Real Crime in Virtual Worlds

Millions of people around the world play massively multiplayer online role-playing games. This translates as billions of dollars for online game companies. And where there's billions of dollars involved and millions of people there's often real world crime within and without those virtual worlds. More than we'd like to think.

Virtual Mugging

Virtual mugging is another crime that can occur in cyberspace. Also in Sims Online, a "Sim Mafia" was formed in-game. They targeted characters of unpopular players. For this online vigilante group, harassment might start with a torrent of many insulting messages sent to a targeted player. The next level of Sim Mafia harassment was the trashing of the target's virtual property by multiple players. And the vigilantes' coup de grace (dubbed "The Moe Green Special"): forcing the targeted player to delete his or her own character from the game.

In Japan, a player of Lineage II went on what was described as a "virtual mugging spree", using software "bots" to "beat up" and rob other player characters of virtual possessions. The "mugger" then "fenced" the stolen items at an online auction site.

Searching for "Bugs"

More resourceful and technically skilled criminals have been specifically searching for "bugs" or security holes in an online game's software architecture and coding. In the multiplayer online game Ultima Online, a player discovered a bug that allowed him to duplicate the game's currency or gold. After passing the information to other players, runaway inflation threatened to close the game down.

In "Star Wars Galaxies", a player found a "bug" that enabled him to duplicate in-game assets and loot. He claimed to have sold the loot for real money at an online auction site for an estimated $700,000.

Note that some online game companies like Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, have installed spyware to monitor in-game cheaters.

Prostitution

In 2004, a 17-year-old player of Sims Online, a massively multiplayer online game run by Electronic Arts, posed as a sexy female character named "Evangeline", the madam of an in-game brothel that featured simulated child prostitution for real world money. The teen was arrested, but not charged as an adult.

Murder

In 2005, a Chinese player of the massively multiplayer online game "Mir 3" murdered another player after that player borrowed a high value "dragon saber" and then sold it at an online auction site.

Prevention

In South Korea, where the world's largest population of online game players resides, the government has a specific section of their police force that only investigates online game crime.

SOURCES:

"Computer Characters Mugged", Will Knight, New Scientist, URL: (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7865)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4794139.stm

"Virtual Worlds, Real Cheaters", Larry Greenemeier, Information Week, URL: (http://www.informationweek.com/security/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WOJV4XXY201M2QSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=201001670&pgno=2&queryText=)

"All's fair in love and Warcraft", Andy Greenberg, Forbes, URL: (http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/07/20/online-games-security-tech-services-cx_ag_0723hacker.html)

"Justice has its price in Sim world", Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, URL: (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/01/14/justice_has_its_price_in_sim_world/)