and historical world we live in? I think most researchers are very precise about these relationships: we talk about extremely specific questions of property, law and labor involved in RMT and similar practices, we talk about learning outcomes and effects on real-world sociality, we talk about psychological effects from the representational and experiential choices of players. But we're always haunted by the prophetic imagination of Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, Stross: even those who have never heard of them or the Metaverse have been affected by a collective unconscious that expects there to be only a few steps between raiding Blackwing Lair and post-Singularity downloads of our consciousness into Moravecian cyborgs striding through AI-generated simulacra. The virtual future, when it arrives tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, is going to be way more specific, ordinary and humdrum than that. Where virtual worlds are  not so simply an extension of what we have now--where they are a true "Black Swan" in the making--they're not going to look like the Metaverse, I think, or like anything we already expect them to be.

It seems to me that the balancing act facing us is to argue simultaneously that virtual worlds have important implications as well as untapped possibilities as a cultural form and a social experience while also saying that they're not nearly so important as some people think they are.
 

Comments

[Roderick Jones]

1.

Unfortunately I was quoted in the Australian media piece you refer to - without my knowledge. The article itself is just plain silly and another example of the hysteria the word 'terrorism' produces in some parts of the main-stream media.

As readers of this blog may or may not remember Edward C, kindly posted my idea about the use of virtual worlds by terrorists on this forum a few months back. My process was simply one of looking at how, in many cases, extremists are early adopters of technology and therefore could potentially exploit some of the positive benefits of virtual worlds.
This was also drawing on the ideas I had read in Edward Cs book.

I was interested in having my idea examined on terranova because of the different perspective this was likely to bring. I was also interested in having an open debate on the subject, something which is often lacking when the word terrorism is used.

On balance I think there is some value in my argument that virtual worlds could be used by terrorists in some ways on some platforms. However, from reading the comments my thoughts generated I think the issue is broader than I initially considered. I would say the argument should now be about how virtual worlds and other online social networks or societies can prevent anti-social elements from exploiting their systems. How to do this while retaining the essentially open nature of these societies will be a challenge.

My hope is that by starting the debate some solutions will become apparent, which are generated by the creators and users of these online societies rather than the dead hand of government. Of course the negative side of talking about the subject in the first place is the kind of reporting highlighted above.

Just a couple of points on Timothy's entry:

1. "You can always tell when a group of basically entreprenurial experts, policy wonks and bureaucrats are scared that their normal gravy train is in danger of slowing down: they start moving off into "hot" topics to spin them their way."

That doesn't make sense. I haven't read anything by the Australian guy but Rothan Gunaratna's work in Singapore is generally highly regarded and valuable - and will likely continue to be so. For most academics doing research into extremism is not a gravy train and also carries unique challenges.

2. "But we're always haunted by the prophetic imagination of Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, Stross: even those who have never heard of them or the Metaverse have been affected by a collective unconscious that expects there to be only a few steps between raiding Blackwing Lair and post-Singularity downloads of our consciousness into Moravecian cyborgs striding through AI-generated simulacra."

I don't understand this and repeated attempts at using google translate failed me. Any explanation gratefully received!

[epredator]

2.

It is difficult to walk the line. Hacking and destruction in a virtual world is not different to any other computer hacking.
The concern though is that the power of relatively abstract rehearsal for real life acts that only exist when you need them is far more powerful and hard to detect and police.
If someone builds a major city then you could track who has visited and scoped it out. However if someone creates a few abstract graphics or street plan, then tears it down after having communicated the information the digital trail is tougher.
As opposed to maybe emailing a map, video or posting on a 'secure' website some detailed instructions.
Here we are dealing with non verbal communications.
Its not something to get scared about, but merely be aware of.
I can see how that can turn into OMG they weapons online, but most of the weapons we need to worry about online we are not going to see, unless the hackers ego's choose to surface.
I suspect the strong visual metaphors help in writing stories though.

[Andy Havens]

3.

In the 50's, we read that "they" were going to "use the TV airwaves" to broadcast hypnotic images that would cause us to; a) become Commies, b) become zombies, c) assault women, d) become Commie zombies who assault women.

Although Bob Saget has the "b" effect on me, I blame it on my own genetics and vitamin deficiencies.

[Shava Nerad/Shava Suntzu in SL]

4.

news.com.au's version of the story has comments: http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,,22163811-2,00.html (including mine)

Probably the most dismaying thing to me, other that the RL idiocy involved, was that the lead-in paragraph involves a SL news story that was almost immediately debunked. Ages ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Jd5RxGDIc has a snarky take on the debunking of the ABC bombing story.

[F. Randall Farmer]

5.

Dude, how did they miss my post about "real" SL terrorism?:
Second Life History: The Jessie Massacre
Or: The first deployment of user-created WMDs in a 3D virtual world
As told by the perpetrator, Oracle Omega

I guess I'm all practiced up, for the day when molecules and atoms are programmable using LindenScript!

/sarcasm

[Amarilla]

6.

@ Rambo : "I was also interested in having an open debate on the subject, something which is often lacking when the word terrorism is used."

You mean, you cannot discuss the subject at your workplace, because your coleagues feel some sort of fear ? Terror maybe ?

" On balance I think there is some value in my argument that virtual worlds could be used by terrorists in some ways on some platforms."

On the other hand , i ( some ) think some CDs and DVDs could be used by some antisocial terrorists to do some harms one way or another on some situations , generally speaking .

I would say - but i don't - some blogs are also in some dangers . But that could be prevented , with a little help from Carlos Santana and his friends.

Get real dude ....what i'm really interested to hear from you, is : do you gather informations from VWs devs and then you use them to ID me in RL , to abduct me to Gitmo , based on suspicions and NO Habeas Corpus ? Then , there at Gitmo you torture me - ops, interrogate - then you cannot let me free even if i'm innocent , because you already made a new " USA hater " yet, right ?

Should i prepare myself, because i've just used " openly " THE word ?

[Timothy Burke]

7.

Sorry, Roderick, my snarky comment about experts was largely meant to point to Zuccato--unless he was horribly misquoted, I think that's an effort to link whatever legitimate work he might be doing on high tech crime to a trendy subject like World of Warcraft.

On translating my comment. I'm pointing on one hand to notable science-fiction authors who have influentially imagined or described cyberspace or virtual realities in some fashion. In particular, I think Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash, with its idea of the Metaverse, has trickled into general popular culture and affected even people who've never read the book. (Stephenson's Metaverse is a bit like the Matrix without all the fancy philosophical trappings, or a much more technologically advanced and socially important version of Second Life).

The "Moravecian cyborgs" is a reference to the roboticist Hans Moravec, who believes it will soon be possible to download human consciousness into non-humanoid robots, and moreover, that this is something we should fervently desire. This connects to a general idea that people call "the Singularity" that is also popular with some of the SF writers I named--a belief that in the near-term future, artificial intelligence or cybernetically-enhanced human intelligence will produce a radically new and unprecedented kind of human society.

In a nutshell: I'm saying that when many people hear that there's some relationship between the virtual world and the real world, or that the two affect each other, they jump very quickly to imagining that scenario to be something like the Matrix. Rather than the more modest and yet still very fascinating actual situation that exists.

[Amarilla]

8.

"I don't understand this and repeated attempts at using google translate failed me."

Well....this is happening when peoples educates themselves on a specific matter from google and wiki , then attempts to have opinions on that very matter.
Btw, were you , by any chances , coleague to Valerie Plame ? If not, you could google it.

And to prevent anyone accuse me of derailling the thread : i have strong reasons to fear my ID's theft , unlawful disclosure and blah-blah . Sounds terrifying .

[Roderick Jones]

9.

Timothy,

Thanks for translation! I hadn't heard of Moravec otherwise it would have made sense. I only recently came across trans-humanism via a lecture by the head of Cambridge University's center for evolutionary studies (http://www.human-evol.cam.ac.uk/)- interesting stuff but I'm wondering off topic.

Snow Crash I like because this quote is handy,

“…the Metaverse is wide open and undefended, like airports in the days before bombs and metal detectors, like elementary schools in the days before maniacs with assault rifles. Anyone can go in and do anything they want to. There are no cops. You can’t defend yourself, you can’t chase the bad people.”

P.351 Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash.

But I agree with your main point regarding the jump to Matrix like visions and how to manage that perception.

[Amarilla]

10.

I've just discovered my 72 y.o. granma standing in her wheelchair in front of the desktop ; she uses a girlie alt in SL and was yelling : " ...get lost, you bloody cop , let that guy rape me ! I don't want you defend me ! ".

[Rich Bryant]

11.

@Roderick

The quote you selected - "“…the Metaverse is wide open and undefended, like airports in the days before bombs and metal detectors, like elementary schools in the days before maniacs with assault rifles. Anyone can go in and do anything they want to. There are no cops. You can’t defend yourself, you can’t chase the bad people.”

P.351 Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash. "

may be useful for fomenting panic but Snow Crash references a technology way above and beyond what we have the capability or desire to create.

In our Virtual Worlds, there is nothing to defend yourself from. You cannot be hurt because you are not there - only a pixellated representation is involved.

This renders the whole quote pointless for illustrative purposes, regardless of how good a read the whole book is. And it is. You should perhaps try to read it as the work of entertaining fiction which the author proclaims it to be.

[Roderick Jones]

12.

@ Rich

I like the quote because it illustrates a very strong theme running through the history of technology. Namely, that the inventors of new systems rarely consider the potential unintended uses their innovations may be misused for - and nor should they it is their role to invent. However, with an increase in research and knowledge regarding subjects, such as terrorism there is now the potential to highlight the potential misuses at an early stage. Closing the barn door before the proverbial horse has made good his escape.

Also, when trying to fuse together a discussion about two seemingly disparate themes it is proper to place them in the context of each other. That is why the quote seemed useful to me.

Finally, if as you suggest, you only read literature in the category it is placed you would place hundreds of academics out of business! For example - is Shakespeare's Richard III, fiction, philosophy, futurism (with its hints at authoritarianism), history or more likely a mixture of all these things? But perhaps the only way to answer that question would be to visit Arden - Edward C's Shakespearean Virtual World!!

[Tom Hunter]

13.

If WoW builds a mock up of London (with "real" NPCs) for my Fire Wizzie to play in I will re-open my account.

[Amarilla]

14.

That piece of article is nothing more than a hype PR for SL and an attempt to forment fears .

Roderick, make yourself usefull and :

- tell us what a terrorist is,
- what a virtual terrorist is,
- how can you protect us from them,
- what makes you think we need such a protection in a VW anyway.

[Timothy Burke]

15.

Amarilla, please: converse with people who are here and participating with some degree of civility and some sense that you're involved in a dialogue.

[Amarilla]

16.

Ok, my bad . I apologize for the rudeness.

The article is about terrorists using the VWs for their dirty purposes.

Mr. Roderick is the specialist on the terror part,wich is mixed with the VW part. I have no clue what a terrorist is , so i'm asking for defining the terms of dialogue/ conversation.

[Amarilla]

17.

"I would say the argument should now be about how virtual worlds and other online social networks or societies can prevent anti-social elements from exploiting their systems. How to do this while retaining the essentially open nature of these societies will be a challenge. "

Mr.Roderick : i hope we both agree that the extremists are more likely to use such online social networks more for propaganda and recruitment, and less for actual sensitive communications; those extremists of a significant danger already knows about the devices monitorising the electronic/digital mediated communications.

But the existing VWs and online social networks are private owned business having the top priority : making money.

Following the proposed path , we'll end at having only very small niches , composed of only democrats, or only republicans, or shiites or sunnis or whatever . And even in such a case , peoples uses to change their opinions . We cannot prevent the anti-social elements but only by banning them , based on the political values/options of that very precise society. As Ola said , today we can ban an alt who is burning a virtual flag ,for a start, but you'll end without players.

[JuJutsu]

18.

@Amarilla

Against my better judgement I'll take what you say at face value. Here's a starting point for defining terrorism.

"While the United Nations has not yet accepted a definition of terrorism,[5] the UN's "academic consensus definition," written by terrorism expert Alex P. Schmid and widely used by social scientists, runs:
Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)."

[Amarilla]

19.

Thank you. Basically, a target for psychological manipulation, right ?

[Amarilla]

20.

Let see what we have here. Peoples in VWs are talking. We don't like what they're talking about.
We don't like that music , nor the tone. We could try make them auto-censore . The player could lose its island , its alt, its account. It's about communicating . Some peoples believe that enabling the communication , the cultural exchanges is the key to tame the extremism.
Others believe that peoples are talking too much about too many things , and talking about your beliefs and opinions is propaganda.

I cannot controll what peoples on internet are talking about; but pushing the right buttons of fear / need of security , i can make them auto-controll. They could fear a terrorist - or they could fear being labelled as one.

[Amarilla]

21.

JuJutsu says:

"@Amarilla

Against my better judgement I'll take what you say at face value."

Do i look like i'm joking ? Mendoza was shot to death because some cops tought he looks almost like a terrorist. Propaganda is a powerful tool.

Another serious question : what is the violence i could face in a VW ? I mean , comming from a presumable terrorist, not from the devs.

[Jujutsu]

22.

@Amarilla

No I don't think you're joking but I suspect that you're trolling.

What violence can you face in a VW? IMO none, you can be harrassed but nothing beyond verbal abuse that you can escape with a logoff.

I don't think that is the point.

Mr. Jones said "I would say the argument should now be about how virtual worlds and other online social networks or societies can prevent anti-social elements from exploiting their systems. How to do this while retaining the essentially open nature of these societies will be a challenge"

That strikes me as an eminently reasonable topic of discussion which is not invalidated by the inane statements in the article which stimulated the original post.

[Amarilla]

23.

@ Jujutsu : exactely about that , i'm talking. It's a very reasonable and interesting topic.

Acoording to Mr.Roderick's quote , and according to the definition you were so kind ( thank you very much again , no joke ) to provide to us :

don't twist the words ; that article and this thread is about VWs and terrorists , no matter if you call them extremists , antisocials and so on during this discussion.

If i'm trolling , then enlight me :

"..intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)."

No intimidation, no correction , no violence in VWs. What left ?
If you bother to read the entire thread maybe you can answer. Thank you in advance. I don't see any of you the academics adressing in this thread Mr.Roderick's proposal. I'm a troll for explaining to Mr. Roderick why his proposal is "Virtual" : for economic / financial / business reasons , and for the reason that implementing his proposal it's the sure path to end any VW. It's not only the word "Virtual", remenber ? There is another word too : " World ".

[Keith M Ellis]

24.

Looks to me like Amarilla managed to kill an interesting discussion because of the urge to make a point about "terrorism" in a disingenuous fashion. Too bad.

I sort of side with Roderick on this and think that Rich is underestimating, somewhat, how much people will likely invest themselves into VR and how much there will be technology available to more closely integrate the RW with the VR. And all that is to say that I can easily imagine terrorism, of a much more mild sort, in VRs.

Sure, no one will be actually harmed. But as people invest more of themselves into VRs, the more possible it becomes to disrupt their lives by disrupting their virtual life. No, this will likely not “terrorize” them in the sense that read-world terrorists terrorize civilians and influence governments. But such VR “terrorism” could be an adjunct to RW terrorism and, also, supporting some of the ideas in that article, a sort of training ground for aspiring terrorists. Not to train them as techniques applicable to the real world, but perhaps to train them in certain organizational methods and such.

[Amarilla]

25.

Who stops you to discuss ?! Mr.Roderick's opinion is that the VWs should find a way to - let say - somehow censore the access , the behavior ; ofcourse any group/ community / society is entitled to define and to protect its own values. The same goes for the devs, the VWs makers and owners. And operators.

My opinion is not only : " How to do this while retaining the essentially open nature of these societies will be a challenge. " , but my opinion, as i've posted , is : such a goal is unrealistic , impossible.

Also, i was - and i still am - interested to discuss about :

"..In a nutshell: I'm saying that when many people hear that there's some relationship between the virtual world and the real world, or that the two affect each other, they jump very quickly to imagining that scenario to be something like the Matrix. Rather than the more modest and yet still very fascinating actual situation that exists."

I don't see - yet - an answer to my questions , comming from the specialists/academics here , so i'll just repeat the questions :

that " modest " and " ...some relationship ..." have a significant affect on player's real life : there are our money, our real ID/Bank account infos , our established rights to be protected from depictions of child - abuse and the alike.

- are the devs " sharing " my personal data to the USA govt ?

- are the antiterrorists- professionals , like Mr.Roderick , going to use my avatar's behavior , language and actions conducted IN GAME , as tools/instruments/weapons against me , the player, in the real world ?

Discuss about this : participating in any VW expose the player to real- world dangers and threats.

For a start : engaging in RMT with another alt exposes you to a real life risk : the Patriotic Act.

I expect Mr.Dan Hunter to tell us if i'm wrong or right ; with arguments this time , please.

[Amarilla]

26.

"... how virtual worlds and other online social networks or societies can prevent anti-social elements from exploiting their systems. How to do this ..."

Hello, Mr. Roderick ? Academics, law experts , anybody ? How comes : when about gambling, the $L are real money, but when about illegal financial operations like Ginko in SL and Banking in Entropia , the currencies suddenly becomes " game money " ? Illegal gambling is antisocial , but scamming is not ?

Where are you, smart guys, so willing to discuss things ?!

[Amarilla]

27.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20269253/

@ Mr.Roderick : but if a State Army is declared terrorist, then everybody doing biz with that State is subject to the Patriot Act : LL must ban the Iranian players, the German players , the French players, the Canadian players , pretty much the whole world. And seize their assets.

[Irwin Hunter]

28.

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