Crooks and Deception in Online Video Games

Online Deception: Video Games

            In today’s world, younger generations are not becoming aware to the dangers of online communication. Our generation has learned from past experiences and news reports of online deception over the last decade or so. It has been made well aware that any information one puts on the Internet that is accessible, professional hackers can and will be take that information easily. Kids these days are absolutely obsessed with social media and video games, well from what I have seen in my hometown neighborhoods. Kids don’t go outside anymore, all of them are glued to their phones, computers, and video game systems as if being ranked number one on some pointless video game will allow them to succeed in life. Now most of these kids these days, are playing video games that are rated M for mature… how do these kids get these games? Their parents buy them for them. An example is my neighbor, who is 10, was bought Grand Theft Auto 5 for Christmas. Now in this game I have learned there’s an online world where you can create your own persona and buy guns and do missions with whoever else is online. However, you have to create a profile, which asks if you are over 18 years old, not only that but you are able to talk to whoever else in the world that is playing online with you. Since you have no idea who that person is, you trust them that they will work along with you during these missions and not betray you, or worse, kill you. However, some online gamers live off of deceiving gamers by presenting the idea of truth biases in their minds. Your partner shoots a rocket launcher at the car you are about to go in and say that they meant to aim for the car behind you; you believe him because he has the rocket launcher, is a higher level, and seems like he is telling the truth. You don’t fully scrutinize him, you just let it slide, doubting that it will happen again. This game opens up a world of kids to be bullied by those more experienced and older to take full advantage by any means necessary.

            Now for my next point I am going to stay with the subject of children and video games. The other day, my friend showed me a YouTube video of a man, Joe, in his 30s who lives off of trolling kids and hackers online. In one video, a gamer that sounds like he is in his teens, is easily heard telling Joe that he is one of Microsoft Gaming’s leading managers in his state and would like to reward Joe with some Microsoft cash for playing so well in his Call of Duty game. Joe immediately states to the audience before anything starts that this kid is going to commit identity theft, and boy was he right. This kid begins to ask Joe for his credit card, Microsoft email and password, gamer tag username and password, and even his social security card number. This kid is either a hacking genius, or else he could be going to prison really soon if he keeps up his antics. This kid is committed three out of the five types of identity theft. He is doing so financially by trying to obtain Joe’s credit card, he attempts identity cloning by trying to get Joe’s game tag username and password, so that he can take over Joe’s account and play as him, messing with other gamers so they think it’s Joe. Last but not least, he is using a synthetic approach, by asking Joe for his SSN and use it not only to use for security question purposes, but to enable any type of reward it might have connected to it, such as benefits. Joe is able to deceive the hacker himself by asking the hacker to reiterate some of the facts he has said about himself, concluding in the hacker to have a lack of reason and lack of directness. The hacker becomes agitated with Joe saying he should not have to repeat anything he has said because he could shut down his account immediately. Joe messes with him for a little, in which the hacker is losing his touch taking longer to answer Joe’s question, becoming more cognitively complex. The hacker finally becomes so pissed off that he says he will terminate his account and signs off, and to this day Joe’s account has been safe and sound.

            Now because Joe is an adult and has a lot of experience with these types of hackers, it seems comical to us what occurs. But what happens when children ages 7 to 14 years old who are playing online and run into these crooks. They aren’t going to be able to outsmart these criminals, and information will be given away, leading to the possibility of thousands of money from families to be stolen, along with that child’s identity. Online security needs to be cracked down by parents or guardians or else future generations will vanish from identity fraud before they are old enough to make a resume.