Call of Duty terror jabber just mindless banter

Eye-watering claims that video games are secure communications hubs for terrorists have been shot down in a demonstration by security wonks who tested claims nation-states could not intercept chatter and that messages can be written in bullet holes. Playstation 4 was last year fingered as a favourite communciations channel for …

[Anonymous Coward]

Like I said before...

... in game chatter is being monitored by spooks (reported by Snowden 2013). Such weak crypto makes this easier to do on a mass automated scale.

Expect future backdoors in games being mandated by governments under the banner of 'protection from terrorists/won't somebody think of the children'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but....

"You cannot communicate large chunks of information effectively,"

Whoever said that terrorists would have long, detailed discussions by this means? They'd be pretty dumb to do that, even if it was feasible.

As a means of passing simple info (eg confirming time/date/place/) based on pre-arranged signals, it could work quite well. As could any publicly-accessible place - eg el Reg forums.

Sure there's been hype on this subject, but I hope the intelligence bods are at least considering these potential means of communicating simple messages.

[Voland's right hand]

Re: Yes, but....

For that you might as well use SMS. In clear text.

As used by... ooops... the Paris lot.

So much for all the conspiracy theories - they are "Designs on Jerry".

[Graham Marsden]

@Voland's right hand - Re: Yes, but....

> For that you might as well use SMS. In clear text.

Or even: Bumbling would-be UK bomber asked Twitter followers for target suggestions

[xslogic]

Re: Yes, but....

Whoever said that terrorists would have long, detailed discussions by this means?

Continuing with that theme, wasn't there a court case last year against alleged terrorists (Don't know if they got charged) where they were looking at a terse message and saying "This bit could mean" a lot...?

[Select * From Handle]

Not really mindless banter...

More like a cesspit of racial hate...

After playing COD I honestly think they should remove chat services from games and leave it to third party chat services, so people only chat with there friends.

Anyone who has played COD only will know how bad it can be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not really mindless banter...

Which is why user generated audio is blocked both ways on my consoles.

Makes for a much more pleasant gaming experience.

[DrXym]

Does anyone even know how many online games there are?

South Korea must have 100s of MMOs just by itself. There are probably millions of live server instances if you count every host of multiplayer game in existence. Everything from first person shooters to online chess to text MUD games. And that's not even counting games that do peer to peer hosting.

Trying to monitor them all is an utterly futile task. I suppose there might be benefit for law / spy agencies to persuade Sony, Microsoft, EA, Activision etc to put some hooks into games and their voice / message services so they can monitor chat or log ids, IP addresses and other metrics but I doubt it would be much use unless they had specific intelligence and knew what they were looking for.

[Blank-Reg]

Re: Does anyone even know how many online games there are?

Aye, and many games could probably generate endless false positives:

"Lets nuke the city!" (C&C Generals)

"Right, lets go be terrorists!" (Counterstrike)

etc etc

Heaven forbid anyone discuss the end of the original C&C Nod campaign "Blow the white house/Eiffel Tower/Houses of Parliament/Brandenburg Gate". They'd run out of fuel constantly scrambling the black helicopters.

And that's before they start reading the dross and bile that some individuals spew onto the chat and speech channels.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

Re: Does anyone even know how many online games there are?

> There are probably millions of live server instances if you count every host of multiplayer game in existence.

Is that counting special issues recoded enigma style for specialist communcations?

Or can we still rely on suitable arms techniques being used as morse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sprays

Well at least no one has seen my in game wall sprays of the map with blueprints which label sites A and B to aid the newbs ;)

[quattroprorocked]

Just do it in Minecraft

With a bit of trenching.

[Owain 1]

Actually I can see one thing of benefit to the terrorists... the base content of the chat messages in (for example) COD would be of people saying they want to blow stuff up and shoot/kill people vs (say) facebook where the base content is people talking about their children and pets. This gives 2 advantages that it would be difficult to monitor the whole COD network to pick up 'out of context' messages. And it would also be reasonable defence in court that you were indeed just playing COD.

[djack]

Just 'Simple TLS'??

They claim that the PSN chat differs from Whatsapp in that whatsapp provides end to end message encryption whereas the PSN does not. This appears to be based solely on the fact that when they sniffed the PSN traffic they saw it was encrypted and transported using TLS.

They did not claim to bave decrypted this TLS traffic or have any real knowledge of what it was.

Last time I looked at Whatsapp, I'm pretty sure I saw that it too was using TLS for all traffic.

TLS, is just encryption of the transport layer between the client and server. It has no bearing on whether the traffic it carries is further encrypted in an end-to-end manner.

BTW, I have no knowledge on how PSN messaging actually operates but claiming that it does or does not implement certain features based purely on the use of TLS is just as faulty reasoning as that which they are trying to debunk.

[Known Hero]

paranoia

Ok I welcome people's privacy as much as the next guy, BUT ..... Why on earth do people feel the need to have their in game banter encrypted ??????

Let all the crap ppl tell each other be in plaintext, and let them know when they sign up to the service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: paranoia

It's probably par for the course.

It's just a communications method, and it gets the programmers/publishers out of a legal loop should someone accidentally post their credit card number, home address or last nights fling in the chat.

[John Smith 19]

See what happens when you think CSI:Cyber is a series of training films?

'Nuff said.

[xslogic]

Re: See what happens when you think CSI:Cyber is a series of training films?

I've seen a couple of episodes - because I didn't believe it was as bad as I'd heard.

But then, I'd also watched a couple of episodes of Scorpion. So - I suppose I should have known it could be far worse than I'd heard...

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: See what happens when you think CSI:Cyber is a series of training films?

I quite like CSI (in a I-watch-it-on-TV-but-wouldn't-buy-the-DVD way), and Star Wars and Star Trek and what have you... but I know nothing of this is real.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: See what happens when you think CSI:Cyber is a series of training films?

I prefer NCIS https://youtu.be/1Y2zo0JN2HE

;)

[John Smith 19]

"I've seen a couple of episodes - because I didn't believe it was as bad as I'd heard."

True but to give some credit to the shows creators it might just perhaps get some of the users of the millions of US owned Windows PC that have no AV installed to think "Perhaps I should get something installed."

And maybe the US botnet population goes down a bit.

No promises. Just maybe, a bit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ban the pen, cos words can be written

Ban air, cos the vibrations can form into words

Ban stenography, cos there might hidden messages

Ban light, cos it can be used for morse code

Ban the tongue, cos it can shape sound

Ban the....

Should we all just jump off of a cliff, cos you know, we're all potential terrorists.

[Voland's right hand]

Yes indeed

Signed,

A chemistry major gone to the dark side of IT.

P.S. Just the stuff I learned at Uni should be enough for 50 life sentences for "thought crime". At least (if we keep IT and electronics out of the equation).

[Anonymous Coward]

>THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

...THE>FARMER>WILL>DELIVER>THEM>ON>TIME...

...THE>BAKER>WILL>KNOW>WHEN>AND >WHERE>TO>BREAK>THEM...

[noboard]

Re: >THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

Hey Barry, I've lost my bloody code book, can I grab another copy tonight? Just to check your postcode is AA1 2BB isn't it? I'll poke it into the satnav and wander over tonight.

Oh and any chance your mum can do me an egg buttie. I told you using food as code would make us fat.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: >THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

your postcode is AA1 2BB

The gardens of Easton Lodge???

No, the drone strike should be on SW1A 2AA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: >THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

THE>CHICKEN>HAS>LEFT>THE>HEN>HOUSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: >THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

50 thousand Kuala nuts, in a brown paper bag behind the bin. I'll be the hyena, you'll see.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: >THE>EGGS>ARE>IN>THE>BASKET...

That brings back memories, however I believe the nuts are kola nuts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just send a text.

"On for tonight"

"Let's have a blast"

Or

"Is the tea on love?"

"Yes, bacon tonight"