The US military forces used to actively recruit candidates who were avid gamers, due to their expertise in on-line problem solving and keyboard skills. Now, on-line gaming forums have become a particular worry of the military because of their lure for young service members. In many US military base recreation halls you will see it; young troops immersed in the world of online games, using government-funded gaming machines or their own consoles.[1]
The enthusiasm military personnel have for gaming and the risk that carries is in the spotlight after Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, was charged with illegally taking and posting highly classified material in a geopolitical chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers. State secrets can be illegally shared in countless different ways, from whispered conversations and dead drops to social media platforms. On-line gaming forums have been a particular worry of the military because of their lure for young service members. US officials are limited in how closely they can monitor those forums to make sure nothing on them threatens national security. According to officials, the social media world and gaming sites have been identified as a counterintelligence concern for over a decade now.
It is suspected that foreign intelligence agents could use an avatar in a gaming room to connect with 18 to 23-year-old sailors gaming from the rec center at Norfolk Naval Base, win their confidence over for months, and then, through that process, start to connect with them on other social media platforms. It has been noted that US spy agencies have also created avatars to conduct surveillance in the online games World of Warcraft and Second Life.
The military does not have the authority to conduct surveillance of US citizens on US soil, that is the role of domestic law enforcement agencies like the FBI. Even when monitoring members of the armed forces, there are privacy issues, something the Defense Department ran into head-on as it tried to establish social media policies to counter extremism in the ranks.
The military does have a presence in the online game community. Both the Army and the Navy have service members whose full-time job is to compete in video game tournaments as part of military E-sports teams. The teams are seen as an effective way to reach and potentially recruit youth who have grown up with online gaming. Neither of the services reported that they had any sort of similar team playing online to monitor for potential threats or leaks.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said its intelligence activities are primarily focused internationally. In collecting any information on US citizens, the Defense Department does so “in accordance with law and policy and in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. She said the procedures must be approved by the attorney general.
The military has focused on training service members never to reveal classified information in the first place (period). Since the recent online leaks, the department is reviewing its processes to protect classified information, reducing the number of people who have access, and reminding the force that “the responsibility to safeguard classified information is a lifetime requirement for each individual granted a security clearance,” Deputy Secretary of Defense said in a memo issued 13 April 2023 following Teixeira’s arrest. “These various gaming channels are just another form of social networks,” said the author of Burn In, centered on attacks on the US that are plotted in a private chamber of an online war game and where all the plotters use avatars of historical figures to disguise themselves. His advice was that the Pentagon on future warfare, expects that future (predict) espionage and plotting will likely find refuge in some of these private online worlds. “There’s a shift from it being viewed as niche, and for kids to adults using it for everything from marketing and entertainment to criminality,” he said. “Is this the future? Most definitely.”
But besides the legal limitations on monitoring these games, the vast number of sites and private chats would be virtually impossible for the Pentagon to manage. “Your answer to this can’t be ‘How do I find it on video game channels?’” he said. “Your answer has to be, ‘How do I keep it from getting out in the first place?’”
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[1] https://www.securityweek.com/online-gaming-chats-have-long-been-spy-risk-for-us-military/
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