Man Arrested For RuneScape MMORPG Online Robbery

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.'"

Comments

Well done to all involved.

[saintm]

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

Re:EBank theft

[Apatharch]

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.

Identity theft is not virtual

[Arancaytar]

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.