TOS change

[diet]

Why does the most important post in a thread generally get completely overlooked while people ramble on about useless, obvious stuff?

Is there a startpol.exe or not.

i dont see a startpol.exe on my machine at all.

[Tordall]

Let's wait a month and see who they ban. That ought to give us a good idea of what the change in the ToS actually did for enforcement.

[Dbill]

Topic tomorrow: SE Bans 350,000 accounts for using windower

Topic next week on CNN: SE files for Chapter 11

Topic two weeks from now: SE indicates windower users are ok, free 2 months service free to those banned.

[Reality]

i'm still going to use windower whether they can track it down or not.

same, if i can't play the game windowed i'd rather find something else to play instead

[mastergara]

Why does the most important post in a thread generally get completely overlooked while people ramble on about useless, obvious stuff?

Is there a startpol.exe or not.

Well, in order to find out if there are any additional tasks running, you would have to use some cheating 3rd party tools to find out. Is that Irony, or Tragedy?

Yeah.. aight. Aight, I put on my weskit and petasos.

I thought for you it would be a Kabuto and Togi?

[Devek]

Why does the most important post in a thread generally get completely overlooked while people ramble on about useless, obvious stuff?

Is there a startpol.exe or not.

Well, in order to find out if there are any additional tasks running, you would have to use some cheating 3rd party tools to find out. Is that Irony, or Tragedy?

The only way additional tasks wouldn't show up in task manager would be if they were engaging in some sort of root kit behavior which would cause me to uninstall ffxi immediatly.

To be honest I haven't even looked for a startpol.exe, its probably some virus someone got from downloading random ffxi related software. I'll give a more authoritive answer tonight on this after I get home.

[Rag]

Heh, I don't really care about the plugins... If SE put in a windowed mode I'd drop the windower like an old hat. I haven't put the thousands of dollars into a PC/monitor/sound for gaming just so that when I play ffxi it turns it into a glorified PS2, minus the ability to look up items.

There's a whole list of things not gameplay related that they need to fix with their client first before they start adding more clutter to the screen (especially on the ps2, there's enough crap there already).

Use windower 3.2 without plugis ver
It looks 90% as the game without windower
Norml windower with plugins fail the game looks like ps1 but less colorful lol

[mastergara]

The only way additional tasks wouldn't show up in task manager would be if they were engaging in some sort of root kit behavior which would cause me to uninstall ffxi immediatly.

To be honest I haven't even looked for a startpol.exe, its probably some virus someone got from downloading random ffxi related software. I'll give a more authoritive answer tonight on this after I get home.

There is no way to say this without using the improper terms, so here goes. The modular design of something like windower allows for plugins to be loaded into their "sandbox" (help me out, I know that is not the right term, but I kinna think of the proper one). Assuming ffxi used a reasonable design for the PC version, they should be able to monitor processes that are injecting themselves into the ffxi app, without spawning another process to see everything that is happening on your system.

I am assuming a few things here, clearly...

Incidentally, why do people assume antivirus scanners are the authorative answer on if an object is safe?

~nyow~

[Darkblood]

They've always been able to monitor the IP thats used upon login for all accts. This is something different.

[Andomrequhency]

If they spawn anything from the pol.exe, the windower would know about it/be able to intercept it/etc.. And the only way they can hide processes from the task manager is to patch the kernel so it doesn't show... Or install something that runs as a system level service which would probably piss quite a few users off and would be easily noticed (since most anti-spyware products will throw alerts when something tries to do this).

They could perform certain things to make sure you're not fucking with the runtime, but since this game runs so statically in memory (throwback to the ps2), I doubt we'd see anything that requires any actual modification to the client in this area.

That and with all the actual changes they'd have to make, they'd break the windower pretty fast, which means that it wouldn't work, and chances are someone would figure out what SE's doing pretty quick.

As far as anti-virus scanners go, they basically maintain that no one's doing anything obvious. There's always big fat warnings of "this may have a keylogger no one knows about, but some 15yo kid's plan to use a pre-made one everyone knows about" isn't gonna work. I mean, all those galka hand job clients out there passed anti-virus scans, heh... So did those ones that uploaded your saved password file to somewhere in china.

[Goso]

Topic tomorrow: SE Bans 350,000 accounts for using windower

Topic next week on CNN: SE files for Chapter 11

Topic two weeks from now: SE indicates windower users are ok, free 2 months service free to those banned.

I lol'ed

[Aodh]

They've always been able to monitor the IP thats used upon login for all accts. This is something different.

This is different in that now they're saying they can follow how the account is USED and make judgments on if they believe the person if violating the ToS despite weither or not they actually are at the time. For instance camping/claiming an NM is not a ToS violation, but never leaving Ullikummi's Aery for 3 straight weeks could be an indication of monopolizing or gilselling and ban based on that. How I read the original is that you don't have to actually be doing something wrong at the time to get your account suspended, and they have the right to watch what you're doing if they suspect that you may be doing something wrong.

Like most 'laws', we really won't know the effect it has until the enforcers start making judgments based on it.

[xerina]

(j) Violating any Rule.
In addition, SEI shall be entitled to terminate the account (immediately and without notice) of any User who (1) was previously suspended or terminated by SEI and who SEI believes (in SEI's sole discretion) re-registered using different information in order to avoid such suspension or termination or (2) SEI believes (in its sole discretion), based on the User or other account information provided by such User now or at any time in the past (including, but not limited to, such User's name, date of birth, telephone number, mailing address, e-mail address, and credit card account information), that such User is related to one or more Users who are responsible for, or have participated in, Prohibited Activities of any kind. You agree to indemnify and hold SEI harmless from and against any losses or damages sustained by SEI as a result of your engaging in any Prohibited Activities, and you further agree to reimburse SEI for any and all expenses incurred by SEI in remedying the effects of such action.

Looks to me like they added mesures to better ban rmt based on who's paying for the account.

[Aodh]

Looks to me like they added mesures to better ban rmt based on who's paying for the account.

I mentioned that they might in another thread given the extensive overhaul to the registration system. Also means that if you and say your brother use your dads Credit Card, and your brother is caught flee-hacking, you could loose your account too because "(2) SEI believes (in its sole discretion), based on the User or other account information provided by such User now or at any time in the past (including, but not limited to, such User's name, date of birth, telephone number, mailing address, e-mail address, and credit card account information), that such User is related to one or more Users who are responsible for, or have participated in, Prohibited Activities of any kind."

It's a double-edged sword, just re-enforces the 'don't associate with people who cheat'.

[Kyreth]

I don't think this will even stop rmt just because in order to stop them you need to know who the RMT are and the last time i reported RMT like 2 weeks ago the GM refused to even log in game to come see them exping in an allaince in easter atlep desert.

Probably because- you guessed it- exping in Altepa isn't illegal. In an alliance or otherwise.

This seems to be a prelude to S-E's new RMT hunter team. Honestly, if they put something in like WoW's monitoring software, I wouldn't mind in the slightest. It monitors the game for programs trying to alter it, and kills itself off whenever you close the game down.

[yrpaine]

kind of funny how these TOS always state that SE can suspend or cancel any acct at their disgression. yet the only times we see this happen are to actual players and not RMT.

[Nystul]

kind of funny how these TOS always state that SE can suspend or cancel any acct at their disgression. yet the only times we see this happen are to actual players and not RMT.

well you're working with a pretty biased sample. The RMT's don't come ot BG and post about it. They just create a new account and 5 taru blm friends and powerlevel themselves back up to 75

[Andomrequhency]

Honestly, if they put something in like WoW's monitoring software, I wouldn't mind in the slightest. It monitors the game for programs trying to alter it, and kills itself off whenever you close the game down.

I hope they attempt to do it too. I could use a good laugh.

[Guyverarmor]

Honestly, if they put something in like WoW's monitoring software, I wouldn't mind in the slightest. It monitors the game for programs trying to alter it, and kills itself off whenever you close the game down.

I hope they attempt to do it too. I could use a good laugh.

Yeah This I wouldn't mind at all, It would probably actually weed out alot of people and RMT. My friend James, when played WoW, tried to use a hack.. bam, It quit on him.. took him 10 tries before he figured It out oh man, I was laughing my ass off.

[Kyreth]

Honestly, if they put something in like WoW's monitoring software, I wouldn't mind in the slightest. It monitors the game for programs trying to alter it, and kills itself off whenever you close the game down.

I hope they attempt to do it too. I could use a good laugh.

Is that before or after an update catches a hack on your system and applies some Banstick (lip balm) before making you kiss your ass goodbye?

It's not like the RMT's have an endless horde of script kiddies to shit out new programs to cheat with. You and I know the usual RMT crew is barely able to play the game, much less mess with it's codes. They use premade programs to cheat.

If you want to find a cheat program/script for FFXI, it's relatively easy- especially here in HNMLS pissing contest land. S-E's devs almost certainly have copies of all the common ones to play with and examine and figure how and check for/detect. Once there's code in FFXI to do so, it should be easier to trash RMT accounts out of hand. After all, if the computer has POShack or fleetool or whatever, S-E's code detects something fucking with the game, account gets flagged and deleted.