In my opinion, the various rationales seem silly. Games, particularly video games, have generated quite a bit of positive press for their ability to provide escapism for inmates. Some Oregon correctional facilities have even seen significant drops in gang-related behavior simply because inmates that are divorced from the realities of prison life are less likely to join gangs. As for the other two rationales, with enough research one could, sadly, link almost any hobby or storyline to the commission of a crime or suicide. While I can somewhat understand not wanting prisoners to play anything from the Grand Theft Auto series, a game of D&D or one of its various video game incarnations hardly seems like a threat to anyone’s safety.

Unfortunately for Wisconsin inmates, prison officials need only prove that their regulations are rationally related to a legitimate goal of prison administration. Here, the goal is clearly legitimate–reducing inmate gang activity–and, as we all know, “rational basis” more often than not reads “any reason at all.”

With this in mind, readers with friends and relatives in a Wisconsin correctional facility may want to rethink sending the latest Dungeon Master’s Guide or Elder Scrolls game. Why not try a more traditional cake-with-a-metal-file-baked-inside?

You can read the full opinion here and listen to the oral argument here.

As child pornographers become more sophisticated computer users, C3 is noticing that many of these criminals turn to complex encryption schemes in order to prevent federal agents from accessing their data. Although federal agents may secure a warrant to seize and search the computers of suspected child pornographers, the Fourth Amendment prevents authorities from forcing suspects to surrender their passwords. So, in order to access the data stored on these hard drives, C3 is often forced to turn to brute force–an elegant way of saying “trial and error”–password cracking.

The amount of computing power needed to crack a password by brute force is significant. Even a basic six-digit password has 281,474,976,710,656 possible combinations and would require a prohibitive amount of time to crack with an average desktop computer. As a result, C3 has been using expensive computer clusters in order to crack passwords. However, AccessData Corp., a company specializing in digital investigations, recently discovered that Sony’s PLAYSTATION 3 could run custom installations of Linux and be networked together in order to process as many as 4 million passwords per second–a significant speed improvement at a cost $8000 lower than the previously employed Tableau/Dell server combination.

Unfortunately, the latest PS3 ‘Slim’ console eliminates the ability to run Linux, so C3 has turned to eBay in order to purchase many of its consoles. The organization currently has 20 of the original PS3s and is in the market for another 40.

Despite having a sizable collection of gaming consoles, C3 assures that its agents are not slacking off. In fact, they claim you won’t find a single PS3 controller being used in their entire building. At $55 a piece, I wish they would send some of those unloved controllers my way.

Hat tip to GamePolitics.

I’ll be the first to admit that the title of this post is verbose and decidedly “un-sexy,” but it’s certainly more accurate than what is found on most of the Internet. According to an AP story posted on Yahoo! News, a 43-year-old Japanese woman was arrested for accessing a man’s computer and killing his Maple Story character. The woman claims that she killed the man’s character because her virtual marriage suddenly ended when the man decided to divorce her, which “made [her] so angry.”

While technically correct, the AP’s headline “Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby” seems to suggest that the woman was jailed for murdering an in-game avatar. This, however, is not the case. The woman was jailed for the very real crime of illegally accessing the man’s computer and manipulating electronic data. In order to commit the “murder”, the woman fraudulently used the man’s identification and password to access his Maple Story account and kill his character.

If convicted, the woman faces prison for up to five years and a fine up to $5,000.

Does the punishment fit the crime? If she is sentenced to the maximum, not likely. However, the Japanese criminal courts work very differently from those in the US and I suspect it is highly probable that she will not serve any jail time. Instead, the Japanese legal system is most concerned with restoring “harmony” in society and, in my opinion, the woman will only be required to apologize and somehow make up for the death of the man’s avatar.

Eugene Volokh, UCLA’s Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law, just posted some interesting commentary concerning a recent Dutch court conviction of two youths for stealing virtual items in Runescape. Under Dutch law, the virtual goods are considered goods, so their theft constitutes a criminal act. However, the goods were not “virtually stolen.” Instead, the two boys committed physical violence against a classmate who eventually transferred his items to the attackers.

I would recommend heading over to The Volokh Conspiracy and reading Prof. Volokh’s comments concerning the difference between “virtual theft” and “real-world theft of virtual goods.” The difference between the two is significant and worth considering. As virtual worlds tend to more realistically parallel real-life, it is not improbable to believe that individuals will attempt to enforce virtual crimes in real courts. I agree that the law should not prohibit virtual crimes; however, I’m not sure what games Prof. Volokh has seen that feature virtual rape.

[via The Volokh Conspiracy]

Rodney Gray, an employee of Technicolor Disc Services Corp, was recently arrested for stealing nearly one hundred copies of Microsoft’s highest-profile holiday releases and an additional 807 DVDs. Memphis detectives investigating thefts at Technicolor — a company that provides disc and game packaging, warehousing, distribution, and production services — were eventually led to Gray’s home, where they noticed Gray enter his vehicle with a red bag. After pulling Gray over for numerous outstanding driving offenses, detectives found 31 unreleased video games consisting of Gears of War 2 and Fable II. Detectives returned to gray’s home and found the rest of the merchandise — 97 video games and 807 DVDs valued at more than $100,000. Gray quickly admitted to stealing the discs from work.

Where was Technicolor security, you may ask? Well, our dear friend Rodney just so happened to be a Technicolor security officer. On a positive note, for those of you facing a difficult time amidst the current economic climate, Technicolor is most likely looking to hire a new security officer.

[via Memphis Commercial Appeal]

Rene Edward Barrios, 26, of Arizona, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Thursday after causing the death of an 18-day-old child. Barrios was living with the mother of the child, who was running errands at the time of the incident. When the mother left, the child was asleep and Barrios was playing video games in another room. At some point, the child awoke and began crying. In an effort to silence the child, Barrios entered the bedroom, shook the child, and struck it on the head before returning to his game. After finishing his game, he returned to the room and found the child immobile on the bed and blue in color. Barrios immediately called 911. Unfortunately, the child was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Barrios’s attorney stated that the baby had been crying for hours and Barrios’s actions were out of frustration. He went on to say that Barrios knew that he should not have shaken the child, but he acted irrationally. Barrios faces between ten and one-half and twenty-one years in prison. While the game was described as “assault-like,” it has not yet been implicated as a reason for Barrios’s agitated state. However, as others have pointed out, a good defense attorney will blame everything in sight.

A UK Appeals Court overturned the conviction of Neil Higgs, also known as Mr. Mod Chips, on Wednesday. Higgs was initially found guilty of selling thousands of mod chips — devices that allow users to play imported and pirated games on their video game consoles — via his website. An early police raid turned up 3,700 mod chips, imported from Hong Kong, in the home of Higgs’s parents. The lower court held that these devices were illegal, as they allowed users to circumvent copyright protection.

However, Techdirt now reports that the Higgs conviction has been overturned. The UK Appeals Court held that any alleged copyright infringement has already taken place before the use of a mod chip and awarded full costs to Higgs as a result of his successful appeal.

The UK now joins Australia as one of a few countries to legalize the distribution of mod chips. Countries such as Italy and the United States — under the DMCA — continue to hold that mod chips are illegal tools designed to circumvent copyright protections.

Twenty-five year old Tim Reid of New Zealand was recently on trial for his December 29, 2007 assault on a police officer followed by the theft of the officer’s car. What makes Reid’s case interesting is that his attorney, Chris Nicholls, claimed that Reid’s actions were the result of his upbringing, which included compulsively playing Grand Theft Auto.

Reid pleaded guilty to “aggravated wounding, escaping custody, reckless driving, dangerous driving, unlawfully taking a motor vehicle and two charges of failing to stop, breach of supervision orders and being an unlicensed driver.” A New Zealand District Court judge sentenced Reid to five years in jail and disqualified him from driving for two years. The judge reportedly said that “Reid was hardwired for violence and anti-social behaviour and programmed by his recreational pursuits.”

New Zealand’s Family First national director Bob McCoskrie, spoke out concerning the case, stating his belief that violent video games pose a far greater threat than violent television shows and films:

Rather than observing the law breaker you take on the role of the lawbreaker …we think it desensitises certain people.

It is interesting to see the media jump on video games as the main culprit in this case, particularly when Reid’s upbringing also included sexual and physical abuse, marijuana use at the age of five, and chronic alcohol and substance abuse.

According to a lengthy article posted at The Raw Story, San Diego Republican Chairman and head of the state party’s budget committee Tony Krvaric is co-founder of Fairlight, one of the world’s largest and oldest software cracking rings. Krvaric, known online as “Strider,” started Fairlight in 1987 with two friends, “Black Shadow” and “Gollum.” The group of Swedish high schoolers quickly rose to prominence among online bulletin board users for cracking the copy protection on Commodore 64 games that Krvaric would “borrow” from his job in a Swedish game store. After the games were cracked, Krvaric and his friends would post the software to the Internet where it would be downloaded by other users for free.

The Raw Story chronicles Krvaric’s cracking accomplishments and Fairlight’s history, which includes setting up offices in California, recruiting new crackers, and selling a variety of goods from game copying devices to nonperishable foodstuffs.

Krvaric has failed to publicly respond to the allegations, but an alleged internal communication by Krvaric has been leaked to the Internet:

“Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, “exposing” my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days),” he wrote Monday. “This was in the 80’s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!”

The supposed letter also stated:

“I’m sure glad they didn’t look in to my elementary school years, as there’s some really embarrassing stuff that I did in 4th grade…. BTW, I also heard a rumor that another fellow committee member (who shall remain unnamed) once made a tape copy of his friend’s favorite vinyl record.”

“I don’t know who is spreading this, but just wanted to let you know what’s going on out there. Likely it’s someone who wants us to take our eye off the ball in 2008, be it the democrats, labor or someone else. Either way, we’re not going to let them get away with it. Thanks for your leadership.”

A list of Krvaric’s Commodore 64 cracking accomplishments can be found here. For further reading, check out the full article on The Raw Story.

Ben Kuchera over at Ars Technica reports that a surprising number of UPS workers are being fired for stealing copies of Rockstar’s [tag]Grand Theft Auto IV[/tag]. Despite the collective cries of [tag]gamers[/tag] that GTA doesn’t lead to real [tag]crime[/tag], it seems that the opposite is occasionally true–if not in the way we expect. A UPS employee reports that this phenomenon is novel to GTA IV and has not occurred on this scale with previous big-name releases. Three workers were fired in a 24-hour period and further questioning into suspect conduct will be conducted in the near future.

“As long as the people loading the packages are doing their jobs, it’s easy to track down,” [a] source told Ars. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? It’s a game about theft, and people are stealing it.” His eyes began to shine as he said, “and I get to terminate them.”

While the shiny-eyed joy of firing employees is mildly disheartening, the fact that individuals are willing to commit theft and potentially lose their jobs over an early copy of a [tag]video game[/tag] is unbelievable. The informant at UPS further reported that these copies are largely being stolen for personal use, not for resale at inflated prices. No word on whether the thieves are going for the standard or collector’s editions, but I imagine that lockbox would be hard to stuff in your pants.