Those crazy Dutch police have arrested a teenager for stealing virtual furniture from a virtual hotel. The online youth social networking site Habbo is a hotel whereby members can pay real money for furniture… whatever turns them on I guess.
According to Reuters a 17 year old hacked into other user’s accounts and virtually stole the furniture from their hotel rooms and moved it into his own.
An Amsterdam police spokeswoman confirmed a report that the teenager was accused of stealing 4,000 euros (2,844 pounds) worth of virtual furniture by hacking into the accounts of other users.
This begs the question, if the furniture did not exist, was there ever a crime? How can they punish the kid? Lock his virtual character up in a virtual jail cell?
Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.
