Saturday, August 26, 2006

The Bastard Stole My Magic Sword :-)

So, here is a weird security-related issue that might be just a curiosity, but then again it might be the sign of the future, maybe not as remote as you'd think. For the Gibson- and Stevenson-infected brain :-), it should sound more like the latter.

So, TechDirt reported has this blurb a few days ago: "The police are really good at understanding someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of money. It's a lot harder to get them to buy into 'someone stole my magic sword.'" But before discussing how law enforcement can address the situation, game developers and players should try to define the border between the game and the real world. For example, most people would accept that if your character is mugged inside a game, then that's part of the gameplay, not a legal issue. But what about counterfeiting gold pieces? What about running a script inside the game that transfers gold from one player to another?'

Another report from them mentions "Over in Japan, a woman has been charged with a crime for breaking into an ex-boyfriend's online video game account and deleting various weapons he had collected."

Wow, that sounds pretty exciting... from both technical and legal point of view. Usually when  I hear about "virtual reality" I just snicker, since there is nothing REAL about it, but - guess what? - it just might change... This is clearly a trend to watch.

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Dr Anton Chuvakin