In the virtual world, the surroundings offer a plethora of locations and opportunities for virtual criminals to prey on individuals, committing “real world” crimes such as theft, money laundering, bullying, or stalking. As a result of the rapid growth of the virtual reality, the idea of virtual world changed; results of this change included several negative consequences, one of which is virtual world crime. One of the challenges faced by the creators and peacekeepers of these virtual worlds is locating the person in real life that committed the virtual “real world” crime.
Another complication faced is that many virtual worlds are build on a necessity of social interaction, prompting further dangers for users to become victimized by virtual criminals. Several of these crimes include:
A virtual world gives a person the freedom to be whomever he or she wants to be; however, a person can indicate on a virtual world registration page that she is a 14-year old girl, when “she” is, in reality, a 35-year old man. A global sting operation involving a virtual ten-year-old girl named Sweetie has led to the conviction of a registered sex offender in Australia, marking what is believed to be the first conviction since the avatar was created last year by a Dutch rights group. Scott Robert Hansen, 37, plead guilty to three counts in a Brisbane court this week, admitting to possessing images of child sexual abuse and sending lewd pictures of himself to Sweetie.
Virtual Worlds are built for social interaction between people across the world. Most of the time, the creators offer a method for people to interact such as a message system. Unfortunately, these same social capabilities have been used by criminals to oversee and monitor prostitution rings and by drug dealers to coordinate the exchange of illicit goods. They use the gaming system as a communications platform in order to evade wiretaps, as this is a channel that law enforcement is not as likely to monitor. Similarly, each gaming platform also has some form of storage capacity and, much like a traditional personal computer, these can be locations for storing pictures and videos. This provides a child pornographer a location to hide illicit images. File sharing on these virtual worlds also provides a way to distribute these illegal materials.
In some games, the designer combines real world and virtual world interactions. For example, users can physically locate other participants to receive offers for deals near their location. Unfortunately, cyber-stalkers could utilize this information, which offers targets for child exploitation [1].
Picture.With the increasing complexities involving real and virtual currency transactions, there is a correspondingly rising likelihood that fraud and other crimes will be perpetrated in these environments.Phishing schemes, where computer users are tricked into entering user names, passwords, and credit card information into websites that appear to be legitimate, are just as likely to target gaming brands as they are to exploit large banking institutions.There are criminal organizations that use these virtual currencies to earn real money, selling illegally obtained virtual goods to game players interested in obtaining a powerful sword or special potion so they can advance to the next level of the game .
In September 2009, a Seoul man called the police to tell them that his three-month-old baby, a girl named Sarang (“love,” in Korean), had died. When a team arrived at his house, the scene was “terrible,” as one detective later recalled. The baby lay straight on her back, extremely underweight, covered by a heavy blanket. A bottle of spoiled milk stood nearby. Her parents had been playing an online video game every day in 12 hours stretches at a nearby Internet cafe, and their child slowly starved to death. The case shook South Korea, though the parents only spent a combined total of one year in jail as a result. Shockingly, their lawyer successfully argued, for the first time ever, that Internet gaming addiction constituted a valid excuse for involuntary manslaughter .
There are criminal organizations that use these virtual currencies to earn real money, selling illegally obtained virtual goods to game players interested in obtaining a powerful sword or special potion so they can advance to the next level of the game. In 2012 the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the theft conviction of a youth who stole another players possessions in popular online fantasy game RuneScape. In that case the court ordered the offender to perform 144 hours of community service [5].Additionally, last year a group of Chinese hackers who illegally obtained World of Warcraft accounts for the purposes of virtual gold mining where sentenced to two years in jail for their crimes . Basically, the mastermind, Chen had set up a small workspace where he and some of his compatriots stole World of Warcraft login information. Well, "stole" isn't the right term, as Chen and his cohorts didn't exactly go out and steal the information: Chen had purchased stolen World of Warcraft accounts by various shady means for about $1 a piece. After receiving these accounts, Chen proceeded to empty them out, selling the accumulated gold and gear for about $3 per account, making a $2 profit per account .
by Rob Resma
Sources:
Regli, Brian R., Dr., and Michael Mitkus. "Our Digital Playgrounds: Virtual Worlds and Online Games." (n.d.): n. pag. Iacpsocialmedia.org. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/Portals/1/documents/External/Drakontas%20Real%20Crimes%20in%20Virtual%20Worlds.pdf
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Bardzell, Jeffrey, Markus Jakobsson, Shaowen Bardzell, Tyler Pace, Will Odom, and Aaron Houssian. "Virtual Worlds and Fraud: Approaching Cybersecurity in Massively Multiplayer Online Games." (n.d.): n. pag.Digra.org. Authors & Digital Games Research Association, 2007. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07311.42219.pdf
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Crozier, David. "Gaming Cyber Thieves Facing Real Prison Time for 'virtual Treasure' Raids." Belfast Telegraph.co.uk. Belfasttelegraph.co.uk, 29 July 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/gaming-cyber-thieves-facing-real-prison-time-for-virtual-treasure-raids-30465405.html
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