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ID Theft Victims Sue NCSoft in South Korea

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-their-settlement-in-adena dept.

greyfeld writes "South Korean lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit against NCSoft related to the identity theft of 230,000 people whose information was then used to register accounts on Lineage and Lineage2. From the Vnunet article: 'Most of the identify thefts took place over the past six months as underground gaming syndicates stole victims' official Korean ID numbers in hacking attacks and used them to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts...the new accounts were then 'farmed' by low paid workers in Chinese gaming sweatshops to generate 'gold' and other game-world items that could be sold for real world cash.'"

21 comments

  1. Going around your elbow... by jettoki · · Score: 1

    Uh, if you're gonna steal over 200,000 identities, why bother using them to farm gold in Lineage? You've already broken a lot of laws to get that far, might as well go all out with some credit card fraud, bank fraud, and so forth. Probably a lot more lucrative...

    1. Re:Going around your elbow... by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because we've already got tons of seasoned international enforcement against bank and credit fraud, while selling farmed gold to online gamers is a relatively new scam that will leave most modern investigators scratching their heads.

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    2. Re:Going around your elbow... by Minwee · · Score: 1

      I see that you haven't played Lineage or met anyone who does.

  2. Amazing by poeidon1 · · Score: 1

    that theives use the data to create farming accounts and thus trade it for real cash, even the theives are game addicts or gamers who would like to buy game upgrades have made it a very big market.

    --
    They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
  3. Re:Just get out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check your geography. This is obviously about South Korea.

  4. Happened with the WoW Beta too by jurgenaut · · Score: 1

    When the US final beta was taken down, all non-americans were left without their 'drug'. A lot of them created accounts on the Korean Beta, but to do so, they had to steal some random ID (easily enough through google).

    A guy in my current guild was caught doing that when he had to page a GM to get unstuck somewhere. It aint easy communicating in Korean in realtime :)

    1. Re:Happened with the WoW Beta too by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      He couldn't wait an hour for his hearthstone to be up?

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  5. Oddly attractive deal... by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Funny

    the new accounts were then 'farmed' by low paid workers in Chinese gaming sweatshops to generate 'gold' and other game-world items that could be sold for real world cash.

    Wow! The low-paid workers in my country are stuck flipping hamburgers or stocking walmart shelves. In South Korea, they get to play MMOs all day!

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    1. Re:Oddly attractive deal... by Saffaya · · Score: 1

      > Wow! The low-paid workers in my country are stuck flipping hamburgers or stocking walmart shelves. In South Korea, they get to play MMOs all day!

      Er .. no..
      The low paid workers in CHINA are stuck working 12 hours shifts farming gold in lineage in dubious rooms WITHOUT any heating.

    2. Re:Oddly attractive deal... by ShyGuy91284 · · Score: 1

      Hah, if they are using half-way decent computers, they should provide more then enough heat. I'd be more concerned about their lack of a/c with a room full of computer....

      --
      In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
    3. Re:Oddly attractive deal... by jtorkbob · · Score: 1

      Does anyone have any hard evidence that such 'sweat shop' farmers exist? I mean, I keep reading these articles, but it's all conjecture. Sure, there are guys in .cn selling gold, but is it really profitable enough to pay other people to do it?

      And, it occurs to me, that if you have the hardware / software / net connection, you could run multiple farming sessions at the same time with a single person. (Perhaps this thought is evidence of the fact that I've spent less than twenty hours and zero dollars in MMOs...)

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    4. Re:Oddly attractive deal... by thedletterman · · Score: 1

      If there's no heating, then is it really a sweat shop?

      --
      Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
  6. Ridiculous? by christian.elliott · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok, if I'm reading this correctly, People are suing NCSoft, because rogue groups stole these peoples identities and created accounts with those identities. Is this even NCSofts problem (other than fixing the problem when the real people step forward).>

    So next time my car is stolen and driven into a bank during a heist, I can sue the bank? Thats what is is coming across as to me at least.

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    Fractured Element
    1. Re:Ridiculous? by FusionDragon2099 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Some of the players have taken it into their own hands. Korean Lineage players are killing anybody on their server who doesn't speak their language http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/216094.html. Man, gold farmers ruin EVERYTHING.

    2. Re:Ridiculous? by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

      A better analogy:

      Money you deposited in your bank is stolen from the bank. It comes to light that the money you deposited was kept in a shoebox on somebody's desk (instead of, say, in a safe). Should not the bank be liable for not having better security measures?

  7. ID Numbers by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 1
    Unfortunately, I am not that familiar with the S. Korean ID number system...so this may sound a bit uninformed (it is).

    Are these ID numbers the equivelant of SSNs? It seems like they are a bit less protected seeing as how you have to use them to register for things as mundane as games...whereas in the US I believe it would be illegal for an MMO to ask for that. Is the reason they use the stolen IDs so that they cannot get busted for farming? Or are they trying to bypass having to pay a monthly fee, thereby increasing their margins significantly?

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    1. Re:ID Numbers by QuantaStarFire · · Score: 4, Informative
      Is the reason they use the stolen IDs so that they cannot get busted for farming? Or are they trying to bypass having to pay a monthly fee, thereby increasing their margins significantly?

      In order to play MMOs on Korean servers, you must have a Korean SSN so that you can register. To get a SSN, you have to actually live in South Korea, or be from South Korea. If you don't have one, you either have to steal it, or you simply don't play on their servers.

  8. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL