DDoS Attacks Cripple Real Money Trading Sites

WhaddayaMeanIHaveToLevelUpTheOldWay writes "A massive denial of service attack has disabled some of the world's largest virtual goods trading sites. The Korea-based sites hit by the attack are responsible for most of the country's estimated $1bn annual trade in virtual gold, weapons and other items for games like World of Warcraft. Local press reports are blaming Chinese botnet controllers for the attacks and claim that this is an extortion attempt. The sites affected have been offline for four days and reportedly handle more than 90 percent of Korea's online item trading — a business now worth more than $3m a day, according to Korean government statistics."

Oblig.

[orclevegam]

I for one welcome our new gold farmer DDoSing overlords.

No, seriously, I do, put em all out of business.

Re:

[djones101]

I agree entirely. Serves the gold farmers right, they're getting a taste of the very same medicine they dish out to everyone else.

Re:

[ILuvRamen]

I SECOND THAT! Those jerks are jamming the servers on my game. Half the day nobody from the US can get on because there's so many gold bots. They're practically DDOSing the game itself so it's perfectly reasonable payback. And plus all their chinese gold that they sell is coated in lead.
btw it only takes a couple people to actually shut down one of them. If you know of a gold selling website, just scan it for e-mail addresses. If you find one for the same domain as the site, get everyone you know to

the people behind the ddos

[JoshEanes]

This just in - the ddos attackers were identified as all the night elf hunters in the game trying to buy gold at the same time. for an encore, they will find the nearest mailbox and type /dance

I can't decide...

[Seakip18]

Is this a good thing or bad thing? I mean, I'm all against wasting bandwidth and the such, but it's shutting down the folks that make me harder for me to enjoy a game like WoW.

Re:

[VGPowerlord]

Darn, you found it before anyone could make a porn joke.

Time to change the business model

[dave562]

The gold farmers are going to have to stop farming gold and start farming zombie bots. That is definitely going to cut into the bottom line...

I doubt its extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

If these companies make 3 million dollars a day according to the Korean government is seems rather silly to just ask for money.

What seems more likely is Chinese gold farming companies are hoping to take the place of the currently unreachable Korean gold farms.

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> The Korea-based sites...are responsible for most of the country's estimated $1bn annual trade in virtual gold

What

The

Fuck

!!!!!!!!!11!1!1eleventyone!!1!

Dam!

[Thirdlight]

Why am I working a lousy IT job then?!?!? For once botnets do good.... Could u imagine if botnets were used to actually help people get back at big business's/politicos?? RIAA sue now quit, not, sell song never again!

Re:

[deftcoder]

I'm waiting to see what the Storm botnet is going to do...

You could do A LOT of damage with the number of hosts they have (into the MILLIONS).

Any way to participate?

[Opportunist]

I wouldn't mind donating some bandwidth to the good cause.

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[Anonymous Coward]

How about instead you stop playing games that reward gold-farming behavior.

Gold farming shouldn't hurt anyone. If it does, that's not the fault of the gold farmers, but of the developers who designed a game that allows it.

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[Opportunist]

Well, care to explain a way to stop it? I know many MMORPGs trying their best to eliminate gold farmers from their games, but so far no attemt was really successful.

And yes, gold farmers can hurt a game when they can monopolize shared resources. Areas that are not instanced can be monopolized by gold farmers. Even without this, they can have a tremendous impact on inflation, ensuring that new players cannot get into the market without buying gold from them, because even if they grind 24/7 they cannot keep u

Pusillanimous Cretons

[l0rd.47hl0n]

If it ain't real you should not be able to buy or sell it. Mark my words . . . only trouble will come of virtual goods.

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[patio11]

I have been selling software for a while, it is no more real than the database entries at issue here, and the world has yet to come to an end...

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[Random832]

forget software, REAL money isn't any more real than this virtual money anymore</ron paul>

Virtual markets are retarded

[Jonny 290]

I love how video game addicts and lazy capitalists have taken a liking to the MMO gold market. It continues to impoverish those who would choose to give a Chinese gold farmer real money for a virtual currency that is produced, regulated and consumed by a single private company, (further) lessening their attractiveness to the opposite sex and keeping them out of the gene pool. And that, as Martha Stewart says, is a good thing. But wait, there's more! Every time these gangs of bored Chinese hacker/farmers att

Mod parent up, please.

[Omnivorax]

Well-written screeds like this are the reason I read /.

Not just the farmers to blame

[LozHuf]

Seriously, I dont get why so much of the aggression is against the gold farmers/sellers. The real issue should be with the people actually doing the buying. If there was noone buying gold/characters etc then there would be no farmers. In my opinion the farmers themselves are the least to blame. Sure, the actual process of farming is screwing up some rich american's(or korean's, or whoever's) precious hobby, but from their point of view - what do they care? If it means they can put food on the table then im