06-12-2002 03:58									#1
	Bad News - We've Been Spied Upon Increase Your PM Length

OK, my dear friends, I hate to bring bad news. I am really sorry, as after reading this post you will probably taste quite some bitterness in your mouth. But after discussing the problem with Jack on the chat, we decided to let the team know first. We should discuss what happened and decide about further actions to be taken.

I strongly urge you to keep the following information to yourself! Do not disclose it to ANYBODY. Consider it TOP SECRET for the time being. Sigh.

The sad fact is that we have been spied upon before even playing our first turn. At least one other person (maybe one other team) most probably knows how our starting location looks like, where it is, and what password we use for our PBEM game.

Here is the story.

Those of you present on the hectic Sunday night will remember that we had troubles setting up our private chatroom. Sharpe tried first, but failed to protect the room (called Legoland) with a password. All of us gathered there anyway, as it was easier to chat there than in the crowded main Apolyton room.

Later I did some mIRC research and succeeded in setting up a truly private chatroom (LegoChannel), protected with the password of "Tiberius". I went back to the "public" Legoland channel and told everybody to move to the new room, revealing the Tiberius password online. After a while, I noticed an outsider present in the "public" Legoland channel. I realized that anybody could have noticed our password to the password-protected room, rendering the whole password protection ineffective.

I immediately told everybody about the problem, had Sharpe destroy the old, "public" Legoland chatroom and set myself up a new, password protected Legoland room, using the password of "HisBrickness". I then posted the password in a special thread in our team forum and told everybody waiting in the LegoChannel room to grab it there.

People successfully moved over to the safe room. All of them... but one. A guy using the nickname of "nimitz". He appeared to have troubles changing rooms, so I offered him help, suggesting where to grab the new password. He apologized, saying he was an IRC newbie, and told me he was unable to get the password from the forum, since "...his Opera was broken and kept loading some cached pages, preventing him from learning the new password". I sent him the password via PM then... it did not help either, as "...his Opera got totally useless, loading just crap." Getting a bit helpess, I succeeded in opening a private IRC channel between me and this guy, telling him the HisBrickness password there. He then joined us in the private Legoland room. As far as I can remember, he did not contribute to the discussion... at least, nothing I would be able to recall.

Three days later, I received a PM from Nimitz. He was asking me "where the chat was at". I thought he'd read the chatroom/password thread and did not realize it was referring to the Sunday night chat. I responded telling him the chat was not on anymore. I mentioned that the chatroom was not requiring the password any more... Nimitz got back telling me the chatroom would reset itself after the last member left it and offered to fix the problem. I asked him what the problem was and learned about the need to "register" the channel to prevent it from resetting.

I noticed several members greeting Nimitz back after he fixed his computer that had crashed before. The fool I am, I was still blind to what was obvious. It's been only earlier today that I realized the problem. The nimitz from the Sunday night could not have been our Nimitz. The true Nimitz had his computer broken on Sunday and was skilled with mIRC (Nimitz later confirmed he was not online on Sunday night and was definitely not "an irc newbie").

Well. Someone played a dirty trick on me and I foolishly let him get into our room. He had the chance to see our starting spot, our location (from the minimap) and probably learned our PBEM password.

Sigh. What a fool I am. A naive idiot.
But that's what happened.

Now, I do suspect one person. Unfortunately, my suspicion is not backed with evidence very well. I do remember the nickname of the outsider I noticed in the first, "public" Legoland room just a couple of minutes after I posted the Tiberius password. But I can't be sure there was only him. There might have been someone else I did not notice.

I guess having our location known to someone else is perhaps not a big deal. If there was someone out there determined to cheat, looking at our position, he could do it by simply loading the PBEM game using the known load bug (I do not know the exact details myself, but I know it's a public secret that the PBEM savegame is just vulnerable). It is basically a matter of honesty and integrity of the players not to use the cheap trick.

But what happened is unfortunately a pretty strong evidence that there will be cheating in the PtW demogame. At least one dishonest person, maybe even a whole team, plays unfair.

What do we do now?

I will email MarkG and ask him about a copy of the Sunday chat log, should there be one available. Even though I doubt it, it may give us a better clue as to who the cheater was. We (me and Jack, whom I told all this in a private chat earlier today) will appreciate any idea that might help catching and publicly exposing the cheater.

Once again, I urge you to consider this information strictly CLASSIFIED.

	06-12-2002 05:00									#2
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Oh man...

This is almost worse than doing something illicit with the save; whoever this is (and I applaud your not revealing mere suspicions) actually deceived you, and the entire team as well.

I'm not sure what we should do. Without even knowing which team what team "nimitz" was from, much less who it actually was, I don't see much point in reporting this to the public forum. But we can't just let it slip.

Does the apolyton IRC server keep logs? If so, MarkG might be able to get an IP address. From there, the forum IPs of suspects could be checked. It wouldn't give us complete proof, but it would let us prove people innocent.

Just to make sure "nimitz" was the only false chatter, I suggest anyone who was at the chat that night post here. I was at the chat, and while I was gone at some points, I don't think I ever logged off, so I doubt anyone could have impersonated me.

	06-12-2002 05:13									#3
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Actually, there is one reason to report it to the forum: to make sure teams don't share around the saves. Unless it's a team leader or a whole team cheating, this will prevent knowledge of our password from being exploited. (I think we should wait for MarkG's answer, though.)

I'm going to see if I can get the IP addresses of everyone who accessed the starting spot screenshot. Don't know if it'll help, but it's worth a try.

	06-12-2002 05:14									#4
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I was here, even if it was for a very short while. I'm sorry, I don't have any ideas on how to manage this

	06-12-2002 05:34									#5
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I have just emailed MarkG, asking for help. Hopefully, the IRC server keeps some sort of a log that might help us determine who the cheater was.

Just one minor detail: "nimitz" really did not contribute to the discussion in the final chatrrom with a single word (just checked it with the log Kloreep recorded).

The strange thing is that there is no record of "nimitz" leaving the room... he joined before Kloreep started recording the log, that is for sure. But I have no idea whether he left before the log was started or after Kloreep stopped logging. Does anyone remember noticing nimitz's nick in the list of members present?

	06-12-2002 05:36									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Kloreep I'm going to see if I can get the IP addresses of everyone who accessed the starting spot screenshot. Don't know if it'll help, but it's worth a try.

EXCELLENT idea, Kloreep. That would be extremely helpful. I guess that would be all we'd need to identify the intruder (in cooperation with MarkG).

	06-12-2002 05:50									#7
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well vondrack, I think we can find out who the person was tht spied on us. I am very hopefull. At least we can catch the guy who did this to us.

	06-12-2002 08:04									#8
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This is completedly outrageous!

Possible cheating by someone even before the game has started!

Don't feel bad, Vondrack, someone has deliberately impersonated one of our team members, how were you to know it wasn't Nimitz.

Although there is the possibility that it is someone not associated with the game, I HIGHLY DOUBT that is the case.

What we seem to have here, is that someone has deliberately impersonated one of our members and having requested received the password to our chatroom. This is first degree cheating!

If the false "Nimitz" had our last password, he/she has access to a lot of our early strategy discussions and detailed discussions of our map situation at least...

We should find out if we can find out who this false "Nimitz" is from MarkG .

Perhaps we should inform the other teams of this situation. If someone confesses, that person should be banned from the game (and if the rest of his team was involved in this cheating or has benefited from this info - the whole team should be removed) I suspect that many of the other teams would be as outraged as we are about being cheated on.

If the person does not reveal themselves, and MarkG is able to identify them... this may be harsh, but we should perhaps request a PERMABAN from apolyton or at least a very very long banning to Mingpulaco.

Well, there's my rant for the week

Last edited by Sharpe on 06-12-2002 at 08:24

	06-12-2002 08:51									#9
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I find the whole situation pretty offensive. That someone was that willing to deceive us for what is, in all honesty, fairly little information, speaks pretty sadly about whomever it was.

Sharpe may be right in alerting the other teams; it might have happened to some of them, too. Perhaps they might even have some information that will help us focus in on the culprit. And, if this really turned out to be a team effort, rather than just an individual, that team should definately be removed from the game.

And hey, I think the real Nimitz should get some justice in all of this!

	06-12-2002 09:05									#10
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Guys, I do understand your anger, I really do. Remember it was me who had the trick played upon him, so I take this VERY personally. I just HATE it when someone misuses my good will and help.

But just keep everything to yourself for now, PLEASE. Letting other teams know without proper evidence might totally destroy the credibility of the whole demogame. Just imagine the neverending flamewars about cheating vs. construing false accusations etc.

Even though I am hardly as optimistic as Jack, we shall still give it a try. If there is a rotten apple, let's try to find it. If there is a rotten apple-tree, let's root it out.

Note: commenting the Kloreep's call for "hands up" for those that were online on Sunday, I believe "nimitz" was the only false one. Everybody else on that night was able to grab the password from our private forum. Thus, I assume we are safe here.

	06-12-2002 09:08									#11
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No, no, you're right Vondrack. I wouldn't go to the other teams until we have at least conferred with MarkG about the situation. Like you said, we don't want this to degrade into a flamewar.

	06-12-2002 11:43									#12
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I would like to let everyone know that we will sometime in the furture contact other teams about this. But for now like everyone has said please do not say anything. We are waiting for the right time and place to do it and we are in contact with MarkG. So again wait for now, do not I repeat do not tell anyone about this.

	06-12-2002 12:56									#13
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BTW, even if this problem is big, I'd ask not to forget the focus on the game. It's our turn to play as per this thread, so I'd ask Radeck or Jack to play it and forward it ASAP. Despite these events tha game must go on

	06-12-2002 13:51									#14
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I wasn't at the chat, if this helps. I was only once in the chatroom, and only for one minute because nobody was there.

	06-12-2002 14:19									#15
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I have a full log if anyone wants it. Unfortunately I don't keep a time stamp. The nimitz that joined said a few words about not understanding IRC or something. He did quit later on.

If it was a mole then thats made a complete balls of the game. As said before from the minimap they will be able to guage our position relative to their own.

Having said that I think we will have to treat these attempts as part of the game. I can't imagine such an act was sanctioned by any team leader. They might all be bloodthirsty in game but they seem to be fairly honourable and willing to play by the rules. I can see a situation where a dissatisfied team member discloses information to another team, and thats fair enough, all part and parcel, but this sort of behaviour is unacceptable.

If it helps any, I'm willing to act as a security manager during the chats. If we know everyones IRC nickname and their host we should be able to see if we have intruders.

	06-12-2002 15:08									#16
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i have some info from server logs that point to a specific member of a team. if the team desires to make this an issue, i will first present the information to the involved team leaders(and see where we go from there)

i'll expect an answer from Jack_www on this thread

	06-12-2002 15:15									#17
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Thanks Markos.

	06-12-2002 15:47									#18
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I think the cheater deserves to be excluded from the PtW Demo game, at least. One thing is joining a semi-private (non-password protected) chat and something completely different, sneaky, dishonest, perfidious, two-faced gesture to deliberately deceive somebody in order to what? To do more cheating, to learn passwords and so on.

I'd let MarkG to decide whether to apply further punishment to the cheater.

Can you Mark search this guy's posts in the other team's forums, to see if he told them about our PBEM password (or anything else in regard to us) ?

Can we change our password?

	06-12-2002 17:04									#19
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he hasnt spread the password nor talked about it in the private forum

	06-12-2002 17:20									#20
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quote: Originally posted by MarkG he hasnt spread the password nor talked about it in the private forum

Well... this is definitely good news. At least it appears to be a problem of a rotten apple, not a rotten apple-tree. Perhaps... maybe... he was just checking if I could have been fooled...? Considering it kind of sports... dunno if we should make it a public issue then...

	06-12-2002 17:31									#21
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Thanks Markos. He could have done that however in PMs or emails, I think. I don't know what to say. I'd like to know what the others members of Legoland have to say about this.

	06-12-2002 18:14									#22
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If its a choice between keeping it quiet or making it a public issue then I suggest making a post about it, not mentioning MarkG's assistance and not blaming anyone in particular but bringing forward the issue of cheating and how it has already crept in. I don't think we should moan about it but it should be made public....

	07-12-2002 07:34									#23
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What if we post in the public forum pretending we don't know who it is? This would give the impersonator a chance to at least step forward and admit responsibility.

Whatever happens, I definitely want some form of punishment for the cheater. Popping into an unprotected chat under your own name and BEFORE we ever got the save (as one or two people did in our first, unpassworded room) is one thing; impersonating a member of the team to get into a private chat is quite another. It shouldn't be as harsh as a permanent banning from the game, but I think his team should kick him out for a few days; perhaps even a week. This is a serious matter, even though it wasn't used to his team's advantage; we simply can't have anyone breaking into private team discussions like this.

	07-12-2002 07:47									#24
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Well let me tell you the first thing I thought was to post about this right away in the forums, then I thought that is was not such a good idea. When the time comes to make a public statement, I would like to come from me with input from all of you. I dont want anyone leaking this information just yet. Well it appears to me that the problem is not as bad as i had once thought. BUt we all must be carefull.

	07-12-2002 09:36									#25
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Ok, having calmed down from last night .... I agree with the sentiment that we cannot let this incident divert us from the game and we should come to a team consensus on how we should approach it.

I feel that somehow the individual that cheated should be punished- to not respond would sanction such actions when we should be attempting to eliminate (or at least limit) further cheating.

However, we do not want to sour our relations with the "false Nimitz's" team as it seems that their team may be unaware of their cheating (unless they have communicated by email, pm, another forum or chat of course).

If MarkG would be willing to do so, being a neutral party in this, perhaps he could inform the leader of the "false Nimitz's" team that this particular person had infiltrated into another team's private chat by impersonating one of that team's members (without mentioning that it is Legoland) and that sanctions should be applied against that person.

The leader of the team could then decide whether to expel, suspend that person from their team or suggest another punishment.

If the team leader refuses to take action against the player, I suggest that the "false Nimitz" should be banned from posting in Apolyton for a month as that would encompass the Christmas holiday period.

Of course, MarkG or DanQ can decide whether they feel that punishment is needed against this person simply for violating Apolyton's rules.

A message could then be posted in the general PTW Democracy forum, preferably by a neutral person, that an incident of cheating had taken place but not mention Legoland or the "false Nimitz's" team.

Unless there is another incident of cheating against our team, we should not know what team the"false Nimitz" is on, that team should not know it was Legoland that was infiltrated and the other teams would know that there was cheating (and will likely be more on guard ) but not which teams were involved in the incident.

The end result should be that all teams would be more on guard for possible cheating but relations between the teams would be unaffected (except for game results of course )

Sorry for the long-winded post again.

	07-12-2002 13:42									#26
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Good thinking, Sharpe. I like your solution.

The only thing I'd like to add is that I'd like to know, if MarkG would be so kind to tell us, what the other team will have decided, what the punishment will have been.

	07-12-2002 21:01									#27
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Very good ideas Sharpe. Probably the best solution
Now let's hope Markos accepts to be the judge in this matter

	09-12-2002 00:12									#28
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Well I am going to ask MarkG what he is going to do about this. So far i have not heard anything from him yet. I do want to get to the bottom of this and not have to see it happen ever again. I will try and pm him and see what he says.

	09-12-2002 06:34									#29
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quote: Well I am going to ask MarkG what he is going to do about this

eeer let me quote myself

quote: if the team desires to make this an issue, i will first present the information to the involved team leaders(and see where we go from there) i'll expect an answer from Jack_www on this thread

so, has the team reached a decision?

	09-12-2002 09:25									#30
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well it seems like everyone wants to do that but i want to talk to some people first before we make a final dession.