Roblox[*] blames 'gang rape' on hacker adding code to game
A popular children's video game has blamed a virtual "gang rape" on a hack of its systems. Amber Petersen's seven-year-old daughter was playing Roblox, when [her online avatar] was attacked by two male characters staging violent sexual acts.
The firm said the incident was caused by an attack on one of its computer servers that has been dealt with. But experts have cautioned parents not to let young children play online without supervision. They warn it is unlikely this will be the last time such a hack occurs.
After Ms Petersen witnessed the attack on her family iPad, she posted screenshots and an account of the event on her Facebook page, detailing the experience. Ms Petersen said that when her daughter had asked what was happening on the screen, she had viewed a "horrific" scene of her child's avatar being sexually assaulted by two male characters. Towards the end of the incident, she said, a third, female character interfered by jumping on the victim's body.
The BBC understands that the hacker responsible managed to subvert the California-based company's cyber-protection systems, allowing them to upload code that changed the game's rules and made customised animations appear. Roblox previously confirmed that it had identified the account responsible and blocked it from its platform.
[*] From the company web site, Roblox:
Roblox is the best place to Imagine with Friends. With the largest user-generated online gaming platform, and over 15 million games created by users, Roblox is the #1 gaming site for kids and teens (comScore). Every day, virtual explorers come to Roblox to create adventures, play games, role play, and learn with their friends in a family-friendly, immersive, 3D environment.
A victim of dank memes? Or the powerful scripting system?
Original Facebook post. Also at TechCrunch and The Washington Post.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 20 2018, @03:16PM (4 children)
The internet is more like Tatooine. Except, everyone wants to be there.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday July 20 2018, @04:00PM
Hot and mostly empty? I think you mean Mos Eisley Spaceport, the wretched hive of scum and villainy.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:37PM (2 children)
I don't want to be here.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)
Obviously you do - you're here. It's not like you have to save up enough money to be able to afford to leave - just close your web browser and you're free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @06:02PM
NOW THIS IS PODRACING
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
Anybody remember Mr. Bungle and his voodoo doll? A Rape in Cyberspace [juliandibbell.com] by Julian Dibbell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @03:59PM
Bungle that pussy.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday July 20 2018, @03:47PM (27 children)
There are some seriously messed-up people out there, you know? When did people stop knowing how to behave?
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday July 20 2018, @03:54PM (2 children)
On the day Anonymous Coward was born. So maybe around the time of the first cave paintings.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @07:26PM
Hey, I resent that. Correlation does not imply causation.
- AC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Saturday July 21 2018, @12:17AM
Just like writing on the stall walls of the porcelain halls: "for a good time call jane 555-4622", "Here I sit broken hearted...","x is a faggot", "y was here", "8======D~~~" etc.
Only the stall wall is in everyone's pocket and available in real time.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @03:56PM (12 children)
When people are allowed to be anonymous, the bad stuff comes out.
Just think: if you could be invisible ANY TIME you want, wouldn't you at least THINK about watching someone you find attractive undress? Would you stop at thinking about it? No one would know, no one would be able to pin it on you unless you let them know you could be invisible.
Absolute power corrupts...absolutely.
But yeah, i hear you...some anonymous people are worse than others. There is anonymous good, anonymous neutral and anonymous chaotic, i guess.
Some invisible people wouldn't stop at just watching.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:27PM (9 children)
what do you mean "allowed"? who do you think has the authority to "allow" the people to have privacy? privacy is an right, not a goddamn privilege.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:33PM
Have you established your own territory? Have you killed, conquered, or repelled the nearby upright apes? No, you are subservient to a government of apes and judged by ape courts. You only have "rights" as long as they say you do. You only have "privacy" until they become interested in your activities.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @05:04PM (7 children)
Privacy is a very recent creation - not a lot of privacy to be had living in a one-room hut in a village of a few tens to a few hundred people. For most of human history, everybody knew everybody else's business. It was only with the rise of civilization a scant few thousand years ago that you could have privacy without being a hermit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @05:07PM (6 children)
Besides, they were talking about anonymity, not privacy. Very different things - anonymity is the ability to act publicly while keeping your identity secret - which has always before been a very difficult thing to do.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 20 2018, @09:32PM (5 children)
Not really. For the most part, complete anonymity was a a day's ride away by horse.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:17AM (4 children)
No, it really wasn't. They might not know your name or history, but they know you as "that guy who just rode in on a horse", and if you said something to piss off the wrong people, they could easily yank you off that horse and slit your throat.
Besides which, domesticated horses are themselves a quite recent technology, at only about 6000 years old. And even as recently as the medieval period it's believed that the vast majority of people never traveled more than five miles from the village where they were born. Hunter-gatherer's traveled further, but did so as a group, and it was a radically different society (For starters, it's commonly believed that economies were primarily gift-based, with trade being reserved for dealing with other tribes)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:56AM
Even today, the majority of people never go further than 100 miles from their home town. Even in western countries, the majority will never leave the country of their birth.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:29PM (2 children)
So you're actually talking about impunity rather than anonymity. For a great deal of the past before records might follow you around the country or even around the world, there was anonymity and even a chance to start over, but impunity was reserved for nobles (who did often behave badly).
Even without anonymity, we see cases of "affluenza" due to real or imagined impunity.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
The two are somewhat related concepts, but with an important difference:
If you do something anonymously, you can walk around in public tomorrow and nobody will know that it was you that did it. That does indeed give you a measure of impunity, but only a pale version - if anyone learns it was you, you will still have to face the consequences.
If you do something with impunity, then you can walk around town with everyone knowing what you did, and still not face the consequences.
Starting over is neither, it's just a chance to escape further consequences for past actions through self-imposed exile, discarding everything attached to your old identity, good and bad. (well, aside from knowledge and whatever wealth you can carry). Your actions in a new life still are still attributed to you, and you will have to face the consequences for them, unless you choose to flee and start over yet again. Your actions in your old life are *also* still attributed to you, and if you're ever recognized, by returning to your old territory, or being spotted by a chance traveler, you may have to face the consequences for those as well.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:20PM
Agreed, anonymity can create something impunity like. The stronger the anonymity, the stronger the effect. But I contend that the anonymity is merely the mechanism providing the impunity that, in turn, leads the person to behave badly in some cases.
The effect is tempered by fear that the impunity might not hold. Perhaps someone in the group they consider to be peers will take offense, or their god, or they might face karma in their next life. Or perhaps they believe their ancestors are watching and think less of them.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 20 2018, @05:23PM (1 child)
Having the power to become invisible and visible at will would definitely have it's own temptations. The fewer morals, the more likely someone would be to abuse said power. As happened in this instance. Since essentially, that's exactly what happened in a "with a computer" sort of way.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @08:52PM
Sadly, you are correct. Is 'it REALLY happening' that far away from reality for the people who did the 'hack'.
I've found that generally i am a pretty peaceful happy guy: people, i've noticed, are pretty much the only thing that can get me feeling depressed.
My wife's cancer brought me down but didn't depress me. Only sad, angry, stupid people depress me.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Alfred on Friday July 20 2018, @03:57PM (7 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:40PM (1 child)
Oh please. The church has historically been one of the worst offenders of humanity and committed many atrocities.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @10:02PM
But they've done more good than bad, so on balance the church is better than, say, an Islamic Jihadi mosque.
(Score: 5, Touché) by isostatic on Friday July 20 2018, @05:00PM (3 children)
Raping 7 year olds is the area the church has a lot of experience with
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @05:26PM
That's why we should put them back in charge. Virtual gang rape? Hah, amateurs.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @10:05PM
Fake News! In 9 out of 10 cases, the children were found to have been acting provocatively.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday July 23 2018, @01:45PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @08:59PM
If you want to talk about the school system, it started there when parents were given more power than the school.
Schools have no play equipment on the yard because of stupid parents.
Disruptive kids who get expelled are reinstated because of stupid parents.
Dang... to me, teachers should be striking for control of the classroom again so the kids who are there to learn can actually learn instead of leaving that one disruptive kid in the class who STARTS THROWING CHAIRS AND DESKS AROUND and the class has to be vacated. How can a kid learn when ONE KID is allowed to disrupt the class AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
No... that one kid is expelled and is the parents problem until the problem is rectified.
No child left behind.... no, it should be bad kids get spanked behinds.
Dang.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cmdrklarg on Friday July 20 2018, @04:34PM (1 child)
Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 [penny-arcade.com]
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:09AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @07:24PM
uhm... many people are scum, but most teenagers are worst.
in today's world, teenage mentalities last well into early 30s.
on the internet, you just need one in one thousand to be the psychopath, and still the impact is quite large.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday July 20 2018, @05:12PM (6 children)
But experts have cautioned parents not to let young children play online without supervision.
Quite. It's not hard. The TV/Computer/Whatever is not a nanny. Do your fscking job and be a parent
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @07:49PM
As a parent, stuff is hard, it'd be nice to get a break once in a while.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday July 20 2018, @08:04PM
What the fuck does that smug bullshit even mean? "be a parent" ?
As a parent, my kids were allowed to play games, and lego, and cars/trucks, blocks, and read. And of course they were supervised while they were younger. But so what? Supervised means i know what's going on, i know what they are up to, supervised means I don't rely the game to raise them for me.
"Being a parent" means I'm around, and checking in regularly; and making sure i know where they are an what they are up to; even while giving them age appropriate amounts of time and space to explore on their own too.
It certainly doesn't mean I'm sitting there holding their hand the entire time, with my finger on the power switch ready to kill the power the second something happens.
So if they were in 2nd grade for example (age 7 as in the example), that's old enough that they can ask for permission to play 'club penguin' (i think it was at the time) and they can sit at the laptop at the kitchen table and do their thing while I'm doing mine; and if the game is hacked and suddenly the screens fills up with profanity, vulgarity, violence, and porn... my kids still going to see it at least for several seconds perhaps even a minute or two (expecially if there's no audio); until i either notice it or they call me and ask about it.
I'm not sure what difference you think "being a parent" would have made here; or why you think the parents in this situation "failed" at it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by qzm on Friday July 20 2018, @08:44PM (1 child)
Says the person who is obviously not a parent.
Supervision is not being a helicopter parent monitoring their every second of interaction.
We teach our children to be sensible, respectful, and think.
We give them examples of what is ok and what is not, and ask their thoughts on situations, to guide them.
We make sure they know we care about them and support them.
We punish them suitably when they need to learn a lesson.
We reward good behaviour.
We let them make mistakes, and they learn from them.
That is being a parent.
Not micro management
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:20PM
Would you let your kids play in a playground in a public park in a seedy part of town after dark? The fixtures all have "kid-safe" labels, sound good?
It's always night on the internet, just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Score: 2) by splodus on Friday July 20 2018, @10:04PM (1 child)
I'm interested if you have view on this?
Would you say 'no internet' without supervision?
Would you like a filtered internet for children?
I've got small children - right now I don't supervise everything they do - and frankly, I'm a bit worried...
Eldest likes to do coding and stuff before bedtime - I don't check he's not actually on social media! He might be? Or if not now, maybe one day...
It's difficult to know what is the best thing to do. You want your kids to have freedom, but you have to protect them too, of course!
Honestly - I don't know what to do?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:48AM
I would say - teach them that there are monsters online that will try to hurt their feelings if they can, and that they should (1) not take it to seriously so long as it's just online, (2) always feel free to talk to you about anything that shocks or confuses them (the corollary being you need to actually TALK with them about such things, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Actually, *especially* if so. If it makes *you* uncomfortable, then a child exposed to it will need your guidance more than ever. And (3) never meet anyone from online in real life, unless you say it's okay and go with them, because some monsters are really good at pretending to be your friend in order to get the chance to hurt you for real. There've always been wolves in the woods, and children have always had to learned basic self defense at a young age. That the woods are electronic, and the wolves walk on two legs.
As for the occasional nudity, profanity, sexuality, etc. is unlikely to do any damage unless you're keeping them criminally ignorant. For most of human history children weren't shielded from such things, and even today in several cultures it's quite common for children to start playing sexual games with each other at a very young age in mimicry of the adults. They'll be fine. Any sex or violence portrayed on screen may shock and confuse them, and they'll need your guidance, but think of it as a teaching moment for (3). Genuine videos of real graphic violence is probably some of the worst real damage that can be done online, and it may traumatize them for a while, but it's still "just TV" and kids are incredibly resilient. Most have probably seen at least a few horrific movie scenes they wish they could unsee before they reach 10.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:36AM (2 children)
So they openly state that they will stay insecure?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday July 23 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
Are you assuming that perfect security is achievable?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday July 23 2018, @08:02PM
Unlikely != impossible.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.