The PunkBuster of Finance

Eve Online has a deep economic system, and as IUN reported previously, that system is ripe for exploitation. In addition to embezzling hundreds of billions in ISK (the game's currency), unscrupulous players have inflated the prices of mission-related items, and depleted salable resources in the game world. In the real world, they've hacked user accounts, committed credit card fraud, and hoarded server cycles with their bots (diminishing CPU resources for everyone by about 30%). All of this for the purpose of selling game money for real-world money.

CCP came up with a solution, and called it "Unholy Rage":

In the weeks and months building up to June 22nd we monitored and analyzed activity of ISK sellers, and in particular, their supporting groups of macro-miners, ratters, mission farmers and other RMT [Real Money Trading] related units. The information obtained by this research was then used to identify further RMT type accounts and to prepare lists to process in the action. The preparations also included identifying various items of interest that we wanted to monitor and measure, such as market activity, server performance, petition trends and so on, as our intent was to examine the effects of the action in a scientific way and in as much detail as possible. Finally, a lot of work was put into gathering information on and collecting lists of RMT type accounts to be targeted in the operation.

During scheduled downtime on June 22nd a little over 6200 paying accounts were banned in one go.

With any subscription-based MMO, persistent support is an absolute necessity. Eve Online's caretakers, however, have gone beyond mere persistence into the category of "bat-shit relentless." I salute them.