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The internet is racing to cut ties with 8chan after another deadly shooting
Less than an hour before this weekend's deadly mass-shooting in El Paso, Texas, the suspect appears to have posted a rambling post filled with white nationalist and racist statements on 8chan. After a day of waffling, Cloudflare announced it would cut the security services it had provided the far-right site. That exposed 8chan to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and for a time, the site was down. But 8chan soon found a way back online. Now, internet infrastructure companies are playing whack-a-mole, pulling the plug as other services step in to help 8chan get back online.
Twitter explains its handling of ISIS-linked accounts
One way ISIS has distinguished itself from other terrorist organizations is its use of social media to spread news and recruit followers. Now, following Google and Facebook, Twitter is revealing info about what it's doing to stop extremist groups from using the service to get their messages out. According to a story tweeted by its @Policy account, since mid-2015 Twitter has already banned some 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts. It's also increased the size of its team reviewing those reports, and turned spam fighting tools against the groups to help filter out related accounts that pop up.
PlanetSide 2's New Conglomerate faction detailed
The distinction between terrorist and freedom fighter can be subjective, and the latest PlanetSide 2 dev blog offers an appropriate example. The piece profiles one of the three factions fighting for control of the planet Auraxis, and the New Conglomerate is either a bastion of liberty or a collection of cowardly infidels depending on whom you ask. The NC are "in total open war with both the Terran Republic and the Vanu Sovereignty, seeking to free humanity from the tyrannical grip of the former and defend them from the fanatical alien influence of the latter," according to the blog entry. If you're more interested in PlanetSide 2's gameplay than its lore, Sony Online Entertainment wants you to know that the New Conglomerate is "built around hitting first, hitting hardest, and taking a beating." Vehicles like the Reaver and the Vanguard are built to stay in the fight longer at the cost of mobility and speed. Head to the official PlanetSide 2 website for further details.
Researchers develop method to measure effects of WiFi attacks
America is built on the principles of life, liberty and WiFi, the latter of which has increasingly become a target for hackers hoping to mess up our chi. To predict what would happen as result of an assault, researchers at North Carolina State University created two models -- one based on a continuous jam of service, and one on an intermittent disruption that would cut off service during specific times. They then measured "order gain," which compares the probability of an attacker having network access to the probability of a legitimate user having access. Basically, the more control a hacker has, the more regular users that will lose service and be shut out -- making it harder to regain control. Researchers hope the new method will help identify the most vulnerable networks, opening the doors to create effective countermeasures to keep our WiFi safe -- something that Starbucks customers will surely be thankful for.
Fox Mulder gets all up in your Second Life
Realizing the vast amounts of time honest to goodness citizens spend on social media sites and in virtual worlds, the FBI has decided to jump aboard the Web 2.0 train to aid in their never-ending search for terrorists, fugitives, missing children, and new potential recruits.The Federal Bureau of Investigation now has a presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, iPhone, and Second Life. They even have widgets you can embed almost anywhere to show your support. If staring at billboards plastered with America's most wanted and assorted recruitment ads is your idea of fun, you might check them out. This isn't just a lame PR attempt, though it may seem that way at first glance. The FBI is truly interested in reaching out to individuals who may be able to help them with their mission, "To protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners."
India cracks down on open WiFi to stem terrorism, chain letters
Just when you thought you were doing your buddy next door a favor, turns out leaving your WiFi router open to the public is the first step in staging a terrorist bombing -- who knew? The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) reckons the country just isn't ready for that kind of responsibility, seeing as how email over WiFi is all the rage for transmitting instructions to fellow terror-ees these days. The aim is now to limit WiFi net access to authorized persons only. Man, just imagine what they'll do with WiMAX. In other news, the pencil sitting next to you could be used to poke your eye out if you're not careful.[Via The Economic Times]
Pentagon presents hypothetical terrorist plot in WoW
A number of readers wrote in to tell us about a 'hypothetical WoW-hatched terror plot' from the Pentagon, which Wired posted just last night. The scenario detailed in the presentation given by Dr. Dwight V. Toavs is meant to display how terrorists could potentially use the pseudonymity of an MMO combined with the obscure gamer lingo to hide a terrorist plot within the massive, mostly unmonitored (by them) playerbase. This isn't the first time we've heard about the government looking to virtual worlds for potential terrorist hideouts, but it's the most ridiculous.The presented scenario is as follows (summarized; full version at Wired): Two WoW players, WAR_MONGER and TALON238 meet up to plot. WAR_MONGER lays out the plan: They will approach via the South East of the Zoram Strand, and assault the 'White Keep' using a 'Dragon Fire' spell in their inventory. They will kill all of the 'castle guards' and when they've entered the keep, they will acquire their treasure of 110 gold, 234 silver.Translation: These two terrorists will meet South East of the White House (the White Keep) and take out all of the security before sneaking a weapon of some sort through. The 'treasure' is the coordinates for their attack.
The best of WoW Insider: February 19-26, 2008
Quite a week in the World of Warcraft, which Joystiq sister site WoW Insider covers like a Warcraft Adventures-style bedsheet each and every single day. We continued to get lots of great information about patch 2.4 (including big news from the new raid instance,The Sunwell), and Heroics made a nice return to the news, with all the new badge loot. Oh, and we even had a liveblog go down straight from GDC. Here's our best stuff.News GDC08: Live form Rob Pardo's talk about Blizzard's approach to MMOsThe Senior VP of game design lays out what the big plan is for Blizzard's biggest game. PTR Notes: Patch note watch 2/20New buffs and nerfs continue to drop from the Public Test Realm as Blizzard gets the next patch ready to go live. 2.4 PvP sets gold and rep requirementsWhat you'll need to do to get what you want. Meet Lord AhuneBlizzard is also updating the Midsummer Fire Festival, and so here's the new Headless Horseman -- epics for everyone! Thrall gets a new Big Brother: US government wants to search for terrorists on WoWCould Bin Laden be hiding in Elwynn Forest? Features What does the Warlock Lifetap nerf mean?Lifetap got taken down a notch, but why is everyone up in arms about it? Breakfast Topic: Heroic PuGs from hellEveryone's been in a group like this, but being in a Heroic makes it even worse. Know Your Lore: The story of the Burning CrusadeThe expansion's lore is going to get wrapped up in the next patch, so here's what you need to know before we all go see the ending. Dress yourself up completely in Badge LootGot Heroic Badges? Now you can gear yourself all out. Hybrid Theory: What's a hybrid v2.0Our column on hybrid classes returns with a new writer and a new outlook on what it means to step across lines in the RPG class trinity.
Wired chronicles pan-MMO griefing by Goons
As a general principle, it's not our focus here at Massively to highlight the exploits the griefers. We don't want to encourage bad behavior for one thing, but also most of the time the griefing that goes on is just so... pedestrian. That's why we're willing to make an exception for this cultural piece in Wired which turns the spotlight on the curious gaming sub-culture of Something Awful. Known collectively as Goons, members of Something Awful have developed smaller sub-communities of players in nearly every modern MMO, and while they have managed to get along peacefully in certain cases, in some games they gain a reputation for being, well... goons.The Wired article focuses specifically on their shenanigans in EVE Online and Second Life. Anybody whose played EVE Online in the past two years has no doubt become familiar with their style of play, as the aptly named Goonswarm Alliance makes up the most populous faction in the game, and they use their numbers to great effect in waging war. To give you an idea of their shtick, last year they launched a massive assault on and destroyed a massive Titan-class ship worth the real-world equivalent of $10,000 for no other reason than because it would demoralized their enemies, with the hope that they'd quit the game all together. Similarly, the exploits of another group of Goons in Second Life was so prolific, so persistent, and so offensive, that one SL mogul is quoted as calling them "terrorists."The article is a bit incomplete for my taste, as it doesn't include other Goon foibles like their prolific Star Wars: Galaxies presence nor does it really expound on the real consequences of the Goons' actions in Second Life, but the descriptions and characterizations the author does manage to bring together for EVE and SL are so bizzare, they're worth reading for a laugh, if nothing else.
New screening technology might detect terrorists before they act
Computer and behavioral scientists at the University of Buffalo are developing a system that will allow authorities to track faces, voices, bodies and various other biometrical data to create a score for how likely an individual is to commit a terrorist act. Sound like the scariest Big Brother plot since China's ID card scheme? Well, rest assured, Winston Smith, the researchers only have your best interests in mind. "The goal is to identify the perpetrator in a security setting before he or she has the chance to carry out the attack," says Venu Govindaraju, professor of computer science and engineering at the university, who was recently awarded $800,000 by the National Science Foundation to create such a system. "We are developing a prototype that examines a video in a number of different security settings, automatically producing a single, integrated score of malfeasance likelihood," adding that the system will incorporate machine "learning" capabilities, which will allow it to adapt over time. "Human screeners have fatigue and bias, but the machine does not blink," the researcher said, just before remarking that he was late for an appointment at the Ministry of Truth.
HDTV Listings for January 14, 2007
What we're watching: The Jack Bauer Power Hour is BACK. 24 on Fox is the only option for HDTV viewing pleasure tonight. Not that we wouldn't like to check out the season premiere of Rome on HBO, or the first live high definition game from Hawaii, the Hula Bowl on ESPN-HD. We'd tell you more but we don't have enough time. You're just going to have to trust us.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
New methods surfacing to rat out hostiles at airports
It seems that flying the not-so-friendly skies is becoming quite a hassle these days, as airport security is getting beefed up even more to account for the recent scare in the UK. Having to suffer through countless checkpoints as if you're guilty until proven innocent definitely flies against what we freebirds are used to, but apparently that's the price you pay if you want some sense of security while cruising the friendly skies. One company is trying to take lemons and make lemonade by offering up sophisticated filtering and detection systems that can supposedly distinguish a highly explosive Pantene bottle from your average (i.e. non-destructive) bottle of shampoo, while another outfit is lobbying to get its "intention analyzer" booth installed in commercial airports. Guardian Technologies is in talks with the TSA to get its PinPoint imaging software integrated into airport X-ray machines, which can reportedly analyze the density of liquids and determine the difference between "organic and explosive" substances (The timing here is somewhat intriguing, eh? Reminds us of how Parallels came hot on the heels of Boot Camp). The software transforms its density measurements into colorized images which provide an easy visual for spotting harmful materials, even through innocent-looking containers. Meanwhile, Suspect Detection Systems, Ltd. is also in cahoots with the TSA as it looks to install a number of "booths" in airports to rat out potential felons; any suspicious individual could be asked to answer a series of on-screen questions (such as "are you smuggling drugs?") while placing their hand on a biometric scanner within the booth -- the built-in algorithms analyze the heart rate, blood pressure, sweat quantity, etc. (think snazzy polygraph) to determine if the subject truly has an ill will or not. The Israeli-based company expects the $200,000 machine to accurately select "90 percent of potential saboteurs," while inconveniencing "only" 4 percent of non-thretening travelers. We're not sure which is more disturbing about this scenario: the fact that one in ten cool and collected terrorists can slip through undetected, or that millions of innocent travelers will be scrutinized for nothing. Regardless, with hijackings and terrorism becoming a seemingly growing threat, we can probably expect that these off-the-wall security measures will impact some of us just trying to catch a last minute flight, but aside from the impending aggravation, we're all better off safe than sorry.Read- Interrogation booth [subscription required, via Boing Boing]Read- PinPoint imaging [Via The Inquirer]
