Escapist article on FFXI Account Theft

[Charismatic]

Really well done article on this subject

"I explained to [him], if someone stole Yahoo people would have the suits flying."

Good articlol

You made pretty much the same post on the last page.

It will be on every page, trust me.

[Jefe]

I thought for a sec. it was Yahtzee. Alas, I was wrong.

[Tormentormike]

They should just have it that when you change your credit card information, you have a 3 day wait period to log back in or do anything in game.

Sure, go QQ over that with your whining bullshit about how sometimes you have to use a different credit card or some shit, but if you were in a position of getting your account stolen, you'd be loving this.

[Kyouri]

They should just have it that when you change your credit card information, you have a 3 day wait period to log back in or do anything in game.

Sure, go QQ over that with your whining bullshit about how sometimes you have to use a different credit card or some shit, but if you were in a position of getting your account stolen, you'd be loving this.

I wish they'd have more security for server transfers.. instead of letting the RMT transfer right away and charge your card like they did with me. Got hit with overlimit fees on my CC.

[Amok]

Points for using a word I actually had to look up.

Was it "denuded"?

[Gunitsoldier]

How someone can get 22 viruses is beyond me

Ne pas du virus scan eh copain.

[Lordwafik]

They should just have it that when you change your credit card information, you have a 3 day wait period to log back in or do anything in game.

Sure, go QQ over that with your whining bullshit about how sometimes you have to use a different credit card or some shit, but if you were in a position of getting your account stolen, you'd be loving this.

Or have a fucking secret question + answer system instead.

[EvilSid]

Implementing rollbacks and just accepting the pain on the economy was the real clincher for SE proving that they were serious about fixing these accounts. They are still painfully slow about the whole process, but this is more about the disjointed nature of NA to JP back to NA communication than about a lack of action.

Yes but they still have to explain me the insane reason for what the rollback process is possible just once in an account's lifetime.

They've done it on my hacked character, and I told'em I really appreciated it, 'cause I've got back EVERYTHING, not a single insect wing was miss.

Now I use Firefox+NoScript, the on-screen keyboard, the encrypted password to an external peripheral, I do weekly scans and everything, but -you know- everything is possible in this world, and you can't always have immediate knowledge on how to prevent it (it was the case of Adobe Flash Player exploit).

So I won't have a second chance to have my things back after an hack, and this means I won't hesitate a moment to quit the game if this would happen another time (I've got too many expensive stuff and re-obtain them would take years).

SE should be enough smart to do not limitate this new useful features against stealing without a valid reason... but they've proven so many times they're not so smart.

[Apelila]

Or have a fucking secret question + answer system instead.

This.

Also, did you know it takes less than 5 minutes to server transfer 3 accounts?

http://bp2.blogger.com/_32oS8FdsvJw/..._you_know1.jpg

[Shuemue]

How and what do you RMT on second life? I've never played it

You don't "play" SL as such, it's more for just chatting and dressing up and building stuff.

In terms of what you RMT, the currency, L$, have an exchange rate and Linden will exchange it between L$ and USD. There are several ways of making money, in particular people make virtual clothes and items which they sell for in-world use. My girlfriend makes roughly $2-300 USD monthly from her 'shop'

The other methods are things like reselling land, furnishings, services, oh and porn, there is tons of porn.

[Bingbong]

The other methods are things like reselling land, furnishings, services, oh and porn, there is tons of porn.

So basically, Second Life = First Life Internets.

[Xanthe]

The other methods are things like reselling land, furnishings, services, oh and porn, there is tons of porn.

So basically, Second Life = First Life Internets.

You're not cool unless your Second Life character has a Second Life character.

[Deci]

How someone can get 22 viruses is beyond me

Kazaa, Grokster, Limewire... other shitty P2P software that followed original Napster - pretty sure those fucked over their share of systems.

P2P should really not be used by non savy computer people if "Artist - Song.exe" doesn't strike you as odd you should get off the internet.. right now. And youd be amazed what i find on peoples computers 22 virus's is nothing NOTHING compared to what i see on peoples machines weekly, some of these are goverment computers.

[Bardlet]

How someone can get 22 viruses is beyond me

Clearly you need to take a look at the computer my parents own. I wouldn't type any type of secure information into that thing even if you offered to pay me $1000. It's not even my dad's fault (he uses it for work and to play online poker). It's my stupid mother who downloads like 405849584098 from sites like Big Fish Games and 8 bazillion other "casual" gaming sites. She borked the last computer they had so bad (an lolCompaq) we had to buy them a new one (HP this time) because the other was beyond any sort of repair. Made her swear not to do it again. 2 year later, the desktop is littered with install files for more of those stupid games. -.-;

On topic, I thought this article was really well done. While the person who was the focal point of the article clearly wasn't the most computer savvy person out there (the first thing I did when I thought my account was compromised was run virus scan, and then completely reformat/reinstall), it still drove home the point which was about MMO theft and whether it should constitute being classified as a "real" theft. Look how long it took for identity theft to be taken seriously and for people to start to be made aware of how to protect themselves? (Not saying that MMO theft is nearly as severely bad as identity theft, just make a comparison). It took years for my hometown to have a computer/digital crimes specialist.

Sadly, it'll probably be a few more years before the general public becomes completely aware of this sort of stuff and begins to realize and start to take measures to protect themselves from this sort of thing.

[layoneil]

Absolutely, but saying it's a well done article just makes this even crazier. It needed to be referred to again.

how does that not make it a well done article?

[Shuemue]

She borked the last computer they had so bad (an lolCompaq) we had to buy them a new one (HP this time) because the other was beyond any sort of repair. Made her swear not to do it again. 2 year later, the desktop is littered with install files for more of those stupid games. -.-;

Viruses do not destroy hardware in this day and age.

[levish]

How someone can get 22 viruses is beyond me

Kazaa, Grokster, Limewire... other shitty P2P software that followed original Napster - pretty sure those fucked over their share of systems.

P2P should really not be used by non savy computer people if "Artist - Song.exe" doesn't strike you as odd you should get off the internet.. right now. And youd be amazed what i find on peoples computers 22 virus's is nothing NOTHING compared to what i see on peoples machines weekly, some of these are goverment computers.

Cept non-savvy people wouldn't know that they are non-savvy enough in the 1st place.

[Bardlet]

She borked the last computer they had so bad (an lolCompaq) we had to buy them a new one (HP this time) because the other was beyond any sort of repair. Made her swear not to do it again. 2 year later, the desktop is littered with install files for more of those stupid games. -.-;

Viruses do not destroy hardware in this day and age.

It was so virus-ridden it wasn't even worth trying to fix it. The computer was old so rather than deal with a reinstall and reformat, it was much easier to buy them a new one.

Sorry I didn't spell it out for you.

[Izzy]

She borked the last computer they had so bad (an lolCompaq) we had to buy them a new one (HP this time) because the other was beyond any sort of repair. Made her swear not to do it again. 2 year later, the desktop is littered with install files for more of those stupid games. -.-;

Viruses do not destroy hardware in this day and age.

It was so virus-ridden it wasn't even worth trying to fix it. The computer was old so rather than deal with a reinstall and reformat, it was much easier to buy them a new one.

Sorry I didn't spell it out for you.

No offense, but let me get this straight...you chose to spend another $700-$1000 instead of spending 1 hour on a format/reinstall because it was easier to spend the money? It doesn't matter how fucked up a computer is due to malware/viruses/etc., a format fixes 1 to 1000000 problems in the same amount of time in one shot.

[ringthree]

Implementing rollbacks and just accepting the pain on the economy was the real clincher for SE proving that they were serious about fixing these accounts. They are still painfully slow about the whole process, but this is more about the disjointed nature of NA to JP back to NA communication than about a lack of action.

Yes but they still have to explain me the insane reason for what the rollback process is possible just once in an account's lifetime.

They've done it on my hacked character, and I told'em I really appreciated it, 'cause I've got back EVERYTHING, not a single insect wing was miss.

Now I use Firefox+NoScript, the on-screen keyboard, the encrypted password to an external peripheral, I do weekly scans and everything, but -you know- everything is possible in this world, and you can't always have immediate knowledge on how to prevent it (it was the case of Adobe Flash Player exploit).

So I won't have a second chance to have my things back after an hack, and this means I won't hesitate a moment to quit the game if this would happen another time (I've got too many expensive stuff and re-obtain them would take years).

SE should be enough smart to do not limitate this new useful features against stealing without a valid reason... but they've proven so many times they're not so smart.

I am definitely not saying that can't improve, and can't improve a lot more, but at least they aren't living under a rock anymore.