6 ms·

Police bust 'biggest' video-game-cheat operation

13 points by mindracer 6y ago

andreareina 6y ago
It boggles the mind that anyone considers this worth calling the police on.
- dngray 6y ago
  It's actually quite reasonable if you think about it from a financial perspective. Company makes game, their intellectual property. Someone else makes a cheat and makes a lot of money destroying their IP, causing them to lose money as players decide the game "has too many cheaters". Obviously gaming companies do try to employ technical solutions to the problem, but I would guess this outfit got so large simply by being ignored.
  - magahacka 6y ago
    My question would be what are the actual laws that the cheat makers have broken, at best they violated the ToS of the game. The arguement would be similar then with lockpicking tools if a company created a lockpick that was specifically designed to use against the locks that are manufactured by the by some specific brand.
    - jleahy 6y ago
      In the UK, the computer misuse act is extremely broad and in theory covers a huge amount of stuff. I’m not familiar with the equivalent rules in china.
    - Wohlf 6y ago
      It's my understanding that they're being charged with laws that are same as hacking a company server. I'm sure Chinese law works different than Westerners are used to.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - alert0 6y ago
    I have a harder time wrapping my head around this after your comment. I get that police are there to protect corporate profits, so it makes sense in that way. The IP stance though, is this precedent that if you are a large corporation, the game laws you make are then enforceable in the real world? It does really blow my mind that makers of software that people buy and run on their own machines are going to get locked in a cage because they were undermining a game's design. I've actually had some respect for China's treatment of intellectual property, as I believe a looser IP policy allows for faster innovation in society. This is just enforcing corporate interests though, it's not the world I want to see and it's going to take some very talented developers and reverse engineers out of the job market.
    - geon 6y ago
      Using cheat software is a breach of the terms of service. The cheaters are welcome to do wtf they want with their computer, but they should not be allowed to abuse a service. And it ruins the day for for millions of people who just want to enjoy the game.
      - Hallucinaut 6y ago
        This can't be the reasoning. That is breach of contract and therefore a civil case (unless it's different in Germany?). Companies do not write laws, ergo breaching a company's terms is not criminal.
        ev1 6y ago
        At least in the US I would not be surprised if breaking authentication handshakes and taking unwanted copies of game memory space is CFAA/DMCA felony. I anal, but have previously done both cheat and anticheat as a kid.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Hallucinaut 6y ago
        Apologies, I mean China. Don't know why I said Germany but I can't edit my comment.
- httpsterio 6y ago
  The cheat creators are benefitting from breaking the game and selling their cheats to 1. normal consumers 2. esports professionals. Because of the cheats, the game creators need to patch them out, create detection tools and generally invest more resources into the game, which obviously costs and drops profits. If they don't, the game is dead. The cheat creators are basically holding a gun to the game developers' head.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    > The cheat creators are basically holding a gun to the game developers' head. This is hyperbole. Every other sport has its cheaters and they manage the problem without getting the cops involved.
    - flohofwoe 6y ago
      At least in case of the German doping scandals, police was very heavily involved, e.g.: https://www.welt.de/sport/article189528515/Doping-Beben-Dieser-deutsche-Arzt-soll-der-Drahtzieher-sein.html https://www.welt.de/sport/article189528515/Doping-Beben-Dies... (related English article, not a translation of the first link: https://www.dw.com/en/doping-probe-of-german-doctor-leads-to-21-athletes-from-8-countries/a-47993421 https://www.dw.com/en/doping-probe-of-german-doctor-leads-to...)
      - cturner 6y ago
        The matter you have linked to is a criminal matter that relates to the practice of medicine. It is important to differentiate between criminal and civil matters. Police should only be involved in criminal matters, and should never be act as the agent of a party in civil disputes. The matter of video cheating appears to be a civil matter. On this forum of all places, we must be wary of legislative creep towards vague wording such as "the misapplication of computer systems from their intended purpose". At that point, the police will be deployed at the behest of well-connected interests. In practice, it will mean that the system will be used to beat up hackers at the direction of bigco, even for petty matters when it serves to make an example. We have already seen this play out in the Swartz and Aleynikov trials: matters that were civil disputes by any reasonable reading, but which were executed as criminal matters (in one case, even after the plaintiff had withdrawn).
- JamesBaxter 6y ago
  I think a lot of malware also gets installed whilst pretending to be something for cheating. Developers don’t want their brand associated with that.
  - dTal 6y ago
    That's pretty far removed from "cheating warrants a police bust".
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  Why is this mind boggling? It's an illegal business that made millions in revenue without paying taxes. If the "organization" would have been a legal company which sold "addon services" for those games, Tencent would have most likely sent their lawyers after them instead of the police. Right tool for the right job, basically ;)
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    that makes no sense. is it "illegal business" if you dont pay taxes and if a cheater does pay 100% taxes on the gains, does that make it "legal"? i am sure taxes should have nothing to do with the intent with which the income is earned.
Zoo3y 6y ago
>Kunshan police found and destroyed 17 cheats and arrested 10 people in connection with the ring. How do they destroy cheats?
- rspoerri 6y ago
  rm -rf / ?
  - YoungWeb 6y ago
    xD
  - hiyer 6y ago
    sudo !!
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  These cheats often phone home for operation, destroy the servers and they won't work
  - ev1 6y ago
    Pretty much this, it's a massive "criminals don't trust criminals" thing. I've seen numerous cheats have hardware blacklists that remote-wipe people they dislike, phone home with ludicrous amounts of PII to disincentivise account sharing or key sharing, attempting to reverse engineer a "private cheat" might result in the uploading of your computer, etc.
CobrastanJorji 6y ago
> Cheating is literally ruining gaming and large companies like Tencent know it. > Interested in gaming? See our other gaming articles this week: "China's Tencent revenues surge thanks to gaming boom"
- bennysonething 6y ago
  > Cheating is literally ruining gaming and large companies like Tencent know it. Really poor writing for a BBC journalist.
  - rwnspace 6y ago
    Fwiw, I doubt a BBC journalist wrote that sentence (despite satisfying modern standards).
    - bennysonething 6y ago
      It is not just the literally bit. It's that it is just an opinion, but written as a fact. It is as bad as a high school report.
aaron695 6y ago
The fact the BBC calls it a criminal enterprise [1] is bullshit, it is not criminal. If it's tied directly to professional sport fraud or copyright infringement or anything criminal then the BBC needs to show proof. Or if they want to be hipster and refer to local laws then make sure they refer to sodomy as criminal enterprise when talking about Saudi Arabia. Video here - http://www.chinanews.com/chinanews/content.jsp?id=9441884&classify=sp&language=chs http://www.chinanews.com/chinanews/content.jsp?id=9441884&cl... It seems it was for - "At present, He Moumou, Wang Moumou and others are suspected of providing intrusion and illegal control of computer information system programs and tools." [1] "What used to be a cottage industry of hackers exposing glitches in the code of games has now become a massive criminal enterprise."
- sinuhe69 6y ago
  Yes, I found the piece problematic, too. It surprised me that BBC could publish an uncritical, highly sensational article like this one. No question asked about the legal basis of the operation, nor provided any in-depth background information. It reads like a tabloid story.

13 points by mindracer 6y ago

andreareina 6y ago

It boggles the mind that anyone considers this worth calling the police on.

dngray 6y ago
It's actually quite reasonable if you think about it from a financial perspective. Company makes game, their intellectual property. Someone else makes a cheat and makes a lot of money destroying their IP, causing them to lose money as players decide the game "has too many cheaters". Obviously gaming companies do try to employ technical solutions to the problem, but I would guess this outfit got so large simply by being ignored.
- magahacka 6y ago
  My question would be what are the actual laws that the cheat makers have broken, at best they violated the ToS of the game. The arguement would be similar then with lockpicking tools if a company created a lockpick that was specifically designed to use against the locks that are manufactured by the by some specific brand.
  - jleahy 6y ago
    In the UK, the computer misuse act is extremely broad and in theory covers a huge amount of stuff. I’m not familiar with the equivalent rules in china.
  - Wohlf 6y ago
    It's my understanding that they're being charged with laws that are same as hacking a company server. I'm sure Chinese law works different than Westerners are used to.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- alert0 6y ago
  I have a harder time wrapping my head around this after your comment. I get that police are there to protect corporate profits, so it makes sense in that way. The IP stance though, is this precedent that if you are a large corporation, the game laws you make are then enforceable in the real world? It does really blow my mind that makers of software that people buy and run on their own machines are going to get locked in a cage because they were undermining a game's design. I've actually had some respect for China's treatment of intellectual property, as I believe a looser IP policy allows for faster innovation in society. This is just enforcing corporate interests though, it's not the world I want to see and it's going to take some very talented developers and reverse engineers out of the job market.
  - geon 6y ago
    Using cheat software is a breach of the terms of service. The cheaters are welcome to do wtf they want with their computer, but they should not be allowed to abuse a service. And it ruins the day for for millions of people who just want to enjoy the game.
    - Hallucinaut 6y ago
      This can't be the reasoning. That is breach of contract and therefore a civil case (unless it's different in Germany?). Companies do not write laws, ergo breaching a company's terms is not criminal.
      - ev1 6y ago
        At least in the US I would not be surprised if breaking authentication handshakes and taking unwanted copies of game memory space is CFAA/DMCA felony. I anal, but have previously done both cheat and anticheat as a kid.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - Hallucinaut 6y ago
      Apologies, I mean China. Don't know why I said Germany but I can't edit my comment.
httpsterio 6y ago
The cheat creators are benefitting from breaking the game and selling their cheats to 1. normal consumers 2. esports professionals. Because of the cheats, the game creators need to patch them out, create detection tools and generally invest more resources into the game, which obviously costs and drops profits. If they don't, the game is dead. The cheat creators are basically holding a gun to the game developers' head.
- andreareina 6y ago
  > The cheat creators are basically holding a gun to the game developers' head. This is hyperbole. Every other sport has its cheaters and they manage the problem without getting the cops involved.
  - flohofwoe 6y ago
    At least in case of the German doping scandals, police was very heavily involved, e.g.: https://www.welt.de/sport/article189528515/Doping-Beben-Dieser-deutsche-Arzt-soll-der-Drahtzieher-sein.html https://www.welt.de/sport/article189528515/Doping-Beben-Dies... (related English article, not a translation of the first link: https://www.dw.com/en/doping-probe-of-german-doctor-leads-to-21-athletes-from-8-countries/a-47993421 https://www.dw.com/en/doping-probe-of-german-doctor-leads-to...)
    - cturner 6y ago
      The matter you have linked to is a criminal matter that relates to the practice of medicine. It is important to differentiate between criminal and civil matters. Police should only be involved in criminal matters, and should never be act as the agent of a party in civil disputes. The matter of video cheating appears to be a civil matter. On this forum of all places, we must be wary of legislative creep towards vague wording such as "the misapplication of computer systems from their intended purpose". At that point, the police will be deployed at the behest of well-connected interests. In practice, it will mean that the system will be used to beat up hackers at the direction of bigco, even for petty matters when it serves to make an example. We have already seen this play out in the Swartz and Aleynikov trials: matters that were civil disputes by any reasonable reading, but which were executed as criminal matters (in one case, even after the plaintiff had withdrawn).
JamesBaxter 6y ago
I think a lot of malware also gets installed whilst pretending to be something for cheating. Developers don’t want their brand associated with that.
- dTal 6y ago
  That's pretty far removed from "cheating warrants a police bust".
flohofwoe 6y ago
Why is this mind boggling? It's an illegal business that made millions in revenue without paying taxes. If the "organization" would have been a legal company which sold "addon services" for those games, Tencent would have most likely sent their lawyers after them instead of the police. Right tool for the right job, basically ;)
- 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  that makes no sense. is it "illegal business" if you dont pay taxes and if a cheater does pay 100% taxes on the gains, does that make it "legal"? i am sure taxes should have nothing to do with the intent with which the income is earned.

Zoo3y 6y ago

>Kunshan police found and destroyed 17 cheats and arrested 10 people in connection with the ring. How do they destroy cheats?

rspoerri 6y ago
rm -rf / ?
- YoungWeb 6y ago
  xD
- hiyer 6y ago
  sudo !!
BoorishBears 6y ago
These cheats often phone home for operation, destroy the servers and they won't work
- ev1 6y ago
  Pretty much this, it's a massive "criminals don't trust criminals" thing. I've seen numerous cheats have hardware blacklists that remote-wipe people they dislike, phone home with ludicrous amounts of PII to disincentivise account sharing or key sharing, attempting to reverse engineer a "private cheat" might result in the uploading of your computer, etc.

CobrastanJorji 6y ago

> Cheating is literally ruining gaming and large companies like Tencent know it. > Interested in gaming? See our other gaming articles this week: "China's Tencent revenues surge thanks to gaming boom"

bennysonething 6y ago
> Cheating is literally ruining gaming and large companies like Tencent know it. Really poor writing for a BBC journalist.
- rwnspace 6y ago
  Fwiw, I doubt a BBC journalist wrote that sentence (despite satisfying modern standards).
  - bennysonething 6y ago
    It is not just the literally bit. It's that it is just an opinion, but written as a fact. It is as bad as a high school report.

aaron695 6y ago

The fact the BBC calls it a criminal enterprise [1] is bullshit, it is not criminal. If it's tied directly to professional sport fraud or copyright infringement or anything criminal then the BBC needs to show proof. Or if they want to be hipster and refer to local laws then make sure they refer to sodomy as criminal enterprise when talking about Saudi Arabia. Video here - http://www.chinanews.com/chinanews/content.jsp?id=9441884&classify=sp&language=chs http://www.chinanews.com/chinanews/content.jsp?id=9441884&cl... It seems it was for - "At present, He Moumou, Wang Moumou and others are suspected of providing intrusion and illegal control of computer information system programs and tools." [1] "What used to be a cottage industry of hackers exposing glitches in the code of games has now become a massive criminal enterprise."

sinuhe69 6y ago
Yes, I found the piece problematic, too. It surprised me that BBC could publish an uncritical, highly sensational article like this one. No question asked about the legal basis of the operation, nor provided any in-depth background information. It reads like a tabloid story.