NSA Leaks Show Government Spied on World of Warcraft, Second Life, Xbox Live Users

It looks as though players of Xbox Live, World of Warcraft and Second Life may have been monitored by the NSA in America and the GCHQ in the United Kingdom as far back as 2008, according to a set of leaks released by former NSA employee Edward Snowden and published in The New York Times and The Guardian.

The NSA and GCHQ snooped on the games and online service because enemies of the government could congregate there to discuss plans for terrorist attacks, move funds around using the online platforms, and communicate with each other freely. The two government agencies created avatars for the games in an attempt to spy on targeted profiles and see if threats against the United States or Great Britain were legitimate. 

A 2008 NSA document entitled "Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments" was detailed how these online networks needed to be monitored in the name of freedom. The video game platforms were described as a "target-rich communications network" and their value to terrorists, besides providing them with a chance to play video games, is that they could "hide in plain sight." The full document can be seen here.

Despite the NSA's interest in infiltrating these popular online games as well as Xbox Live, there are no specific instances mentioned in the documents of terrorists using these platforms to coordinate their plans or communicate with each other. While no threats were found within the games, the NSA and GCHQ decided to launch the probes anyway, and the GCHQ had already launched a "vigorous effort" to use "exploitation modules" on Xbox Live and World of Warcraft to extract data from them before the new probes were implemented. A 2008 probe into World of Warcraft used metadata from the game to link accounts, characters, and guilds to Islamic extremism as well as arms dealing groups. Their efforts revealed that some subscribers to the game were "telecom engineers, embassy drivers, scientists, the military and other intelligence agencies ..."

Representatives from Second Life and Microsoft did not respond to these document leaks; however, Microsoft recently announced steps to increase their security and privacy options for users. Blizzard Entertainment, which developed World of Warcraft, released a brief statement claiming they knew nothing about the NSA and GCHQ infiltrating their game: "We are unaware of any surveillance taking place. If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission."