Monday, December 09, 2013

Least Surprising News In The World...

So one of the largest chat rooms on the internet has undercover intel guys snooping around in it and everyone seems surprised.


Like I said on Facebook:

"Hey, I know! Let's go plot our terrorist attacks in Azeroth! The NSA will never look for us there!" Seriously, who thought that it was some special "Olly olly oxen free!" no-cop zone on the internet?

It's pretty obvious when you think about it, and the problem is that it would be very difficult to patrol cost effectively. It's a virtual world, after all.

 I imagine you could probably get interns to do a bunch of the... er... legwork? mousework? ...if it weren't for the whole security thing, so I'm sure somebody was getting paid to run around video game worlds with an ear to the ground.

You know what would be awesome? Getting paid to powerlevel my tauren druid. "Nope, boss, I still haven't found any al Qaeda tangoes, but I did get my herbalism skill up over 450 last night!"

William Gibson has got to be smiling.

13 comments:

Cincinnatus said...

Sell all your "The Onion" stock immediately.

FarmGirl said...

"I'm tracking down some leads boss. But they're very touchy. You can't join the guild they're using as a cover until you're raid level for current content. So I have to prove myself and I'm still chasing ilvls."

Snowdog said...

So THAT explains the gnome rogue who kept asking questions about a rp plot we were doing about bombing the Undercity. Of course the guild was named the Gilnean Peoples Front.

Steve Skubinna said...

This is akin to the idiots searching for 13 year old kids to have sex with online. I bet 80% of the hot young things looking for older mentors are vice cops.

But if you're stupid in real life, you don't get any smarter on the internet.

Jess said...

From what I understand, the computers use algorithms to find phrases, or certain words to tag. I'm guessing enough phrases, or tags lead to a real person to examine the post. Still, there's no guarantee this happens, since the millions of tags would even make Mr. Spock start playing with his toes, if he was asked to make an assessment. Why bother? It all pays by the hour.

Personally, I think most of the "technicians" spend much of their time looking for dirty videos, trying to find out which celebrity is doing something naughty, or playing video games.

I may be wrong, but considering Snowden, it's pretty obvious the entire endeavor is a huge cluster of mindless bureaucrats trying to look busy.

Keith said...

Next they will be telling us that gold farming supports international terrorism.

Tam said...

No, silly! Gold farming supports the People's Liberation Army.

staghounds said...

The original purpose of the internet was to enhance the security of the United States Government.

That's still priority one.


Just because it has porn and facebook doesn't mean it isn't still the Telescreen.

Anonymous said...

Everyone knows the People Liberation Army is an FBI sting operation.

I think the Free Peoples Liberation Army all hang around a place called Farmville.

I heard they are building training camps there.

Gerry

Garrett Lee said...

Gerry,

My brother lives right outside of Farmville, and teaches at Longwood University. There are no training camps being built anywhere around there.

(Yes, I know about the game.)

rickn8or said...

"But if you're stupid in real life, you don't get any smarter on the internet."

Carve THAT in stone...

Windy Wilson said...

"'But if you're stupid in real life, you don't get any smarter on the internet.'

Carve THAT in stone..."

Except on the internet no one can tell you're a dog.

The internet, where men are MEN, women are men, and children are FBI agents.

I think surprise about this is further evidence of stupidity.

Scott_S said...

Yeah, I wish I had a job where my bosses were so paranoid they would pay me to "telecommute" to "work" by me logging into WoW or WoT. I'd happily play all day looking for "leads" and bouncing around grinding gold/xp/whatever and who knows if I'm really lucky and someone is really dumb I might be able to get lead... or not.