FBI called in to police virtual world

Found on Ars Technica on Friday, 23 December 2005
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Linden Labs, the creator and owner of the online game Second Life, have announced that they have turned to the FBI to investigate attacks carried out against the virtual world. The attacks were characterized as "Denial of Service" attacks, but they were unlike any kind of DoS attacks that network admins normally think about.

These attacks were carried out entirely in-game, using the same scripting tools available to anyone else in the Second Life world. Some virtual parties were bombed with pixellated explosives, while others were teleported randomly around the world. The attacks allegedly culminated in a "grid crash," which effectively denied game access to other players. This last attack was the event that prompted the call to the FBI.

Early on in the history of the game, player Randy Farmer made an invisible repeating auto-cannon that fired a hundred rounds per minute and teleported people away, just to illustrate what could be done with the scripting tools available.

So Linden Labs calls the FBI because someone makes use of the scripting tools they have created? If they don't like what users do with them, they should just limit the abilities.