Sophos Cloud Optix
29-year-old Ashley Mitchell has received two years in a UK slammer after being found guilty of hacking into a computer server, and stealing 400 billion (yes, BILLION) virtual poker chips from Zynga, makers of popular social networking games such as zyngapoker, FarmVille and MafiaWars.
The poker chips’ estimated worth? An eye-watering $12 million (£7.4 million).
So, if my basic maths are right, for every bag of a billion chips, worth about $30,000, he gets two days in jail. As the chips are virtual, I guess Zynga can always create more at the touch of a button.
Driven to fuel his £1,000-a-day gambling habit, the ex-council clerk from Devon transferred the online poker chips to a number of Facebook accounts he had created and sold the chips to poker lovers at a fraction of the price.
Mitchell made just over £50,000 from selling a third of the chips. Had he continued, it’s estimated he could have made in excess of $290,000 (£184,000).
According to The Guardian, Prosecuter James Taghdissian said Zynga became aware that large amounts of chips were disappearing. Investigators eventually realised the company’s systems had been hacked and narrowed the search to Paignton, Devon.
Mitchell piggy-backed on his neighbours’ unsecured WiFi connections to help obfuscate his identity, which led to the authorities seizing their computers.
Mitchell was eventually caught because he accidentally used his own Facebook profile during one of his attempts to hack into the system.
Photo source of Ashley Mitchell: rackrace.com
Well he wouldn't be the only one. I'm sure he would also show someone how to do it. Like some hacker would like to share.
"Mitchell was eventually caught because he accidentally used his own Facebook profile during one of his attempts to hack into the system."
Made me laugh anyway…
Well, atleast Zynga and their offer providers like offerpal didn't have to pay their customers back for fraudulent cell phone charges (aka Scamville). Guess you have to be incorporated in order to rip people off.
Redonk.
The numbers are wrong. At Zynga 1 million is sold for about $1, so 1 billion is $1000, and 400 billion is $400,000. This is a rough calculation, but the man did not steal $12 million worth of chips.
410 mill chips costs 236$ so 1 bill would cost about 500$
The numbers are wrong. At Zynga 1 million is sold for about $1, so 1 billion is $1000, and 400 billion is $400,000. This is a rough calculation, but the man did not steal $12 million worth of chips.
its a fake story made by zynga officials to prevent others from stealing!
serves the fkr right. our accounts at home are getting hacked every week. bloody sick of it, and the ammount of stress someone like this causes. he sould be banned from using pc's.
my account also got hacked, they pretend from zynga sending friend request to give bonus hundred millions chips, but this is fake request to lead you to the phising apps at facebook. If you already got hacked, it cannot be healed at zynga server, you need to remove zynga poker apps from your facebook, then create new facebook profile, start with the new one, and secure your facebook password with cellphone authorization.
lol Nicky you should be banned from using PC's until you learn how to spell
zynga iitself is actually the hacker. yet, no comment from the official
I want to report spam on zynga poker because my account is in suspension notice with out any reason and my friend's dad's account was in the same condition with 700 m some thing in it ! I want to kick zynga people for suspending my account with out any reason or i need a proof why was my account suspended !
I had nearly half a billion chips taken off me because they said i broke the terms of service ….i'm not a hacker i just won a lot of chips and when i tried to get them back i just got the same answer, they said i had to agree that i cheated and they would start me off from a million chips. This is robbery! Zynga should be locked up in this case!
Purav Mehta from india also did same but did not caught because he used fake name adn server…
purav mehtais the most famous name in india as zynga poker hacker with the huge amount of chips selling and with surprisingly always full amount of stock
and surprisingly his chips never get banned if you buy from him .. so its not hacking its kind of patch up with zynga itself..
if you buy from any other seller then you are gonna bann isnt it intresting