World of Warcraft Shines Light on Terror Tactics

Virtual terrorists blowing themselves up and spreading disease inside World of Warcraft could provide counterterrorists with a window into real-world plots.

Such activities in the massively multiplayer online game bear an eerie resemblance to actual terrorism, and analyzing terror tactics in Warcraft could prove more enlightening than current computer simulations used by counterterrorists.

"People got really smart about figuring out how to cause the most damage to the largest number of people," said Robert Allen, a level-60 mage and self-admitted virtual bioterrorist who purposely spread an in-game contagion to kill other players.

Scientists have already noted World of Warcraft's usefulness in studying how diseases spread. The game's network of 10 million players -- each capable of making decisions, either logical or illogical, rational or irrational -- gives scientists a ready-made virtual world to scrutinize that's not based on computer models or artificial intelligence. The game could be an invaluable tool not only for counterterrorists and epidemiologists but also sociologists and economists...

--Wired