NSA監控魔獸世界反恐 情報特工被指上班打遊戲

To the National Security Agency analyst writing a briefing to his superiors, the situation was clear: their current surveillance efforts were lacking something. The agency's impressive arsenal of cable taps and sophisticated hacking attacks was not enough. What it really needed was a horde of undercover Orcs.

That vision of spycraft sparked a concerted drive by the NSA and its UK sister agency GCHQ to infiltrate the massive communities playing onlinegames, according to secret documents disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The files were obtained by the Guardian and are being published on Monday in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica.

The agencies, the documents show, have built mass-collection capabilities against the Xbox Live console network, which has more than 48 million players. Real-life agents have been deployed into virtual realms, from those Orc hordes in World of Warcraft to the human avatars of Second Life. There were attempts, too, to recruit potential informants from the games' tech-friendly users.

Online gaming is big business, attracting tens of millions of users worldwide who inhabit their digital worlds as make-believe characters, living and competing with the avatars of other players. What the intelligence agencies feared, however, was that among these clans of elves and goblins, terrorists were lurking.

The NSA document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, stressed the risk of leaving games communities under-monitored, describing them as a "target-rich communications network" where intelligence targets could "hide in plain sight".

Games, the analyst wrote, "are an opportunity!". According to the briefing notes, so many different US intelligence agents were conducting operations inside games that a "deconfliction" group was required to ensure they weren't spying on, or interfering with, each other.

If properly exploited, games could produce vast amounts of intelligence, according to the NSA document. They could be used as a window for hacking attacks, to build pictures of people's social networks through "buddylists and interaction", to make approaches by undercover agents, and to obtain target identifiers (such as profile photos), geolocation, and collection of communications.

The ability to extract communications from talk channels in games would be necessary, the NSA paper argued, because of the potential for them to be used to communicate anonymously: Second Life was enabling anonymous texts and planning to introduce voice calls, while game noticeboards could, it states, be used to share information on the web addresses of terrorism forums.

Given that gaming consoles often include voice headsets, video cameras, and other identifiers, the potential for joining together biometric information with activities was also an exciting one.

But the documents contain no indication that the surveillance ever foiled any terrorist plots, nor is there any clear evidence that terror groups were using the virtual communities to communicate as the intelligence agencies predicted.

The operations raise concerns about the privacy of gamers. It is unclear how the agencies accessed their data, or how many communications were collected. Nor is it clear how the NSA ensured that it was not monitoring innocent Americans whose identity and nationality may have been concealed behind their virtual avatar.

The California-based producer of World of Warcraft said neither the NSA nor GCHQ had sought its permission to gather intelligence inside the game. "We are unaware of any surveillance taking place," said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment. "If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission."

Microsoft declined to comment on the latest revelations, as did Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life and former CEO of Linden Lab, the game's operator. The company's executives did not respond to requests for comment.

The NSA declined to comment on the surveillance of games. A spokesman for GCHQ said the agency did not "confirm or deny" the revelations but added: "All GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that its activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and there is rigorous oversight, including from the secretary of state, the interception and intelligence services commissioners and the intelligence and security committee."

Though the spy agencies might have been relatively late to virtual worlds and the communities forming there, once the idea had been mooted, they joined in enthusiastically.

In May 2007, the then-chief operating officer of Second Life gave a "brown-bag lunch" address at the NSA explaining how his game gave the government "the opportunity to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviours of non-Americans through observation, without leaving US soil".

One problem the paper's unnamed author and others in the agency faced in making their case – and avoiding suspicion that their goal was merely to play computer games at work without getting fired – was the difficulty of proving terrorists were even thinking about using games to communicate.

A 2007 invitation to a secret internal briefing noted "terrorists use online games – but perhaps not for their amusement. They are suspected of using them to communicate secretly and to transfer funds." But the agencies had no evidence to support their suspicions.

The same still seemed to hold true a year later, albeit with a measure of progress: games data that had been found in connection with internet protocol addresses, email addresses and similar information linked to terrorist groups.

"Al-Qaida terrorist target selectors and … have been found associated with Xbox Live, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other GVEs [games and virtual environments]," the document notes. "Other targets include Chinese hackers, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Hizballah, and Hamas members."

However, that information wasn not enough to show terrorists are hiding out as pixels to discuss their next plot. Such data could merely mean someone else in an internet cafe was gaming, or a shared computer had previously been used to play games.

That lack of knowledge of whether terrorists were actually plotting online emerges in the document's recommendations: "The amount of GVEs in the world is growing but the specific ones that CT [counter-terrorism] needs to be methodically discovered and validated," it stated. "Only then can we find evidence that GVEs are being used for operational uses."

Not actually knowing whether terrorists were playing games was not enough to keep the intelligence agencies out of them, however. According to the document, GCHQ had already made a "vigorous effort" to exploit games, including "exploitation modules" against Xbox Live and World of Warcraft.

That effort, based in the agency's New Mission Development Centre in the Menwith Hill air force base in North Yorkshire, was already paying dividends by May 2008.

At the request of GCHQ, the NSA had begun a deliberate effort to extract World of Warcraft metadata from their troves of intelligence, and trying to link "accounts, characters and guilds" to Islamic extremism and arms dealing efforts. A later memo noted that among the game's active subscribers were "telecom engineers, embassy drivers, scientists, the military and other intelligence agencies".

The UK agency did not stop at World of Warcraft: by September a memo noted GCHQ had "successfully been able to get the discussions between different game players on Xbox Live".

Meanwhile, the FBI, CIA, and the Defense Humint Service were all running human intelligence operations – undercover agents – within Second Life. In fact, so crowded were the virtual worlds with staff from the different agencies, that there was a need to try to "deconflict" their efforts – or, in other words, to make sure each agency wasn't just duplicating what the others were doing.

By the end of 2008, such efforts had produced at least one usable piece of intelligence, according to the documents: following the successful takedown of a website used to trade stolen credit card details, the fraudsters moved to Second Life – and GCHQ followed, having gained their first "operational deployment" into the virtual world. This, they noted, put them in touch with an "avatar [game character] who helpfully volunteered information on the target group's latest activities".

Second Life continued to occupy the intelligence agencies' thoughts throughout 2009. One memo noted the game's economy was "essentially unregulated" and so "will almost certainly be used as a venue for terrorist laundering and will, with certainty, be used for terrorist propaganda and recruitment".

In reality, Second Life's surreal and uneven virtual world failed to attract or maintain the promised mass-audience, and attention (and its user base) waned, though the game lives on.

The agencies had other concerns about games, beyond their potential use by terrorists to communicate. Much like the pressure groups that worry about the effect of computer games on the minds of children, the NSA expressed concerns that games could be used to "reinforce prejudices and cultural stereotypes", noting that Hezbollah had produced a game called Special Forces 2.

According to the document, Hezbollah's "press section acknowledges [the game] is used for recruitment and training", serving as a "radicalising medium" with the ultimate goal of becoming a "suicide martyr". Despite the game's disturbing connotations, the "fun factor" of the game cannot be discounted, it states. As Special Forces 2 retails for $10, it concludes, the game also serves to "fund terrorist operations".

Hezbollah is not, however, the only organisation to have considered using games for recruiting. As the NSA document acknowledges: they got the idea from the US army.

"America's Army is a US army-produced game that is free [to] download from its recruitment page," says the NSA, noting the game is "acknowledged to be so good at this the army no longer needs to use it for recruitment, they use it for training".據英國《衛報》12月9日報道，愛德華•斯諾登提供的機密檔案顯示，美英情報涉足虛擬網路遊戲空間尋找恐怖分子。有評論說，情報特工此舉不過是想在上班時間打遊戲，還不用擔心被炒魷魚。

***新間諜“祕笈”

國家安全域性分析師提議說，用電纜監控和黑客攻擊蒐集情報不夠，還需要《魔獸世界》裡一批臥底“獸人”才夠勁！美國國家安全域性(NSA)和英國政府通訊總部(GCHQ)熱烈歡迎這個建議，立即著手滲透龐大的網路遊戲社群。

斯諾登提供的檔案稱，NSA和GCHQ已針對微軟公司的Xbox Live遊戲平臺構建了大規模的資訊蒐集能力，超過4800萬玩家難逃其“法眼”。真人特工已經涉足虛擬領域，廣泛涉足包括《魔獸世界》和《第二人生》在內的多款遊戲。此外，他們還試圖從遊戲玩家中發展潛在的“線人”。

線上遊戲是個大產業，吸引了全世界數以千萬計的使用者，他們棲身於數字世界，模擬各種虛擬角色，與其他虛擬人相處。美英情報機構擔憂，這些“精靈族”和“地精”等各種虛擬角色中一定“潛伏”著恐怖分子。

***前景誘人

《衛報》從斯諾登處獲悉的NSA檔案寫於2008年，題為《發現遊戲玩家及虛擬世界中的恐怖分子》，強調如若對遊戲社群熟視無睹，會面臨諸多風險。檔案稱這些遊戲中“目標豐富”，且“一目瞭然”。分析師寫道，遊戲對情報機構來說“是一個機遇”。

檔案說，涉足網路遊戲的美國情報特工人數太多，甚至需要設立“免衝突”小組，保證特工不監視、干涉自己人。如果部署得當，可以通過遊戲獲取大量情報。這些情報可用作黑客攻擊的“視窗”，可憑藉“好友名單和互動”建立人物社會關係網，可獲取目標的肖像、地理位置和通訊資訊。

報告還稱，監控“目標”可能匿名交流，因此從聊天頻道挖掘資訊的能力十分重要。《第二人生》可釋出匿名文字資訊，布告欄還能分享恐怖主義論壇的資訊。考慮到遊戲機通常包括耳機，攝像頭以及其他識別裝置，可將生物識別資訊和玩家活動綜合，因此網遊監控的前景十分誘人。

檔案並沒有說明這種監控是否“破獲”過任何恐怖陰謀，也沒有明顯證據表明恐怖組織是否利用虛擬社群進行通訊。

***隱私擔憂

監控引發對遊戲玩家隱私的擔憂。目前尚不清楚美英情報機構以何種方式蒐集了多少資料。

位於美國加利福尼亞州的《魔獸世界》製作方暴雪娛樂公司稱，NSA和GCHQ沒有請求公司同意就蒐集遊戲內部的資訊。暴雪發言人說：“我們尚未察覺到任何監控活動。如果有，就是在我們不知情的情況下進行的。”

微軟公司拒絕置評。《第二人生》的創始人、前林登實驗室CEO菲利普•羅斯戴爾(Philip Rosedale)沒有迴應，該公司的高官也未置評。

NSA也拒絕就監控遊戲置評。GCHQ則不置可否，該機構發言人說：“GCHQ的所有工作都在嚴格的法律和政策框架下執行，以確保是經過授權的，必要的和合適的。此外，我們的工作還面臨國務大臣、通訊攔截專員和情報與安全委員會的嚴格監督。

***缺乏依據

儘管情報機構介入虛擬世界的時間相對較晚，但他們一旦形成共識，便迅速展開行動。2007年5月，《第二人生》時任CEO在NSA發表了一個講話，闡述他的遊戲如何讓美國政府有機會“不必離開本土就能瞭解美國以外的人的動機、通訊、行為。”

目前並沒有確鑿的證據證明恐怖分子通過網路遊戲進行交流，而情報特工們看起來倒像是假借名義在上班的時候打遊戲，還不用擔心被革職。2007年曾有一份祕密內部報告懷疑恐怖分子玩遊戲並非意在娛樂，而是進行祕密通訊或洗黑錢，但這僅僅是懷疑，並沒有確鑿的證據。

儘管如此，GCHQ還是"積極努力"研發遊戲。GCHQ沒有止步於《魔獸世界》，他們已經“成功獲取Xbox Live不同玩家之間的討論資訊。”

應GCHQ的請求，NSA也已開始從他們蒐集的資訊中提取《魔獸世界》的賬戶、人物角色等元資料。後來有個備忘錄指出這些遊戲的活躍玩家包括“電信工程師、大使司機、科學家、軍人和其他請情報人員”。

同時，美國聯邦調查局（FBI），中央情報局（CIA）和美國國防人工情報局也都在《第二人生》遊戲裡開展人工情報活動。實際上，虛擬世界裡充斥著不同情報機構的職員，因此他們需要一個協調小組來避免做無用功。