Woman faces charges for deleting ex-boyfriend's online game data

[Nazon]

A woman in her thirties was so mad over, at her boyfriend broke up with her that she logged to the online game they were both playing, and using his account, gave out of all his character belongings away.

The boyfriend got so irritated over that, that he filed a complaint with the police, after which she was arrested and sued for illegally accessing his data.

Click here to read the whole story

On the Danish forums I have found this news we had a long debate about what is worse, her doing what she did or the guy actually filing legal charges against her. What do you think?

[Arrgruff]

I'm with the dude, on that one.

Technically, isn't accessing any online account that is not your own a crime, regardless of whether it's a game or a bank account?

Aside from that, even though it seems sort of petty because it's "just a game", it's an attack on the personal property of another. There are any number of hobbies and pastimes that are important to people, and the hours and attention they put into them have value, even if it can't be assigned monetary worth.

In a more material, uncyberspacey sense, things like photo albums, address books, personal artwork and the like have no cash value. But if some vindictive bitch (or bastard) tosses them into the furnace for revenge, they've destroyed something irreplacable, or only replaceable through great time and effort.

I suppose it would depend on the individual what sort of things are worth bringing legal action against, but I would hope the ability to do so is there for those who suffer such petty attacks.

...and this is coming from a guy who is violently disgusted with the ridiculous, frivolously litigious society we have become. (personally, I'd find a much more creative way to get my pound of flesh)

[Kyla]

I was too lazy to read the article.. but.. did she hack into his account to do this? Because if not, it was his fault for letting her know his password and not changing it after they broke up. Two cents from tha gnomie!

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Kyla
I was too lazy to read the article.. but.. did she hack into his account to do this? Because if not, it was his fault for letting her know his password and not changing it after they broke up. Two cents from tha gnomie!

The article says she used his username/password, so he must either have told her (or passively not prevented her from finding out) it, or else used something she could guess. If the former, it's his own silly fault; but if the latter, it just means that she knew him well enough to be able to guess his password, and that's not so very unlikely. When you've just broken up with your girlfriend, do you immediately think, "She's going to hate me, I'd better secure my online games"? I'd say she got in one below the belt.

[kestra]

The nerds shall inherit the earth.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by kestra
The nerds shall inherit the earth.

Nahh, you lot can have the earth, and welcome. And when you've finished yourselves off, we can quietly take control of the internet and use it the way it was originally MEANT to be used!!

[Xar]

Originally posted by Rosuav
Nahh, you lot can have the earth, and welcome. And when you've finished yourselves off, we can quietly take control of the internet and use it the way it was originally MEANT to be used!!

pr0n?

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Xar
pr0n?

Oh, we geeks have no need of such cheap trash. (Actually, given how many warnings I see about credit cards, redialers, etc, it's rather expensive cheap trash! But anyway.) No, we use the internet for the really important things in life, like... MUDs. Mail. TELNET! Oh, and we'd eliminate this silly concept of "www.somebody.com" being a "web presence". We'd return DNS to the hierarchical domain/subdomain/computer structure it was designed to have. No more computers named "www", unless there really is one! No more virtual hosting, if you aren't putting a computer up to be a part of the internet, you don't get your own domain name! No more Microsoft rubbish cluttering up the network, we're going to use Real Operating Systems, Real Servers, Real Clients - etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Thank you, I do feel better now.