news.com.au — "It looks like we've had some enormous cyber-bomb set off on our site. Somebody has nuked us in some way, shape or form, and they've obliterated almost every object on the site." The online vandalism, called "griefing", took several hours to repair. The ABC was the first major Australian brand to embrace Second Life, in which people exist in a ..
May 23, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountMay 24, 2007
Griefing in virtual worlds is a federal offence now? Jeez.
bjornskiMay 25, 2007
Considering in-world items cost money, REAL money, you would be causing someone financial losses. That's vandalism and destruction of property, pure and simple.With hundreds upon hundreds of hours of development in some of these areas, even at $10/hr, the financial loss is staggering. Most of it would have to be re-built by hand.Can I come over to your house and destroy your stuff that costs real money? I'm sure you won't mind, and I'd get some lulz out of it.When you play WoW, you're subscribing to play a game, at a fixed monthly cost. Wiping every level 60 character off of the servers would not be destruction of property. When you buy items in SL, they cost you real money. What you have depends on how much you spend (or make).This is real property. Destruction in SL is vandalism that costs real money.I see you're the type that finds it amusing to damage other peoples property. I'm not surprised.
Closed AccountMay 25, 2007
@bjornski: You don't get it. Virtual items have no intrinsic value and are, AFAIK, at present not covered by legislation. I understand that you WANT it to be a crime, don't worry, I got that part, I am uncertain on how it actually IS.
bloodomen13May 25, 2007
Yep, your username is quite fitting.
bloodomen13May 25, 2007
@JunkyarddawgIs hacking and defacing a website not a crime? Afterall, it's only a bunch of data stored on a server somewhere. Thing is, someone paid for that presence. An SL island is no different as you pay for an online presence that is hosted on a server in a larger network.
tech42erMay 27, 2007
Is this really "vandalism"? It certainly couldn't be considered illegal. It's a game, where you're free to do whatever you want, right? Could ABC sue the "vandals" if they found them?
tech42erMay 27, 2007
@BearingI agree with you. As long as it's not against the rules of the community, it should not be considered a crime. So, for WoW, I can kill you, but I can't hack the servers. If in SL, I can create weaponry and attack you, it's not a real crime.
tech42erMay 27, 2007
@MweatherAre you serious? "Only kids should have imaginations". Wow, you really have no faith in humanity.
doozzMay 28, 2007
errr...... im preatty sure people will tell me to shutup or something but....how does a COMPUTER GAME ISLAND get nuked..?
bjornskiMay 29, 2007
It's vandalism the same way defacing web-sites is vandalism.It's damaging "documents" stored on a remote machine.