War Thunder is a combat game where players compete through their virtual war vehicles. But things took a very real turn when the participants started exchanging classified documents.
The documents concerned tanks of the French, British and Chinese army. And it seems that by posting these files, the players just wanted to show that they were right.
The secret-defense manual of a military tank published on the forum War Thunder
It all started in 2021, when one of the players of War Thunder posted on the game’s forum the manual for a British army tank, the Challenger 2. He justified himself by saying that he simply wanted to show the game developers that their replica of this tank was not absolutely accurate. The document was partly masked, and bore the words ” UNCLASSIFIED “(“unclassified”, “non-confidential”), over the original mention “ UK RESTRICTED (“Restricted to UK”).
Gaijin Entertainment, the game studio War Thunder, initially protested by refusing to remove the document from the platform when it appeared to have been downgraded. But a forum moderator quickly realized that the document was indeed still classified as a defense secret.
Repeated incidents that could have serious consequences
A few months later, the same event happened again. A user has published two documents about the French military tank Leclerc S2. He wanted to show his comrades a technical detail about the rotation speed of the tank’s turret, so he simply posted the manual on the forum. This same user said he was himself a tanker at the controls of the Leclerc S2. The documents were immediately deleted, but the exchanges are still on the forum.
In turn, a third user published the manual for a Chinese army tank, DTC10-125. All the documents have now been removed from the forum, but they were all effectively classified as defense secret by their respective armies and governments. It must be said that this confidential information on the operation of the tanks is of major strategic importance.
Source : The Washington Post
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