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Games Entertainment

Japanese Man Arrested For Virtual Theft 219

Posted by michael from the watch-out-pk'ers dept.
Kethinov writes "The Daily Yomiuri is reporting that a 21-year-old man was arrested for "illegally accessing an Internet game server to sell a virtual 'house' owned by a woman to another game participant for 50,000 yen, police said Thursday. According to the MPD, Ryusei Sakano of Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, posed as a female game player he met online while playing 'Ultima Online,' a popular Internet-based game. Sakano reportedly asked the game's system administrator to provide the female player's entry password on the pretext that she had lost her password to the game.""
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Japanese Man Arrested For Virtual Theft More

Japanese Man Arrested For Virtual Theft

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  • Maybe they should virtually arrest him and give him a virtual fine or virtual jail!

    • Re:Virtual Arrest and Virtual Fine (Score:5, Funny)

      by D+iz+a+n+k+Meister ( 609493 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:27AM (#5300637) Journal
      Then he could virtually, uh, "drop the soap".
    • Maybe they should virtually arrest him and give him a virtual fine or virtual jail!

      I think the fact that real money was involved at some point (how much is ¥50k anyway?) is what's got the authorities involved. There was loads of this sort of thing with Diablo II I believe (not really an expert on these MMORPGs though, don't think real money got stolen, although there were a few auto-generated (i.e. fake - an interesting concept in a virtual world) items being sold, wern't there?).

      It seems as though this will be a new trend in/type of crime. I will be interested to see what the outcome of this one is, and let's not forget the poor sod who paid real money for this house, and got sold up the river. "I paid 50k Yen for this virtual house, and all I got was this lousy Tee-shirt!" *hehehehe* >)

      • Re:Virtual Arrest and Virtual Fine (Score:5, Informative)

        by Ninja Master Gara ( 602359 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @06:43AM (#5300813) Homepage
        ¥50,000 == $414.38

        Exchange is just over ¥120 to $1

      • There was loads of this sort of thing with Diablo II I believe (not really an expert on these MMORPGs though, don't think real money got stolen, although there were a few auto-generated (i.e. fake - an interesting concept in a virtual world) items being sold, wern't there?).

        Gee, I wonder if that could cause cause the collapse of a whole economy. Hmm, our economy is becoming more and more virtual ...

      • There's nothing virtual about the theft - as you say the money was real, so the theft was real.

        The property that was stolen was virtual, but the value of the virtual property in our meatspace was real, therefor the theft was real. I don't play Ultima Online, but the meatspace value of the property, according to other posts, was about $414.00. I suspect that the virtual value of the house was much more, at least tens of thousands of virtual dollars. I also suspect that the thief is being charged with stealing around $414, not tens of thousands.

        Now when the first person gets prosecuted in meatspace for virtual values (such as kicking a virtual dog in Ultima), that's news.
    • I've never played one of these games so I don't know how sophisticated they are but, aside from the actual fraud that has been (allegedly) committed, if the guy concerned had a UO account of his own, it would be interesting if his character could be placed in confinement (with guards) and not allowed to leave and resume normal activities for a period of time.

      • I've heard that done in Everquest. Apparently if you annoy the GMs enough they can dump you into a padded cell for a week, where you get to sit and contemplate your crimes. Don't know if the week is measured in real world time, or whether you have to actually be logged in for a week.

    • Re:Virtual Arrest and Virtual Fine (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      People who get all excited about virtual events in virtual reality online games should be sent for reeducation to an African village where real people are starving to real death, and the cost of a virtual house would feed everyone for a month.

      What a fucking waste of evolution.
  • 'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale
    Yomiuri Shimbun

    The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of illegally accessing an Internet game server to sell a virtual "house" owned by a woman to another game participant for 50,000 yen, police said Thursday.

    According to the MPD, Ryusei Sakano of Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, posed as a female game player he met online while playing "Ultima Online," a popular Internet-based game.

    Sakano reportedly asked the game's system administrator to provide the female player's entry password on the pretext that she had lost her password to the game.

    The police said Sakano then used the female player's password to illegally access the company's U.S. computer server for the game a total of seven times over a period of three months from September.

    According to the MPD, Sakano took advantage of the fact that the game's virtual gold pieces--used by players as a virtual currency--can be traded through bulletin boards. He sold a virtual house belonging to the female player valued at 25 million gold pieces for 50,000 yen, the police said.

    • Re:for the inevitable slashdotting.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Longinus ( 601448 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:48AM (#5300700) Homepage
      'Ultima Online' hacker arrested over 'house' sale
      ...
      Sakano reportedly asked the game's system administrator to provide the female player's entry password on the pretext that she had lost her password to the game.

      Oh yeah, that's some 31337 h@X0r1ng right there. Well, if nothing else, it once again proves that social engineering is most effective cracking tool.

    • How "virtual theft" so closely resembles regular old fraud.

  • 50,000 yen = about $417 (USD) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:27AM (#5300639)

    (just in case anyone was wondering)

    -- Guges

  • Finally!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sleeper ( 7713 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:31AM (#5300656)
    At last people are taking this stuff seriously...
    Now they just need to catch that guy who shows up here looking like me and screws up my karma.

    • Re:Finally!!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sleepr ( 650418 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @06:20AM (#5300763)
      Sleeper wrote "Now they just need to catch that guy who shows up here looking like me and screws up my karma."

      Microsoft R0X0rS! Linux sUx! In Soviet Russia, all your petrified Natalie Portman hot grits and f1rst p0sts belong to goatse.cx.

      Hrm, wait a sec... that won't work...

  • Virtual Real Estate (Score:5, Funny)

    by sssmashy ( 612587 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:32AM (#5300657)

    I knew the real estate market in Japan was pricey, but 50,000 yen for a "virtual" house???

    Sounds like some frustrated Japanese are desperate become homeowners they're willing to settle for houses that don't even exist in the material world....

  • Idiot Admin (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bartmoss ( 16109 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:32AM (#5300659) Homepage Journal
    Never reset/give out passwords without 100% proof of identity. That said, this is really a non-news item, except maybe as a footnote in entertainment history. There has been trade of "virtual property" (which really isn't different from other types of data/accounts), and this is just really plain old fraud.

    • Re:Idiot Admin (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xugumad ( 39311 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @06:27AM (#5300778)

      Okay, how? Short of the person turning up in person with photo ID, 100% proof of identity just isn't going to happen. On the other hand, posting the new password to the user's registered address would have made a lot more sense to me, or maybe just calling back with the password. Not foolproof, but it makes it non-trivial to get someone else's password.

      • Re:Idiot Admin (Score:3, Informative)

        by Bartmoss ( 16109 )
        For a game, using a registered (and verified during sign-up!) email address might be sufficient. For more serious issues, yes, photo-id should be required in my book. And handing out existing passwords is even worse than resetting a password, because many people re-use their passwords on other systems, or have some sort of system for their password choice, which could be guessed at by obtaining a sample.

        • Re:Idiot Admin (Score:3, Informative)

          by Lawbeefaroni ( 246892 )
          Well that and resetting the password will also tip off the legit user something is wrong (when they go to login with their old password and it doesn't work). Ideally you would re-set the password and email the new one to the user's registered email address.
        • Photo ID only works if the person and the card are both present...otherwise you just have a card with a photo on it, with no verification that the person who sent it is actually the person on the photo (not only that, but you have no idea who the person is who registered, so wtf are you going to do with the photo?).

          The best thing is telephone callback. Email can be too easily hacked, but a callback system with a preregistered phonenumber is pretty much foolproof.

      • Re:Idiot Admin (Score:3, Informative)

        by sfe_software ( 220870 )
        Okay, how? Short of the person turning up in person with photo ID, 100% proof of identity just isn't going to happen.

        In this case, *resetting* the password (changing it to something new) would have been much more appropriate. Given that he had been accessing the account over a period of three months, obviously the real account holder would have noticed that their password no longer worked by that time.

        I say, never *give out* the current password, only reset to something new after confirmation (using the correct email address, or providing some information that was provided upon account setup -- a "security question" perhaps). Not foolproof, but it would certainly stop someone from using a hijacked account for such a long period of time.
      • I work on occasion for .

        We work on the users laptops and frequently they give us wrong passwords for us to dial in with them. And finding them an beating it out of them with a grue takes time.

        So we just call up the helpdesk and ask for the password to be reset remotely.

        It's never failed yet. But then we have never pulled the trick of getting a male to request a password for a woman.

  • This sure isn't the first case of UO house fraud (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jarnis ( 266190 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:39AM (#5300681)
    Anyone who has followed/played UO over the years knows that all kind of fraud happens all the time. This case is notable because the guy both illegally accessed the account of another person by social engineering the password (this is clearly illegal in most countries), and surprisingly *got arrested* for his stunt. I could dig you numerous stories of people being frauded out of their virtual possessions thru old fashioned tricks or outright password stealing using trojans and social engineering emails designed to lure the victimg to disclose his account details.

    In previous cases these incidents have usually been ignored by law enforcement, as it's understandably hard to explain how someone 'stole' stuff from you when it's all bits on some game server. So most cases are handled by EA/Origin customer support, and while sometimes the stuff is restored by the game admins, there are plenty of cases when the thief got away scot free since the situation was 'word against word' and EA/Origin decided not to interfere.

    Looks like in this case the person losing the stuff went further than EA/Origin customer support and got law enforcement onto the case - and they actually responded and arrested the guy!

    • " In previous cases these incidents have usually been ignored by law enforcement, as it's understandably hard to explain how someone 'stole' stuff from you when it's all bits on some game server. [...] Looks like in this case the person losing the stuff went further than EA/Origin customer support and got law enforcement onto the case - and they actually responded and arrested the guy!"

      It probably helped that the thief put some monetary value on the stolen property as he was selling it.

      In my state, you can shoot my dog, you'll have a small fine for being cruel to an animal, and you'll have to pay me $10 for the depreciated value of the dog (assuming the dog is a mutt). But on the other hand, if you steal my dog and for some reason you sold it for $500, then that would constitute felony theft and there is a much better chance that the police and the court might be willing to get involved.

  • They can't let him get away with it. This is no different then posing as someone else on EBay or even making a commercial site that is very similiar to a real one (then you purchase a domain with a very smiliar name and wait for the typos). The problem is jurisdiction. If the hacker(criminal) wasn't Japanaese but American can the Japanese sue him? All online sites need to include in their EULA a clause saying that any illegal activity that takes place on their server can be tried in their country.

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This takes the cake for most non-newsworthy story of the month.

  • The world's oldest (male) profession... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:44AM (#5300693) Journal
    After virtual theft, can we expect to see virtual estate agents ("it's a real bargain, sir!"), virtual cops ("I'll track down your thief for a mere 10m gold pieces, ma'am!"), virtual lawyers ("my client was temporarily insane due to the pressure of game conformity, m'lod"), virtual punishments ("...and banished for life to MSN"), and virtual sex ("50m gold pieces and I'll tell you a nasty little secret..."). Can't wait.
    • virtual punishments

      IP/nick/account banning.

      virtual sex

      New to the internet, are we? :)

      Actually, having never played an MMORPG, I wonder if this still goes on. When I used to MUD, there was sex between characters all the time....

    • ... virtual punishments ("...and banished for life to MSN") ...

      Even "better" punishment: Recite 1000 spam everyday for 5 years....

    • Well, according to the FAQ, in the new Star Wars Galaxies game players who do not obey the laws (murdering, looting etc) can be declared outlaws. They can then be hunted down by virtual cops (bounty hunters, also other players) and get that virtual punishment (being killed).

      Such rough justice could only happen in a virtual environment, of course. Or Texas.

  • In Soviet Russia, Ultima Online sells YOU!

    Wait a sec, didn't it happen in the US too? OMG.

    Get a life, people, or else STAY IN SOVIET RUSSIA like you deserve. Bwahaha

  • sysadmin should be fined as well (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:47AM (#5300698)
    In the real world, the sysadmin should get a serious fine as well! I mean he is the key keeper of that very place.
    If I loose the key to my appartment, my landlord will definitely want to see some ID and so to check if I am really the one I say I am - the tenant of that very appartment on the 15th floor. If he would give someone else the key to my appartment and my stuff would be stolen, this landlord would be in deep trouble.
    When a computer user looses his password (key) the sysadmin (landlord) must make sure the claimer is truly the user (tenant) (s)he says (s)he is, before giving out the password.

    Totally agree the one getting the password gets fined for this action.
    The sysadmin however should also be punished for this.

    Wouter.
    • Scanning/faxing a copy of your ID is a really bothersome process if the person you're trying to verify the identity of has neither. It's not like you can just meet up by the apartment like in real life. If you have no valid contact info (wouldn't you normally have an e-mail address to send the pw to?), it's really hard to verify you're you. Maybe you have the CC data to verify with, but maybe you've outsourced that to a billing company and then you got pretty much nothing.

      Kjella

    • It wasn't a sysadmin (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14, 2003 @06:33AM (#5300789)
      All of the telephone support for UO is farmed out to some call center with inarticulate reps who don't actually play the game. I've called UO account support several times, and every single time wound up with someone who could barely speak English. These folks don't play UO, they don't have a clue how the game works, all they know is the scripts they've been given. They know how to enable an account, they sure know how to sell gametime codes, but if you mention "Pacific" or "Baja" (server names in UO) they have no idea what you're talking about.

      Worse, one time the rep proactively gave me the name of their internal customer tracking database (it's called "Catbert," apparently). This was without prompting. I was having a problem logging in to a specific shard, but this guy didn't have enough access to fix the problem. So he told me to call a different number and "tell them to fix your record in Catbert."

      Out of curiosity, I looked. Sure enough, catbert.owo.com is an actual host on their network. Lord only knows what kind of social engineering the word "Catbert" might allow one to get away with.

      Point being, there will always be weak links like this when your support contract goes to the lowest bidder. I seriously doubt that it was the "system administrator" who gave out the female player's password. It was more likely some guy in Singapore making $2.50/day to answer phone calls.

      • Re:It wasn't a sysadmin (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This wasn't always the case. EA has slowly farmed more and more support out to India over the years in an effort to reduce costs.

        Why? Because the support department is under the auspices of EA.com which contains little else other than customer support and the idiotic $150 million purchase called Pogo.com. Since all the online games are released under EA Games and the wholly EA owned studios that produced them all profits go into EA Games and then trickles to the studios. The only way EA.com "makes a profit" (theoretically since it never has) is to bill the individual studios for customer support time. And in the age old tradition of shafting employees and attempting to maximize profits they charge upwards of $40/hour for a US customer support rep to support a studio's game (while paying that rep around $10/hour or $3-$4 less than even a Dell phone tech). The Indian support team is even cheaper which is why more and more work has been farmed out to them (you will also find this at Dell if you call during off peak hours). Thus while EA as a whole posts record profits on record revenue, EA.com and the support team keeps getting whittled away.

        And you are actually wrong about the Indian guys not playing. They do play, but the their level of knowledge is not high and the language barrier is a big problem. After months of assisting custoemr they usually get as good as a newbie US support member, but at that point they are usually "transfered to another team" or some such and a new batch of clueless, language impaired newbs is forced on the US support staff.

        Knowing the name of the internal DB gets you very little, and I doubt the main article's story got all its facts right (unless the Japanese support team has begun ignoring the rules again) as very few support personnele have access to the passwords themselves. Billing verification must also be made first.

        Catbert is little more than a basic stats/usage and notation device. Most data stored in it relates to actions that have been taken against an account by the support service for violations and whatnot. If he was instructing you to have them "fix your account in catbert" it probably means that you were penalty boxed (either for bad behaviour of by accident) and a GM needed to remove the PB (if accident) and note your account as to why the PB was removed.

        Don't knock the US half of the support team (though you probably get to see less and less of them) as they are a dedicated bunch of wonderful people working their guts out trying to do the right thing.

        If you want to blame someone, go after the soul crushing company that is grinding them into dust. Rumor has it EA is ready to lay off most of EA.com to "improve profits" and shift the support team from Austin to LA (where they just crushed and relocated what's left of Westwood to).

        You think MS is evil? Try talking to an EA exec for 20 minutes. See if you can resist punching them in the mouth.

  • wow (Score:1, Funny)

    by odyrithm ( 461343 )
    According to the MPD, Sakano took advantage of the fact that the game's virtual gold pieces--used by players as a virtual currency--can be traded through bulletin boards. He sold a virtual house belonging to the female player valued at 25 million gold pieces for 50,000 yen, the police said.

    are these gold pieces to yen what yen is to USDs? ;)
    • hrmmm sometimes I wonder about moderators, not all.. but those few who dish out troll like this obviously are trolls themselves.
      • watch, Ill get a flamebait for that.. things would be more fair if we could see whos modding us.
        • (i didn't mod you parent comment)

          Sorry dude, I got mod points but just posted comments. :/
          Oh well, If it helps heres a virtual (+1 Funny)!
          Or is that a virtual, virtual +1?
          Or is that a virtual, real +1?
          Or is that... hmm where exactly am I?
          AAAAARRRRRGH, it's The Matrix all over again.

  • TMI in case of women. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:53AM (#5300716)
    Why is it that the other player was necessarily called female player twice? We already knew she was a woman. A man would hardly have been repeatedly called "a male player". I could understand it if she was "a klingon player" or something. And, this happens all the time - as if women were a rare and unique species. I wouldn't call it sexism, really, just TMI.

  • Thinking about it.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14, 2003 @05:55AM (#5300721)
    There must be some huge houses in UO. Back when I played the game, a good three years back, I saw some large houses that were full packed to the walls with stuff. All hoarded by the owners. Usually gangs of Player Killers but sometimes genuine people too. UO was such a crazy game back in the day. All the bugs that let people get into your house etc.. quite humourous. Of course, the duping period was fun too.

    Anyone remember Skunk Works?

    The point is .. UO must have some pretty major players who own *alot* of stuff if the world hasn't been wiped since I played. If people have stuck around since then, they must own lots.

    I can see the appeal of selling a good character, its like allowing someone to win the UO lottery.. for a price, they get to enjoy all the rewards they may not have been able to get.

    • Re:Thinking about it.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The point is .. UO must have some pretty major players who own *alot* of stuff if the world hasn't been wiped since I played. If people have stuck around since then, they must own lots.


      I can see the appeal of selling a good character, its like allowing someone to win the UO lottery.. for a price, they get to enjoy all the rewards they may not have been able to get.
      You're not kidding. I played for 3 years, and in July of last year I sold off my two accounts as one package. I recouped every penny I'd paid for membership fees and the copies of the game themselves. In the end, not counting the value of the time I spent playing, I essentially wound up playing the game for 3 years absolutely free.

      You might be surprised if you take a look on eBay, castles are up now and then, large towers are up for sale fairly often. $400 or so isn't unusual. There was just a new expansion released, which apparently added more land for housing, so the housing prices on eBay will probably drop for awhile. But if you can be one of the lucky ones to place (or buy with ingame gold) a larger house, you're in for some serious cash.

    • So, if these houses and sh*t have "value" that can be defrauded, can I be arrested if, in the game, my character breaks in and takes stuff? I can then sell what I take. Is this REAL theft?


      Of course not. I think I'll give a shot to UO and be a frickin thief...perhaps blend my UO character with that of Thief II's Garrett.


      • You play by the game rules, the game rules and laws apply.

        You go beyond, like what the man did, other rules and laws apply.

        At any point if enough people say something is wrong/prohibited, you better have a good reason to disagree, coz you may have to give up your freedom or even life to do so.

        Also look at sports, some rule books have grown over the years. Often when a rule is added, its because someone broke an unwritten rule enough times.

  • I don't get it... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ..where is the crime?

    • Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Duds ( 100634 ) <dudley&enterspace,org> on Friday February 14, 2003 @06:37AM (#5300799) Homepage Journal
      People buy online items for real money on occasion.

      This man fraudently obtained the online item but getting the password and then sold it for real money.

      so he's guilty of fraud for a start.

    • Easy.


      He gained access to something he didn't have a right to access, by stealing the password. He then sold - or at least got money for -something he didn't own. The fact that the property is virtual is besides the point; obviously someone didn't want it stolen, and some one else was villing to shell out hard cash for it


      There is one word for such things; Fraud

      • He gained access to something he didn't have a right to access, by stealing the password. He then sold - or at least got money for -something he didn't own. The fact that the property is virtual is besides the point; obviously someone didn't want it stolen, and some one else was villing to shell out hard cash for it

        Nice summary. What some people don't get is what he stole was virtual property. In one way, this is similar to intellectual property in that the woman had spent CONSIDERABLE time playing in order to earn enough to buy this virtual house. If he were allowed to "keep" this house, this would the same as stealing the amount of time it took her to get it.

        This is worse than stealing your code in one respect, because if someone stole your code, you could still use it. In this case, the time she spent obtaining the "house" was unrecoverable because she was denied the use of it.

    • Re:I don't get it... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The crime is due to the fact that there is no difference between someone stealing the "real" bits in your bank account that represent the time you spent flipping burgers (or writing code or whatever) and stealing the "virtual" bits in your Ultima Online account that represent the time you spent amassing game items.

      If someone obtains your password by illegitimate means and empties your account of bits, how could it be a crime with one type of account and not with another? After all, you spent time amassing the bits in either type of account.

      When time from people's lives is stolen, it's so often expressed in terms of the unit of measurement that we call money that it's easy to forget that the value of what was stolen is due to someone's investment of time. Everything you own is the result of an investment of time.
      • Even better in this case of how long it's taken me to get the sodding work PC to do anything I want it to :)
      • Actually, there is a difference in "real" value. But to follow your train of "thought", it can get even worse. All of your money is made from thin air. When you deposit money in a bank, they can loan out X% of it (say over 90%), depending on what the Fed currently requires the banks to keep on hand. They collect the interest on the loans and loan out that money and collect the interest, etc. If (and it's a big if) I remember my Money and Banking 410 class right, depositing $X can ultimately *create* over $10X, over whatever number of years. Almost makes me wish I were a banker, instead of a coder.
    • I believe the previous replies are on the right track here. The actual crime is fraud (and hacking, of course). The criminal sold access to a privilege or service to which he did not, himself, have lawful access. You might think of it as if he obtained access to a membership in an exclusive golf course, then tried to sell that membership to someone else. Of course, the golf course and club still retain all the hard assets, but the membership in the club has a certain value, too.
    • Theft:
      The woman owned the stuff.

      This guy took it away from her by using methods against Game rules, and against real world law.

      Fraud:
      The buyer was tricked into paying for stolen stuff.

      Note: Not the same as copyright infringement because the woman no longer has her house after it was sold.
  • If this were to be criminal in South Korea I'm sure that a large portion of the Diablo 2 playing population would be jailed immediately. MMORPG'ers beware.
  • ...getting arrested for trying to sell an item in a computer game?!

    I'm sure Microsoft is not far behind, with the gambling debt I ran up in Vegas-mode solitaire. Will I get punished extra for resetting my score everytime I went into the red?

  • Is 50,000 JPY (I know, I know: about $400+ USD) a good price for a 25,000,000 GP house on Ultima Online? What will this do to property values on UO? Will we see speculation take over in the online real (sorta) estate market?

  • Which house did he sell? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cappy Red ( 576737 ) <miketoon.yahoo@com> on Friday February 14, 2003 @07:54AM (#5300998)
    I can see this man's early days...


    West of House
    You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
    >examine house
    The house is a beautiful colonial house which is painted white. It is clear that the owners must have been extremely wealthy.
    >sell house
    You sucessfully find a buyer, but before escrow closes, the house's owner returns and has you arrested. The authorities take you to...

    The Big House
    You are in a small dank room, previously occupied by your fellow inmate "Gorgeous Bubba". Gorgeous Bubba actually still lives in the cell, but he is "out" at the moment.

    There are no exits.
    >examine bars
    You can't do anything here. Just wait for your court date.
    >wait
    Time passes...
    Eventually, the guards come and take you to the hearing.

    The Courtroom
    There are all sorts of people about you. Some of them have cameras. You are sitting at a cold wooden desk in an uncomfortable wooden chair, and wondering what the heck is going on.

    Your lawyer enters the room.
    >examine lawyer

    You are defended by a grue.


    *honk*

  • CowboyNeal (Score:2, Funny)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 )
    I WAS going to post as an AC saying I was CowboyNeal, and I had forgotten my password, so I could gain access to his account.

    Then I saw his website and discovered he didn't have anything worth stealing.

  • He's goin' down (Score:2, Interesting)

    by royalblue_tom ( 557302 )
    So he used a social engineering attack to illegally enter a computer system, and manipulated the data therein for his own profit.

    If this was in the US, they'dd be locking him up for 30 years as a hacker terrorist ...

  • Try an E-Bay Search (Score:3, Informative)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Friday February 14, 2003 @09:31AM (#5301542) Homepage Journal
    Search E-Bay for "Ultima Online" or "Everquest" sometime. I've seen prices go well over $1,000 USD there for primo accounts. Bidding for 1 Million gold on Ultima Online usually starts at somewhere between $10 USD and $20 USD. We did a quick back of the napkin calculation of the worth of one virtual character based on that and decided that if he put his mind to it, he could probably sell his stuff for in the neighborhoold of $9,000 USD. I've heard of companies being formed to collect Everquest stuff for sale on E-Bay.

  • Bedroom entrepenaur (Score:2, Interesting)

    by YAN3D ( 552691 )
    I have a friend who used to play diablo II. Being the resorceful guy that he is, he figured out a loophole in the game that gave him the most powerful items in the game with relative ease. So he would sit there for hours and hours amassing powerful items and selling them on ebay for anything from $5.00 to $350 a pop. He had a really lucrative business going until someone compromised battlenet and released millions of each powerful item which made the items worthless.

    I think he said he made over $20,000 over the corse of one year selling virtual items.

  • *RING*

    Tech support guy: "EA Tech support. How can I help you?"

    MAN: "Yes, I forgot my password."

    TS: "Okay, what's your name?"

    MAN: "Jane Doe."


    Does anyone else see the problem with that?

  • This would be a non-issue if it took a week to sell property in these games.

    Well, the issue of an idiot admin giving the password to the wrong person is very real as well, and should not be possible. The password should only be delivered via snail mail for purposes of privacy, or if some other signature/certificate system is used, via online methods, but there's no adequate way to prove identity over the phone. It's too easy to get other people's information.

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