Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies analyzes WoW

chautemoc | March 22, 2008 | News | PC Misc

According to Charles Blair, deputy director for the CTIS, World of Warcraft's infamous "Corrupted Blood" epidemic of 2005 is a good source of study for terrorist behaviour. Apparently the deliberate spread of the disease offers unique insight that can't be simulated by computer models. For the parents who have kids keen on infecting their Pokemon with the Pokerus, beware: this is where terrorism starts!

For our part, this all seems like a bit of a stretch on the part of the article's author. While in-game terrorist tactics with biological weapons do reflect their real life counter-parts in many ways (e.g. hitting big population centers, focusing on travel hubs to maximize spread, etc.), we're not sure what sort of insights this sort of comparison could glean for people who are already experts on the topic. Moreover, when the most prominent group of pan-MMO cyber-terrorists are motivated by "lulz," it becomes evident that there's a profound disconnect with reality that has to be accounted for.

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ShinyMilotic | March 23, 2008

My Pokemon have pokerus, I just want to make them better, I'm not a terrorist.

Eh this is just kids playing, a bit different to in real life.
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Armed Rebel | March 24, 2008

Just send out Cartman and the boys.
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Euphoric | March 24, 2008

What the hell is the Corrupted Blood epidemic?

And whatever it is my Pokemon most likely have the Pokerus aswell
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kspiess | March 24, 2008

In a nutshell (don't remember the exact details) but the Corrupted Blood epidemic was sort of a surprise exploit that came up in WoW. There was some sort of in-game debuff virus that a monster gave off, and what happened was the virus/spell infected peoples' pets, and caused like a massive outbreak of the spell across the entire game worlds.
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Euphoric | March 25, 2008

Oh so it was just some in game thing. Righto then...How any of this relates to counter terrorism is beyond me. In real life people think much more dynamically than game AI.
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  chautemoc | March 25, 2008
  
  I don't believe it was referring to any AI in the game, but how real players make choices and why.