The U.S. Intelligence community is looking into World of Warcraft and other MMOs, aiming to create software that will pick out extremists and terrorists in online worlds. The news comes from a report from the Director of National Intelligence, and discusses what's being called "The Reynard Project," which will profile online gaming behavior with the goal of "automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.”

It'll accomplish its objectives by studying cultural and behavioral norms in online worlds, says RINF News. It looks like the Intelligence Department thinks it's possible to flag and detect suspicious behavior through an automated system. The scope of the project includes developing software to automatically identify faces, events and objects in video, a surveillance system with a corresponding threat warning system, and a tool to access databases to find patterns of bad behavior.

Given the human-behind-every-avatar factor, the Intelligence Department's goals seem more than a bit lofty. One need only look at the constantly evolving challenge of moderating and ensuring the safety of kids in environments like Club Penguin -- during the kids' worlds panel at the Worlds in Motion Summit, Club Penguin's Lane Merrifield explained that maintaining safety in the environment is a round-the-clock job that requires continuous live moderation, suggesting that automated behavior monitoring is impossible.

Why, exactly? Because Club Penguin users can learn and develop their own ways around the restrictions, of course. If a kids' world can't create automation to prevent 12 year olds from swearing, it seems doubtful that the government could automate behavior tracking for determined and organized violent adults.