Stopping the gold spam / account theft

[SaintPaul 1]

So let’s say someone hacks my account, vendors all my gear, empties my bank and steals all my gold. The scumbag.

I assume this person now uses either the in game mail system or player trade to get his ill-gotten gains to his/her own account in order to sell/use later?

Doesn’t all this leave a paper trail a dev or admin could trace?  Not only leading back to the source of villainy but potentially a lot of people who have also purchased gold from said villain as well?

I understand of course that these people have multiple accounts and investigations like this require incredible time investments, and our devs are busy enough keeping the servers running and fixing bugs etc to want to get involved in policing like this. However couldn’t some sort of volunteer service be setup for this kind of work?  We see recruitment threads for Devs and QA etc…  why not a GM team for each server?

I’m not talking about settling player disputes etc, just combating the constant gold spam and account theft that we see in chat and on the forums on a daily basis.  With some good policing and a little time these guys could be stopped. It really wouldn’t take long for them to give up and go somewhere else once there accounts containing gold stashes start getting shut down.

I would happily volunteer my time to a service like this, the community on Elysium is incredible and it’s a shame to see it spoiled by a minority who could be stopped so easily.

Regards

PeterG

[Nelythia 44]

They trace them already.

[SaintPaul 1]

Not being rude but they aren't doing a very good job.

Gold spam is CONSTANT on Darrowshire, and account theft continues to be a problem as we all see on the forums every day.

I'll assume from the lack of replies to this post though that nobody really cares.

[Storfan 24]

4 hours ago, PeterGriffen said:

Not being rude but they aren't doing a very good job.

Gold spam is CONSTANT on Darrowshire, and account theft continues to be a problem as we all see on the forums every day.

I'll assume from the lack of replies to this post though that nobody really cares.

1. Its a free server. They provide it free of charge. You arent entitled to anything. Be happy they provide it.

2. Activate 2FA in account setting and you can never EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER be hacked. EVER.

[SaintPaul 1]

12 minutes ago, Storfan said:

1. Its a free server. They provide it free of charge. You arent entitled to anything. Be happy they provide it.

2. Activate 2FA in account setting and you can never EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER be hacked. EVER.

1.  I appreciate it's free, and I am happy they provide it. Read my original post and I am volunteering my own time to help deal with the issue if that's a viable option.

2.  I'm not concerned about the security of my account but more the general unpleasantness gold selling creates, the spam, the stolen accounts of other players, the whole pay to win scenario. It goes against what Elysium is trying to be.

I did not come here to bitch and complain but to try and offer a solution to a problem that everyone can see, but as I've said already not everyone cares about.

[Storfan 24]

5 hours ago, PeterGriffen said:

Not being rude but they aren't doing a very good job

It is kind of rude though. People providing you with a free service yet you complain about the work they do, this is biting the hand that feeds.

[imagreen 0]

so i just found out something that relates to this post Please Read!

I was about to go onto http://www.vanilla-addons.com/ as you might of guessed to download some more add-ons! and then i noticed their latest news on their homepage.

Nostalrius GOLD!

 February 2, 2017 Alex

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so.... yeah... i was pretty shocked... but then i started thinking, my friend got hacked not so long ago and he was saying he was experiencing some issues with some of his add-ons, which he got from this website i told him about. This is just a hunch but an add-ons website that advertises gold tells me some of the add-ons might have key loggers or so forth. players be aware and could Elysium Staff Please chase this up. bugs are one thing but gold selling from hacked accounts is not acceptable.

The Staff are doing a great job but my suggestion would be to focus on Security and chasing down websites like the one iv just shared  

[Muldreg 3]

8 minutes ago, imagreen said:

so.... yeah... i was pretty shocked... but then i started thinking, my friend got hacked not so long ago and he was saying he was experiencing some issues with some of his add-ons, which he got from this website i told him about. This is just a hunch but an add-ons website that advertises gold tells me some of the add-ons might have key loggers or so forth. players be aware and could Elysium Staff Please chase this up. bugs are one thing but gold selling from hacked accounts is not acceptable.

The Staff are doing a great job but my suggestion would be to focus on Security and chasing down websites like the one iv just shared  

If your friend would of enabled 2FA, it would have been impossible for them to hack his account, even if they had the login and password.

The staff has already focused on Security, by enabling a feature like 2FA. It is not their fault if people are not using it. I saw in another thread that only 2% of accounts on Elysium have 2FA enabled. Those other 98% of people are just asking to get their accounts stolen, assuming they care.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Muldreg

[SaintPaul 1]

20 minutes ago, Storfan said:

It is kind of rude though. People providing you with a free service yet you complain about the work they do, this is biting the hand that feeds.

I was not complaining.. I was offering up a suggestion for a solution.  Stating a fact does not make me rude or ungrateful.

Create a new character now on Darrowshire yourself and see how long it takes before the gold spam whispers start. It's instant.  Likewise stand in any capital city for more than two or three minutes and you can see it in general chat. It's been like this for the last few weeks now.

I am trying to help, which is the whole point of this forum.

[SaintPaul 1]

6 minutes ago, Muldreg said:

If your friend would of enabled 2FA,

2FA is not the subject of this topic. It does nothing to prevent gold sellers who already have gold reserves and accounts setup.

Please do not hijack this thread.

[Muldreg 3]

26 minutes ago, PeterGriffen said:

2FA is not the subject of this topic. It does nothing to prevent gold sellers who already have gold reserves and accounts setup.

Please do not hijack this thread.

Technically the thread you started is titled "Stopping the gold spam / account theft".He made a comment about a friend's account being hacked/stolen. This could of been prevented (assuming it happened since 2FA was enabled) if his friend had 2FA enabled.

2FA is there to help guard against account theft.

I also read that you are not concerned with your own account, but the accounts of others, but the best way to help combat account theft is to help inform others about 2FA and how to activate it on their account.

Unfortunately, I do not seem to have problems with gold seller whispers because I do not get more than one per night, which is very easy to ignore. I also do not hang in out world/general/trade chat unless I am needing something from any of those channels.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Muldreg

[SaintPaul 1]

Sigh OK.  2FA then.  Yes it's a great idea and I am all in favour of them bringing it to Elysum for those who want to use it. Fine work by the devs. It's a great safe gaurd for your account.

However this discussion was not meant to be about protecting your individual account but stopping the thieves from trying to steal it in the first place.

2FA only prevents/lowers account theft if everyone uses it, or at least the large majority. There are countless threads on these forums about 2FA and yet most people don't bother.  Many call them lazy or stupid etc... sadly this is the way of the world and I do not believe you or I can change that. So I didn't try.

2FA would be a massive help here if they made it mandatory. Not my decision, not the point of this thread...

The actual point of this thread is to take measures to reduce the amount of gold spamming, if these people cannot advertise their goods they cannot sell them. If they cannot sell them, what's the point in stealing them... you get the idea.

You want to buy a house alarm to stop people breaking into your house.  Awesome.  I want to make it so the thieves can't sell stolen stuff so there is no point breaking into anyone's house.

Edited February 8, 2017 by PeterGriffen

[Bonappetit 2]

I've downloaded some addons from that site and what I've noticed it on some is that once you extract the zip file there's more zip files in it. That freaked me out a bit and I'm glad that I'm using 2FA as that might be some potential keyloger.

[Pottu 290]

The GM team cannot grow rapidly as that is a risk to the entire project. Not every one is suited to be a GM so there is a careful process that we go through with applicants. This process requires time, that cannot be cut back. We do understand that the gold spam is annoying and we are combating it by tweaking the level requirements, the spam filter and of course by banning spammer accounts.

I'm sure nobody wants Game Masters who abuse their powers.