Probably every other person who has ever played an online game has wished they could get some real-life revenge for in-game transgressions. But not many people have the means to do so and even then, you’d think some people’s concience would prevent them from actually doing anything too drastic. Of course none of that stopped one outsourced Comcast tech named Mark Ribeiro. After being hit with a packet flood by someone on Xbox Live, he decided to find a way to get back at the perpetrator. So he used the resources available to him at work to find the kid’s personal info – since he happened to be using Comcast — and thought he’d have a little fun by calling up his house. He described the incident on the Halo 3 forums:
“well the father was furious, not at me however he assured me he would take care of the problem… the father began to yell at his son, i then heard a loud smack, and then sobbing, and then cracking noise as if something was breaking..it then occured to me that the father had just beat the s*** out of his kid, and the cracking noise was the sound of a hammer on an xbox , i decided that being the self indulgent bastard i am, i wanted more…the father put the son on the phone, still sobbing i might add..and i said to him..”do you know who this is??” he answered “no”..i said “remember that guy u cheated some 20-30 minutes ago and i said u would pay??, well guess what son…u just did.”
It’s hard to tell if Ribiero is just making stuff up to be dramatic (because getting kids physically beaten is soooo cool), but regardless, he then went on to gloat about what sort of power his job grants him:
“YES I can powercycle ’shut off your modem’ and lag you out of matchmaking as well…let this stupid little boy be a lesson to u all, dont flood my ip, or anyone elses…because if you plan on doing so i will cancel your service and you WILL have to find an new isp which can mean up to 500$ in installation charges, and for many of you comcast is the ONLY isp in your area…so let me rephrase this..IS IT WORTH IT????”
Now that we’ve established this guy is a huge tool, it’s also worth noting that he used his real name in posting on the forums. Naturally, Comcast has caught wind of this, according to spokesperson, Jenni Moyer:
“We have identified the person who created this inappropriate post as an employee of Convergys, a third-party vendor who provides technical customer support for Comcast customers…We’ve contacted Convergys to demand that he be immediately removed from performing any work for Comcast and that they conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate disciplinary action.”
I’ve said before that I love to hear stories of internet justice, but those usually involve people wreaking vengeance on others who are bigger tools than themselves. Plus those people usually go through proper channels — which this guy would know about — before going all vigilante, and then they usually just use information that anyone could obtain through normal internet sites. Instead, we’ve got a guy using his access to people’s personal information to carry out his own personal vengeance; and then saying he would gladly do similar things to others who cross him online. Yeah, cause what we really need is some d-bag from Xbox Live having access to people’s phone numbers and credit cards.