VIRTUAL ECONOMIES AND FINANCIAL CRIME MONEY LAUNDERING IN CYBERSPACEPDF电子书下载

1 Introduction 1

2 History of Second Life 7

Introduction 7

How Second Life started 7

Rules of Second Life 10

Currency 11

Statistics year end 2009 13

Key societal changes in the virtual world 15

First era: 2001 - early 2003 - pre-historic, pre-Beta 17

Second era - summer 2003: natives vs colonists 17

Second era: summer 2003: revolution! 18

Third era: winter 2003: a new nation is born 19

Fourth era: late 2003 through early 2004: expanding the frontier 19

Fifth era: mid 2004 through mid 2005 - Industrial Revolution 20

Sixth era: summer 2005-2006: boom time 20

Seventh era: late 2006-2007: conflict and globalisation 20

Summary 22

3 Evolution of virtual economies 23

Introduction 23

What is a virtual world? 25

Law, economics and history 28

Virtual economies and markets 31

The economy in Second Life: Linden monetary policy 32

Gold farming 35

QQ coins 37

OpenLife 38

E-commerce in virtual worlds: where real meets virtual 38

Synergies with real economies 45

Virtual bank runs and troubles: case studies Ginko Financial and Eve Online 50

Ginko Financial 50

Eve Online 52

Virtual economic crisis 53

Summary 54

4 Money and culture: its history and evolution. A virtual reality 55

Introduction 55

History of money 56

Bank failure 63

The growth of the savings bank 64

Societal influences 64

Regulation 65

Financial Services Act 1986 66

Bank of England Act 1998 68

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 69

The Electronic Communication Act 2000 70

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 71

The Banking Act 2009 72

The Act 74

Consequences 78

Financial Services Act 2010 80

The Financial Services Bill 2009 82

Consumer confidence 84

Increase of financial crime 85

The Financial Services Act 2010 and the FSA: friend or foe? 87

Modern banking practices 88

Lack of a suitable definition 89

Current challenges by society and the financial crisis 90

Functions of money 97

Money and the internet 98

Summary 102

5 A real crime in a virtual world 103

Introduction 103

What is virtual money laundering and how does it occur? 104

Definitions 104

Digital currencies and money laundering 108

How does real money get into the virtual world? 111

Why is there discourse as to whether virtual money laundering exists or not? 112

How big is the problem of virtual money laundering? 114

How does virtual money laundering work? 115

The technology 117

PayPal 118

The Virtual Wallet 119

Virtual ATM 119

Person-to-person transfer 119

Wire transfer via mobile phone 120

Virtual traveller's cheque 120

Pre-paid mobile phones and M-payments 120

Smurfing 120

Case studies for virtual money laundering 121

Gold farming 122

Virtual Money Inc 123

E-gold case 123

The ShadowCrew Ring 124

Western Express International Currency Exchange Company 124

Korea 125

Sony Online Entertainment 125

Attorney turned launderer 125

2010 Eve Online virtual credit crunch and bank run 126

Virtual Banking Licences 126

Future areas for concern 127

Legislation of anti-ML in the real world and how this can be transposed into the virtual world, UK, USA and Asia - China and Korea 127

United Kingdom Cyber Crime Laws 142

United States Cyber Crime Laws 147

China Cyber Crime Laws 151

Korea Cyber Crime Laws 152

Justification 156

Summary 156

6 Law and the virtual world 157

Introduction 157

Laws of constraint 164

Netiquette 171

Legal Interaction 174

Zippo 174

Yahoo 175

Cyber jurisdiction 176

Separatists, inclusionists and legal pluralism - not to mention self-regulation, national regulation and international regulation 178

Technological enforcements 187

Rule of law and virtual world jurisdictions 190

Summary 194

7 Recommendations and conclusion 197

Introduction 197

The fight against virtual economic crime 199

United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and the Protocols 2000 201

The Budapest Convention 2001 202

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 2003-4, 40 Recommendations 202

Financial Action Task Force - Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Vulnerabilities of Commercial Websites and Internet Payment Systems 2008 203

UK's Cyber Crimes Strategy 2010 204

Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 2010 204

Concluding remarks 205

Bibliography 208

Glossary 223

Index 225