Scammers Continue to Wreak Havoc in MMO's

eldavojohn writes "We're all well aware of the scams that sometimes happen in online games like Eve Online. But despite this looking primarily like a problem with Eve Online, the MIT Technology Review brings us stories from Second Life and the very real $700,000 (USD) in Linden Dollars that has recently disappeared in what is appearing to be a classic ponzi scheme by a company named Ginko Banking. Unbelievably high interest rates coupled with some shady withdrawal limits leads to classic epic losses to investors. Eve Online was merely virtual currency but Second Life has a real monetary value associated with Linden Dollars & therefore is certain to see more and more scams pop up like this. How can Linden Labs set up a safety net to catch things like this?"

Re:It's a game

[elrous0]

Second Life doesn't isn't really a "game." It's more like a "virtual world."

Re:They shouldn't

[ByOhTek]

That's actually more of a conservative than liberal philosophy.

The liberal/communist theory is to have the government and the world protect the fool and his/her assets.

The conservative/capitalists idea is the "your money, your responsibility" philosophy.

You might want to go back to school.

Virtual NSA, virtual FBI

[Animats]

Already happening. From a Linden Labs press release: The company also introduced algorithms that identify suspicious activity...

A virtual world is a total surveillance society. Everything can be logged. More than that, what you do there can be analyzed automatically.

Big Brother is watching. Big Brother is always watching.

Re:They shouldn't

[rednip]

Let people be stupid.

" Before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, there was little regulation of securities in the United States at the Federal level." [wikipedia.org], banking also has strict regulation. Now we find that, ('surprise') tight(er) controls on Investing/Banking in the virtual world is also needed. However, thanks to the 'containerized' nature of these virtual economies, I believe that federal regulation is not needed. Instead these communities need to consider getting some real professional advice before allowing this sort of activity. Not merely checking to see compliance with the appropriate laws, but using their experience and insights to create 'internal' regulation and a quick response to new threats. I would suggest that they actively pursue programmers from regulated field as well as legal staff.

To survive, virtual economies like real ones, need to have the people's confidence.

So maybe you are a prick?

[Sycraft-fu]

:D All kidding aside, while the "consequences" of EVE may be fun to you and some others the grand parent has a point. World of Warcraft has more people logged on at once than most games have total subscribers. This is not a coincidence, it is because people find it fun. One of the reasons is because WoW is a game that doesn't punish you. You can do what you want to do and not have to worry about major set backs. It is something like a single player game in which you get to save as often as you want: You may not always be able to move forwards, but you don't have to move backwards. That appeals to a whole lot of people, and they are not wrong for liking it.

Also the grand parent does have something on the mentality of the kind of people who are drawn to a game like EVE. There are people out there whole delight in causing pain to others, and EVE is a game that allows them to do that. As such you are going to get a concentration of certain kinds of players in it, kinds of players that many might accurately call pricks.

Re:They shouldn't

[Original Replica]

The libertarian idea is the "your money will soon be our responsibility, because it will soon be our money"

I think you might be confusing libertarian and liberal. Libertarian's and more along the line of "You got scammed? Haha. Noob. I guess you'll pay more attention next time, won't you." Conversely liberals tend to want to regulate everything (including your money) to make the world "fair".

This problem has already been solved

[ClubPetey]

LL or CCP (makers of EVE) can stop this the same way real credit card companies find fraud. Velocity.

Given that all monetary transactions go through a single transaction system. Those transactions can be monitored by a set of fraud rules. I'll use EVE as an example, since I play the game. Rules would be like:

- Player donations into an account of X ISK over Y hours exceeds Z
    (probably hacked accounts feeding a central account)

- Player donations out of account of X ISK to more than Y different players
    (probably an ISK-seller)

- Player donations into an account from more than X players over Y hours
    (could be ponzi schemes)

Each scam that comes up will have a pattern in monetary transactions that can be flagged using these rules. once an account is flagged, a security representative can review the specifics of the account and determine if it is potentiall fraud, and perhaps suspend the account.

Human interaction is critical here, because the rules are not perfect. For example, the last rule would trigger for most EVE-Radio DJs that run lottos during their on-air time. A perfectly legitimate concept. That where the addition of a white list becomes useful.

A few hours or days with an "expert" who works for a major bank would help curb these issue somewhat. The bad news is, these systems only work when installed in the core of the transaction system. Only LL/CCP can solve this problem, and they have to WANT to solve it.