Recruiting in the fantasy world for real-life jihad. By Chris Gourlay and Abul Taher for the TimesOnline (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life, the internet virtual world, to hunt for recruits and mimic real-life terrorism.Police and the intelligence services are concerned that it may have been infiltrated by extremists to proselytise, communicate and transfer money to one another. Radicals may also be responsible for “virtual” terrorist attacks in which buildings depicted on the website are blown up.
Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian government’s High Tech Crime Centre, said jihadists may also be using the virtual reality world to master skills such as reconnaissance and surveillance. “We need to start thinking about living, working and protecting two worlds and two realities,” he told a security industry conference in Sydney.
The concerns are shared by Europol, the pan-European police agency, which believes that Second Life provides a means to transfer money across borders in a way that is more difficult for the authorities to monitor. It has recruited security consultants to advise on the use of Second Life for fraud and terrorism.
Of particular concern is the anonymity of Second Life members who can use false names for their digital personas, known as avatars, to disguise their real identity and provide false contact details in the real world.
Intelligence sources said that although communications traffic through Second Life could in theory be monitored, often the only means of tracking an individual is by tracing the user’s IP address - the physical location of a computer in the real world - but even this can be faked. Monitoring complex money movements in the virtual world presents law enforcement agencies with further surveillance challenges.
Second Life, which has a global membership of more than 8.5m, uses three-dimensional graphics technology to create a virtual world. Anyone can become a member or “resident” for free and roam the virtual world after creating an avatar. They then meet and interact with other users’ avatars, visiting shops, theatres and sports events, trading goods and services and having sex.
So popular has Second Life become that companies such as Sony, BMW and Reebok have bought “land” and opened premises there. Some governments, including that of Sweden, have opened virtual embassies in Second Life.
Recently, inhabitants of the virtual world have experienced a more sinister phenomenon - virtual terrorist attacks against buildings and avatars. A recent attack took place at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Second Life base. A number of these attacks, known as “griefings”, have been launched by what industry insiders say are “geeky teenagers” giving themselves names such as the Second Life Liberation Army.
Some experts, however, believe the “virtual atrocities” may have been committed by real Islamic radicals. Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said that for the past three months he had monitored about 12 jihadists who have assumed identities in Second Life. He said they were mostly based in America and Europe.
Some radicals, he said, had given themselves “innocuous” titles, while others had provocative jihadist names such as Irhabi007 (Arabic for Terrorist007). Gunaratna acknowledged that not all Islamists had any intention of carrying out terrorist attacks in real life, but said that they were using Second Life to build a community of extremists.
if the islamists contain their warfare in the computer, they can live reality to the rest of humanity.
No, you can't learn reconnaisance and surveillance in Second Life. No, I don't think we should be concerned about people conducting "terrorism" in Second Life.
People were "griefing" when I started playing online in 1997. It has nothing to do with Jihadists or Second Life. People were hacking computers and software for malicious purposes before the Internet was even in public use.
I'm sure there are plenty of Jihadists in Second Life, but there are also plenty of Jihadists on the Internet in general.
I play some of these MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Roll playing games ) and I've noticed years ago, guilds named after terrorist orgs. Even for the Sony PS2 Everquest, there were many terrorist names, such as Hamas, Fedayeen, Hizbullah and others.
I've said for years that using online games is a great way for jihadists to communicate....who in the government scans them for jihadist activities? None that I'm aware of, and it would be quite simple to use the excuse of "it's a phantasy game of fighting" to hide the true incentives.
Seeing last week then again now, it's not surprising in the least. What is surprising is how long it has taken for this to be exposed....as I was playing these games back in 03.
He said they were mostly based in America and Europe.
__________
America?
I think that this, virtual terrorism, needs to be paid attention to. It might seem harmless if done on the computer, but in this case these MMORPG games can provide an easy way for Jihadists to communicate to each other, and let's not forget, that a lot of our representatives in Congress don't have a real grasp of the power or the potential of the internet.
It's only a matter of time of when the Jihadists will maximize the potential of the internet towards their own evil ends. Certainly, internet usages is nothing new with these creeps.
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It might seem harmless if done on the computer, but in this case these MMORPG games can provide an easy way for Jihadists to communicate to each other
Online games etc. are an insecure and inefficient form of communication. There are programs and methods specifically designed for secure and/or anonymous communication.
I just went and registered for Second Life. What a mess. Something's wrong with it. All the menus and typing boxes are blank black, and there's no way to see what you're doing.
And finding online help for stuff like that? Forget about it.
Not gonna worry too much about jihadis taking over that P.O.S., they can have it.
Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said that for the past three months he had monitored about 12 jihadists who have assumed identities in Second Life. He said they were mostly based in America and Europe.
How much more do we need to know as to WHY we shouldn't allow the mahometans to setlle among us in the West!??!
I think that this is going a little too far. it sounds more like an advertisement for Second Life than a serious point about jihadists.
Yes, jihadists can communicate through Second Life, but, then, if a jihadist can get on the internet he can communicate just as easily using thousands of other methods - many of which are much more secretive.
Might jihadists be trying to recruit on Second Life? Sure. They try to recruit everywhere, but I don't fear as much from having people turn jihadist who spend their days online, playing in a make believe world - trying to wreak havoc in a fantasy.
As to the "surveillance" points, I just can't buy that.
I love this web site. You are doing great work, here, but this article is a bit unrealistic (!) and over the top.
there are also terrorists that live under my bed. pluheeeease, any jihadists that use RPG's online must be really sad adn pathethic if they think that it even gives them a fraction of an inch of real life military training.
let them use these, let them think that they are elite commandos, then let them join the meat grinder of iraq and afganistan so they can be ground up and spat out with the rest of their freakish demonic play pals.
Is this where jihadis go to self pleasure themselves ?
Not there in the virtual public street ?
Disgusting.
Gosh darn, we have to ban the internet. We just can't give them carte blanch on this. Let's ask Al Gore about this. He invented it, didn't he?