
Key Change - janvdberg
https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/10/26113/
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huac
this has been the case since at least 2012 (russian mob, i think), it was a
very efficient payout mechanism because you can buy keys for $2.50 and resell
for $2 ish, for around a 80% recovery rate. in tf2 we had other mechanisms,
e.g. bills hat = $10, earbuds = $20-25, max head = $150 for storing value, not
sure if CSGO has similar things. maybe now people will just use the keys and
gamble on boxes and resell the skinned guns.

all of that is to say that you aren't going to stop money launderers by
cutting liquidity, you do it by identifying their behaviors and blocking them
based on that.

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ben174
Why is this necessary? With crypto it's super easy to use a tumbler or simply
convert to an unregulated exchange and back again.

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rebuilder
Speed, cost come to mind.

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eru
Also eg bitcoin leaves a globally readable audit trail.

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ddtaylor
Monero doesn't.

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eru
At the risk of splitting hairs: even Monero leaves a globally readable audit
trail. It's just designed to be much harder / impossible to track. But no one
needs even a warrant to start analyzing.

Random criminals are well advised not to trust their own judgement about
crypto claims, nor their own prowess in operations security.

Keep in mind that eg lots of bitcoin exchanges have been hacked without any
flaw in bitcoin itself. It's probably even easier to accidentally leak
information, even if the underlying coin you are using doesn't.

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gouggoug
Slightly unrelated:

I used to love playing CS. I tried recently playing again, but after 10
minutes of witnessing all sorts of cheating, I had to stop. Cheaters just
killed the game for me.

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013a
CS:GO just isn't a fun game for me. Maybe there are cheaters, but sometimes
its hard to tell. Instead, I prefer framing it in same vein as why Fortnite
isn't fun anymore: People are just way too good nowadays. I like to think I'm
generally good at video games, but the people who play CS:GO regularly have a
laser focus on it. They're better than good, and that skill discrepancy ruins
the game for other people. It takes one Insane Tier player on the enemy team
to ruin the game for me, or one cheater, and the probability of running into
that in an average game is just too high in the top-tier competitive games.

Skill-based Matchmaking doesn't help, flat out. People smurf. I used to think
smurfing was this thing that you'd rarely run into, but then I found out that
my roommate smurfs on Apex. At that point, another person in the room said
"yeah, I've done that". In these games that are insanely cheap or free; its
rampant. I legitimately think that smurfing should be a bannable offense, but
I'm not aware of any companies that take it seriously (some have said that its
against ToS, but do they apply the same detection heuristics to it they do for
actual cheaters?)

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saagarjha
What is the motivation to smurf other than just destroying a bunch of new
players? Surely that must get boring after a while?

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denkmoon
Two options:

A) You can play a game at your actual skill level, which requires your team to
communicate effectively and play together. This requires someone to take the
lead and coordinate the other players. That just doesn't happen in drop in
games. It is incredibly not-fun and frustrating to be playing decently
yourself, but be anchored by incompetent team members. You get guys who want
to play their own way, or just aren't interested in "taking orders". Plenty of
arrogant dudes that won't listen to someone that is a lower rank.

B) Play at a level where you can essentially carry your entire team to victory
because your skill level is so much higher than the enemy. You get to fuck up
a bunch of newbs and win the game, while your team mates are drooling at
spawn.

B is definitely more fun. Especially when the people smurfing can get their
fix of A in an organised match with an organised team, outside of match
making.

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AcerbicZero
I've played CS on and off for awhile, (Since 1.5/6) and I've collected a
number of skins in CS:GO, but I've never understood the appeal of buying
keys/skins. Same for most other FPS's with loot box mechanics and
skins....whats the appeal? What kind of person thinks its impressive that
you've swiped your credit card a few more times then they did, for the same
game?

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dyingkneepad
It's not supposed to be impressive, at least for me.

Sometimes you spend some money on the game simply because you really like it
and want to support the developers.

I occasionally buy skins for fighting game characters simply because I enjoy
looking at those skins (more than I enjoy the defaults). Heck, some characters
are played exclusively because of cool skins (e.g., Blanka Chan).

I see no problem spending money in something that just looks cool if you're
getting your entertainment value from the game. It's the same reason why you
would buy that cool shirt you saw on the internet: you already have plenty of
shirts, you don't actually need one more, but it would be cool anyway.

~~~
AcerbicZero
I'm all for people doing whatever they want to do with their money, and I
realize different folks have different interests, but I guess I just don't get
how this specific model is supposed to work. You pay money for the loot box
itself, and then you go back and buy "keys" to open the loot box, and you just
keep doing this until you actually get the skin you want?*

 _I realize you can buy skins directly on the steam market, and avoid the
whole random factor, but then you 're just paying whatever the market rate is
for "coolness" plus the costs of all the other people who did the key/box
buying. Plus there is the whole "condition" mechanic, so the skin you get
might not even look the way you actually want.

Like I said, people can do whatever they want, but to me its just silly. When
you add to that the fact that Valve _actively* stops people from playing on
custom (i.e. private) servers with modded skins available and it just seems
like shitty anti-consumer behavior.

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filoleg
You got really close, but not quite.

Boxes are obtained for free by simply playing the game. You don't really need
to buy boxes unless you want some specific one from a past event that is not
available through the game anymore, but someone got it back then or if you
want boxes at a faster rate than the regular gameplay provides. But you need
to buy a key to open it, however.

Also, a given kind of a box contains one of the finite number of items. I
think the idea is that if you get a duplicate that you don't want, you can
either trade it with a player who doesn't have it for a skin that you want or
sell it on the steam marketplace (so you can use that money on a skin that you
actually want).

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joshmn
I mean they'll just move their money elsewhere. What's the next big score,
though?

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bobthepanda
Steam doesn't really care about the 'elsewhere' so long as they're not liable
for it.

At one point the Domino's app was being used to facilitate credit card fraud:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/nyregion/pizza-orders-
rev...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/nyregion/pizza-orders-reveal-
credit-card-scheme-and-a-secondhand-market.html)

~~~
djsumdog
Was that the Adam Pisces scam that was going on? (Can't tell since NYT is
paywalled). There's a great non-paywalled ReplyAll podcast about that (episode
#141)

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robrtsql
I think that the 'checking stolen CC numbers' is the most convincing theory
about Adam Pisces but ultimately the ReplyAll host concluded that it was an
attacker looking for vulnerabilities in the Domino's online ordering system.

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wy35
How are people able to convert their Steam balance into real-world cash? Is it
even possible?

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bdz
There are 3rd party sites where you can buy and sell items for cash and
crypto. They basically serve as a middleman for expensive trades.

Years ago I bought myself a gaming PC this way, selling all my TF2 and CSGO
skins. Yes everyone takes a cut (Valve, trading site, Paypal or whatever
payment service you use) but it's still the best way to turn your digital
items on Steam into cash

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kache_
People buy and then sell WoW/runescape gold to launder money as well.

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verumn
I had over 3k hours on CS:GO and clocked onto this very fast. When they mean
fraudulent, I don't think this is carding; due to the fact steam already had
measurements in place (i.e. wait 30 days before removal). What you could do is
use paypal and make a charge back and steam didn't respond due to their lack
of support, meaning you get free keys...

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pimlottc
What are CS:GO containers? Are they loot boxes?

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yurrzz
yes

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thinkloop
If "almost all" the transactions are fraud, are mobsters just trading with
each other? Seems odd. Seems you need to have a minority of fraud for the
fraud to work.

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BryantD
Nah -- the people buying the keys on the Steam Community Market are legit. I
imagine it's something like this:

Jack Criminal buys a bunch of keys from Valve with dirty money. Possibly Jack
Criminal passes the keys off to Jane Criminal's account to muddy the waters.
Jane or Jack Criminal puts the keys up for sale on the marketplace. Harry
Gamer happily buys the keys.

Every single transaction in that chain involves a criminal, but Harry isn't a
criminal and is getting what he wants. The exact quote is "At this point,
nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace
are believed to be fraud-sourced." It's not that every individual transaction
cheats someone, it's that they're happening in order to perpetrate an overall
fraud.

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mendelmaleh
Why do they need to address this? Is it their responsability (or, business)
where people get the money to buy the keys? Or what they do with the money
from the sales?

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Etheryte
Did you read the full article? Your question is addressed in the second
paragraph — the aftermarket for keys was largely used by fraudsters to cash
out.

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mendelmaleh
The same applies to gift cards, should they become non-transferrable?

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kart23
Jeeeeez. A lot of people are going to be screwed over by this. I know a couple
people with thousand dollars worth of keys in their accounts. Now worthless. I
remember when CSGO trading could be a source of income for some.

edit: I'm dumb. didn't read it through.

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KerrickStaley
From the article:

Pre-existing CS:GO container keys are unaffected–those keys can still be sold
on the Steam Community Market and traded.

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throwaway2048
If anything they are now far more valuable

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have_faith
Not if a chunk of that value was derived from the fraudulent activity that
will assumably move elsewhere now.

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tedk-42
They gonna come talk to me about money laundering? On the internet? Shieeeet

Reference:
[https://youtu.be/6ktvE2vfxSQ?t=69](https://youtu.be/6ktvE2vfxSQ?t=69)

