Living in the Metaverse

Sophrosine drawn my attention to a story about a woman who spend her free hours doing counter-terrorist from her own bedroom. Both articles are well worh reading (though Wired's one is five pages, so grab your coffee before starting). In short, Shannen Rossmiller spent years building characters in on-line communities where al Qaeda members and wanna-be's hang. Her freelance undercover activities led to many arests. The next quote is a spoiler and is about one of her on-line identities Abu Musa: 

"Do you want to see Abu Musa?" she asks me suddenly, as if he were hiding in the closet. She clicks on some files and up comes a picture of a fairly dashing man with a pair of hip glasses and one of those jaw-defining beards. He's wearing a fashionable kafia around his neck, and his posture is catalog-ready. Of course, Abu Musa is his jihadi name. His "real" name is Walid Ali Mustaffa. She scrolls through his biography. On December 17, 2003, Abu Musa was involved in a truck explosion that killed nearly 30 people outside the Mount Lebannon Hotel in Baghdad.

Not long after his interactions with Hakim [a terrorist who was arrested after Rossmiller's action], Abu Musa was martyred by Rossmiller. "Abu Musa had been used enough," she says, pointing at the screen. "Here's the last one," she says. "An insurgent gun battle in Ramadi. August 21, 2005. That's when he dies." Rossmiller is serious, almost solemn. "I have a hard time letting go of these guys, because I kinda become them. When you develop a personality, you essentially morph into it. It's hard to let it go. He's the one I cried the most for."

I understand her. It is hard to leave a character, even if it was made for a purpose and never intended to be attached to it. For, to make it alive, one has to give a piece of own life to it. Read more…