The latest document dump from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is getting a lot of deserved attention for revelations that international security agencies are taking steps to monitor communications inside online games. But those leaked documents also include an in-depth report on the potential for games to be used as recruitment, training, and propaganda tools by extremist organizations.

Security contractor SAIC produced the 66-page report "Games: A look at emerging trends, users, threats and opportunities in influence activities" in early 2007, and the document gives a rare window into how the US intelligence community views interactive games as a potential tool to be used by foreign actors. While parts of the report seem pretty realistic about gaming's potential use as a propaganda and planning tool, other sections provide a more fantastical take on how video games can be used as potential weapons by America's enemies.

Games as propaganda

The strongest parts of the report focus on how games can be used as part of propaganda efforts, presenting a particular political viewpoint or ideology in an engaging and easy-to-digest way. For instance, MTVu's Darfur is Dying is cited for "evok[ing] sympathy for the people of Darfur" by putting players in the shoes of a refugee. Worryingly, neo-Nazi entertainment company Resistance Records used a game called Ethnic Cleansing to reinforce its message that Jews and non-white races are "sub-humans" worth killing.

The reports point to two games that let users take the role of a Palestinian freedom fighter taking on occupying forces from the Israeli Defense Forces: Under Ash, developed by Syrian company Dar Al-Fikr (as previously discussed on Ars), and Special Force, developed by Lebanese political group (and US terrorist list member) Hezbollah. Another title, The Resistance, pits the player's southern Lebanese farmer against invading Israeli troops.

Players come into these games looking for entertainment and an escape from work and home life, the report suggests, but are exposed to extremist "values, concepts, and ideas" by games that "reinforce prejudices and cultural stereotypes while imparting a targeted message or lesson" and "twist historical context, demonize enemies, disrupt the social moral compass, and desensitize users to violence." Under Ash, in particular, uses scenes of summary executions and children being murdered to "evoke outrage and to play on common themes, including 'Israeli occupation,' 'Injustice,' and 'Revenge.'"

It's certainly a strategy that has worked for the US: as the report points out, 28 percent of players that try the US military-made America's Army game end up visiting the associated recruitment site. Games like Call of Duty and Homefront could even be seen as similar subtle propaganda for US military might against foreign threats, viewed from the right angle.

In this way, games are really no different from any other medium of propaganda from pamphlets and posters to recorded messages and videos. Games could arguably be more effective at getting a political message across by getting players invested in the outcome of a simulation rather than passively absorbing a pre-made message.

The reward structure built into a game can also keep players coming back to absorb the message more frequently than other forms of propaganda, giving players access to a social network of other like-minded players. "Immersion in a game producer’s version of facts or history teaches players how to operate in the defined sociopolitical environment," as the report puts it. "This can result in player empathy toward a particular cause."

This sounds a bit like a suggestion that games are somehow brainwashing unsuspecting players to accept a political argument they would otherwise reject, but you don't have to take things that far to accept that playing a game can change the way you view the world. Even if a game simply reinforces already held beliefs, it can have an important role in a war for hearts and minds. In any case, it seems like something that's genuinely important for the US intelligence community to be aware of and to be prepared to fight with its own counter-propaganda games or campaigns.

Games as terrorist planning and simulation

Where the report goes a bit off the rails is in suggesting a number of ways that games can be used to plan or train for actual terrorist attacks. This isn't a totally ridiculous notion. As the report notes, "some of the 9-11 pilots had never flown a real plane and had only trained using Microsoft's Flight Simulator." On the other side of the coin, allied militaries have used games like Delta Force 2, Steel Beasts, and Falcon 4.0 in their training.

The report avoids the local news-style trap of suggesting that playing these games is effective preparation for a murder spree on its own; "complete military training is best achieved in person," it states. That said, there's probably something to the idea that using a simulation for a dry run can help prepare a terrorist actor for the real thing.

Elsewhere in the report, though, there are quite a few efforts to link terrorism to gaming that miss the mark. The report tries to argue that "culturally accurate games can help foreign terrorists avoid profile raising mistakes and assist in assimilation." It brings up the non-sequitur fact that "the Hezbollah has even hooked up a PlayStation controller to a laptop in order to guide some of its real missiles." In what might be the furthest stretch, it implicates game-making software like Maya Unlimited's fluid simulator as "offer[ing] users the ability to re-create the mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear explosion."

One of the largest sections of SAIC's report lays out a number of fictional scenarios whereby a terrorist group could use gaming technology to plan or execute an attack. The most believable of these posits a first-person shooter that portrays corrupt Sudanese warlords as the enemy. This game could "train" players to avoid shooting civilians, for instance, and encourage winners to visit a website for more information or to donate money to the cause.

Another scenario suggests a fake location-based game that promises players a prize to be given away at a real-world place and time, ensuring a large crowd for some sort of biological attack. It reads like something from a science fiction thriller, but it also seems incredibly easy to set up among some gullible Internet users.

The fictional gaming scenarios get more outlandish from there, though. Terrorists could set up an alternate-reality game as a "dry run" in the real world, the report argues, allowing innocent looking players to "call headquarters with information on security cameras, wiring, security guards, power sources, crowd congregation locations, and other data, following maps on their PDAs and communicating with team members." How exactly this is different from terrorists using cell phones without an ARG in place is unstated.

Another example suggests that a terrorist could "utilize software that scans the structural and architectural plans of key structures to create a 3-D virtual metro system" and then "monitor cell members’ biological responses" as they take part in a simulated bombing attack, using two technologies that are barely even in use in high-end game makers six years after the report was written. This kind of simulation could be set up on a "password-protected island in a virtual world," the report suggests, even though a private server would seem like the much more obviously secure option for a terrorist organization.

The report also posits that online games could be used as a terrorist funding source, where "because of the games’ entertainment value, terrorist network members encourage players to 'work' for them or raise funds themselves by simply playing games and then selling items." There's no evidence that this is being done or even planned, but the fact that the virtual economy is large and lightly regulated is enough evidence that it is possible for the report's purposes.

Games could also serve as a way for a terrorist cell leader to monitor his team members, the report suggests, keeping tabs on their "commitment to the cause and ensure that they do not waver from the group’s tactical and strategic missions." A simulated strategy game could also be used by terrorist leaders to "assess other players’ strategy skills and commitment to the cause." We suppose it's technically possible, but this kind of monitoring-by-game sounds a bit too much like The Last Starfighter movie than an operational concern to our ears.

Even if, as the report says, "the line between the ‘virtual’ world and the ‘real’ world is blurring, and to some users may be non-existent," most of the game-related terrorist training and planning scenarios laid out here seem a lot less likely than plain old non-game-related options. In any case, the leak of this report and the scenarios it outlines show that the security apparatus is interested in online games as more than just a place to spy on potential enemy communications.