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South Korea criminalizes 'boosting' with new law
Boosting — basically one person playing on another's account to rank them up — is going to be a criminal offense in South Korea with some stiff punishments awaiting the booster.
The new measure comes courtesy of an amendment to the country's Game Industry Promotion Act, reports The Daily Dot. That law was passed in June 2017. This new measure was developed in collaboration with the video games industry in the country and will punish boosters with a fine of up to 20 million won, which is roughly $18,000. They also get a two-year suspended prison sentence.
[...] The act goes into effect in six months, and defines a "proxy game" as "an act that interferes with the normal operation of the game by arranging or providing the service to acquire the score or performance of the game in a way that is not approved by the game-related business operated."
If you pay me in Bitcoin, I will post comments for you using your SN login.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @05:54PM (15 children)
If your game is based on the number of hours somebody plays, then it sucks. If it's based on the skill of the player improving as he plays, then boosting isn't a problem.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 10 2018, @06:30PM (14 children)
It's not just for level grinding. You can also grind someone's rank by playing and winning matches for them. I recall that some popular YouTubers have been accused of having someone else play for them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 10 2018, @07:53PM (3 children)
Unless you can win money in a competition by paying someone to do it for you, what exactly is the point of 1) having someone play for you and 2) for that person to play for you instead of for themselves ?
Yes, it's a rhetorical question. People are pretty dumb.
> If you pay me in Bitcoin, I will post comments for you using your SN login.
Takyon (881) 13310 comments ...
You just wanna be one of those lucky people paid to do something you already do for fun.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 10 2018, @07:59PM (1 child)
Actually, he paid someone to make about 12,200 of those comments. He's just trying to get the contracts, himself, so that he can sub them out to his contractor.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 10 2018, @08:11PM
Well, he should sub it to you. Runaway1956 : 12588 comments
You should both move to Korea and get rich.
Are you guys the all-time SN highest comment generators, after Anonymous Coward ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @09:29PM
As an example, in an MMO, grinding out money and game credits is annoying. That's why there is a grey/black market for buying things. This is a natural extension of that. Imagine somebody came to you and said "I'll get you to level 70 in World of Warcraft for $20" (rather than you needing to spend the multiple hours of work to get to the part of the game you want to play). You can criticize games for having "not fun" parts, but you can surely see why that would be something people would be interested in doing.
There are other reasons to do that as well, including both moral as well as immoral reasons. This includes things like peer prestige, advertising money, getting out of "ELO Hell," among many others.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday December 10 2018, @08:40PM (9 children)
First off, South Korea is fucking ridiculous about policing games like this. I see it as a violation of civil rights. Why can't I let anyone that I want use a product or service I ostensibly own? Can you get arrested for sharing a rice cooker FFS? Games, and their licensing are no different, unless South Korea has zero concept about some like the First Sale Doctrine. Real live matches don't allow this behavior since you see the person playing, and cheating in that case shouldn't be criminal, but civil. So this is related to subs for MMOs that are owned, but you can get a suspended prison sentence (which means being labeled a criminal forever in South Korea) because you allowed somebody else to play? That's intellectually and ethically offensive, and indicative of South Korean society taking gaming way, way, too damn seriously. It's weird that they have such a problem with it that their nation needs to monitor the youth's playing habits.
Secondly, Online gaming and Twitch is fucking ridiculous :) They're treating this like it's akin to doping in sports or something. The reality is that a Twitch "celebrity" can be as fake as anyone in Hollywood. Who thinks all the big name comics write all of their own material? That TV stars come up with their own lines? I'm laughing my ass off that they're are people disillusioned now about their video game heroes.
I remember a day when you actually played the video games yourself. Quaint huh?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday December 10 2018, @09:38PM (7 children)
How do you know that gamers have made it big? "Doping" scandals have come to the world of eSports:
https://www.businessinsider.com/esports-doping-scandal-investigated-by-espns-otl-2016-1 [businessinsider.com]
https://www.ibtimes.com/esports-drug-testing-update-esl-announces-list-banned-substances-including-adderall-2050245 [ibtimes.com]
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/07/25/0148248 [soylentnews.org]
It would be cool if new nootropics development was spurred on by video games, e.g. a drug that "speeds up" your brain so that it seems like time has slowed down.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Monday December 10 2018, @10:03PM (1 child)
Wow. Just Wow. That's really funny. My first thought was all the energy drinks. That stuff happened decades ago in the video arcades. Except it was called Jolt Cola. Nobody considered weed a competitive advantage, at least not when you had to stand at an arcade machine and be fairly physical. Weed was pretty much the background atmosphere and nobody considered it that much.
By all means, if this stupidity results in a brain boost pill I could take to do my job, all the better. My dream is to be like one of those suits in Ghost in the Machine that split their hands apart and interact with keyboards and surfaces with what seemed like dozens of fingers. If this gets us a few steps of the way there, then I'm happy.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 10 2018, @10:46PM
They pretty much threw weed onto the banned list because muh Prohibition 2.0. Not sure cannabis is giving anyone a gaming performance advantage. It's the Adderall, friend of many college students taking exams, that seems at least plausible, if unproven.
Apparently, Modafinil [wikipedia.org] has seen some use.
There are a number of substances [mindlabpro.com] (warning: supplement advertisement) that are regularly thrown in to energy drinks or supplements due to one claim or another about it making you alert and attentive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetam [wikipedia.org]
All in all, most of the nootropics that transhumanists like to talk about don't seem to work very well or have a great temporary or semi-permanent affect on congnition. Caffeine is an obvious drug of choice for pro gamers, along with at least half the planet. Some of the scheduled stuff like cocaine or meth might have an impact but are too harmful or could derail your life.
A better option might be transcranial direct-current stimulation, which has been shown to boost [soylentnews.org] learning [soylentnews.org]. I'm not sure if this would help with the competition phase or only during training, but maybe someone could hide a tDCS setup under their gamer beanie or fedora while competing in a tournament.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 11 2018, @01:37AM (4 children)
>e.g. a drug that "speeds up" your brain so that it seems like time has slowed down.
You don't even need the drug - there are a few techniques that can help you consciously alter your perception of the flow of time. Doesn't help with your reflexes, it still takes half a second minimum for a signal to get from your eyes to your fingers, but it can give you more opportunity to notice, consider, and react to things.
I would presume the total amount of intellectual effort you can apply per second doesn't change dramatically - i.e. your neurons are still firing at about the same speed, but it seems like you can use it a lot more effectively.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:24AM (3 children)
It's not a half second. Most martial artists I know are in the quarter second range.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:40AM (2 children)
Note that I'm talking specifically about *fingers* - it takes less time to get a signal to your bicep for example, less still to get to the shoulder. So reaction times will vary based on exactly how you measure them.
Pretty sure they'd still fail the "half dollar test" - brace their hand motionless on a table with the midpoint of a dollar bill suspended halfway between their thumb and fore-finger, then drop the bill while they try to close their fingers fast enough to grab it. Can't be done - the nerve-signal propagation delay is greater than the time it takes for the bill to fall half it's length.
There's lots of things you can do to improve your effective reaction time - mostly revolving around getting better at anticipating things. But I've never heard any suggestion that you can actually improve your nerve signal propagation speed.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:27AM (1 child)
Check this out:
https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics [humanbenchmark.com]
Looks like most people are at around a quarter second.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:53PM
I stand corrected. Just looked up the dollar bill "test" again, and apparently I misremembered 0.2 seconds as 1/2 second.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @10:45PM
You down own a service. You own a right to use for the contracted time period subject to the TOS you agreed to. Now, should it be a *crime* no, of course not and this is stupid. Should it get your service terminated for violation of said rules, sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @05:54PM (16 children)
The great wealth generated by Western models of civilization has funded the rise of old-world Authoritarians.
We are slowly but surely returning to a very dark time in societal organization.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:24PM (15 children)
Human society evolves in cycles and we just keep praying that we make it through enough iterations that we reach a more stable point.
The problem is that every new human starts with zero knowledge, and everything they learn and experience is a part of whatever society they are born into.
The tyranny of yesterday is just a memory, and the problems of today must be solved, but once society has gotten itself out of a tyrannical system the next generation can no longer quite grasp the really important lessons from the last cycle.
The thin veneer of civilization is the collective work of humanity and the only safeguard against tyranny. We have to record these lessons and teach them to each generation hoping that THIS time our societal safeguards against tyranny work better.
Your statement sounds like an ignorant narcissistic tribal war cry.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:39PM (7 children)
You're saying exactly the same thing as your parent, only with a lot more verbiage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:12PM (6 children)
No I am not, the OP is trying to say Western nations are great and it is their greatness that has allowed 3rd world countries to become tyrannical. It is closer to the reverse, the Western nations worked very hard to prevent freedom from developing in many nations in order to get governments that were more friendly to Western business interests.
I am saying it is a natural evolution of society, cycles of freedom and tyranny as generations figure it out for themselves.
I know, small words and simple concepts are preferable but they aren't always enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:18PM (4 children)
You are merely expanding on what he said, there was no disagreement until you pointed at him and said he had a small penis*.
*paraphrasing
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:27PM (2 children)
No I am not. I am entirely disagreeing with the viewpoint that Western wealth has created old-world tyrannies. I find that statement to be quite ignorant and contains a bias of superiority. "The West" should be looking to solve its own problems with tyranny before creating scapegoats that let us pretend we are perfect.
I another reply I mentioned the fact that Western nations have been busy overthrowing legitimate governments and easing the spread of tyranny. Maybe that is what the OP was going for but phrased it badly? I'm not saying blame everything on the West, but the idea that the West created wealth and other countries fucked it up is... stupid.
"Your statement sounds like an ignorant narcissistic tribal war cry." != "small penis"
No need to engage a topic when you simply boil it down to nonsense huh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:42PM (1 child)
Ah. Your point is a straw man.
The OP never said the West is the best; the OP merely said that the Western models for civilization generate a lot of wealth, and this wealth is now funding the rise of ancient authoritarianism.
So, the West figured out how to generate wealth (namely, capitalism), but cultures around the world (including in the West, I'd say) seem unwilling to give themselves over completely to capitalism—there are ancient, parasitical strains of authoritarianism that are content to use that wealth in ways that directly impinge on the very principles which have made society so prosperous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:55PM
You tricked him into saying "no I am not" repeatedly. He's GONE!! Wonder where he went, though. To hell? To Mexico? Back to his daddy's skid-marked shorts?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @08:00PM
Hyuck! Vienna sausage fest!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:45PM
Well, Trump. Trump gave a thrashing to that little punk to the north of Korea. Now, Korea has the leisure to be concerned over such frivolities as "boosting".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:39PM (6 children)
You seem to be using several words whose meanings you don't understand. For starters, "civilization" doesn't care one whit about "tyranny". You apparently confuse civilization with culture, then confuse both with government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:19PM (5 children)
Civilization contains culture and government.
I never said civilization cares about anything, I said it was the only safeguard we have against tyranny but that doesn't mean a civilization can't become tyrannical. I am not confusing anything, you just seem to be grasping at straws to discredit my statement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:46PM (4 children)
Indeed, anarchists (i.e., capitalists) are of the mind that Civilization requires the removal of government (where "government" is the name of any organization that allocates resources by coercion rather than agreement in advance).
In short, they say "You can have rulers or rules, but not both."
This is a fundamental point which you can't ignore.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 11 2018, @12:36AM (2 children)
I'm all on board with that, just point me to the infinite stack of contract-enforcing angels :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
Men are not angels => government is an even worse idea than you thought.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 13 2018, @01:56AM
So who enforces the contracts then...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:16AM
Good troll, well done *golf clap*
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday December 10 2018, @06:04PM
Next is your wifi. They're trying (and succeeding?) to prohibit sharing of anything. Don't let 'em do it!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:13PM
Boy, am I glad I don't live in South Korea. Sometimes my little nephew plays Candy Crush on my phone and he is a monster on that game. I guess I'd have to turn him in if the Game Police ever came knocking on my door asking why I play so much better on Saturday mornings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:39PM (5 children)
If you buy anything from me, then sharing that thing is stealing. I have the right to say who can use and how any product I produce is used. At least that's what the new corporate overlords want.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 10 2018, @08:30PM
Then maybe we should start divesting ourselves of things and activities controlled by corporate overlords, and do for ourselves.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @09:13PM (3 children)
technically playing a game where a public record of player activity is kept, using someone else's account is similar to school cheating, where you write someone else's essay or similar. I.e. in the neighbourhood of identity fraud.
I honestly don't think it should be a criminal offence unless the named player uses the reputation that they haven't worked for in order to obtain material gains afterwards, but whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @09:21PM (2 children)
"technically playing a game where a public record of player activity is kept, "
So letting someone else play asteroids on my quarter is equivalent to school cheeting because the high scores are displayed publically.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Monday December 10 2018, @10:41PM
Yeah... I think of it like loaning some of my tools to my neighbor.
Big F...... Deal.
In my book, I am only doing those things I learned as a child...
Life is much better if we share the toys and look out for each other. The fastest way to pull problems onto yourself is by making problems for someone else.
I would rather have good neighbors than anything. Money is a huge pain in the ass if I have to spend my life trying to keep it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:25AM
I didn't use the word equivalent.
and it matters whether you introduce your name for the high score after playing asteroids, or at the beginning (I know for sure that some games allow you to put in the name after you reach a high score).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday December 10 2018, @06:45PM (6 children)
While it may sound crazy, it's not terribly surprising, if you know that South Korea is really big into "E-Sports." "In 2015 it was estimated by SuperData Research that the global esports industry generated revenue of around US$748.8 million that year. Asia is the leading esports market with over $321 million in revenue, North America is around $224 million, and Europe has $172 million and the rest of the world for about $29 million.[165] Global esports revenue is estimated to reach $1.9 billion by 2018." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esports [wikipedia.org] "For South Korea, E-Sports Is National Pastime" https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/technology/league-of-legends-south-korea-epicenter-esports.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:56PM (5 children)
Never has something so inconsequential generated so much Sturm and Drang to the bedazzlement of so many for so long.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @07:19PM (4 children)
I can think of two: religion and sports (you know the physical ones)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @08:34PM
Let us not forget reality TV.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 10 2018, @11:56PM (2 children)
Add politics to your list. Equally inconsequential, I bet generates even more "Sturm and Drang" than religion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
Politics? Inconsequential? I can assure you that the decisions politicians make definitely do have consequences for just about everyone's life. Hence the problem.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 11 2018, @10:41PM
Has discussions about it brought anything of value lately?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday December 10 2018, @07:19PM (2 children)
> If you pay me in Bitcoin, I will post comments for you using your SN login.
Funny, most of those e-mails I get promise to post stuff if I *don't* give them Bitcoin.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 10 2018, @07:51PM
If you pay me in beer, I'll post comments for you under takyon's user name.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 10 2018, @08:01PM
Agreed.
by takyon (881)
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Monday December 10 2018, @07:51PM (1 child)
I feel like I should mention gaming is a bit different in South Korea. Registering an account with a persistent game like an MMO usually involves registering their equivalent of a Social Security Number. It's partly because of laws they have that require underage players take breaks.
Part of the reason for their ruthlessness might be, this boosting behavior implies something akin to identity sharing is happening.
Do they have any laws about smurfing yet? I haven't heard anything but it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe it's not possible since you'd need another SSN for another account.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 11 2018, @12:52PM
I heard Korean guy talking about it while he should have been working, and the main problem seems to be people trying to get police and lawyers involved when boosters are, perhaps, 50% scammers. Or 90%. Or 1%. But whatever the percentage, its too high.
Typical scams include your account password is changed and we'll change it back for a mere 5x what you paid for boosting, you paid for X units of boosting to take you from 95% completion to 98% completion and unless you pay 5X additional it would be a shame if your character dropped to 90% completion, we have your in-game chat logs what a shame if your wife read your conversation with your girlfriend (which will be made up if you don't have a GF because they obviously have multiple accounts to simulate it).
Its the usual IRL crimes, just done in a game. No small amount of simple BS. Gimmie money I'll level up; whoopsie I didn't but I'll keep your money is just something cops don't like dealing with.
Similar to a shitty dive bar full of criminals, its not that cops don't like beer or bars are inherently evil, its just this business model results in crazy levels of criminal/legal issues and the cops are sick and tired of it. As such, unlike America where login-sharing would result in SWAT teams storming in and shooting your kids in their backs because thats the goal not law enforcement, the outcome is likely you go to police station to report getting ripped off and the cops merely LOL and remind you thats illegal so unless the booster did something with a prison term longer than you'd get for illegally boosting...
Of course this is one dude overhearing exactly one other dude commenting, but at least the dude is ethnic Korean and claims to be plugged into their pop culture or whatever.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:46AM
Seems like something that would come out of a gamer society. Boosting doesn't matter to me when done in non-competitive games. But it really blows to get someone on your team that was boosted up to your competitive rank. Why? Because they are going to plummet in rank and they are going to drag other people down with them.
Why get boosted at all? Couple of reasons. Higher ranked play has far better coordination, communication, and can better carry a bum teammate. Also finishing a competitive season usually delivers a reward that gets better the higher your peak season rank.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @10:20AM
From South Korea?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:38PM
Also, "Gone in 60 seconds" the movie taught me that's the term for stealing a car. Though, I guess just stealing in general.
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"