Or, as congressmen.
2 Likes
@GagHalfrunt I don’t care if it has the cover of being a technical term. It is dehumanising and xenophobic language.
1 Like
Yes, I cannot really argue with that. Even in the spy business, there are better terms that can be used.
Concerns about xenophobia don’t apply when an intelligence service uses the term to describe its own operatives.
Operatives under non-official cover are unlikely to be undocumented immigrants, almost by definition. They need to live, work and travel without attracting suspicion or risking arrest, so their cover identities will have citizenship or legal residence in the countries where they live.
2 Likes
It’s the US version of the term. You don’t find it xenophobic. Fine.
It’s the Russian term for Russian operatives. The US term for US operatives is non-official cover.
1 Like
3 Likes
(Role playing scribbles are clearly not related to the classified leak, as far as content. Noted in the article the image sequence of the game scribbles image does not match the classified doc’s sequence.)
But what game is it from? Motherboard reached out to game designer Jacqueline Bryk to find out. Bryk is an award-winning designer of roleplaying games who has worked on Kult: Divinity Lost, Changeling: the Lost, Fading Suns: Pax Alexius, and Vampire: the Masquerade.
“I strongly suspect this is Call Of Cthulhu,” Bryk said when first looking at the sheet. Call of Cthulhu (COC) is an RPG based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft where players attempt to stave off madness while investigating eldritch horrors. “This is a pretty classic Professor build. The sword cane really clinches it for me. I notice he’s currently carrying a derringer and a dagger but took no points in firearms or fighting. I’m not sure which edition this is but it seems like the most he could do with his weapons is throw them.”
However, further investigation of the character sheet revealed some inconsistencies with this initial theory. Luck and Sanity are two classic Call of Cthulhu stats and both are absent on Dr. Trotzyk’s sheet. “The skills, however, are far too low to be a COC character,” Bryk said. “Call of Cthulhu runs on a d100 percentile system and this character couldn’t cross the street if that was the case.”
3 Likes
The character name sounds Russian-ish (emphasis on -ish) and is written in Cyrillic at the top of the page. Odd that they didn’t comment on this, but then again they spoke to an RPG designer not an intelligence analyst.
2 Likes
I’ll take “What is a red herring?” for $500.00 Alex.
Maybe. Probably.
2 Likes
I thought that we might be looking at an RPG-playing Russia specialist from an American intelligence agency, but intelligence analysts can probably spell “professor” correctly.
2 Likes
I haven’t seen the use of two slashes in the US currency symbol for a long time…
2 Likes
I’m left wondering if the whole dang leak is some sort of ruse to keep the Russian state occupied while Ukraine is given time to gear up for the offensive?
2 Likes
Bar the obvious lack of insanity and the d100 it is CoCish though I’ve seen a few like it and I don’t even play (not for a long time sadly).
1 Like
Intelligence agencies have been aware of the need to monitor gaming communities for some time. In 2013, the cache of documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was actively monitoring Xbox Live, the voice chat platform for Microsoft’s console, and had even deployed real-life agents into the virtual world of Azeroth, the setting of the World of Warcraft series.
One document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, warned that it was risky to leave gaming communities under-monitored, describing them as a “target-rich communications network”. The notes warned that so many different agencies were conducting operations inside gaming services that a “deconfliction” group was needed to prevent them spying on each other by accident.
5 Likes
God, I hope it’s MTG or one of her ilk and they get caught and charged with treason.
Likely one of her “ilk”.
3 Likes
3 Likes
@fnordius There are many questions listed in this that will ripple upwards from this guy. Heads will roll.
3 Likes
