Government Spying on World of Warcraft?

How can you study economy in a world with unlimited resources and expect the findings to even remotely suggest how the real world could be?
the parameters arent the same, thus any experiment would not leed anywhere...

They aren't trying to find terrorist activity in WoW, they are trying to find an example of a working economy.

I'm curious what they would consider suspicious behavior in WoW. I imagine I would be safe considering I have multiple lvl 70s in epics with a collective played time around 250days. I'm too busy grinding for another epic flyer to do anything else. Though actually, I did kill a few lowbies with that snake trap glitch. Perhaps I am the malicious type they are after.
/2 WTB politicians more worried about fixing the economy than what I do in virtual worlds.

While the rant about Ben Franklin, is all good and well... that doesnt really address the issue at hand. Regardless of the goverments intent to monitor this service, what the heck do they hope to get out of it? How can they build a social behavioural program based on everyone being different.

I think they are really just pissing in the wind with this one. Maybe its an excuse from some exec's, for them to be able to play while at work? I would like to see mr "Agent Smith" as someone called it, trolling the fields of hearthglenn, looking for those farmers of old like us hardcore players had to deal with. That just wont happen.

And about the previous post's comments about talking in a resturant,... not that this is the point, but if someone is talking secretly at a resturant, they are not going to be blurting it out for all to hear, and would be careful of their position and relative closeness to those around them. U can expect to see this kind of thing in a game.... Terrorists arn't going to go around and declare in Shatrath that they plan to bomb texas for the hell of it. They are somewhat secret and covert.

I for one, know that there are some extremely personal conversations that are had in that game by many people, and while people seem to forget that blizzard watches it like BB, they too have certain rights to privacy etc, thus, those rights would still have to be adheared to if the government needs to intervene by playing/monitoring the game..

On a final note, i question how they can get a proper analysis of someones behaviour/mental capacity, when it is and always will be, a game. People play this to muck around, to act up... because its a release from the normal stresses of overy day life. If people joke about things, its 99.5% a joke, and doesnt need to be looked into.

If this goes ahead, not only will everyone who plays the game be seriously pissed off and have to hang up their raid buckets, but the government will have to devote too much time, money and resources (which could be better spent doing other things) on chasing up leads, following every person through. And with 11 million people, that could take a while....

The following appears not to have been by Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

To quote: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
This statement was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759) which was attributed to Franklin in the edition of 1812, but in a letter of September 27, 1760 to David Hume, he states that he published this book and denies that he wrote it, other than a few remarks that were credited to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which he served. The phrase itself was first used in a letter from that Assembly dated November 11, 1755 to the Governor of Pennsylvania. An article on the origins of this statement here, [http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$605], includes a scan that indicates the original typography of the 1759 document, which uses an archaic form of "s": "Thoſe who would give up Essential Liberty to purchaſe a little Temporary Safety, deſerve neither Liberty nor Safety." Researchers now believe that a fellow diplomat by the name of Richard Jackson is the primary author of the book. With the information thus far available the issue of authorship of the statement is not yet definitely resolved, but the evidence indicates it was very likely Franklin, who in the Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738 is known to have written a similar proverb: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

Thus, it would seem that Franklin, to paraphrase, actually wrote that to sell liberty to Purchase Power was unwise.

In any ecosystem, amongst any species, there is a trade-off or balancing act between freedom and security. Absolute freedom seems to demand absolute, thus feckless (careless and irresponsible, see http://www.thefreedictionary.com/feckless), lack of fear. Absolute security seems to demand absolute fear and the inability to feel any responsibility for self-protection. Probably neither absolute freedom nor absolute security occurs in nature.

The games mentioned in the article above (“Government Spying on World of Warcraft?”, at http://www.curse.com/articles/details/10684/ ) are public sites, not protected by privacy laws. What liberties are given up? Think.

If you have a conversation in a crowded restaurant, would you expect others to ignore what you say or to not listen? To do so, as any lawyer or even 1st year law student knows, is to give up even the preciously protected attorney-client privilege.

A risk utility analysis clearly shows any possibly perceived risk to freedom is well worth the increased security.

Amazing that the same people who object to covert operations now, and in the past pre-9-11era, were ready (in late 2001) to fry intelligence agencies for not knowing about 9-11 ahead of time.

Please also note, that any cries of taxpayer cost for said security were, if any, very weak for they were not widely reported, if at all, the first few months after 9-11.

Maybe emotional people even forget past fear and anger given a new and more exciting emotional issue to pursue. Wonder if they are also easily defeated people in WoW battlegrounds. As an Alliance player, with only one slip of sinning by joining the Horde, I have observed that Alliance players on some realms have problems consistently winning. Hummm, wonder if we are too emotional. <Just kidding, the preceding was an attempt to lighten up my diatribe>

Ironic, the US government are spying on other people to prevent what they caused themselves...

They're just trying to find an excuse, it's ridiculous, comparing real life to a completely fictional world.

just ridiculous , offcourse its under the "9/11" mantle...every time the us government wants to do something completly senseless and most likely violating a lot of laws for which they would be chased like witches in salem, they put on this 9/11 thing
hilarious.

wow the host is a douche, and this story is so over hyped

yeahhhh more of OUR tax $$ at work!! where do I appy for THAT job??

Yeah, but is Agent Smith going to have any idea what it means when a 14 yo PvP junkie with ADHD says to him "omg wtf u nub l2p'

later when the plan goes wrong they will start saying they had a large ammount of evidencs that terriorests were planning on attacking Ironforge, or Stormwind or something. terriorests dont realy have time to play games like WoW, there to busy trying to blow up the pentagon

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Benjamin Franklin

Just thought about this: Suppose I want to discuss a terrorist attack on Chicago.

Now I know phone calls and emails would be unwise choices to communicate with my maniacal, psychotic, scummy pals who are scattered all over the world. Okay ... think ... form a guild in WoW. Now let's have guild chat, or even better, get a Ventrilo account for the guild, and discuss our next "raid" ... voilà ...

Spying not so dumb an idea if you live in Chicago, the site of the next raid, er uh, attack.

Ok, seriously, 9/11 happened like 7 years ago almost... I understand that was a huge tragedy and everything, not trying to take anything away from that... but seriously how long is this "in the name of 9/11" campaign gonna go on? and what's next? MMO's, then phones, then if you have a computer is the government gonna make u get a box to hook up to it so they can monitor everything you do... where does it end... sure, take on terrorists, but i'm not a terrorist because i play games, what happens if someone is talking about something in the game and then they get arrested because the government thought they meant something else... a freind of mine was talking to a buddy of his on the bus one day about a game they play and almost got arrested because they were talking about how many kills they had... that is ridiculous

I think it's bad that they are spending money, on something as stupid as trying to find terrorists on wow.
They could be spending it on something worth while.

i dont care, ive nothing to hide.