And the think tanks always seem to get it wrong.

I am currently trying to survive my second year in law school and simultaneously manage my debilitating World of Warcraft addiction. I think we should send as many copies of the game as we can to every suspected terrorist in the world. Once they start leveling up and realize how much work it is to grind reputation to exalted with all the factions, they will understand all that the U.S. has gone through to become the world's only superpower. Alternatively, they will just be too busy raiding for Epics to want to blow us up anymore.

Seriously, the game is a drug, don't start playing it.

the big fear that terrorists would communicate by encoding messages into jpegs and distribute them by making fake Ebay auctions? It sounds like a bad Get Smart episode (actually probably a good Get Smart episode), but I know I heard this somewhere a few years back. Anyone else remember this?

I hope our vigilant security pros will be alert for the giveaway signs of WoW-based terrorists:

Suspicious numbers of Washington "tourists" wearing huge, elaborate shoulder-pieces which prevent them from raising their arms.

Large, hairy foreign nationals entering the country under names like Sirloin, Moomoomore, Moomoomagic, and Moontouched.

A falloff in the restaurant business as increasing numbers of visitors conjure their own croissants and glacier water.

Outbreaks of lascivious dancing on the Capitol steps by large groups of people in their underwear.

It's all there if you only look for it.

Terrorists could also communicate by making listener calls to conservative radio talk shows and using code phrases in their comments. They could cover a wide area that way, and (even better) the message recipients could never be traced.

Does this mean we should take Rush Limbaugh off the air?

In the modern world, it is simply an impossibility to inhibit or track coded communications. There is simply too much data flying around to spot a cleverly hidden message. I can think of dozens of ideas off the top of my head, and I haven't even spent years of my life filled with religious fervor and wanting to bring down the West as many of these clever people have done.

This whole notion is kind of like the false argument that we shouldn't elect Obama because he'd be as risk for assassination. American presidents don't avoid assassination because nobody wants them dead, they do so because the secret service people are very good at their jobs. Likewise terrorist plots aren't inhibited by an inability to communicate them, but by a lack of means to accomplish them.

I wonder sometimes if America filled with a bunch of fear-filled cowards afraid of their own shadows. Somehow lots of us have bought into the idea that we are somehow invincible. Could it be our entertainment which often features a single person wiping out an entire army of bad guys but never getting hurt? Who knows... but whatever the reason, this wishful thinking is not a luxury we can afford to enjoy. We are vulnerable, and we should accept it and deal with it. Toughen-up, you armchair warriors afraid of the sight of your own blood, because your ham-handed attempts to accomplish the impossible are actually putting all of us, yourselves included, at greater risk.

By all means, we need to prohibit the spread of dangerous weapons, and engage in the kind of detective work that actually has a chance of stopping this kind of thing before it happens. But I for one am fed up with this monster-in-the-closet mentality, and I strongly hope that the rest of the hand-wringers in this country grow a metaphorical pair and join me in refusing to live their lives in fear. The vast majority of us all aren't going to die in a terrorist attack anyhow, the end will much more likely be in a very pedestrian way like an auto accident, from obesity related illness, or even inglorious colon cancer. Won't it be sad when that day comes and people will have wasted their lives worrying instead of enjoying themselves?

have interested me ever since I celebrated my birthday on-line in Runescape. My kids were at after school care, and I was at home. I received many beautiful gifts (which were eventually stolen from me).

I am an adult woman who plays World of Warfare. The goal is get my kids to take a break from playing it and be aware of what goes on. I believe that people are creative in these games and anything can be done. Of course, any plan can be foiled by someone else suddenly coming along and killing your avatar. As one writer suggests, players get so addicted that they might forget the real world. It is certainly easier to fight and make explosions in a virtual world.

Actually, rumor has it that the US Marine Corps started this whole thing with a patched copy of the old "Doom" first-person shooter. It occurred to somebody that, since you can design your own settings in the game, that somebody should create digital models of all our Embassies, which the Marines are responsible for guarding. That way, if any Embassy was seized and Special Operations Forces went in to recapture it, they'd have a 3-D model of the place that they could "walk through," and know how long it takes to run down a certain corridor, which way a door swings, how high a certain window is off the ground and so forth.

These days we have dedicated digital planning tools for just such uses, but it's another example of somebody finding a new use for something that already exists, then the new idea becomes mainstream (and profitable).

As for the comment about Google Earth, true enough; we've found commercial overhead images of US and UK bases in Iraq on captured insurgent computers, with things like command posts and ammo dumps labeled with coordinates (probably for mortar fire). The images were usually outdated, but big targets like those generally don't move around much. I gues we aren't the only ones who adapt and innovate...