WTF? This cant be for real you must be thinking, well unforatunately it is. Seems like the US government believes that World of Warcraft can do more than just corrupt a young person’s mind and waste your time in real life. The government believes that WoW can be used to plot and set into motion dastardly terrorist plans on a real life scale.

There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous. They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just like the U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds are nerve-wracking to spies because they’re so hard to monitor. The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies’ employees aren’t exactly level-70 shamans.

The thought process is that the in game capability of chatting and the games lingo can be used to develop a plan that no one currently would be able to decode. Using in game talk like raids, loot, races and city names to take the place of actual real life targets and strategies. Seems to me that the FBI needs to employ some hardcore gamers to help them crack some of this.

Hit the jump to read more about World of Warcraft as a terrorist plot and to see a mock scenario that has been set up.

In a presentation late last week at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave a bit of a primer on virtual worlds to an audience largely ignorant about what happens in these online spaces. Then he launched into a scenario, to demonstrate how a meatspace plot might be hidden by in-game chatter.

In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the “White Keep” inside the “Stonetalon Mountains.” The major objective is to set off a “Dragon Fire spell” inside, and make off with “110 Gold and 234 Silver” in treasure. “No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast,” one player, “war_monger,”

This is as close to evil genius as you can get when you think about it, but it can be done in almost any online game or over any video game chat room. The usage of WoW is impressive and really shows the level of detail that Blizzard has put into the game, I know players that tell me where certain quests are by coordinate, this could easily be translated into a scenario like the one Dr. Toavs set up.

Check out the mocked up scenario where a World of Warcraft map was used as an overlay for the nations capitol. Who knew that Leet speak could have terrorist implications? Who knows who you may be playing with moving forward, suddenly online threats you may have made in the past about hunting someone down because an alliance character was killing you may not be the best idea, you may have federal agents at your door the following night.

I wonder how long before WoW players use their creativity to make guilds and characters to poke fun at this?

[Via Wired]