I’ve just received the biggest swift kick in the ass ever. I’m so baffled at how I could be violated in such a perfect way.
Here’s my story:
I’m a 25 year old college student who’s spent most of my early 20s working because I couldn’t otherwise obtain the financial aid I needed to attend full time. Starting back when I worked at Best Buy, I’ve worked around computers. Technology is my thing; it’s something I initially picked up without too much effort. Consequently I’ve worked in a few areas of study, most recently in IT Security. I’m a hard working student, I’m good at my job, I have a perfect relationship with my girlfriend, I’m on top of things and on my way to success.
The problem is that scenario is one I made up. It exists as much as the pink unicorn sitting to your left. Ya, I mean that.
For starters I’m still just as good at technology as I was when I started college full time a year and a half ago. If I were actually as good as I think I am, I wouldn’t have been swept off my feet in disbelief like so. I’m also not that hard of a working student. Sure I can make A’s in many classes, but both semesters I’ve been around I’ve dropped the ball enough to make a difference. Take the 89.7 I’m going to get from the professor who doesn’t round up. That’s right, I’m going to miss getting an A in the entire course because I didn’t spend an extra 20 minutes studying somewhere along the line.
As for being in the perfect relationship: yeah it’s been great, but almost every week for the past two years I’ve spent more intimate time with a video game than my girlfriend. Oh don’t get me wrong, we have our amazing intimate times and our relationship is generally awesome. But they’re not nearly as consistent as she deserves, and it’s not coming even close to the potential we have together.
So the decision was made to sell my World of Warcraft account. I figure the 100 days played between all my characters (yes they keep track of that stat, and yes that is 2400 hours, aka 1/3 of a year) could be used to improve my work and study habits, my personal life, and my physical fitness. I needed this to improve my drive and restore some of what I lost a few years back, though that’s a story for another time.
My girlfriend’s 21st birthday is coming up in just a few days, so with us wanting to go out more often I decided now was the time to do it. An add was placed on craigslist and by the end of the night six people with broken English wanted to buy my account. PayPal was secure last time I checked, and people don’t scam others online. You want irony? There’s the real meat of this lesson: I work in IT Security for a living, but I was just scammed online out of 1/3 of a year of my life by a Chinaman with broken English.
You see most people aren’t aware that gold farming is a very profitable business in China. There’s an entire black market built around it, and when there’s a market involved strategies and tactics change to meet demand. Used to be a Chinese farmer would simply play the game to earn gold which was then sold to a Westerner at an 8:1 exchange. Then they started developing software that would bot their characters through making gold for them. After Blizzard began to catch on the farmers started turning to the darker side of the internet for profits.
Russia distributes a vast majority of the malware that steals people’s identities. China is responsible for 70% of the malware that targets online game accounts, which happens to be 70% of all malware on the internet. They each profit, and each in their own way. Today China profited off of me.
It’s a brilliant setup really. They use a verified PayPal account to deposit the funds into your verified seller’s account. You give them your login info and all other account related stuff. I even went to the extent as to remove the RSA Authenticator for the thief. Then 10 minutes later PayPal puts the transaction on hold, as it becomes blatantly obvious to them the buyer in the transaction is using a stolen account. The beauty of it is they’re using a stolen identity to steal virtual assets with an astronomical return. It’s like the Chinese copied the Russian approach and are laughing all the way to the bank. As my in-guild healer used to say, “You can’t heal Stupid.”
I hate being Stupid.
Yet here I stand, an A student making Bs, a lover of knowledge not loving enough, a driven human being pointing that driving passion at a video game, a “Great Guy” not being nearly as great as he can be, and an IT Security worker not even following his own advice. Yup, I’d call all of those realizations in one night a swift kick in the ass.
This is as close to Ground Zero I’ve ever been with any event. For me, this will always be known as Day Zero.
Welcome to my recovery.
