Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Codename 'Reynard' - Hunt Terrorists In Virtual Worlds

The codename 'Reynard' denotes a U.S. government project to find terrorists who are accessing virtual worlds via the Internet. Details were found in a report to the US Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)

The report described Reynard as "a seedling effort to study the emerging phenomenon of social (particularly terrorist) dynamics in virtual worlds and large-scale online games and their implications for the intelligence community."

According to experts, most use of the Internet by terrorist groups is limited to password-protected forums, email, virtual message boards and Youtube. However, some efforts to use virtual reality realms like Second Life have surfaced.

Also, it appears that terrorists are even using cartoon websites to lure kids into a terror lifestyle. Hamas maintains a site called Al-Fateh, or "the conqueror," which combines songs and stories with colorful cartoon drawings that promote suicide terrorism.


(Hamas Al Fateh website)

Al Qaeda is believed to operate about 5,600 websites and hundreds more appear each year.

Terrorist organizations are also distributing free online games for radicalization and training.

One such game is the "Quest for Bush," aka "Night of Bush Capturing," a free online game released by the Global Islamic Media Front, a media outlet of Al Qaeda. Armed with a rifle, a shotgun or a grenade launcher, players navigate missions that include "Jihad Growing Up," "Americans' Hell" and "Bush Hunted Like a Rat." In the final stage, the player’s task is to kill President Bush.

The earliest depictions of the Internet in science fiction books and stories like Vernor Vinge's True Names and John Brunner's Shockwave Rider describe conflicts between individuals and groups and various technological means of advancing one's aims and frustrating your enemy's.

Read more at Yale and BBC via The Raw Feed.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/6/2008)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Computer ")

ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.' - Orson Scott Card, 1985.

Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.

Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...' - Clifford Simak, 1949.

Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.' - Isaac Asimov, 1975.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Birds Learn To Sing Pictures ala Frank Herbert's Distrans
'We will fight in the time of fighting.'

ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'

Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'

Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'

Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'

ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?

Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'

Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'

Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'

3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'

Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'

DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'

How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'

The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'

Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'

Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.