Mind Games @ Kioloa 2008 - Mock Media Release
From COSNet
| Mind Games at Kioloa 2008 |
Instructions: For each problem group, please post your media presentation below.
Global Terrorism
MEDIA RELEASE: VIRTUAL WORLDS TO MAKE INROADS ON REAL TERRORISM
Computer games have long been a popular outlet for millions of people world-wide, but a group of young Australian scientists believe computer games can say a lot about the reality of global terrorism.
The newly formed Counter Terrorist Intelligence Unit (CTIU) -- a multi-university, cross-disciplinary team of physicists, mathematicians, economists, computer scientists and engineers -- represents the cutting edge in the new science of complexity.
The group has met for an intensive research thinktank at the Austrlaian National University's Kioloa Coastal Field Research facility, on the south coast of NSW.
They hope to build the first counter terrorist virtual world, where terrorists, civilians and counter-terrorist agencies, interact and vie for supremecy.
In a first step, they have been scouring a huge database of over 62,000 terrorist events which occured around the world over the last 25 years. "Our first challenge was really to understand the patterns of global terrorism -- where terrorists come from, what types of attacks they carry out and of course, what kind of damage they inflicted," said Senior Research scientist, Kate Simms.
Their efforts have resulted in some promising early results which they hope will form the basis of their virtual counter-terrorist world. Like the massive multi-user computer games of 'Second Life' and 'There', the researchers believe that only by allowing virtual individuals to inhabit virtual landscapes will the complex relationships between terrorists and counter-terrorists be truly understood.
"Counter-terrorism has been for too long considered a responsive activity but this approach has been shown to be largely ineffective. By building a viritual world where terrorists, counter-terrorist authorities and civilians live, we can really start to understand how civilians progress from initial recruitment to final deployment," explained CTIU Team Leader, Holly Sims.
The group will apply for special fast-track funding from the Federal Government and will report on their work early in 2009.
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Beyond emissions reduction & Ocean acidification
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