The Washington Post published a story on Feb 6, 2008 that discussed the US intelligence community's concerns around Second Life and similar 3D immersive environment's potential to serve as 'seedbeds for transnational threats,' including China's version of SL - HiPiHi.Says the article,
["The virtual world is the next great frontier and in some respects is still very much a Wild West environment," a recent paper by the government's new Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity said.
"Unfortunately, what started out as a benign environment where people would congregate to share information or explore fantasy worlds is now offering the opportunity for religious/political extremists to recruit, rehearse, transfer money, and ultimately engage in information warfare or worse with impunity."
The government's growing concern seems likely to make virtual worlds the next battlefield in the struggle over the proper limits on the government's quest to improve security through data collection and analysis and the surveillance of commercial computer systems.]
TechDirt respectfully disagrees with the position of the United States security authorities.
1 comment:
Interesting! But if the U.S. government can't "control" their own physical borders it seems highly unlikely they will have much luck with this new endeavor. I'm sure migrants would appreciate the government shifting their attention more towards those law-breaking Second Lifers. Anna
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