PBS: Bill Moyers Journal on Project Reynard
by Tateru Nino 
Jun 12th 2008 at 7:00PM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Video, News items, Second Life, Legal
It shouldn't be a shock that governments are interested in MMOs and virtual worlds. We hear that they even pay attention to the film industry, television, DVDs and other such new-fangled technological industries that turn over many millions of dollars and involve significant percentages of the population.
The US Government's Project Reynard is a different breed of fox, however. The idea seems fairly simple on the face of it. Convince MMO and virtual world operators to open up their systems for complete surveillance and then try to establish 'normal behavior patterns' and see if it is then possible to determine 'suspicious behavior patterns'.
Yes, this is technically unconstitutional (like all those warrantless wiretaps you may read about in the news), but as we've seen, a simple Executive Order signed by the Chief seems to be sufficient to brush that trifling obstacle aside.
PBS' Bill Moyers Journal takes a look at the whole issue, and gives a refreshingly non-sensationalist look at Activision-Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Linden Lab's Second Life, in this rather sobering feature.
[Via WoW Insider]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Viajero Pugillist said on 9:23PM 6-12-2008
Let's be wary of the Dick Cheneys of the world deciding how much terrorism emanates from virtual worlds. Those inept prevaricating fuckups will see Al-Qaeda behind any avatar not wearing an American flag pin.
A great clip, both visually as machinima in WoW and SL, and in its scary content. "Bill Moyer's Journal" and "PBS Frontline" have produced insightful kick-ass productions, all available on the web.
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Pavig Lok said on 10:42PM 6-12-2008
Brilliant to see this subject getting the treatment it deserves. Despite the fear campaign all folk should be concerned about these kinds of wiretapping initiatives. For the politically left leaning folk the civil liberties and privacy issues are of great concern. But even for the far right pro war-on-terror folk, seeing their tax dollars wasted looking for Al-Qaeda in the world of Azeroth should ring alarm bells. :) Yay for BMJ!
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sirhc DeSantis said on 11:15AM 6-13-2008
So the US government want a new way to spy on me, not even one of their citizens. We'll see about that. I have already contacted my MP
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