War Thunder is a massively multiplayer online game in which players can control planes, tanks, and jet fighters from different times in history.
The game is free to play, but it has been getting a lot of attention lately because of a series of leaks that involved real military systems. These leaks have made people wonder how dangerous this kind of behavior is and why the people who did it did it.
The last time this happened was in June 2022, when technical details about a Chinese armor-piercing sabot round called the DTC 10 125 millimeter APF SDS were leaked. This information was kept secret in China, and the system itself is thought to be a state secret that must be carefully guarded.
But this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened with War Thunder.
Real Military Secrets Exposed: The Leak Problem in War Thunder
In July 2021, a user leaked information about the UK’s Challenger 2 main battle tank. The Ministry of Defense told the game’s developer, Gaijin Entertainment, that the documents were not supposed to be public.
In October 2021, a former member of the French military gave the game developers documents that showed the speed of the Leclerc main battle tank’s turret in the game was wrong.
These leaks make me wonder about a lot of things. First of all, how risky is this? The level of security of the information that was leaked and the country in question will both matter.
In the case of the Challenger 2 main battle tank, for example, the UK’s Ministry of Defense confirmed that the documents were not meant to be made public and that making them public could lead to a 14-year prison sentence under the Official Secrets Act.
Who are these leakers, anyway?
Some of them look like they used to be in the military and worked on these platforms in some way. But they post on a public forum under a fake name, which makes it hard to find out who they are.
Also, even if the developer wanted to find out who they really were, they might not tell law enforcement unless they were asked to.
Gaijin Entertainment, the company that made War Thunder, has said that the vehicles in the game are based on information that is available to the public. This means that even if a player finds out that a certain part of a vehicle isn’t right, the developer won’t change the game based on classified information.
But this doesn’t change the fact that classified information has been leaked through the game’s forums.
A recent thread on the game’s subreddit says that the US government is asking people who want to work at arms manufacturers if they play War Thunder or not.
This makes people worry about how playing this game might affect their chances of getting a job, especially if they want to work in the military or make weapons.
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