If you still think internet is a place to hide, you are wrong now. Recently, Howard County Sheriff's Department deputy Matt Roberson tracked down a wanted fugitive through one of the most popular games on the Internet ? World of Warcraft. And he got his man.
Alfred Hightower, a man wanted on charges of dealing in a schedule III controlled substance and dealing in a schedule IV controlled substance, and two charges of dealing in marijuana, was arrested in Canada because he kept playing World of Warcraft after skipping the country. The man will meet the first beam of sunshine in jail.
Blizzard gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his
IP address,
his account information and history,
his billing address, and even his
online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location.
They don't have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn't," said Roberson. "It had been three or four months since I had sent the subpoena. I just put it in the back of my mind and went on to do other things. Then I finally got a response from them. They sent me a package of information. They were very cooperative. It was nice that they were that willing to provide information."
Nowthere to Run
It's good to see a drug-pedlar got caught via an online game and he deserved it. Nevertheless, it's worrisome that our privacy is in the hands of these game operators
without any means of protection. Once you create a character in an online game,
your privacy will be recorded and you will still be recorded on the internet even if you have deleted the game. Blizzard offering the drug-pedlar's privacy to the government is a sign that they can use users' information to do anything, but this is not the main point. What we really worry about is how they would deal with our privacy if the company were shut down.
source:http://www.gmbase.com/bbs/Topic.aspx?BoardID=45&TopicID=1847
