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Police Track Down Drug-dealer via WoW

16 points by garply 17y ago

whyenot 17y ago
All this effort to track down someone accused of a victim-less crime who had already left the country and posed no future harm to people in the US. Yet, we have Nigerians terrorists flying around with explosive underwear. Somehow it seems like our priorities in the US are a little screwed up.
- natrius 17y ago
  All this effort to track down Nigerian terrorists flying around with explosive underwear, which, including related attack vectors, threaten a couple of thousand lives per decade, when ~50,000 people die each year from car accidents. Yes, our priorities are screwed up.
  - joeyo 17y ago
    All it means is that we consider intentional killings worse than accidental ones and that biases our priorities accordingly.
    - natrius 17y ago
      Which is screwed up. A premature death is a premature death. Preventability is independent of intention. I think it'd be easier to prevent a few thousand car accident deaths a decade than it would be to eliminate terrorism. A rational society would focus its effort on saving the lives that minimize effort per remaining productive lifespan.
      - joeyo 17y ago
        Whether it is rational or not, I don't know. It very well may be that society is optimizing an objective function quite different from the one that you claim it should. Consider the emphasis that our legal system places on the criminal mind (mens rea) which is often necessary for something to be a crime. If we really weighed all deaths/crimes equally than we could dispense with intent and only consider the act itself.
        natrius 17y ago
        "It very well may be that society is optimizing an objective function quite different from the one that you claim it should." What is it optimizing for? Shouldn't it be intentional, and therefore apparent? If we're willing to throw so much money at saving so few lives, I don't see how it can ever make sense to allow lives to be lost that could be saved more cheaply. Sure, defending against terrorism helps to prevent property losses as well, but I still don't think we come out on top.
- jsz0 17y ago
  I really don't see the connection. Are Howard country sherifs involved in international airline security somehow?
dangrossman 17y ago
It's a little concerning that Blizzard responded to a politely worded request with billing information, IP addresses and screen names.
- petewarden 17y ago
  It was a politely worded subpoena at least, which indicates he'd gathered enough evidence to convince a judge in California, even if it had no legal force in Canada. I doubt they'd extend the same cooperation to J Random Stalker asking about his ex-girlfriend, but I agree it's still a bit worrisome.
  - kingkawn 17y ago
    Jurisdiction here means that Blizzard could've sent back a politely worded request asking for a more legal binding order. But its bad PR if a police investigation is slowed by them and then the dude axe murders somebody, so they probably cooperated out of self-interest.
    - dmoney 17y ago
      It should also be bad PR if they give out their customers' information when they don't legally have to. It's also possible they didn't realize the subpoena wasn't legally binding. Edit: They didn't just give out his info to the police: somebody gave his character name to the press. Near the top, it says "(WoW Armory listing for Hightower's character)" which links to http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&n=Rastlynn http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&#38...
      - kingkawn 17y ago
        Pothead Level 80 Shaman's everywhere should be quaking in fear.
- olefoo 17y ago
  He refers to the request as a subpoena. That could mean that the request theoretically carried penalties for non-compliance, but that the Sheriff would have no way of showing that the request was not complied with.
drewcrawford 17y ago
> “I did a search off the IP address to locate him,” said Roberson. “I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address. Wait, what? How can you get house-accurate geo coordinates from a (presumably dynamic) IP, without contacting the ISP in question? I thought the police got a warrant for this?
- ramchip 17y ago
  He probably used a Visual Basic GUI interface. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
  - drewcrawford 17y ago
    Yeah, but this isn't TV. A guy actually got arrested on this "evidence". Granted, they had his billing address, but I would imagine the defense will have an opportunity to lampoon the police on the stand.
    - epochwolf 17y ago
      They just used the information to find his location and have him deported to the US. There was already a warrant for this guy's arrest.
henrikschroder 17y ago
I'm mostly annoyed at the sensationalist headline, this has got nothing to do with the game itself. They knew their suspect used a service provided over the internet by a company based in California, and used that to track their suspect. The article actually doesn't say how, but I'm guessing they knew his US ISP and address, and sent that in their request. Oh, and the company happened to be Blizzard, and the service happened to be World of Warcraft, but that's completely irrelevant, it could have been any service, and it's not like the police officers played the game, so the claim that the law reached into the game is completely false.
- GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
  Sensationalist? Hardly. Since it was only through his WoW gameplay that they managed to track him down, the headline was entirely factual and relevant.
  - henrikschroder 17y ago
    The HN headline was good, the actual headline was "Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft" which is sensationalist, and untrue.
NathanKP 17y ago
I'm all for catching a drug dealer but it seems unethical for Blizzard to willingly give up one of their players' information. As the article said "they didn't have to respond". Instead they choose on their own to give up the info. That doesn't make me trust Blizzard. Of course, I'm not a drug dealer so I have nothing to fear, but still, they seem a little loose with information about their users.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  The guy has agreed to it when he signed up for the service. It's in the terms and conditions of World of Warcraft: Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. It's not the job of Blizzard to provide help for criminal suspects on the run.

16 points by garply 17y ago

All this effort to track down someone accused of a victim-less crime who had already left the country and posed no future harm to people in the US. Yet, we have Nigerians terrorists flying around with explosive underwear. Somehow it seems like our priorities in the US are a little screwed up.

natrius 17y ago
All this effort to track down Nigerian terrorists flying around with explosive underwear, which, including related attack vectors, threaten a couple of thousand lives per decade, when ~50,000 people die each year from car accidents. Yes, our priorities are screwed up.
- joeyo 17y ago
  All it means is that we consider intentional killings worse than accidental ones and that biases our priorities accordingly.
  - natrius 17y ago
    Which is screwed up. A premature death is a premature death. Preventability is independent of intention. I think it'd be easier to prevent a few thousand car accident deaths a decade than it would be to eliminate terrorism. A rational society would focus its effort on saving the lives that minimize effort per remaining productive lifespan.
    - joeyo 17y ago
      Whether it is rational or not, I don't know. It very well may be that society is optimizing an objective function quite different from the one that you claim it should. Consider the emphasis that our legal system places on the criminal mind (mens rea) which is often necessary for something to be a crime. If we really weighed all deaths/crimes equally than we could dispense with intent and only consider the act itself.
      - natrius 17y ago
        "It very well may be that society is optimizing an objective function quite different from the one that you claim it should." What is it optimizing for? Shouldn't it be intentional, and therefore apparent? If we're willing to throw so much money at saving so few lives, I don't see how it can ever make sense to allow lives to be lost that could be saved more cheaply. Sure, defending against terrorism helps to prevent property losses as well, but I still don't think we come out on top.
jsz0 17y ago
I really don't see the connection. Are Howard country sherifs involved in international airline security somehow?

dangrossman 17y ago

It's a little concerning that Blizzard responded to a politely worded request with billing information, IP addresses and screen names.

petewarden 17y ago
It was a politely worded subpoena at least, which indicates he'd gathered enough evidence to convince a judge in California, even if it had no legal force in Canada. I doubt they'd extend the same cooperation to J Random Stalker asking about his ex-girlfriend, but I agree it's still a bit worrisome.
- kingkawn 17y ago
  Jurisdiction here means that Blizzard could've sent back a politely worded request asking for a more legal binding order. But its bad PR if a police investigation is slowed by them and then the dude axe murders somebody, so they probably cooperated out of self-interest.
  - dmoney 17y ago
    It should also be bad PR if they give out their customers' information when they don't legally have to. It's also possible they didn't realize the subpoena wasn't legally binding. Edit: They didn't just give out his info to the police: somebody gave his character name to the press. Near the top, it says "(WoW Armory listing for Hightower's character)" which links to http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&n=Rastlynn http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&#38...
    - kingkawn 17y ago
      Pothead Level 80 Shaman's everywhere should be quaking in fear.
olefoo 17y ago
He refers to the request as a subpoena. That could mean that the request theoretically carried penalties for non-compliance, but that the Sheriff would have no way of showing that the request was not complied with.

drewcrawford 17y ago

> “I did a search off the IP address to locate him,” said Roberson. “I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address. Wait, what? How can you get house-accurate geo coordinates from a (presumably dynamic) IP, without contacting the ISP in question? I thought the police got a warrant for this?

ramchip 17y ago
He probably used a Visual Basic GUI interface. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
- drewcrawford 17y ago
  Yeah, but this isn't TV. A guy actually got arrested on this "evidence". Granted, they had his billing address, but I would imagine the defense will have an opportunity to lampoon the police on the stand.
  - epochwolf 17y ago
    They just used the information to find his location and have him deported to the US. There was already a warrant for this guy's arrest.

henrikschroder 17y ago

I'm mostly annoyed at the sensationalist headline, this has got nothing to do with the game itself. They knew their suspect used a service provided over the internet by a company based in California, and used that to track their suspect. The article actually doesn't say how, but I'm guessing they knew his US ISP and address, and sent that in their request. Oh, and the company happened to be Blizzard, and the service happened to be World of Warcraft, but that's completely irrelevant, it could have been any service, and it's not like the police officers played the game, so the claim that the law reached into the game is completely false.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
Sensationalist? Hardly. Since it was only through his WoW gameplay that they managed to track him down, the headline was entirely factual and relevant.
- henrikschroder 17y ago
  The HN headline was good, the actual headline was "Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft" which is sensationalist, and untrue.

NathanKP 17y ago

I'm all for catching a drug dealer but it seems unethical for Blizzard to willingly give up one of their players' information. As the article said "they didn't have to respond". Instead they choose on their own to give up the info. That doesn't make me trust Blizzard. Of course, I'm not a drug dealer so I have nothing to fear, but still, they seem a little loose with information about their users.

DrJokepu 17y ago
The guy has agreed to it when he signed up for the service. It's in the terms and conditions of World of Warcraft: Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. It's not the job of Blizzard to provide help for criminal suspects on the run.