Sunday, November 24, 2013

Bitcoin fraud case in New Jersey

E-sports entertainment, an online game company was alleged to $1 million settlement for a fraud. According to the attorney, this company offered a software including malicious program to the users.

The State of New Jersey: Acting Attorney General Announces $1 Million Settlement Resolving Consumer Fraud, Unlawful Access Claims Against Online Gaming Company 

E-Sports Entertainment settles Bitcoin botnet allegations

The function of this malware is novel. This program works on the computer to mine Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a kind of internet currency, as I mentioned past. We can gain this virtual money through running a special program which creates a code to protect the environment of the whole Bitcoin system. The criminal had intended to make the computers of the consumers send the gained coins to his own wallet.

I was so surprised to know this crime for some reason.

First, this incident has some characteristics as a cyber crime. You know such an anecdote: you would be extremely rich if you cheat the program of banks to send $1 from each account of other people, and no one would notice the fact he lose $1. The Bitcoin case resembles this story. Different from bank computers, personal ones are more vulnerable. In addition, the criminal could choose the targets. Actually, the amount of income had reached only $3,500. However, if not revealed for a long term, the criminal would have earned more.

Second, according to the attorney, this crime was consented by the founder of E-sports entertainment. If it is a crime of the whole company, I would hesitate to trust online companies after this. E-sports Entertainment has published a comment to be opposed to the allegations  by the state of New Jersey on the web site. I do not know the truth.

ESEA: New Jersey Settlement Response

Despite the comments above, I feel that this case is a pretty trifling. This kind of programs is called as BOTs. They are often utilized in some online Role Playing Games, mainly as an automatically working avatar to harvest some items in the virtual world. I know that some people earn money with real money trading. There seems no difference in these cases.

The settlement upon E-sports includes the minimum $375,000 payment and supervision in the future. I will be cautious to the activity of this company and online currency.

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