Surely this can't keep happening

The most bonkers pattern in video game leaks has happened again. Not a leak of a video game, mind you. But a leak of classified military information in order to win a fight on an internet forum for War Thunder, a game about tanks.

This is somehow the third time this has happened on the War Thunder forums. The first happened in July 2021, as a War Thunder ??player posted clas?sified documents in an effort to prove a point about one of the in-game tanks.

Later that year, the same thing happened again. A player got into an argument about a French battle tank, and to win the sparring match, they posted a part of the tank manual. It led to this message from the moderators, via Kotaku: "Guys its not funny to leak classified Documents of modern equipment you put the lives of many on stake who work daily with the Vehicles! Keep in ?Mind that those documents will be deleted immediately alongside san?ctions. Thanks for reading!"

Now, as detailed by the UK Defense Journal, it seems to have happened a third time. A forum user posted documents about a Chinese DTC10-125 round. Forum moderators swiftly removed the post, saying "material??s related to the DTC10-125 are classified in China."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjG3rOKGWGc

Tanks for the memories

We won't share the images here, obviously. But it is absolutely wild that this keeps happening. Video game forums can always get a bit weird, but leaking cl?assified info is a bit m?uch.

War Thunder development has since banned the user, and sent a statement over to Kotaku:

"Our community managers immediately banned the user and deleted his post, as the information on this particular shell is still classified in China. Publishing classified information on any vehicle of any nation at War Thunder forums is clearly prohibited, and the game develop??ers never use it in their work??.

"While we understand that our players want the game to be as realistic as possible, we’re kindly asking them not to do anything illegal and jeopardise their safety, as well as safety of our community team members. The developers of War Thunder do their best to research information on vehicles using legally available tools, and scandals like this are clearly not useful for our ef??forts."

It's good that the team is so swift at handling such a bizarre situation. I'd guess it's not what they initially signed up for when becoming moderators of a video game forum. Maybe third time's the charm in teaching War Thunder forum-goers to stop leaking information?

The post Classified military info once again ?leaks out on a ta?nk game forum appeared first on Destructoid.

A forum debate gets a little spicy

Forums have, for time immemorial, been home to arguments that escalate well beyond any rational level of debate. A recent dust-up in the forums for War Thunder, though, might take the cake.

War Thunder, developed by Gaijin Entertainment, is a multiplayer vehicular combat game, positioned as the "most comprehensive" MMO military game, dedicated to aviation, armored vehicles, and naval craft ranging from the early 20th century ?to modern day. One of those vehicles is the Challenger 2, a battle tank in service with the British Army.

As reported by the UK Defence Journal, a player who identifies themselves as a commander of a Challenger 2 argued that War Thunder's portrayal isn't quite accurate. And in an effort to prove their po??int??, they posted images from the Challenger 2 AESP (Army Equipment Support Publication, essentially the user's manual) to show that it wasn't modeled correctly.

The images have since been deleted, but the Journal's report says the?? document ??had the "UK RESTRICTED" label crossed out and a stamp of "UNCLASSIFIED" added. Additional sections were reportedly fully blanked.

Templar_, a senior technical moderator, replied with the following:

"We have written confirmation fro??m MoD that this document remains classified. By continuing to disseminate it you are in violation of the Official Secrets Act as stated by th??e warning on the cover of the document, an offence which can carry up to a 14 year prison sentence if prosecuted. Of this you are already aware, as a service person you have signed a declaration that you understand the act and what actions it compels you to take. Every time you post this you place us (International representatives of Gaijin), especially any UK citizens, in hot water as the warning so helpfully states that unauthorised retention of a protected document is an offence."

So, yikes. Community manager "Smin1080p" also commented on the post, saying that before any discussion or bug reports are made, "proof of this documents declassification will be required as well as ?where it was sourced from."

"Last time such a document was s?hared that was claimed to be 'unclas??sified' it was in fact still classified and was confirmed that it should never have been shared," they write. "We make it very clear that we will not handle any source material unless it is publicly available and fully declassified with the rights to prove that."

I have seen some people get into some really bizarre, hilarious arguments over the years. I've seen them settled in all sorts of manner. I have never seen anything like this.

The post War ??Thunder player posts classified documents in arg??ument over in-game accuracy of a tank appeared first on Destructoid.