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LAN Party Forums => FITES News => Started by: MahoneyRed on November 20, 2013, 07:53:24 AM
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Remember back in May when I first posted (http://www.fites.net/fites-news/esea-admins-have-been-caught-installing-malware-to-mine-bitcoins/) news elements of how the e-sports gaming league ESEA had been caught installing a Bitcoin miner on their users machines, all without their awareness or consent? If you don't, check out that first link to get some background info on the whole thing.
ESEA appears to have reached a settlement with New Jersey (http://nj.gov/oag/newsreleases13/pr20131119a.html) to the tune of a potential whopping $1 million. Currently ESEA will be required to pay $325,000 up front, and then only pay the rest if they are caught doing bad dude things again over the next 10 years.
ESEA blamed everything on a rogue employee, who has since been terminated, but that didn't sit well with state lawyers. The NJ Attorney General, in a press release, called the malicious code, embedded in ESEA's custom client, a botnet. And if you're here, you know how much they don't like that.
This isn't the end either. Currently ESEA is facing a class action law suit in California.
The settlement by ESEA is not an admission of wrong doing, and in a press release from ESEA (http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=esports&d=comments&id=13341) they said the “press release issued by the Attorney General about our settlement represents a deep misunderstanding of the facts of the case, the nature of our business, and the technology in question.”
Getting away from the technical aspects here it's time to ask the question, is this too far? At the end of the day the fine from NJ will not go back to the players that had their rigs damaged. And those Bitcoins? Well only 30 were mined, and even with today's exchanges that amounts to only around 18K at best. Is it worth sending a company into potential bankruptcy like this? It is at this time, people should note that when settlements are handled with larger corporations, in cases of fraud, rarely does the government even come close to damaging the profit shares of a company. What are your thoughts?
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I'd like to see what is sitting in their bank account and also what kind of insurance they have before I say it is too much. They might not even be close to bankruptcy even if they have to eventually pay up that $1MM.
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E-sports already has enough problems trying to get out from under the pro/bro gamer stereotype and its a shame that a promising league shot itself in the foot with complete nonsense like this.
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I'm sure most here have already seen FITES attendee and guest eXtine talk about it, but just in case:
Yyyyaaooo Vlog - ESEA Bitcoin Fallout (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71TJnRSf7HI#ws)