Gamer Charged with Hacking into Gaming Company Servers
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) – The Department of Justice announced Thursday that a federal grand jury has charged a Dutch citizen with illegally hacking into the servers of an American video game company.
Anil Kheda, a 24-year-old Netherlands native, is facing one count of conspiring to commit computer intrusion and one count of making extortionate interstate threats against Rampid Interactive, a video game manufacturer based in New Hampshire.
The charges allege that between November 2007 and August 2008, Kheda and several of his colleagues accessed Rampid’s servers without proper authorization. As a result, one of Rampid’s multi-player Role-Playing games, Outwar, was made unplayable for several days.
In addition, Kheda and his co-conspirators are accused of illegally obtaining copies of Outwar’s source code, in order to develop a game of their own, called Outcraft. The competing game garnered approximately 10,000 players worldwide, and Kheda is said to have made approximately $10,000 in profits.
There is even the possibility of blackmail involved, as the indictment includes charges that Kheda and his colleagues sent interstate communications to Rampid, threatening to continue to hack into their servers unless they gave the hackers money or other benefits.
If convicted, Kheda faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and two years in prison on the interstate threats charge.
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