Law 2.5 or 3.0 or whatever
By Dave Birch posted Jul 8 2010 at 11:06 AM[Dave Birch] Now, as I'm fond of saying, the whole real/virtual thing is a bit fuzzy. One of the areas where this is frequently demonstrated is crime...
the Habbo Hotel folks have now asked Finnish police to investigate 400 cases of "theft" in their world. Seriously. Of course it is a bit more complicated than that. They're really upset about phishing scams that let scammers get users login information, which they then use to get into their account and transfer the virtual goods away. But that's not really "theft" and it's a misnomer to call it that.
[From Yet Again, Real Police Called Into Virtual World Over (Not Really) Theft Of Virtual Items | Techdirt]
Correct. This isn't theft any more than copying an MP3 is theft, but it is closer to what we might think of as theft in that it's fraud, but it's fraud that prevents the rightful owner of the virtual goods from enjoying their use (which is not the case when a teenager copies a friends CD).
And, really, if Habbo Hotel users are getting phished so frequently, perhaps the Habbo developers should focus on building a better login system that is not so susceptible to simple phishing scams..
[From Yet Again, Real Police Called Into Virtual World Over (Not Really) Theft Of Virtual Items | Techdirt]
This is correct. It it wrong to expect the rest of society to pay to support a business model that is founded on technology that is not fit for purpose. You wouldn't let carmakers sell vehicles without locks to save money while simultaneously lobbying for higher spending on the police to prevent car theft.
But here's an interesting thought experiment. If there were a working digital identity infrastructure, would it be possible to build a working law enforcement system on top of it? I think the answer is yes, because crime and punishment would both be founded on the management of reputation. Think of the example of eBay stars: if I am a top seller on eBay, then taking away my stars is a serious punishment, much worse than fining me money or, in some cases, locking me up.