Woman faces charges for deleting ex-boyfriend's online game data
FUKUSHIMA -- A woman in her 30s who illegally used her boyfriend's online username and password to access an Internet game and delete his game data faces charges, police said.
Police reported the woman, of Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, to the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office accusing her of violating a law banning illegal access. She has apparently admitted to the allegations against her.
"I did it as revenge for breaking up with me," police quoted her as saying.
The man, who is in his 20s, did not suffer financially because of the woman's actions, but she deleted items such as weapons and clothes that he had spent time collecting in the game.
Investigators said the woman accessed the online role-playing game "Lineage" using the man's username and password in about April last year.
"Lineage" is an adventure game in which players fight enemies with characters such as knights and magicians. Players can type messages to each other while they are playing the game, and can have their characters team up.
The woman and the man reportedly met each other through the game in the autumn of 2003, and started a relationship, actually meeting each other, but they soon broke up, police said.
"Lineage" is operated by a company in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Jan. 20, 2005)
As children of the famicom era, the question is not whether such a heinous act should be a crime, but what is the appropriate punishment?
