TOKYO: It has been discovered that junior and senior high school students who became acquainted through online games had been committing crimes using their own advanced computer program that they created with generative AI.
As the digitalisation of society progresses, specialised knowledge and technology is becoming increasingly accessible to children. Children need to be made aware that if they commit crimes thoughtlessly, even in the highly anonymous online space, it cannot be undone.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has arrested three junior and senior high school students aged 14 to 16 on suspicion of violating such laws as one prohibiting unauthorized computer access.
They are suspected of illegally accessing the system of Rakuten Mobile Inc., a major mobile company, and signing up for mobile lines.
The three students are believed to have purchased over 3 billion IDs and passwords from a person they were acquainted with through Telegram, a highly confidential messaging app, and used them to obtain the lines.
The students are suspected of obtaining crypto assets worth ¥7.5 million by reselling the lines that had been illegally set up.
The suspects were using a program they had created to automatically carry out sign-up procedures such as entering IDs. They also used the ChatGPT generative AI service to carry out their work more efficiently.
Who is the acquaintance on Telegram? Why did this person have more than 3 billion IDs and passwords? Is this too a crime? It is hoped the MPD will make progress on identifying the person and clarifying the details of the case.
“We targeted Rakuten, which had lax identity verification procedures,” the junior high school student who was arrested in the case told investigators. “We wanted to attract attention by carrying out a sophisticated crime.”
Rakuten Mobile allows customers to sign up to a maximum of 15 lines with a single ID, and they do not need to submit any ID documents when signing up for additional lines.
The suspects took advantage of this. Mobile phone companies, including Rakuten, should check again for any insufficiencies in terms of their measures for the prevention of fraudulent contracts.
What makes the situation even more serious is that the program created by the three suspects was passed on to another teenage boy, resulting in another case of unauthorized access.
The boy belonged to a group that engaged in online defamation among other activities, and he used the money he made from the incident to fund their activities.
If the three students and the other teenage boy were committing crimes as if it were a game, that would be really troubling. Those with such advanced skills could cause chaos in society if they use them incorrectly and would have to be held strictly responsible for their actions.
The negative cycle in which young people who have never met before come together online and then commit crimes, including a series of incidents associated with so-called dark part-time jobs, must not be left unaddressed.
According to the results of the textbook screening for first-year high school students announced by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry on Tuesday, the number of textbooks that address the risks of generative AI has increased substantially.
It is important to teach students how to deal with digital technology in schools and at home. - The Japan News/ANN
