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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."
I for one welcome our new gold farmer DDoSing overlords.
No, seriously, I do, put em all out of business.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I can see it now. Gold farmers decide to create their own botnets and then the real war begins
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
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.
import system.cool.Sig;
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...
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.
Ouch. Me harder for me? That just doesn't sound right at all. Self mod -1
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This looks like a war of thieves versus thieves. Maybe they will fight each other to oblivion, and the rest of us can enjoy our MMO gaming in peace without spammers sending /whispers for gold sites every 5 min. Thankfully, both Blizzard and SOE have effective filters now against such stuff these days, but it would be nice for the botting in high end zones to cease.
> 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!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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!
I wouldn't mind donating some bandwidth to the good cause.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Who the fuck chose the games section????
What a brainfuck.
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.
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 attack each other, we get to bear witness to thirty-page whinefest shit posts on game forums across the globe because somebody's DESTROYING THE GAME ECONOMY (but you wouldn't complain until you couldn't play with them any more). True, it does go whitenoise after page 3, but the anger and poorly worded flames are always there for you to come back to, like a bowl of steaming chicken soup on a cold, blustery day.
This MMO-based economy has to stop, because we're looking at a full on Mountain Dew and Cheeto-fueled nerd ragefest the minute that Blizzard or Linden or whoever decides to devalue their ingame currency significantly or increase availability of 'pay to level' accounts. If you look at the level of inflation in these games, it's fucking _astronomical_. I played an MMO for three years and saw the average 'template price' for a high end suit of armor and weapons go from 4 mega-woolongs to over 500 mega-woolongs due to the increased cash flow from carrot-on-stick expansion packs. Would you invest in any real market that had those numbers? That's not just inflation, that's 'Italy caught in between governments' inflation; 'burning rubles in wheelbarrows to stay warm' inflation.
P.S. Second Life is also a heap of overblown perverse shit and you know it, so stop convincing ignorant college deans and CEOs that virtual flying dicks and man-on-dog sex in shady e-discos are the next Amazon.com. I'm starting to get seriously fucking embarrassed for all the middle to upper class white collars who are drooling over 'presences' in an environment that prides itself on giving furries, 'ageplayers' (aka pedophiles) and the mentally unstable an unrestricted sandbox to play in. I hope Linden has a gigantic retarded IPO with ticker tape parades and prime time news debates, so I can make a goddamned fortune shorting it when somebody breathes on that house of cards.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
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 sure that that is their imperative.
;)
If there weren't any lazy fuckos out there spending such a vast amounts of money on gold then there really wouldnt be any problems with the game economies being fucked over. If there have to be witch-hunts against RMT then I think a much more useful approach would be to vilify the selfish buyers than the farmers who are just trying to earn a wage.
NAME AND SHAME THE BUYERS! Nothing like a good old fashioned McCarthy-era witch-hunt
Well-written screeds like this are the reason I read /.