UK’s Top Police Warn That Modding Games May Turn Kids into Hackers

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Phaserlight

Key phrase "in order to cheat" (I dislike cheaters as much as the next man)...

...and remember

Jaiml

So next time I play CSGO I can report the wallhacker directly to the authorities?  About time!

cameltosis

This made me laugh. The NCA is not the UKs leading law enforcement agency, I just did a quick survey in my office and nobody had ever heard of them, I've only heard of them in passing. They have a very specific mandate (organised crime) but they are more of an intermediary, liaising with other law enforcement agencies to pool resources, share knowledge and bring about convictions. 

But, being worried about modders turning to a life of crime?!?! Seems somewhat ridiculous. Sure, I guess anyone with decent computer skills could put those skills to nefarious uses, but setting up a booth at a gaming convention to prevent computer crime seems just as stupid as setting up a booth at an athletics competition to prevent mugging!

Vrika

I think it's a good move. Preventing minors from committing crimes is always preferable than having to punish minors because we failed to raise them properly.

Even if it might not be that effective, I think it's a good attempt.

laxie

Sounded ridiculous at first. It does make sense if you account for the "make mods for cheating" part.

Programming an aim bot or a gold farming tool, with the intention of using or distributing it, is not that far from hacking a company. You are exploiting a service in a way that is not allowed.

That said, a booth at a games convention might not cut it. They could invest money into making regular competitions, rewarding the best (legal) game mods. Why would a person spend time making an aim bot, if they could get rewarded for making a damage meter.

cameltosis

laxie said:

That said, a booth at a games convention might not cut it. They could invest money into making regular competitions, rewarding the best (legal) game mods. Why would a person spend time making an aim bot, if they could get rewarded for making a damage meter.

This is the sort of thing that GCHQ are doing in the UK. They have sponsored a few hacking conventions and have regular recruitment drives and competitions in an attempt to divert gifted hackers away from individual crime (hacking for personal profit) towards state-sponsored crime (hacking in the name of national security). 

GCHQ are absolutely the right agency for this sort of work. The NCA aren't.

SpottyGekko

Very few of the attendees at games shows WRITE their own cheat tools. They buy them.

Using the word "modding" in this context is somewhat misleading and almost sounds like an attempt to be "politically correct". Perhaps they don't want to "criminalise" cheaters or something like that.

The NCA is quite correct in their assessment though. Anyone searching for illegal cheat program vendors may very well stumble onto botnet sellers and other similar criminal services, like sellers of stolen cc numbers, etc. It could become tempting for a prospective cheater to use a stolen cc number to register their gaming account, which would make the eventual cheating ban far less painful.

Scot

Phaserlight said:

Key phrase "in order to cheat" (I dislike cheaters as much as the next man)...

...and remember

I was about to point that out myself, most modders are not cheating!

MaxBacon

Well there has been a great increase of cheating, more sophisticated and all... Modding opens a box of knowledge and you can use that in several ways.

But when it comes to hacks as @SpottyGekko said most come from actual groups that dedicate themselves selling those, of course if you want you can get involved with that world anyway.

YashaX

Not sure what any of that has to do with modding games ....

Tiamat64

Misleading title.  The "in order to cheat" part of the phrase makes it make much more sense, mainly because "cheating" is what hacking is in the first place and unlike murder, hacking is a lot more unpersonal whether it's for a game or for DDoS accounts.

"Playing violent Video Games makes people murderors!" is an indirect relationship and extremely hard to prove, but hacking is just a logical extension of cheating.