British and US intelligence agencies mounted a concerted drive to infiltrate the world of online games players, according to the latest documents released by former US intelligence operative Edward Snowden.

The American National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ, built “mass collection capabilities” against the Xbox Live console network, according to The Guardian, which published details along with The New York Times and ProRepublica.

Operatives were also said to have been tasked with infiltrating “virtual environments” such as World of Warcraft and Second Life amid concerns they could be used by terrorists to communicate anonymously online. The games community was described in one NSA briefing note from 2008, entitled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, a “target-rich communications network” where intelligence targets could “hide in plain sight”.

“Al-Qaeda terrorist target selectors and ... have been found associated with Xbox Live, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other GVEs (games and virtual environments),” the document stated.

The paper suggested that, properly exploited, games could potentially be used as windows for hacking attacks, to build pictures of people’s social networks and make approaches by undercover agents to recruit potential informants. (PA)

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