Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Man Arrested For RuneScape MMORPG Online Robbery

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the doing-pretend-work-for-pretend-boots dept.

Unexpof writes "A man has been arrested by the British Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), accused of stealing the usernames and passwords from players of the RuneScape MMORPG. Security experts report that this is one of the first occasions when a Brit has been apprehended for 'virtual robbery,' although incidents have happened in the past. For instance, the CEO of the sci-fi trading game EVE Online stole 200 billion 'kredits,' which he then used as a deposit on a real-world house, and in October last year a Japanese woman was arrested by police after allegedly hacking her virtual husband 'to death.'"

10 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading blogvertising by Revvy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's a terrible quote from a not-so-good blog post. It also appears that the submitter, Unexpof, only links to stories on Graham Cluley's blog at Sophos.

  2. Re:The difference is by Threni · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's not exactly the same as hacking someone's email account though, because if you do that you can potentially get hold of peoples bank/ebay etc accounts. I don't give a rat's arse about this or that game, and I'm a little annoyed about the idea of tax payer's money being wasted on non-crimes such as this.

  3. Re:Not virtual robbery... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, this is ordinary robbery, but carried out on a computer. Virtual robbery is when you steal items off a player character through an approved game mechanism, which is not an illegal act. And in other non-news, slashdot editors don't edit.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. "virtual" robbery? by Errtu76 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seems to me the theft was real, not virtual. Ah, marketing terms ...

  5. Well done to all involved. by saintm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This 'story' should be held up as an example of all that is wrong with the slashdot story submission process.

  6. Re:Poster has it wrong... by jmauro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He also wasn't arrested, just banned from the game.

  7. Re:Poster has it wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    CCP hired a nobel prise winner for economics to manage the market in the EVE online game

    Since I'm about to complete my Ph.D. I sure hope people will refer to me as a Nobel prize winner in Physics when I'm done ;)

  8. Re:EBank theft by Apatharch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it's also worth emphasising that it was only the sale of in-game currency for cash which got Ricdic's account banned, not the actual theft. If he had kept the cash in-game, he wouldn't have been subject to sanctions from CCP at all.

    Referencing the original BBC News article:

    Ricdic has now been thrown out of the game as trading in-game cash for real money is against Eve Online's terms and conditions.

    The rules governing play within Eve would not have sanctioned Ricdic if he had simply stolen the cash and used it in the game, nor if he had bought kredits with real dollars.

    Of course the nature of this particular theft doesn't really relate to the RuneScape account theft since it occurred within the rules of the game in question; describing it as "similar illegal activity" is misleading at best.

  9. Re:user credential theft is not a virtual robbery. by shentino · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Indeed.

    What is being stolen during a hack is the victim's access to the game that they DID pay for with real life money.

  10. Identity theft is not virtual by Arancaytar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stealing virtual items in a MMORPG is not a crime, and at most a violation of the terms of service.

    Stealing identities by way of online passwords is not a virtual crime, it's a very normal, plain computer crime.