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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (61523)	4/3/2005 5:23:43 AM
From: shades	Respond to of 74559

"Real is an abstract concept these days. Real doesn't necessarily have a 3D manifestation." What is Real Neo? games.slashdot.org Gamer Slain Over Virtual Property Dispute Posted by Zonk on Wednesday March 30, @12:57PM from the it's-just-a-game dept. cibe writes "A Shanghai online game player has stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword. Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon sabre", used in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3, the newspaper said a Shanghai court was told yesterday. Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan ($A1,129)." Update: 03/30 21:15 GMT by Z: More commentary available on Game Girl Advance hardware.slashdot.org Internet Phones & Identity Theft Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday March 20, @10:30AM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept. flaws writes "A CNN story details how phishers are using Internet Phones to expand their identity theft endeavors. The article demonstrates the use of caller-id spoofing to companies such as Western Union to thwart their verification system and successfully launder money. Western Union commented on the situation, stating at this time it's the only way they know how to authenticate the call. The anti-phishing working group states that telecommunications abuse is being used to fool home users into revealing their bank information over the phone." games.slashdot.org Third-World Sweatshops Producing Virtual Goods Posted by timothy on Sun Feb 06, '05 08:10 AM from the what-the-market-will-bear dept. prostoalex writes "MSNBC points to the court cases spawned by virtual worlds. Recently, Tom Loftus notes, a virtual island in one of the MMORPGs sold for $30,000, enough to attract commercial attention. Apparently, some businesses create third-world sweatshops, where low-wage laborers are being paid to play and accumulate enough virtual merchandise, so that an eBay sale of it makes the operation profitable. 'One such business, Blacksnow Interactive, actually sued a virtual world's creator in 2002 for attempting to crack down on the practice. The first of its kind to center on virtual goods, the case was eventually dropped,' MSNBC says." Update: 02/06 18:59 GMT by Z: We ran a story about the sale of the virtual island, and Terra Nova has a lot of commentary on the sale of virtual goods. For comparison, the economic impact of this phenomenon is roughly equal to that of Namibia or Macedonia.