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Hacker Charged With Fraud After 'Stealing' In-game FIFA Currency (cnet.com)
The FBI said it believes a group of hackers made millions off a scam to defraud publisher Electronic Arts. From a report on CNET: A US man is facing felony wire fraud charges for the theft of digital currency from game developer Electronic Arts. According to an FBI indictment, Anthony Clark and his co-defendants are being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for "stealing" in-game currency in multiplayer football game FIFA Ultimate Team for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The indictment details that Clark and three others, named as Ricky Miller, Nicholas Castellucci and Eaton Zveare, members of hacking group RANE Developments, designed an app using the game's source code and developer kit. This app fraudulently told EA's servers that thousands of matches had been completed in the game. These completion reports were rewarded with FIFA coins, which the group sold to what the FBI called "black market" coin dealers. Between them, the group earned $15-$18 million.
Fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain. How is it not fraud?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Really? I mean really? Is English a second language for you? They were telling the system that games were played which had not been played.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
My guess is that it was the part where they sold the coins to other people knowing full well that EA could revoke the coins or terminate the accounts of anyone who bought them.
But yeah, the actual crime of writing a bot to farm coins seems more like a TOS violation than a felony. Punishment should probably be limited to getting kicked out of the game and never being allowed back online. Maybe even kicked out of EA online servers entirely.
I read the internet for the articles.
No, they were able to do this because EA was dumb. Never trust state information that the client is giving you in a networked game or at the very least sanity check it occasionally if its not feasible to do everything server-side. Anyone who played MMOs or shooters back in the 90's probably has fond memories of all the crazy hacks people could use because the server would just accept whatever data the client sent.
besides, "in-game" currency is an unlawful fraud to begin with.
If these points were 'earned' from playing games, then it sounds like they're not much different from winning tickets at a Skee-Ball machine. If the publisher decides to gate content behind them, I don't see how that's even the slightest bit unethical. They create content and then limit access to it.
This seems a lot like printing your own skee-ball reward tickets, using them to "buy" passes to the exclusive backroom pinball arcade, then selling them on Ebay. You obtained a thing through deception, and everyone in the transaction agrees that the thing has value. How isn't that fraud?
If you commit a crime against criminals you're still a criminal. But that's beside the point. It's a tech story. The way they pulled of the fraud is of interest to certain people for various reasons.
Because it didn't really happen in our universe. It virtually happened within a nested universe. It's a game, not real life. The "gain" is virtual.
What's next? "You murdered that other player in the gladiator wave of Joust!" or maybe "Hey, someone came to my Clash of Clans base and stole some of my gold and elixer!" or maybe "you solicited sex for money in Leisure Suit Larry!"
Congress coins money; EA does not. What happens to EA currency isn't real. He should be charged for fraud (or justice dispensed however they do it) within the virtual universe, not within ours. If you kill me in Joust, I just kill you back (as deterrent; is 3000 points worth my wrath?); I don't go crying to mama outside of the game. And if I do go crying to mama, mama's job is to tell me to settle the fuck down.
If you start getting confused about the nesting within universes, you're going to cause a lot of problems and paradoxes. I will eat YOUR dots, Pac-msauve. Don't, and don't legitimize those who do.
"Between them, the group earned $15-$18 million."
This appears to be real world cash they netted, at this point it has left the game world.
Though if selling imaginary world things for real world cash isn't fraud, I have a great vacation home in middle earth to offer you!