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Thursday, November 15, 2007

'Virtual theft' leads to arrest

Habbo Hotel
Habbo Hotel users create a character and can buy furniture
A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.

The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.

The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.

A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said: "The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by creating fake Habbo websites.

"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a while.

It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money
Sulake spokesman

"We have had much of this scamming going on in many countries but this is the first case where the police have taken legal action."

Habbo users can create their own characters, decorate their own rooms and play a number of games, paying with Habbo Credits, which they have to buy with real cash.

"It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture.

"We got involved because of an increasing number of sites which are pretending to be Habbo. People might then try and log in and get their details stolen."

Six million people in more than 30 countries play Habbo Hotel each month.

Virtual theft is a growing issue in virtual worlds; in 2005 a Chinese gamer was stabbed to death in a row over a sword in a game.

Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei killed player Zhu Caoyuan when he discovered he had sold a "dragon sabre" he had been loaned.



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Yahoo settles China dissident case

Yahoo on Tuesday reached an out-of-court settlement with the families of two Chinese journalists who were jailed in their home country after the internet company identified their online activities to the authorities.

The ending of a human rights lawsuit brought by the families in a San Francisco district court came just a week after Jerry Yang, Yahoo chief executive, was strongly criticised by a congressional committee and urged to make recompense for his company’s actions.

Yahoo has agreed to cover the legal costs of the plaintiffs but said details of the settlement were confidential.

It said it would work to provide financial, humanitarian and legal support to the families. It would also create a humanitarian relief fund to support other dissidents and their families.

Tom Lantos, who chaired the House committee on foreign affairs hearing into the jailing of journalist Shi Tao, said the settlement was long overdue.

“It took a tongue-lashing from Congress before these high-technology titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo had helped send to jail. What a disgrace,” he said.

He added that Yahoo officials had still not reached out to Shi Tao’s family 21 months after he had first requested this.

Jerry Yang met the family and that of Wang Xiaoning, the other journalist in the lawsuit, after the hearing.

Wang Xiaoning was sentenced to 10 years in prison after posting an article on a Yahoo group that called for democratic reform, while Shi Tao received a 10-year sentence after sending an email from his Yahoo account to an overseas pro-democracy foundation.



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