Wed, Mar 23, 2011 | 22:32 GMT
Zynga Poker hacker gets two years for stealing $11 million
A British man has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing $11.4 million (£7 million) in virtual currency for the online poker game Zynga Poker.
Ashley Mitchell, from Devon, broke into the Zynga mainframe and stole the identity of two Zynga employees to transfer millions of pounds worth of in-game currency to accounts belonging to him.
He then sold the chips privately on what is described as a “black market” for cheap chips for the game. After selling around a third of the chips he was up £53,612, significantly less than what the chips were worth in-game.
Mitchell was caught because he used his own Facebook profile in one of his attempts to break into Zynga’s system despite connecting to the Wi-Fi of neighbours when he performed the hacking to keep his own connection clean.
Mitchell’s lawyer said that he’d spent most of the proceeds from selling the illegally gained chips on other online gambling sites and said gambling controlled his life.
The full story can be found on The Guardian. Thanks, Joystiq.
6 comments
#1
HauntaVirus
23/03/11, 10:55 pm
Wow, I bet he feels sheepish…
#2
lexph3re
23/03/11, 11:00 pm
But no! Hackers are our friends remember?! They only do things when someone says you can’t!
#3
Virginityrocks
23/03/11, 11:15 pm
^ Because corporations are your friends!
#4
lexph3re
23/03/11, 11:28 pm
no the trick is realising…. No ones your friend!lol. To think either care about you is ridiculous. Atleast corporations talk to you while their anally assaulting you
#5
mojo
24/03/11, 7:30 am
2: in other words, u still dont know whats a hacker and what is not.
#6
Schindet Nemo
24/03/11, 7:49 am
@2
He only hacked Zynga to install some homebrew on their servers.