Dutch police have made their first arrest of an online thief: a 17-year-old accused of stealing virtual furniture from rooms in the Habbo Hotel, a popular teenage networking website.
Amsterdam police confirmed the report that the teen is accused of stealing 4,000 euros ($5,864) worth of virtual furniture by hacking into the accounts of other users. Four other 15 year olds have also been questioned in the case. They are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own online hotel rooms.
For those playing at home and keeping score, drugs and prostitution - legal. Jacking fake furniture from a virtual game - illegal.
Habbo Hotel users can create their own characters, decorate their own rooms and play a number of games, all paid for with Habbo Credits...which they have to buy with real cash. The site and interconnected system of Habbo Hotel is owned by a Finnish interweb company, which said last month it had reached 80 million registered users of its sites in 31 countries. God damn that's a lot of people wasting time with pretend lives.
As a man who has felt the cold embrace of police bracelets for liberating real furniture from my collage dorm, I have certain sympathies for this cyber-thief. Virtual crime, virtual time I say. All they did was boost for pixelated tables and chairs and put them in their fake rooms. Boot them off the servers and re-image the "furniture" back in the old accounts. Consider it a service to the company, who now should make their system more secure and keep kids from redecorating their rooms like such. And you're a sucker for paying for a digital barcalounger and deserve to have your stuff ripped off.
Virtual worlds deserve anarchy, and if they start making these fake, fantasy worlds too much like the real one, only one thing can happen...
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