Virtual Terrorism and Real Terrorism not the Same

It was definitely a shock a few months back to read about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s island being smashed in by hackers. But is virtual terrorism really something to worry about?

Apparently some people do.

“Just as real-life companies such as Toyota test their products in SL, so could terrorists construct virtual representations of targets they wish to attack in order to examine the potential target’s vulnerabilities and reaction to attack,” Roderick Jones, intelligence analyst, said in an article in The Australian.

So, terrorists could create a virtual building inside of this virtual world, which virtually mimics government buildings of some country, in order to set up a virtual scenario of a virtual guess of what may or may not happen in terms of social, military, and political reaction? I think TerraNova sums up this issue quite well.

“How do we talk about practices within virtual worlds that have powerful metaphoric analogs in the real world without inviting basically stupid or careless observers to think that the two things are the same?” Timothy Burke, TerraNova bloggist, wrote in a post yesterday.

I think that crayon’s and butcher paper should be our next concern, because you can definitely draw some realistic terrorist scenarios using multiple colors from Crayola’s pack. You can turn any wall into a terrorism classroom with just a few square feet and some chairs.

Coloring has never been so dangerous.

Source: Terra Nova
Source: The Australian