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Ukraine Warehouse Packed with Thousands of PS4s was Actually a FIFA Ultimate Team Bot Farm

posted by janrinok on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:04AM   
from the oh-wow-that-was-honest-work dept.

upstart writes:

Ukraine warehouse packed with thousands of PS4s was actually a FIFA Ultimate Team bot farm:

A giant cryptocurrency farm in Ukraine that contained thousands of PlayStation 4 consoles was actually a FIFA bot farm.

Last week the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced it had shut down what was reported as a cryptocurrency mining farm that contained an incredible 3800 game consoles. Images showed racks of PS4 Slims (some claimed the photos showed PS4 Pros) - either way not the ideal hardware for a cryptocurrency farm.

It turns out the PS4s were being used to grind FIFA Ultimate Team.

According to an investigation by Ukraine business newspaper Delo, sparked by scepticism of the official claim about the farm being primarily about mining cryptocurrency, as well as the fact game discs can be seen protruding from PS4s in one of the pictures, what we're looking at in the photos is a bot farm that got stuck into the Ultimate Team grind, with the goal of selling accounts loaded up with in-game currency on the black market.

Delo said the Security Service of Ukraine has so far refused to comment on the revelation, citing the secrecy of the investigation. But the suggestion is these PS4 Slims, all controlled by PCs running bots, farmed Ultimate Team for profit.

Previously: Ukrainian Police Bust Cryptocurrency Mining Operation, Seize 3,800 PlayStation 4 Consoles.

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Original Submission

• What's going on over there? What's going on over there? (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:46AM (5 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:46AM (#1158147)

  You guys ok there in Ukraine? Is it a lingering after-affect of chernobil?

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• Re:What's going on over there? Re:What's going on over there? (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 20 2021, @04:32AM (1 child)

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday July 20 2021, @04:32AM (#1158160) Journal

  Niche market. Not as speculative as cryptocurrency, just the service of grinding through the game in an automated way and selling the result of the grind on real-world money. Work is done for the money, unlike just speculating the cryptocurrency fad.

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  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

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  • Re:What's going on over there? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:30AM (#1158172)

    Yeah, supply and demand. Lots of multi-player games have these kinda of setup even back to decades ago with diablo on battlenet. I remember my bro selling an account for a grand after grinding manually for a few months.

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• That's it That's it (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @06:02AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @06:02AM (#1158175)

  The patriotic Ukrainians need to send their women oversea to safe(r) countries - for safe keeping.

  After all, the Ukrainian women are global human treasure, like UNICEF said.

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    Re:That's it (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:23AM (#1158221)

    >> After all, the Ukrainian women are global human treasure, like UNICEF said.

    So if Britney was Ukranian she'd get more respect? #FreeBritney

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• Re:What's going on over there? (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 20 2021, @12:23PM

  by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday July 20 2021, @12:23PM (#1158230)

  No worse than the leaded gasoline that the auto manufacturers paid scientists to claim was safe.

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