A top GunBound player was kidnapped and held hostage for five hours in Brazil in a new approach to password cracking.
The hostage was lured to a shopping mall in São Paulo by the girlfriend of one of the kidnappers, who “met” the victim over the Orkut social network. Instead of meeting with her, however, he was intercepted at the mall by four kidnappers, who took him at gunpoint and held him for five hours. The plan was to extract his GunBound password, which they intended to sell for $8,000; however, after five hours of threats and a gun to his head, the hostage refused to divulge the information, and the gang gave up and released him.
Brazilian police have caught the four, who range in age from 19 to 27, but it remains unknown if they had a buyer in place prior to the kidnapping.
GunBound, a free multiplayer online game, features two-dimensional turn-based artillery combat between players in vehicles called “Mobiles.” The game was developed in South Korea by Softnyx. Currently in its second major international release as GunBound World Champion, it is known in North America as GunBound Revolution and in Japan as GunBound: Planet Battle.
Low-ransom kidnappings, also known as “quicknappings,” are commonplace in Brazil, especially in the poverty-stricken cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
