Ó 3kf2yd Crimes and consequences Discuss these questions. 1 Have you ever played an online role-playing game? 2 Why do you think people enjoy playing games like this? 3 Do you think playing games poses a security risk? Why? / Why not? 4 Are you worried about apps and websites collecting your personal data? Why? / Why not? What do you think you can do to protect yourself? Reading 1 Read the headline of the newspaper article. What do you think the article’s about? Talk in pairs. Read the article to check your ideas. According to the police, what was the woman’s crime? A breaking into someone’s computer B destroying a character from an online game C killing her husband 2 a b It was a virtual murder … but the sentence is real ONCE the stuff of low-quality science fiction movies, the crime of virtual murder may become a reality, following the arrest of a middle-aged piano teacher from southern Japan who murdered her virtual husband. The 43-year-old woman hacked into the computer of the man she married in the online game MapleStory and deleted his carefully constructed virtual character after their relationship turned sour. Police arrested her this week following a complaint by the man, a 33-year-old office worker who lives on the other side of the country in the northern city of Sapporo, 1,000 km away. The two apparently never had a face-to-face meeting and the woman is not suspected of a flesh-and-blood crime, say the police. She is accused of using her virtual partner’s password and ID, which she acquired when they were a happily married virtual couple, to gain illegal access to his computer. The crime carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison or a fine of about £3,200. “It sounds like a strange case but obviously it is illegal to hack into someone else’s computer,” said a spokesman for the Sapporo police. “That is why she has been arrested.” According to investigators, the woman flew into a rage when the relationship was abruptly terminated. “I thought everything was fine, and then I was suddenly divorced without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” she was quoted as saying. The two met while playing a hugely popular role-playing game called MapleStory, which encourages anonymous users to create online characters that explore alternative worlds, fight monsters and engage in virtual relationships. Long-term commitments and marriage are not uncommon among players, who are sometimes not even living in the same country. Originally from South Korea, MapleStory now reportedly has more than 50 million members worldwide. The latest case comes amid growing controversy about online crimes. A court in the Netherlands sentenced two teenagers to a total of 360 hours of community service this month for breaking into 20 2Unit Digital jungle describe possible consequences of actions suggest changes to a plan or document talk about designing a site map write an enquiry and an offer put forward an argument in a blog comment Goals talk about crimes and justice justify your point of view talk and write a report about big data give a pitch presentation develop answer strategies to questions Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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