Do Virtual Worlds Like Second Life Pose RL (Real Life) Asymmetric Threats?

Oh I know. Just emphasising where the priority should be when it comes to computer games.

You *could*, but it would be much more efficient and secure to send that someone a .pdf file.



Not that I know of...but they (or the CIA) could listen in, I'm pretty sure.



I'm sure LL does not. But again, it would be easy for them to turn the logs over to CIA or Homeland Security, who have people who DO.

The key word is rational, and I think you may have to wait until 2009 to get that. That is, unless John McCain is elected. Then it's probably 2013.

About the only use most terrorists would have for SL would be as a way to show would-be martyrs the thousands of "willing virgins" who are supposed to swarm all over them after they blow themselves to hell...

Stupid waste of tax dollars, so some idiots can get paid to play on-line games...

LOL .. the only virgins in Second Life live in their Mother's Basement.

RWFL I liked that.

Actually SL is the only place to be a terrorist/suicide bomber.In RL they do it on the lunatic promise of 60 odd virgins in their after life.In SL I could go and blow up a bad add farm and avs in the secure knowledge that in minutes I could be back surrounded by 30 odd hot pole dancers.

This is true - just as I was about to post a reply my whole system went zooey and crashed. Woooooooo! Am I being watched?

I'm sorry, those letters are TM Linden Lab, used exclusively on blog.secondlife.com

I think that that's sorta the point they're worried about.

Sneaking a peek at every PDF that's emailed (or posted to a newsgroup or on the web or whatever) is probably a pretty trivial thing for the No Such Agency. I'm sure they do this already, warrant or not, and run it thru some big math that tells them if a real person should take a closer look at it.

How do they do this for something created in SL, though?

I'm not trying to say that governments should be dropping big bags of cash into this, just trying to devils-advocate that it might not be the stupidest idea I've heard today.

Better tell that to the deaf community in the UK that use British Sign Language, then. And the Bachelors of Science in Law. And the... oh hell, here's the list *g*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSL

Agreed!

Mr. Franklin was and you are so right! This is why I am a member of the ACLU and why I write to my Congresspersons: to stop the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional attempts to infringe on our Essential Liberties. George W. Bush will go down in history for his infamous attempts to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.

oh gosh DO they? whatever for...and who has the huge task of reading our drivel daily lol

Seriously I didnt know they did that.....~cringe~

I have a friend that sometimes goes to the Linden gteam meetings. She asked about this once and was told that Lindens don't really look at chatlogs that people include in ARs - they always go and dig up the server logs instead. They also said that a "surprising" number of people fake the logs in ARs..

"The duck is in the oven... I repeat - The duck is in the oven."


Seriously though, there's no need for code words in SL. We've got so many greifers and so much sex in SL that the word "Bomb" and "Bush" will come up daily.

Which goes back to the whole ban people for what they say on voice nonsense.

If they will fake text chat logs - They will fake what they claim people say in voice.

lolol

It's much easier to be partisan than to know your history. Allow me to provide those who feel the restriction of rights is unique to a single party or administration with some historical perspective:

John Adams - Federalist (Democrat)

The Alien and Sedition Acts, adopted in 1789 during the administration of President John Adams, came at a time of controversy over the U.S. role in the conflict between England and France immediately after the French Revolution. These acts defined criticism of the president as "sedition" (i.e., inciting rebellion) and provided for extra-judicial deporting of legal resident aliens if the administration considered them to be a security threat. During this period, several newspapers were closed, and "threatening" non-citizens were forced to leave the country.

Woodrow Wilson - Democrat

During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson urged Congress to adopt the Espionage Act, under which his administration sent more than 1000 people to jail for speaking out against the war and the military draft. Some, like socialists Eugene Debs and Rose Stokes, were imprisoned for as long as 10 years. After the war, attacks on dissidents intensified due to a rising fear that radicals might be inspired by the Russian Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Six thousand people in the U.S. were seized during the "Palmer Raids" of 1918-1921 (named after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer), many of them aliens who had fewer rights than citizens.

Franklin Roosevelt - Democrat

During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt approved the detention of more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, more than two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.

Here's the bad news about the U.S.'s "War on Terrorism."

The successes that the U.S. racks up in terms of foiling "terrorist plots" within U.S. borders are typically cases where they find the least intelligent potential terrorists who may have come up with some half-cocked plan one night and chatted about it too much without any concept of how to actually organize their little plan. The catches tend to be potential terrorists who were probably too stupid or unmotivated to actually carry out a plan.

I have no doubt that potential terrorists are recruiting or planning over unsecure computer networks such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. Those who are doing so are idiots, because the networks are not secure, and they are easy to catch.

The reason that the U.S. pumps so much money into catching these idiots is because it gives them statistics and stories to tout in the media that they are successful in the "War Against Terrorism."

It's the same reason that the U.S. and states devote a lot of attention to online child pornography and potential predators. Part of that effort is necessary and legitimate; but part of that effort is to drum up crime that might not otherwise be there, because the child porn and predator stings are great press. Child pornography must be stopped; but it's disturbing that the F.B.I. boasts, as proof of its success against internet child pornography, that 90% of the child pornography online was distributed by the F.B.I. as part of its stings. (Wish I could link the quote, but I unfortunately didn't save it.)

I'm pretty sure that CartelTrustAccount Mumfuzz is up to no good. I think he's starting a Communist sleeper cell. I've been hearing weird things. If only Joe McCarthy were still around. he'd straighten this mess out.

We're going about this all wrong. I'm applying for a job with Homeland Security in their Second Life Terrorism Threat Department. First, I need a million Lindens to pay off "informants" then i'll sit around playing on Second Life all day, and send weekly reports back to my boss that always say something like, "After intense investigation into (insert BS) I have been able to confirm that the terrorist threat at (insert more BS) has been quelled thatnks to my hard work and the hard work of my team. Next week I'll be investigating (inser still more BS). It is rumored to be a hotbed of (insert terrorist group) activity.

Sincerely,

Special Agent Trout




Then I just sit back and let the checks roll in. How sweet is that!?

The Federalists are not the precursors of the Democrats - their opposition party was.

the Democratic-Republican Party - founded by Jefferson, is the ancestor of the modern Democratic party.

Thus to imply John Adams was a Democrat is incorrect. To call him a republican isn't correct either. There have been 3 parties to fill the opposing role to the Democrats and the Federalists were the first.

But it is true to say that the Republicans have no monopoly on suppression of civil liberties. You don't have to dig that far back either. After all the Patriot act was passed overwhelming by Democrats as well as Republicans.

Though I am partisan, I was not being partisan. It is plain fact that G.W.Bush is President of these United States, that he has taken upon himself many of the same sins that our Declaration of Independence blames on George III, and that the Supreme Court and, to a lesser extent, the Congress are discovering and overturning his illegal and unconstitutional acts. That no impeachment has ensued for these breaches of his Oath is a wonder to me. In the list of Presidents who have attempted--with temporary success--to infringe our liberties, there is no partisan evidence to blame one party or another. There is nothing automatic about our system of checks and balances. The People and our representatives must act to protect our liberty. Sitting on one's hands is insufficient, listening and reading uncritically will not suffice.

After all, George III was madder than a sack of weasels too...

Your attempt to provide some historical perspective is useful. However, identifying the Federalist Party of the early 19th century with the Democratic Party is incorrect. The Federalist Party splintered after 1824 elections with the largest faction joining together with other groups to form the Whig Party. The Whig Party, in turn collapsed in 1850s, and its voters and elected officials moved to the new Republican Party, the short-lived Know-Nothing Party, and (in the South mostly) to the Democratic Party.

Calm down, Faith...they LOG it. They don't READ it.