6 ms·

>While the bans have stopped some players from playing, it's good to know that they will have the weapons they need to fight back with the backing of the Korean

>While the bans have stopped some players from playing, it's good to know that they will have the weapons they need to fight back with the backing of the Korean government. In what world is getting a 5 year prison sentence for aimbotting a "good" thing?

itake 10y ago
This law's goal is to go after the people creating these tools, not the ones using them.
- kybernetyk 10y ago
  Ok. I'll rephrase: In what world is getting a 5 year prison sentence for writing an aimbot a "good" thing?
  - PietdeVries 10y ago
    In a world where a lot of money is made in the gaming industry?
    - ethbro 10y ago
      How is this different than making security research or even third party mods illegal? Rather than adding legal penalties that can be wielded at will by companies for less-than-moral purposes (protecting customer-negative revenue streams), they can spend more improving their netcode. Catapults and outlaws, etc. From the article (I can't read Korean): > Based on this law, manufacturing and distributing programs that are not allowed by the game company and its Terms of Service is now directly illegal. That would include [...] or anything not allowed by the ToS.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
    In no world, except in HN bizzaro world where apologists justify anything a state does by saying..."in the US blaahbalah can already blahaha"
  - forrestthewoods 10y ago
    Cheat making isn't a some hobbyist in a basement. Cheat sellers make tens of millions of dollars per year. It's a big business. And one that actively harms another business (the game). For all players. Even non-professionals.
    - noobermin 10y ago
      Perhaps in some cases but can this be really true? I've never heard of a "paid" cheat.
      - detaro 10y ago
        Just google something like "buy CSGO cheats", they are out there for all major games. https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=buy+CSGO+cheats https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=buy+CSGO+cheats
      - forrestthewoods 10y ago
        http://www.artificialaiming.net/ http://www.artificialaiming.net/ Those guys have been around for over a decade. There are many more like them. I'm not sure which services are popular these days.
      - matthewaveryusa 10y ago
        It's huge business and very hard to fight. counter-strike hacks can retail for 60+ dollars. You can even download the hack for trial periods and they have customer service. It's not as innocent as one would think. The problem is that the lines can get pretty blurry. A long time ago there were transparent hacks for everquest[1] that did packet sniffing, and displayed the information in a friendly UI. So is wireshark a hacking tool? Hard to say. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2534061.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2534061.stm
- peeters 10y ago
  That's even worse. The guy writing the script might just be having some fun. He's not the one cheating. Breaking an old BASIC game was how I got into programming. If I did the same thing in Korea now, I could face 5 years in prison.
  - etatoby 10y ago
    This will push tinkerers towards open source games and away from commercial ones, which is a good thing for all involved.
protophone 10y ago
This is what happens when you have irritating people who just won't be quiet about something completely inane or awkward. Sometimes you get an impatient government intervention that attempts to render silence upon a non-issue, as quickly and ham-fistedly as possible. The motivation for absurd, paternalistic government intervention could find it's source in nepotism, cronyism, or a simply an unexpected groundswell of headache inducing tattle-tales. The nature of the non-issue will inform you about who is capable of gaining the government's ear. In this case their are people getting mad about video games, who are savvy about government process, somehow.
- treehau5 10y ago
  > In this case their are people getting mad about video games, who are savvy about government process, somehow. I think this is overlooking just how important video games are to S. Koreans. To me, I see it not much different than this http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-anti-doping-law-comes-into-force/a-18928499 http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-anti-doping-law-comes-into-for...
skizm 10y ago
In a world where e-sports is a massive enough part of a country's economy that messing with the integrity of it will hurt a large number of people. (Not saying this is actually the case, but that is a theoretical world where this would be okay)
- s_q_b 10y ago
  That's silly. It's the same logic that got us criminal sentences in the DMCA for copyright violations, since movies, music, and television are a massive part of the American economy. Federal sentences for bank robbery are 5-10 years.
  - skizm 10y ago
    I mean, bank robbery directly affects $X. It is more difficult to determine how much money is "stolen" when someone violates copyright law, but ultimately if it is more than $X why shouldn't the sentencing be on par with or more than that of bank robbery?
    - halomru 10y ago
      Because a bank robbery is a robbery, not mere theft. In a robbery, you make a credible threat to use force against another human being. That's hopefully still worse than stealing $x.
      - skizm 10y ago
        You would have other charges added in addition to the actual taking of the money which related to how threatening you were at the time of the robbery. I'm saying the actually robbery charges being on par with distributing copyright content and ultimately taking money out of the pockets of the content creators are, at the end of the day, both the same if the same amount of money is taken.
        halomru 10y ago
        A bank robbery still has about as much in common with copyright violation as with pirating actual ships. I am not threatening anyone when committing copyright violations A much more convincing argument could be made that theft and copyright violations are the same. Buy theft has quite low punishments (at least in California).
jdietrich 10y ago
You'd get jail time in the US for selling steroids, making devices for cheating at casino games or fixing the outcome of sporting events. E-sports are serious business in South Korea. The Korea e-Sports Association is operated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and affiliated to the Korean Olympic Committee. E-sports have had serious problems with cheating, match fixing and illegal gambling. We're not talking about some niche hobby, but a significant part of the Korean economy. I don't necessarily agree with this decision, but I think that it's unfair to characterise it as petty or draconian. The integrity of sport is a precious thing that needs protection. You might see an aimbot as the moral equivalent of a patch, but a professional e-sports player might see it as equivalent to a vial of steroids or a credit card skimmer. There's a very fine line between cheating at a game and outright fraud.
- halfdan 10y ago
  > You'd get jail time in the US for selling steroids, which cause bodily harm.. > making devices for cheating at casino games which cause financial fraud > or fixing the outcome of sporting events. same as above. Cheating in an every day game does not benefit you financially or cause harm to other human beings. If this law was limited to eSport tournaments then I can see it being effective. You also have to accept that not every gamer in Korea is a professional.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Alphasite_ 10y ago
    How is cheating an a professional game ('esport') not equivalent to financial fraud when cheating in an other professional game (physical sport) is?
    - detaro 10y ago
      The parent is saying that it is in professional games, but that that doesn't mean it requires legislation making cheating in all games explicitly illegal. Penalties in sports are commonly enforced primarily through the organisations running the sport, and only some offenses even involve actual law. If you cause someone financial harm, it's very likely already illegal. Match-fixing in professional games is clearly fraud, that doesn't mean that letting your friend win because it is his birthday should be prosecutable.
wpietri 10y ago
This is hardly novel. Plenty of secondary activities are also crimes. In most places in the US, possession of burglar's tools is illegal. Contributory copyright infringement is when somebody "with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes, or materially contributes". Conspiracy to commit a crime is just speech, but it is still a crime. Gaming is something that a) a lot of people care about, and b) is big business. People manufacturing and distributing cheating tools harms that. The whole purpose of the law is to prevent societal harm, and a great deal of law is about eliminating parasitic activity to keep systems healthy. E.g., with the adoption of electronic communication, we had to invent wire fraud laws to keep up. When it was just us coding in our basements, we could pretend that software was harmless. But as software eats the world, our work becomes just as important and meaningful as people working with atoms. We want the world to take software seriously, but that doesn't happen half way. We can take credit for serious benefits, but we also have to take responsibility for the serious harm.

itake 10y ago

This law's goal is to go after the people creating these tools, not the ones using them.

kybernetyk 10y ago
Ok. I'll rephrase: In what world is getting a 5 year prison sentence for writing an aimbot a "good" thing?
- PietdeVries 10y ago
  In a world where a lot of money is made in the gaming industry?
  - ethbro 10y ago
    How is this different than making security research or even third party mods illegal? Rather than adding legal penalties that can be wielded at will by companies for less-than-moral purposes (protecting customer-negative revenue streams), they can spend more improving their netcode. Catapults and outlaws, etc. From the article (I can't read Korean): > Based on this law, manufacturing and distributing programs that are not allowed by the game company and its Terms of Service is now directly illegal. That would include [...] or anything not allowed by the ToS.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  In no world, except in HN bizzaro world where apologists justify anything a state does by saying..."in the US blaahbalah can already blahaha"
- forrestthewoods 10y ago
  Cheat making isn't a some hobbyist in a basement. Cheat sellers make tens of millions of dollars per year. It's a big business. And one that actively harms another business (the game). For all players. Even non-professionals.
  - noobermin 10y ago
    Perhaps in some cases but can this be really true? I've never heard of a "paid" cheat.
    - detaro 10y ago
      Just google something like "buy CSGO cheats", they are out there for all major games. https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=buy+CSGO+cheats https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=buy+CSGO+cheats
    - forrestthewoods 10y ago
      http://www.artificialaiming.net/ http://www.artificialaiming.net/ Those guys have been around for over a decade. There are many more like them. I'm not sure which services are popular these days.
    - matthewaveryusa 10y ago
      It's huge business and very hard to fight. counter-strike hacks can retail for 60+ dollars. You can even download the hack for trial periods and they have customer service. It's not as innocent as one would think. The problem is that the lines can get pretty blurry. A long time ago there were transparent hacks for everquest[1] that did packet sniffing, and displayed the information in a friendly UI. So is wireshark a hacking tool? Hard to say. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2534061.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2534061.stm
peeters 10y ago
That's even worse. The guy writing the script might just be having some fun. He's not the one cheating. Breaking an old BASIC game was how I got into programming. If I did the same thing in Korea now, I could face 5 years in prison.
- etatoby 10y ago
  This will push tinkerers towards open source games and away from commercial ones, which is a good thing for all involved.

protophone 10y ago

This is what happens when you have irritating people who just won't be quiet about something completely inane or awkward. Sometimes you get an impatient government intervention that attempts to render silence upon a non-issue, as quickly and ham-fistedly as possible. The motivation for absurd, paternalistic government intervention could find it's source in nepotism, cronyism, or a simply an unexpected groundswell of headache inducing tattle-tales. The nature of the non-issue will inform you about who is capable of gaining the government's ear. In this case their are people getting mad about video games, who are savvy about government process, somehow.

treehau5 10y ago
> In this case their are people getting mad about video games, who are savvy about government process, somehow. I think this is overlooking just how important video games are to S. Koreans. To me, I see it not much different than this http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-anti-doping-law-comes-into-force/a-18928499 http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-anti-doping-law-comes-into-for...

skizm 10y ago

In a world where e-sports is a massive enough part of a country's economy that messing with the integrity of it will hurt a large number of people. (Not saying this is actually the case, but that is a theoretical world where this would be okay)

s_q_b 10y ago
That's silly. It's the same logic that got us criminal sentences in the DMCA for copyright violations, since movies, music, and television are a massive part of the American economy. Federal sentences for bank robbery are 5-10 years.
- skizm 10y ago
  I mean, bank robbery directly affects $X. It is more difficult to determine how much money is "stolen" when someone violates copyright law, but ultimately if it is more than $X why shouldn't the sentencing be on par with or more than that of bank robbery?
  - halomru 10y ago
    Because a bank robbery is a robbery, not mere theft. In a robbery, you make a credible threat to use force against another human being. That's hopefully still worse than stealing $x.
    - skizm 10y ago
      You would have other charges added in addition to the actual taking of the money which related to how threatening you were at the time of the robbery. I'm saying the actually robbery charges being on par with distributing copyright content and ultimately taking money out of the pockets of the content creators are, at the end of the day, both the same if the same amount of money is taken.
      - halomru 10y ago
        A bank robbery still has about as much in common with copyright violation as with pirating actual ships. I am not threatening anyone when committing copyright violations A much more convincing argument could be made that theft and copyright violations are the same. Buy theft has quite low punishments (at least in California).

jdietrich 10y ago

You'd get jail time in the US for selling steroids, making devices for cheating at casino games or fixing the outcome of sporting events. E-sports are serious business in South Korea. The Korea e-Sports Association is operated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and affiliated to the Korean Olympic Committee. E-sports have had serious problems with cheating, match fixing and illegal gambling. We're not talking about some niche hobby, but a significant part of the Korean economy. I don't necessarily agree with this decision, but I think that it's unfair to characterise it as petty or draconian. The integrity of sport is a precious thing that needs protection. You might see an aimbot as the moral equivalent of a patch, but a professional e-sports player might see it as equivalent to a vial of steroids or a credit card skimmer. There's a very fine line between cheating at a game and outright fraud.

halfdan 10y ago
> You'd get jail time in the US for selling steroids, which cause bodily harm.. > making devices for cheating at casino games which cause financial fraud > or fixing the outcome of sporting events. same as above. Cheating in an every day game does not benefit you financially or cause harm to other human beings. If this law was limited to eSport tournaments then I can see it being effective. You also have to accept that not every gamer in Korea is a professional.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Alphasite_ 10y ago
  How is cheating an a professional game ('esport') not equivalent to financial fraud when cheating in an other professional game (physical sport) is?
  - detaro 10y ago
    The parent is saying that it is in professional games, but that that doesn't mean it requires legislation making cheating in all games explicitly illegal. Penalties in sports are commonly enforced primarily through the organisations running the sport, and only some offenses even involve actual law. If you cause someone financial harm, it's very likely already illegal. Match-fixing in professional games is clearly fraud, that doesn't mean that letting your friend win because it is his birthday should be prosecutable.

wpietri 10y ago

This is hardly novel. Plenty of secondary activities are also crimes. In most places in the US, possession of burglar's tools is illegal. Contributory copyright infringement is when somebody "with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes, or materially contributes". Conspiracy to commit a crime is just speech, but it is still a crime. Gaming is something that a) a lot of people care about, and b) is big business. People manufacturing and distributing cheating tools harms that. The whole purpose of the law is to prevent societal harm, and a great deal of law is about eliminating parasitic activity to keep systems healthy. E.g., with the adoption of electronic communication, we had to invent wire fraud laws to keep up. When it was just us coding in our basements, we could pretend that software was harmless. But as software eats the world, our work becomes just as important and meaningful as people working with atoms. We want the world to take software seriously, but that doesn't happen half way. We can take credit for serious benefits, but we also have to take responsibility for the serious harm.