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Dear Plato,

I'm writing this public letter as a response to the recent sabotage by referral schemes that have taken place here in my country, eJapan. (Victim 1 and Victim 2)

In real life, I currently work as a technical support agent, doing my business from a call center. I help people fix issues with PCs by guiding them step-by-step over the phone or by taking remote control over their computer.



Anyway, as of late, many of the calls I have been receiving are from people who have rogue antivirus or the FBI Virus on their computer. Although the backstory for extortion with these two virus strains differ, they are both forms of ransomware attempting to scam good people by locking up their machines and asking for money to unlock them. Novice computer users who don't know how to fix the issues by running malware scans and/or system restore often fall into the trap and send their money out when their machines contract these forms of malware. Of course however, nothing happens after they send the money and their machines remain locked.



I find these sorts of scams absolutely deplorable; taking advantage of people who just don't know any better is really a sickening thing to do. If one strongly dislikes another erepublik user, this can be done fruitfully today in the New World as well. People can frame others as multiers through the use of referral links to ban them from the game. When those being framed go to collect their the gold they think they're due from to legitimate referrals from a link they may have posted on some other website earlier, they can get charged with operating multies in game if some of those who used their link are multiers. Furthermore, users who are unaware of the workings of the referral system can fall into the trap even more easily when they get a message from Plato stating they basically got free gold.

Thus, just as I suggest that Microsoft makes its software more secure against ransomware scams plaguing its platform, I publicly suggest that Plato make the referral system more secure to prevent such scamming in the future against both novice and experienced erepublik players. This can be done by, for example.

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1. Making it impossible to guess referral links for specific players (using a random string of letters and numbers for each player rather than their name in the URL, as is done in the current format).
2. Requiring that the primary account holder confirm all referrals by verifying their email address before receiving messages about free referral gold.
3. Using a more secure referral method or allowing users to disable their referral link altogether.
4. Providing a fraud warning upon pressing the collect gold button for referrals and asking the user to confirm their decision to collect before collecting referral gold.
5. Allowing users to remove false referrals off their referral list so they don't unwittingly collect gold from their handiwork.

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So please Plato, I implore you, do something about this and save some of your loyal paying citizens some heartache.

Thank you,
ahava3233