yeah, i just wanted to revisit this incident with some additional insight for those who might have overlooked it…there was a very interesting (albeit terrifying) article in us news and world report on may 17th (2004) about a national security scare based on flawed osint: “It was the lead item on the government’s daily threat matrix one day last April. Don Emilio Fulci, described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C. That day even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed on the Fulci matter. But as the day went on without incident, a White House staffer had a brainstorm: He Googled Fulci. His findings: Fulci is the crime boss in the popular video game Headhunter. “Stand down,” came the order from embarrassed national security types.”- this citation is via lawmeme at yale law school

the word from some “gamer types” was that this was all rooted in government misinterpretation of exactly what the “engrish” phrase AYBABTU means

(which is “all your base are belong to us” - from an old game called zero wing- supposedly, fulci had issued this warning (sometimes shortened to just “AYB“)

for me, this raises (for the umpteenth time) very real questions about information reliability and credibility regarding information sources (via humint and/or osint )…oh, and interestingly, this is the subject of a new course to be taught by paul duguid (of xerox parc)who also wrote a great book which wrestles with the ‘social life of information‘ - his course is going to be about “judging the authenticity of information found on the web”

on an explanatory aside, the threat matrix is “an alarming top-secret document that warns the president of daily threats against the United States” (per abc news, which offers a much deeper detail on origins and nature of the daily report at this article during a discussion of a tv show rooted in this document’s mystery)

of course, the first post at lawmeme suspects a bored teenager, perhaps a ‘clever marketer’ at sega (makers of the game headhunter), …but there’s one very interesting post and comment about this issue - at the museum of hoaxes blog - a comment author proposes that the entire thing is a hoax, as follows “The search (Don Emilio Fulci) returns 3,380 pages, the first 90 or so refer to the FBI story, as it was regurgitated on blogs, several sites in Germany and Russia, you name it, it was all over the place. By the time you get into the 150-ies, things peter out to “Don”, “Fulci” (Don’t torture the Duckling) and finally “Don’t”…but absolutely no mention of a game character called “Don Emilio Fulci” and I very much doubt the boss of the FBI would have even gotten to page 13, if he looked at all. (Searches on “Fulci” or “Don Fulci” turn up similar results)…There is a game called Headhunter (Sega) and it appears to contain a character called Don Fulci — I don’t know about the “Emilio” part — but see if you can find any reference to both the game and the character. Yes, I did or at least one of my computers did and if you ask me nicely I might even tell you, but the point is : see how far the willing suspension of disbelief goes these days when the US or it’s intelligence agencies are involved ?” - bear in mind that his searches are specific to date of posting that comment, results may vary for you ;)

more proof, i suppose, that baseless assumptions abound based on internet findings….surprised? i didn’t think so. you can buy the full us news and world report article at their site.

…oh, and the link to that headhunter game…

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