Cops Bust Teens for MMO Cheating

[Lagwin]

Japanese police are pressing charges against a trio of teenagers for the odious crime of cheating in an online game, the nation’s first ever for this outrageous offence, after MapleStory publisher Nexon fingered them as thieving hackers.

Three youths aged 17-18 – a university student living in Fukushima, a highschooler from Nara and a technical college student from Tokushima prefecture – allegedly used cheating tools to power up their weapons and obtain fee-based items for free in an online game.

The company managing the games they cheated at – Nexon, best known for MapleStory and Mabinogi – took a dim view of this and had police charge them with a slew of hacking charges.

Police say this is the first time they have prosecuted anyone for cheating at a game, and Nexon has vowed eternal war on cheaters, saying “We dealt with this strictly before, and we’ll grapple with illicit activity as aggressively as possible from now on as well.”

Police also accuse the schoolboy and university student of coding the tools themselves and then selling them online, saying they netted 8 million yen in sales from the caper.

The trio admit the various charges (or else have been forced to confess as seems to the police’s primary method of securing convictions in technically sophisticated crimes), and for good measure the youth not involved in creating them also confesses “I just used the tools to run rampant and because I wanted to be famous!”

Concern amongst Japanese gamers who might in some way be modifying their gaming experience that they may get arrested is now high – along with the usual questions about just where the priorities of police lie:

Get that you hacking scumbags.

Source <snip>

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[nomorepriest]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

[Conjor]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

You clearly know nothing about software development.

[GKLeatherCraft]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

Damn, so much wrong, in such a small post:P

[Drakainen]

Good, cheating/hacking online multiplayer games should be an actual crime. Pretty much every game that comes out has hacks available within hours of release if not before and it's getting quite irritating to buy a game and having to deal with people cheating right off the bat because virtually nothing can be done to them. Ya wanna cheat in Single player or (for whatever reason) local multiplayer with your friends go nuts.

[Xeones]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

What they are doing isn't the same thing as writing a game.

They are thieves and deserve to be arrested.

[Annoying]

Good, cheating/hacking online multiplayer games should be an actual crime. Pretty much every game that comes out has hacks available within hours of release if not before and it's getting quite irritating to buy a game and having to deal with people cheating right off the bat because virtually nothing can be done to them. Ya wanna cheat in Single player or (for whatever reason) local multiplayer with your friends go nuts.

Breach of contract. It's a civil matter and should remain a civil matter.

What they are doing isn't the same thing as writing a game.

They are thieves and deserve to be arrested.

Yeah, I don't see how cheating in a game can constitute theft.

[Sykol]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

Hey everyone, it's Dean Devlin!

[Blueobelisk]

HAHAHAHAHAHHA as if Nexon cared about hackers. If they did I wouldn't be on this forum right now and that guy in my avatar would still be alive.

But ya it's just a common case of kids stealing digital goods.

[Deleted]

IMO.. Hire them instead of convicting them.. Obviously they are better programmers than their current coders.

that only happens in TV shows.

[Rukentuts]

Yeah, I don't see how cheating in a game can constitute theft.

From the article:

obtain fee-based items for free

[Annoying]

From the article:

"used cheating tools to power up their weapons and obtain fee-based items for free"

Hard to tell, really. Were the items fee-based, but earn-able in game? I don't see how powering up a weapon would net you fee-based items.

[Volibear]

Breach of contract. It's a civil matter and should remain a civil matter.



Yeah, I don't see how cheating in a game can constitute theft.

I see how it can. They were gaining items you would normally pay real money for, without paying for them.
That's the basic concept of theft, isn't it?

[Sykol]

"used cheating tools to power up their weapons and obtain fee-based items for free"

Hard to tell, really. Were the items fee-based, but earn-able in game? I don't see how powering up a weapon would net you fee-based items.

I'm pretty sure those were meant as two separate, different things. Like, they upgraded their weapons and also obtained fee-based items for free, just not worded so clearly.

[Anon56]

You clearly know nothing about software development.

You clearly know nothing about game hacking. But you're implying that you know about software development, so you must work in that field, unless you're just bragging. No wonder games are easily hackable. Software development and game hacking are closely intertwined, it's bad software development that makes games hackable. In development, making something that works doesn't mean it's done correctly.

[Annoying]

I see how it can. They were gaining items you would normally pay real money for, without paying for them.
That's the basic concept of theft, isn't it?

They weren't. Nexon's official statement:

http://www.google.com/translate?hl=e...px%3Fno%3D4505

"obstruction of business". They were *selling* hacking tools. Nothing at all about pay items.

[Nerph-]

Re-opening this but removed the bad links in the OP. Please take into account where you link too in the future.

[Blueobelisk]

Why were the links bad?

[Crissi]

Why were the links bad?

site had lots of hentai on it.

[Vivapin8]

site had lots of hentai on it.

Fu--- why do i always miss the good links