And I thought that the average Xbox Live gamer and intelligence were diametrically opposed. UK intelligence agency GCHQ (Government Communitcation Headquaters, thank you Koss!) has been putting adverts, like the one pictured, on the Xbox Live dashboard (the Guardian reports). GCHQ answers to David Milliband (the UK’s foreign secretary) and deals with MI5 and MI6 (the British security and secret intelligence services. But it’s easier to say spys.) So, spys (or to be more precise, the advertising agency TMP) are using Xbox live to recruit new members because they “reflected in game-play experiences on Xbox, such as quick thinking, problem solving and team work”. (Insert obvious joke about spys pwning n00bs and teabagging corpses). Apparently, as well as conventional threats, they’re looking for 18-35 year olds (the Xbox’s target demographic) because “GCHQ’s work is also about helping government departments, such as the Ministry of Defence, to protect their information and communication systems.” So, protecting the systems against 1337 h@XX0rz then. I’m not quite sure what to make of this story. My experiences with Xbox live would suggest that the sort of people who congregate there are not the sort you’d want national security to depend on. On the other hand, it might get them out of their mother’s basements.