World of Warcraft characters 'may have been US and UK spies', say Snowden documents
Freshly leaked documents by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on Monday revealed spies disguised as fantasy characters prowled online games hunting terrorists.
Elves, orcs or other fictional characters happened upon by players in the popular realm of World of Warcraft may have been US and British spies, according to documents released through ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times.
There were also indications that intelligence agents went undercover in online multi-player shooter games, particularly on Microsoft’s Xbox Live internet community for players.
“GVEs (games and virtual environments) are an opportunity!” concluded ‘top secret’ National Security Agency documents dating back about five years.
It wasn’t enough that they were snooping on email conversations and phone calls... they needed to extend their range to Middle Earth and Xbox Live as well
“We know that terrorists use many feature rich internet communications media for operational purposes, such as email, VoIP, chat, proxies and web forums, and it is highly likely they will be making use of the many communications features offered by games and virtual environments.”