Surviving eDeath - What to do if your Account Appears to be Hacked

Day 2,319, 20:43 • Published in Australia Argentina • by BOUD1CCA

Firstly, never assume it won't happen to you.

I had read where it has happened to other players, ones with a big stake in eRep, in funds, buildings and/or voice. Hacking for fun & profit or just to break their hearts & so shut them up.

My account was important to me, but nothing big in the scheme of things. So I just assumed nobody would be bothered. But accounts can be interfered with for malice, or nasty fun, maybe like "lets take the bi**h down a peg, should be a laugh & that will teach her because she has dissed one of us"

The best defense then is to stop it happening. A STRONG password (I assumed mine was but obviously not). Then get your buildings PW protected so they cannot be sold off easily.

Then, speed is of the essence. You try to log on & find there is a problem, follow the reset password route and contact Plato ASAP.

The reissue password instructions will be sent to your email address - that's where I crashed & burned. Plato does not like excite email addresses, so I opened a hotmail email & then forgot about it - after a couple of years it had lapsed & I had no hope of recovering it. So - keep your email address active, just in case.

All is not lost because one can then contact Plato & he will arrange to have a new email address recorded. All you have to do is tell him your name & DOB & if anyone referred you.
Now identity theft is always a problem - greater than people may realise. So I would maybe have used something like "Noname anonymous" DOB 1/11/11. The sensible thing would be to keep a record of it somewhere - obviously I did not & I was stuffed.
So, therefore, keep records, Not logs of conversations & suchlike - so incredibly anal & boring when they are posted to prove some argument or another. But records of your account - THEY are important

There is a last resort, countries have I think a games moderator (if that is the name for them) Australia's was Ranger Bob (I don't know who now if he has actually left). I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude for contacting eRep on my behalf.

Lastly get Plato to love you. A diamond member, you have Plato himself on speed dial - myself I exist a bit lower down the chain - I may have got the office parrot (but that is unfair, eRep support was unfailingly polite AND thanks to them I am back \o/

Now personal stuff.
I have never hounded anybody out of the game. Hounding implies a systematic campaign of intimidation etc.
I had one conversation with our past CP where I asked him (very bluntly) to explain his actions in capitulating so quickly to demands made by the FYROM CP.
If I had known that he would take it so hard that he left the game & abandoned his position as CP and then it seems later blaming me for his actions, I would have handled him with kid gloves.
But all of that is just words & opinions - & what was said about my incredible spitefulness meh! it has certainly not driven me from the game.
But an attack on my account, which by an astronomical coincidence occurred just at this time had a pretty good go at removing me.
Tickets have been sent to Plato but the chances of finding those responsible are vanishingly remote - I am just relieved I got my account back relatively intact.

When I started venting about this on our forum I was greeted with, I imagined I was hacked, I was being paranoid etc.

And in truth it has made me paranoid, when I log on now & there is any delay, my heart starts sinking.
When I see forum comments that seem to refer to my account, are those of some aspergers affected schoolboys. or some evil little bastards having a laugh?

Other comments that seemed to indicate that the person making them was aware that my account was interfered with even before I was, just coincidence? or something else. I cannot tell & yes I am paranoid about it.
Only if I could see them face to face would I know.

I do suspect strongly that the problems with my account originated within the Australian community - this spiteful little cabal has affected how I view Aus, to the extent I no longer have faith in it nor do I trust it.
So maybe I will be moving to more gracious climes - where such nastiness does not occur - are there such places??

But on reflection maybe I won't, I am aware that there are decent people in the Aus community & seems like I am arrogantly blaming them as part of a group for something that would appall them personally.

And, like in Henry Lawson's short story, it could be that I am A Patriot in Spite of Myself, even if it is only pixels.

Besides which the REAL eEnemies: Indonesia (what can one say about the Javanese empire that is any good),
Chile (or is it CheeLay according to the latest PC pronunciation - but you will always be a fruit to me Chile.
And now that little Slav pretender. Something needs to be done about them!