In May of 2007, a cadre of nefarious criminals nuked an entire island into oblivion…in Second Life. The island, owned by ABC, was used as a promotional tool for their television shows in the online game, as well as a virtual forum for fans, a venue to preview new episodes, and probably a place for people in tiger masks to awkwardly fuck at each other while flying through the air – because honestly, that’s pretty much all Second Life is.
 

The criminals destroyed every object on the island, causing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage. Every single item was obliterated save one - the communication tower -  and even that was left covered with corporate-branded stickers advertising things like Nike shirts and Puma shoes. Investigators initially thought it might be corporate espionage from jealous rivals, or a large-scale prank from angry sports fans, but ultimately decided that it was probably just left to throw them off the trail, because “if they gave a shit about sports or had a job, they probably wouldn’t be playing Second Life.” Fans of Second Life may have been enraged over these insults, but they were too busy dry-humping cow/human hybrids over a ¼ scale replica of Las Vegas to comment.
 

The Russian Internet Foot Clan



Much like the Foot Clan, the Russian Business Network operates only in the shadows. They are a secretive, conspiratorial organization blamed for a large percentage of online crime – from corporate blackmail to identity theft, and spam attacks to child pornography – the depth of their virtual villainy is only matched by their inability to be caught…well, sort of.

See, in November of 2007, the entire RBN suddenly disappeared. They had been operating steadily out of somewhere in St. Petersburg, when all of their traffic mysteriously vanished at once. Some surmise that they were simply blacklisted by their ISP, while others feared they had moved their entire base of operations to China to allow even further freedom from the law. Though these theories are the most probable, there is one distinct possibility that has been completely overlooked: If the internet has its own equivalent of the Foot Clan, it stands to reason that it has its own Ninja Turtles as well. I like to think they look like this:

 

But I think we all know it’s probably more along these lines:

 

The Man Who Stole a Country

In August of this year, an as-yet-unidentified Indian hacker single-handedly stole the information of every single person that had stayed at a Best Western hotel since early 2007 – over 8 million unique identities, complete with credit card information, home addresses, and social security numbers. That’s more than the entire population of Canada (probably.)

Let’s put that in a way that somebody might actually care about: A single Indian computer nerd stole the equivalent of 3% of the entire United States last year.

The data was then sold to the Russian mafia via a secret underground network, who then used it for everything from simple loan fraud to selling specialized ‘Burglary Packs.’ These were packets of information that came with your home address, number of family members, make and model of your car, your employment information and, as a special bonus prize inside: The dates you planned to be out of town…staying at a Best Western. Hmm, unidentified lone thief stealing lots of bundled items with special bonus prizes inside….I think I have a pretty good idea who this mystery man is:

 

Once again, the dangers of outsourcing are made abundantly clear.

 

Where is Craigslist Batman when you need him?



In Monroe, Washington, a man robbed an armored car wielding only the mighty weapon of…Craigslist! Well, I guess he also had a gallon of mace, but mostly it was the Craigslist. The man in question entered a Bank of America wearing full construction gear and a respirator mask, maced the guard, grabbed a bag full of money, and bolted for the river.

And this is where Craigslist comes in: The robber had previously contacted nearly 30 people through the site and told them to stand in front of the bank dressed in identical costumes, complete with masks. Pursuers were delayed by the crowd of look-alikes as the man leapt into the nearby Skykomish River and made his escape…on an inner-tube! Witness reports are spotty, but all agree that the man was most likely shouting “Weeeee!” for the entire duration of the robbery.

 

Investigators have conjectured that the man was merely copying his scheme from such recent movies as The Dark Knight, or V for Vendetta, but have thus far completely overlooked the far more obvious inspiration:

 

The Middle East: We Put Manners First (Even Before Your Life)



In January of 2007, four Lebanese students were incarcerated for nearly a week for “violating public morality and slander.” The nature of their crime? “Making derogatory comments on Facebook about a woman’s singing talents, whom they recently met at a party.” The men were detained after the woman’s father complained to the authorities about the comments, as well as a litany of other offenses, insisting that the men had also “thrown sheep at her, forced her to compare herself to ‘80s cartoon characters, attacked her with both pirates and ninjas, and in one horrible incident – super-poked her eight times in a single day.”

 

But don’t worry! If you live in the Middle East, this crime wave won’t spread to your family – because somebody out there is brave enough to stand up to these vicious thugs! And that somebody is Iran, who’ve recently proposed the death penalty for “those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet,” in an attempt to ensure the “mental security in society.” Word is they also impose strict penalties for online theft, citing a recent case wherein an effeminate man with a cybernetic eye had both of his hands chopped off for “stealing the bases that rightfully belong to God.”