No longer a game for everyone
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by Alex armstrong
Last night, while most of RL South Africa was sleeping, a terrible thing happened. There President Ines Schumacher's accounts were hacked, from her eRep account to her personal email account. They've taken over the eSA forums and caused absolute havoc on there. And it's not only Ines, she's just the most prominent, there are quite a few others too.
By taking over her personal email account and resetting her password, they've made this personal. It's no longer a game - when they said they want to come on here and spoil it for everyone, I suppose they have succeeded, because a game has turned into a nightmare for a quite a few people. Imagine you go to bed and you wake up and your world is shaken like this (having to cancel credit cards, redirecting emails and so on). It's one thing if your e-country is attacked while you're asleep, but to have your privacy invaded like this, it's despicable!
One of my gripes with this, is that admin are aware of the threats by the 888channers, but they are waiting for them to do something illegal in-game. Well, by hacking in-game accounts, they have caused absolute havoc in people's personal lives. Is this not enough?
I know they absolutely love this - the angry reactions from people - it's what spurs them on. It's what gets them out of bed in the morning.
Admin, how can you let this continue? You know who these people are, why don't you suspend them temporarily (as you did with Ines's account) while you investigate further?
I am not complaining because my country was taken over legitimately by people who employed a decent strategy, I am complaining because these people are playing with people's lives and privacy. They have taken this out-of-game, not only to our forums, but into the real lives of our citizens.
Please don't let this continue. These people have turned a game into a personal, real-life nightmare for many.
I do not want to be afraid to log into my eRepublik account each time because who knows what they've done this time. Sometimes you cannot just sit back and wait for them to break actual in-game rules - they've broken every rule outside the game and every moral rule thinkable - get rid of them. They have made it VERY clear that they are here to spoil the game for everyone. If you let them continue to do this, they'll just move onto their next target, and the next and the next.
Edited by Alex Armstrong
credit to mulderpf for writing the original article (I adapted it for americans)
Also Barney!!-without half his hea😛
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Opinions stated bellow are not endorsed by the author, unless stated otherwise.
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If they are hacking personal email accounts ADMNS should turn them in to the proper authorities for legal prosecution. They are going beyond a game to criminal activity.
this is the type of stuff that makes people not want to play PC games.
this is a very serious matter. My accoutn was set with a trojan horse and my computer detected it and deleted it, now i have set my cookie setings to high, there may be some articles on eRep that have been traped, i suggest everyone to run scans on their computers as well.
Recomend this article to others! all funds raised will go to st6
The hackers must be stop befour were all next
voted. This is not right at all. The admins are telling us they don't care about us their players. Their letting our real lives be at risk. Admins what are you doing. All you have to do is ban them from the game and you are letting people do this.
voted. This is not right at all. The admins are telling us they don't care about us their players. Their letting our real lives be at risk. Admins what are you doing. All you have to do is ban them from the game and you are letting people do this. [x100000]
Nice sentiments, friend. Voted.
It doesn't matter whether this hacker violates TOS or any ingame thing. If admin is informed they are obligated to do something, including turning over all documentation of the attack and all computer fingerprints to the appropriate authorities. If they do not do so within 48 hours of being informed about this breach, then in accordance with international law, they are complicit in its execution. Ireland, to which all funds from this game originates, is a country which recognizes this international law.
In other words, Admin, do your duty, or you will be charged for the crime as well. Harboring and assisting in the commission of a crime. As well as conspiracy after the fact.
Lets vote this up to inform them then!Shout it! pm it! spread the word! get it in the top 5 so they will have to notice!
SolstaLynn-"It doesn't matter whether this hacker violates TOS or any ingame thing. If admin is informed they are obligated to do something, including turning over all documentation of the attack and all computer fingerprints to the appropriate authorities. If they do not do so within 48 hours of being informed about this breach, then in accordance with international law, they are complicit in its execution. Ireland, to which all funds from this game originates, is a country which recognizes this international law.
In other words, Admin, do your duty, or you will be charged for the crime as well. Harboring and assisting in the commission of a crime. As well as conspiracy after the fact."
Yes and the other countries around the world will eventually notice after cases of identity theft are filed, this should not be avoided, but it is recent news so we mustn't jump to conclusions, either way vote this subject up to get it noticed by all players, not just admins.
some of you guys are being a little weird and over the edge about this. If they're stealing someones personal info, what can the admins do about this more then we?
becose ines is very weak 🙂 she sold Australia for brasil 🙂
I;m not going to trust her anymore
owned. owned. owned.
A few tips:
1. Use a strong password for this game. Do not use it anywhere else.
2. Use a strong password for anything related to this game, and do not use the same password on multiple systems.
3. Block Flash cookies or do not use Flash. There are known exploits for this. It was a poor choice for them to use Flash for the map when everything else is JS.
4. Be very careful if you install any Firefox Add-ons for this game.
5. Be very careful going to any third-party sites for this game - especially anything someone you don't know (or don't know well) messages you about.
6. If you use any third party forums or sites related to this game, make sure they keep up-to-date with security patches. Assume those in charge haven't set strong passwords.
Overall the ability for someone to harm a nation this way is a design flaw in the game. Users should not be having to use external forums, IRC, tools... to progress in the game.
Finally, based on my interactions with the admins in the past, I don't think they care about anything but making money. I wish this wasn't true but it seems like on some very important issues they simply don't want to spend the effort. Making it so you have more reasons to use gold in the game, and thus more reasons to buy gold for RL money... that's what they're focusing on.
if its not to do with the in-game rules they have set out, then they dont care. Its unfortunate they think this way as this kind of smail minded thinking by admin will ONLY lead to a decrease of active players. Lets face it, if this continues, NOONE will log in and play their game. Unfortunate as this sounds, but eventually I believe this will happen
This is a RL issue.
They could be prosacuted.
Speaking as an eSouth African, I'm glad people on the outside are finally noticing this problem we in eSA have had to deal with for a long time. These 888chaners are the same ones who still control eBrazil. And to think the rest of the world wonders why we let brazil through to australia, espcieally considering the rousing response we got from our allies (aka YOU) the last time we got attack, (I'll give you a hint: none, because croatia was under attack too).