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INSIDE THIS ISSUE From the Desks of Razumich & Delamater PAGE 1 Facts About Words That Start With ‘May’ PAGE 1 The Timeless Charm of the Drive-In Movie PAGE 2 The Best Grandfather a Kitten Could Have PAGE 3 Take a Break PAGE 3 Grilled Prime Rib PAGE 3 A $60,000 Robbery With No Jail Time PAGE 4
THE $60,000 HEIST YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF CRIMELESS THEFT IN CYBERSPACE
In 2017, sometime between Sept. 11 and 12, a total of $60,000 worth of digital assets were stolen from people around the world. The conspirators didn’t hide their identities, and they faced no criminal charges. As it turns out, there are no laws against stealing spaceships in a video game — even if they’re worth thousands of real-world dollars. EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that was launched in 2003, and it was on this game that the theft occurred. This science-fiction game is all about spacefaring, but one notable feature of the game is that it allows players to purchase in-game assets with real money. This attracts players who can spend large sums on the game, with some of the game’s largest spaceships costing $9,000. But one thing to note in EVE Online is that no matter how much you pay, once you lose an asset, it’s gone forever.
Because of the risk-reward nature of the game, many players unite in huge factions for safety and to pool their resources. One of these groups, Circle of Two or CO2, was the target of the 2017 attack. Within a matter of hours, CO2’s bank accounts were drained and the space stations holding their fleets of ships were sold to their enemies. It was clear from the beginning: This was an inside job. The thief was CO2’s own head diplomat, a player called“The Judge.” For years he’d worked his way through the alliance’s ranks, only to use the access he eventually gained to rob it blind. But greed may not have been his only motivation. He’d had public disagreements with CO2’s leader called Gigx, and a rival faction was able to capitalize on this internal conflict. During an in-person EVE Online summit held in Iceland, representatives fromThe GoonSwarm Federation convinced The Judge to leave
CO2 and commit the single largest robbery in gaming history on his way out.
In the real world, The Judge’s actions were completely legal —currently, international law doesn’t treat such virtual objects as personal property. But this perceptionmay be changing. As in-game purchases become more widespread in video games, legal lines have blurred, causing an increasing number of lawmakers to rethink what constitutes“ownership” in the digital age. But, for now at least, it seems like a good time to be a space pirate.
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