GLOBAL JIHAD WATCH:Virtual jihad hits Second Life website

Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life,the internet virtual world,to hunt forrecruits and mimic real-life terrorism.Police and the intelligence services are concerned that it may have been infiltrated by extremists to proselytise,communicate and transfer money to one another.Radicals may also be responsible for “virtual”terrorist attacks in which buildings depicted on the website are blown up.Kevin Zuccato,head of the Australian government’s High Tech Crime Centre,said jihadists may also be using the virtual reality world to master skills such as reconnaissance and surveillance.“We need to start thinking about living,working and protecting two worlds and two realities,”he told a security industry conference in Sydney.The concerns are shared by Europol,the panEuropean police agency,which believes that Second Life provides a means to transfer money across
borders in a way that is more difficult for the authorities to monitor.It has recruited security consultants to advise on the use of Second Life for fraud and terrorism.Of particular concern is the anonymity of Second Life members who can use false names for their digital personas,
known as avatars,to disguise their real identity and provide false contact details in the real world.Intelligence sources said that although communications traffic through Second Life could in theory be monitored,often the only means of tracking an individual is by tracing the user’s IP address-the physical location of a computer in the real world-but even this can be faked.
Monitoring complex money movements in the virtual world presents law enforcement agencies with further surveillance challenges.
To read more go to:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2199193.ece
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