Spoofers accounts in Barcelona (cell AF09-SIERRA-02)
StringerCuenca
✭✭✭
Hello, I would like to expose a problem that we have been having for a long time in our cell that mainly includes the Barcelona cell (AF09-SIERRA-02) and for which we have no solution from Niantic. Specifically, it is about spoofer accounts that interfere and roam freely without being minimally monitored or inspected and that travel long distances from point A to point B in unreal time. We are a large number of agents who are frustrated to see how, for example, we go up a mountain to capture a portal taking three hours, while another spoofer agent does it in two minutes. We find that all the strategic portals are being destroyed and captured by very recent accounts and that on top of it, the perimeter confinements that exist in the territory due to COVID are skipped.
It is useless for us to make a report to a spoofer account if then the only thing Niantic does is give it a strike or warning, since it will use another new account to continue harming the community of agents who play in that cell.
He also comments that these spoofer accounts, to go unnoticed, upload their statistics and even make banners so that they go unnoticed and thus it is more difficult for them to be considered false accounts. Fake accounts like Manctrlc use that tactic.
Here is the list of suspicious accounts:
MentorGain
Zzape
Zzipi
JuanTanam0 (Banned 2020/02/04)
Chamacote
RaimundoArmador
PitufosHunter
Manctrlc
Erpayo
Phortu
Josupa
Perchitabcn (it was previously called ShimoAsada)
Josyco
LoPtoAmo
Comments
A lot of this flyers players went to closed access places to break or capture portals in unaccesibles ways. Please niantic take a look of all the reports about this spoofing players.
Another report from today, after one of this players destroyed a difficult portal with his link. (Faro Verde)
This is an automated response confirming the receipt of your report. You will receive a response once the report has been reviewed.
If this is a spoofing incident and you would like to fast track the report or request for a reset of the Portals once action has been taken, please fill in this form: https://bit.ly/IngressFastTrack. Eligible cases will be fast tracked and the necessary information will be forwarded to the Vanguards or Trusted Reporters as needed.
Please enter the Report Reference # 12102525 and use your Ingress login email while submitting the form.
As responsible for cheating are the players who make them as Niantic who allows them.
It is maddening to invest your time, energy and money, so that someone from the comfort of your sofa ruin the fun.
Tan responsable de las trampas son los jugadores que las hacen como Niantic que las permite.
Es desesperante invertir tu tiempo, energia y dinero, para que alguien desde la comodidad de su sofa te arruine la diversion.
Those spoofers and toxic players has ruined the Game in Barcelona. It's a shame...
Everyone in that cell can see that problem, especially under Covid restriccions.
Barcelona in intel map.
Spoofers have no faction.
Elfobcn hablaré de mi propia experiencia en la zona de Bunyola, la cual notifique mi presencia a Novita casi una hora después y allí no vino nadie a cerrar.
Del resto de las cuestiones, si no he estado no puedo hablar
this is so sad.. its so easy create new acc, spoof and continue destroy... ingress needs a new verification method or something when creating new accounts.... maybe could help against spoofers and multi accs...
Report of possible actions carried out by ENL agent @MentorGain through spoff with destruction of a Multilayer anchor with a considerable amount of MUs on them, and with practically no previous action.
02/04/2021 UTC+1 19:24 <MentorGain>
Your Portal Clínica Stauros Wall is under attack by MentorGain
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=41.442391,2.157564&z=16&pll=41.441948,2.159691
Please take action against these player spoofers. That they **** us in cell AF09-SIERRA-02.
Exactly, today new account L4 Dcieifa67 has dedicated itself to destroying blocks and fields that have taken days and days to lift, with three spooff actions in 30 minutes between different Mediterranean islands, it has ruined the work of many agents.
Mallorca
18:27 <Dcieifa67> captured Placa Ajuntament Andratx
https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=39.575855,2.423269&z=15&pll=39.575855,2.423269
Dragonera
18:41 <Dcieifa67> destroyed a Resonator on Far Vell parc Natural de sa dragonera
https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=39.586549,2.317164&z=15&pll=39.586549,2.317164
18:43 <Dcieifa67> destroyed a Resonator on Cartel Información Panorámica Parque Natural Sa Dragonera
18:46 <Dcieifa67> destroyed a Resonator on Far de Llebeig
18:46 <Dcieifa67> destroyed a Resonator on Pozo Del Faro De Llebeig Cartel informativo antigua torre de defensa del siglo XVI en el Parque Natural Sa Dragonera.
https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=39.574241,2.304358&z=18&pll=39.574241,2.304358
Formentera
19:17 <Dcieifa67> destroyed a Resonator on Faro D'ea Cap De Barbaria
https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=38.641054,1.389356&z=17&pll=38.641054,1.389356
Obviously impossible times between portals, impossible movements between the islands. reported and they will surely ban it, but the damage has already been done and Tomorrow there will be another to do the same when they want.
Indeed, you may occasionally find that the closing hours are not strictly observed, but it is not normal, in any case the above is not an exhaustive list and only aims to highlight a situation that can be extended to many other places.
Today one of the accounts has been banned and the substitute has already appeared, so either Niantic begins to take action or they will end up playing only spoffers.
Efectivamente puedes encontrar alguna vez que no se cumpla estrictamente el horario de cierre, pero no es lo normal, de todas formas lo expuesto no es un listado exhaustivo y únicamente pretende poner de manifiesto una situación que es ampliable a muchos otros lugares.
Hoy mismo una de las cuentas ha sido baneada y ya ha aparecido la sustituta, asi que o Niantic empieza a tomar medidas o acabaran jugando solo spoffers.
Besides all the spoofing accounts that are created in a daily basis in Barcelona specially in AF09-SIERRA-02, I think that NIANTIC should investigate who is the creator/s of these accounts. When I say 'who' I mean what LVL 16 or recursed account is behind their creation? I guess that it would not be difficult to investigate it by tracking the IP address or by checking if a VPN system is set to operate them.
My point is that NIANTIC should be concerned to erase those 'mother' accounts afterwards the spoofing-recently-created accounts.
The report I previouly made in january for player Zzape playing in a closed hospital parc due to the COVID
Jan 13, 2021 10:58 AM
The player Zzape it's playing inside a hospital institution closed by the coronavirus. Nobody can access there
Remy (Niantic Support Bot)
Jan 13, 2021 10:56 AM
This is an automated response confirming the receipt of your report. You will receive a response once the report has been reviewed.
If this is a spoofing incident and you would like to fast track the report or request for a reset of the Portals once action has been taken, please fill in this form: https://bit.ly/IngressFastTrack. Eligible cases will be fast tracked and the necessary information will be forwarded to the Vanguards or Trusted Reporters as needed.
Please enter the Report Reference # 11688787 and use your Ingress login email while submitting the form.
Thank you for helping us make Ingress fun and fair for all players.
Jan 13, 2021 10:56 AM
Date/Time of the event (including timezone) 10:42 01/13/2021 GMT +1 Name of the Portal affected El Botijo Location of the Portal/Intel Map link https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=41.352447,2.034069&z=17&pll=41.352447,2.034069
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, You can always report any inappropriate gameplay via the chat window in our Help Center: bit.ly/2MdSD5D. One of our representatives will take it from there and investigate. Thank you!
NianticKK...🤦
Many thanks to Niantic for knowing that what is exposed in the Ingress forum they end up reading. That gives us hope so that in Barcelona, the agents who play fairly, can continue to do so. But we can't understand why to this day, of all that list of spoofer accounts, the majority are still not removed from the game. Colleagues have provided quite a few comprehensive reports that these accounts are using illegal systems and still stand. In addition, these accounts, far from seeming that the subject intimidates them, they cheat more.
Several agents are certain that as a result of what was published in this post, a spoofer account emerged in Palma de Mallorca (specifically on the island of Dragonera) and all the portals and links were loaded in record time. The account was reported and removed from the system (it was called Dcieifa67). However, the topic continues almost as the first day after the publication of this post.
Every day that passes is a day when the agents of both factions see how the game gets dirty and the desire to play is taken away due to these free-roaming cheaters. Growing your accounts and making them go unnoticed as the days go by, making it difficult for them to be reported later on.
Please, thoroughly review these accounts and if you need more information or help contact me via Telegram (@StringerCuenca) if necessary.
Here is the list of suspicious accounts:
MentorGain
Zzape
Zzipi
JuanTanam0 (Banned 2020/02/04)
Chamacote
RaimundoArmador
PitufosHunter
Manctrlc
Erpayo
Phortu
Josupa
Perchitabcn (it was previously called ShimoAsada)
Josyco
LoPtoAmo
Hello @NianticKK cc @NianticBrian
It looks like you have not read or understood the post done by @StringerCuenca . Spoofing issue was already reported following the process you indicate. Problem should be looked in a deeper way.
We have a community of players, almost all of them are known since we have seen them in person when IFS's were not at home. Their accounts are not in that list. In our cell, a lot accounts are created monthly. Have you investigated what IP is used for each them? Have you cross that IP with regular players?. Have you checked if a VPN is used?
Those spoofing accounts are created by someone who is a "regular-IFS known-player" who is mocking us and mocking Niantic because as soon one of the accounts is banned another one is created following the same path. So what this player is looking is to crash the game.
Today C.O.R.E subscription came up.
One of my main concerns regarding the C.O.R.E. subscription is that those "mother" accounts that create dozens of accounts monthly, several of them spoofing accounts, could be shielded against a potential ban if they are caught cheating. Maybe they have already join the C.O.R.E. program. Five euros is not a big amount of money so, even we might see their spoofing accounts also having the badge.
Are we in front of a non-solution problem? Spoiler: Many fair players in the cell are quiting the game because it makes no sense to walk for more than an hour to reach a difficult portal that is destroyed by the spoofing account. I think that you should find the root of the problem as described previously rather than cutting the branches.
Paying for items/subscription doesn't give you a free pass to break ToS. You are still subject to it and the penalties for contravening them, just like everyone else. Else it would be the same as arguing a thief can't be prosecuted for stealing because he also bought items from the grocery store he robbed.
You can also not have multiple subscriptions for the same service on the same Google Play account.
And also, I don't think Niantic can even see if someone uses a VPN to access their service. IP addresses are also usually dynamic or just point to the ISP.
Keep reporting. Again and again, eventually it will stick, we had problem players for years, cheated all the time. So many black badges, then we finally got them banned.
Hello @Azhreia .. Thanks for your message.
I really hope your guess matches with reality. But as far as I see how Niantic fights against multi account / spoofers I am really skeptical.
Fight must be more agressive. Otherwise those fair players will leave the game and only spoofers accounts will play. As far as they pay a suscription, that directly impacts in the NIANTIC invoincing pespective, they could continue cheating now with the "protection" of a paid subscription. It happens in Pokemon where. Why not in Ingress? I think that I will need to wait until a CORE susbcriber is banned to agree with your statement. However, I think it is unlikely. Your example of the thief is kind of a 'reductio ad absurdum'. Niantic is not being robbed. Niantic's customers (us) time is what is robbed.
I do not understand your statement of multiple subscriptions. With this criteria multi account players could not exist and they do.
You don't think that Niantic can see VPN/IP. Why not? Do you have any extra info coming from NIA on this subject?
Best regards.
hello @SSSputnik Thanks for your message.
I think this is precisely what those unfair players are looking for: to saturate the reporting system. After one of the listed accounts were banned (juantanam0) two more showed up in the cell. Using a similar name!!. This player is mocking Niantic and mocking us. And this has to be stopped. Otherwise the game will crash, at least in the cell.
Did you get the primary account banned? If the primary has multiple badges/achievements, and get's banned, a lot of bad actors just quit then.
The problem is that several agents know who are the ones that handle the spoofer accounts in Barcelona and surroundings, but how do we test the link? Although we know who are those who play dirty and who read everything that is written here so as not to take a wrong step (because they are not stupid), at the moment it is difficult but not impossible. In any case, we have them very close and now the vast majority have stopped their activity suddenly. I imagine that shortly they will "wake up" again and begin to damage the game as they have been doing. We for our part, we can only watch to see that they take a wrong step. At the moment they are very close to it.
All this comes as a precedent that in the Barcelona cell we have had several consecutive cycles, the RES won by an overwhelming majority. Seeing that we do not leave options to the ENL, many of the agents (fortunately not all since there are some who are beautiful people and are great competitors) have been trying various tricks. From trying to carry out provocations by the COMM so that agents end up sanctioned until now to use spoofer accounts with all the impudence in the world to try to bother, since it is more than proven that they continue without winning a cycle.
The real problem is Niantic not banning main accounts when we do the reports. That lets the space to community trolls to destroy the player network and make valuable players to quit the game.
I know exactly how being under pressure feels, because we got that bulling for over 2 years until we decided to stop playing. It taked us almost one year to finally ban "alanxforce" no matter how obvious his spoofing was, and how many operations he taked down. How many reports we make, and how many times we escalated it to vanguards and TR bot.
When time arrived, it got banned because a post on this forum and the bad press it was for NIA, and not because of multiple reports to niantic and vanguards. The problem with that "time window", between the first report and the ban, is that it was enoutgh for us to started seeing other agents coordinating actions with this (and others) spoofers accounts.. and them the damage was done.
Why? because the legits players against we used to play started to interact with ghost accounts, taked advantage of its actions, at in the end none of us could see a diference betwen the spoofer and the rest of that players that played with it. So in the end we chossed to op-out of this by choosing to expand the enforcement of the "we dont play with cheatears" law to the resistance too, and we extended the "bar" from the spoofers itselfs to the players using its actions to take ilegal advantage. With that new consensus we decided also to stop organizing First Saturdays with that people, because it feels really sad to meet people that join you for a beer and told you they were against spoofers, and at the same day he go to a far away portal to trow a link coordinated with a spoofer "ADA".
Before this we only enforced this rule to our range of control, the ENL community, letting what was outside communnity to Niantic via reports. After this new consensus if i saw a mulfielfd done ilegally, no effort will be put on killing it because it simply should not be there. And if its there is not spoofers fault in the end, no its niantic fault for not giving proper user support because the reports to fix that were sent. I understand that for some obssesive player this new state of the art of being let alone on the game table without the rival team could be a huge crisis.. especially to bullys that used multi-accounts and spoofers to do their dirty thing. But that was exaclty the idea, stoping giving atention to communnity trolls. They feed on any action they see you do reacting to their game, so the way to make them out of game is ignoring them.
So, with that panorama, a faction that decided to ignore a spoofing group of players (the ghost faction) as if they doesnt exist, and that only plays on the way to work and back, its not crazy to see that sudendly the same trolls that was trolling us got bored and decided to go against what is left of the game: the resistance. Is true wat Sergio Cuenca says, sudendly we started seeing some green accounts that doenst answer when we wrote them on comm, that doesnt have telegram, and that started showing on the cell ranking. But we also have seen another thing: this accounts were used in a way that they dont afecct cell score, and dont afect Resistance farms. They dont do any strategic or tactic game that can change the score of the cell or afect the resistance. They play in a way that the only thing that gets any damage is the Eligthened. So it looks not only as a false flag, but also as psychological op against legit players to troll them up, stress them, and end put them in exactly the same "paranoid mode" in wich we was until we decided to op-out of this mind-game thing for the sake of our mental health.
I know that the troll reading this will be really happy. He has worked hard to see this done, and reading that he has affected us is like candy for kid. Also seeing that now the resistance is getting stressed and started complaining and doing posts about it is also candy for him. Why? because he feels strong and in control as he reads us. Nothing feeds more an [email protected] than seeing that he can create drama and make people figth ones against others under his underneath commad and will. So lets go to the begining...
I told before that we extended the enforce of "dont play with cheatears". I told that because when in 2018 we found that a Hardcore player of the enligthend was spoofing and using several acounts we didnt doubt about what has to be done. We kicked it from out chats and community. Them he asked to register for the anomaly on Rocks, apeling to people from other communitys, and he got deneid because all the faction allready know who he was, and why he got kicked out. That includes some ENL Vanguards that were part of the lead-op for that anonaly site. And them, as he saw he could not infiltrate the chats before changing, he turned blue. But that should be avoided by a ban than never arrived.
So, as the niantic ban didnt arrive, he managed to turn blue. We gived the info we got to the resistance, and at the start this agent was isolated from his new faction, as old time players etically quarentined him. But as we saw at that time, this agent intentionally ocuppied the areas of this agents expelling them from their daily game like the bully he is. Time passed by, and he found new players, most of them from pokemon, to join his kind of game and got trapped in his mind work. This player is Hegel075 and since we kicked him out, his acounts started to work 24hs against enl faction.
At the time we kicked him we had found with no doubt that he was ussing this acounts...
We include only the ones that we confirmed whitout any doubt thar were managed by Hegel075. There was more acounts, and they were included in our reports to niantic, but as we cant confirm them at 90% not at 100%, so is fair to exclude them from this report.
Soo, lets se.. when you read "ahora" is the name the acounts got at that time, when you see "antes" is the name those acounts got before as he was using game name changes to elude been tracked. Some of this acounts were created on times when he told he will "quit the game" and them we found sudendly acounts playing the same way he used to do. The acount "T0ntwyna" was used to harrass Eowyna as it was a mix of her nick and the spanish word "tonta" (fool), on that wave of spoofing acounts there was other acounts like that, making fun of other players and harrasing on comm. But for 2018 time they were already banned.
The last chapter of Hegel075 as green, after he got kicked of the faction, was triying to pass acounts to agents giving mail and password saying they can get items from them if needed. I guess because he wanted to take someones else down the void with him if he go down. After that action, anyone that has some doubts about his spoofing behaviour got the plain truth clear and he gone lone-wolf.
Anyway, he went blue, and started playing with unlimited stock in sessions of 16 hours, puting all the portals with 4-4-5-5-6-6-7-8 with shields and no 2000 items stock limit. We saw he started doing big fields and we started counting the number of keys he used, and destroying anchors to let him link again and take keys numbers. Extrangely he got unlimited keys of collserola mountain range whitout stoping playing in city center, and that keys were from portals without farm mods, in wich resonators of this kind of spoofing acounts were spoted.. so the gameplot he used as green "farm with alts, link with main" went straigth from one side to the other. Also the number of keys was incompatible with the stock he was using in city center, showing playing sessions of over 8000 items in a round. Suddendly some resistance agents started also to use strategic keys we gived to the ENL Hegel075, and that resistance never used before, our guess he backpacked in acounts before changing faction.
Of course we didnt get tired of the game only because of his trolling. After a time you maybe get used to it, you can try to go along and ignore it, or maybe you got bored of seeing that he doesnt change or evolve at all. But we also started seeing other dirty things like abussing the restatement system like if they got direct line with some TR o Vanguard. And that maked us say "enougth".
For example we started to see that they used some portals to control meditarranean sea area, and when they needed to do a operation they just send a fake spoofer to put a virus, the blocker links go down, they make a Big Fielding operation, make the party of the great event, and them ask for restatement and as their operation has arealdy been taked down they got again the portals and the blockers. So they can field without risking to losse zone control. We also started seeing that if a casual went on holiday to a island like formentera, and we asked him to do the favor or opening the game and take down a portal, he got pinged on comm and banned in just minutes no mater if he was having a meal at the restaurant of the portal he taked down. No matter he got fly ticked, ferry, photos, video, and restaurant and parking ticked, that acount got ilegally killed by some one with direct line to power abuse. And there more than 3 cases of that in a plain covid year!
So, it can be resumed in this: "the game is broken". It make no sense to spend money on fuel, on tickets, and times of not being with friends or your couple, just to see a spoofer doing imposible times again and again and again. You can report? yes, and your ticket got closed in no time without any effect. The side effect of this? best players stop playing, and shitty ones step up the ladder in power charges and conections. After all, who in his ****@ng normal state of mind will losse its time in things like this?
My advice for you, Stringer, and to the other stressed blues, dont get into it. The one doing this wants to play with you. He want to see you post in forums, see you stressed, and make you paranoid. Take a closer look, and you will see that the movements it does are always planed based in inside-info a enligthend could not have, and meassured in the feedback about how his lat action created drama inside the community. The only way to **** a troll is dont feeding it. I repeat: DON T FEED THE TROLL. Mental health worts more than having bad time from a bully on a broken game. In the end, if niantic doesnt care at all about his actions, why should we?.
To everyone,
Let it be known that the entire topic adressed here is a diverted attack to the Catalonian ENL community. The content of @Hegel075 post closely resembles with the one posted few months ago on r/ingress by another RES agent codenamed @PiretaCat. In that topic, they asked help to report spoofers, after a notorius res member from their local community was chatbanned/banned (I have no further information of the identity or the issue). That post disclosed personal health related issues among other obnoxious attacks towards local agents ENL community.
These attacks were object of a Twitter thread where these actions were discussed. Just a reminder, in Spain it's illegal to disclose personal information, particularly if the main objective is to mock or discriminate that person.
Thread:
Few hours after that, @PiretaCat announced he was going to release a statement and apologizing for "trolling" that person:
(Just a note: Don't call it trolling when it was harassing)
That afternoon, PiretaCat deleted the reddit post he published that morning:
However, the promised statement was never released, and the damage inflicted is still not repaired.
Which in the end led us to what happened today. They didn't want to fix anything in the first place, just to bash and discredit the local ENL community on the forum and obtain what they couldn't on reddit, the disagreements on @abstractpainter comment are a proof of that. If you tag the unedited comment of @Novita, he subconsciously attacks the ENL community:
Yet, @Hegel075 implies he knows the identity of the person involved in these attacks because it was a participant of their local IFS.
Interestingly, many agents on this topic have highlighted the modus operandi of these spoofing accounts. It seems they have relevant information to disclose to Niantic, which I believe it would be helpful to Niantic to prevent any further attacks.
Let me make a suggestion. Instead of trying to discredit the other faction and turnish such noble objective, try to focus and establish bridges among the 2 factions and fight together against spoofers.
I think that raising or trying to excuse or divert attention from the issue by accusing other agents is not the alternative to solving the problem that exists in the cell.
I am neither overly concerned nor stressed that there are spoofer accounts in Barcelona because as I have commented in the answers above, RES are gaining consecutive cycles no matter how much these spoofer accounts are dedicated to bothering. I don't care which side it is. And of course the solution is not to stop playing, but quite the opposite.
It should be clarified that if this post has been made, it is because there are many agents who have reported these suspicious accounts. In fact, today another has fallen due to inconsistencies in the times of portals capture (Serraant75).
And in case it is not clear by now, I do not care the faction if the account is spoofer. It's called AlanXForce or Manctrl. The cheater deserves no defense.
People, when discussing such things it's always best to leave factions OUT of the conversation. There are bad actors on both factions globally.
If you say Faction X is bad bad bad here I would temper it with the fact that there are probably non bad agents as well and to look at your own house before throwing stones in public.
Feeding the trolls is a huge thing as noted above. Work with Vanguards and TR system, stay off COMM. Not engaging is a valid tactic and can work nicely. (I got a mule using agent to stop just by refusing to touch any of their portals for a few months, let em recharge all their mess with no interaction).
A forum post should be last resort and be faction agnostic.
I will not divert the post attention in order to defend myself. All I will say is everything is a big fake that can be easily deconstructed. I ignore what is the intention but probably when I claimed for the potential 'protection' that C.O.R.E subscribers or including cheaters may have against a ban, I hit straight to the point.
We are behind mentioned spoofer accounts and behind their owners. I also ignore if those owners are reading this post. Hopefully yes! The evidence is that those accounts' activity has decreased this week. Let's ask ourselves why.
A positive activity maybe is to share reports from both factions as some colleagues from Resistance have shared formerly. That will indicate a clear will to solve the problem. Everything else, including false acussations, is a non conducent 'chit chat'.
I totally agree with you @SSSputnik, factions should stay out of it when it comes to fighting spoofers. However, it wouldn't be the first time that the narrative established by a group or a single person on this forum hid something behind.
I just wanted to remark the origin of these accusations, and as I said back on December, I would gladly delete everything if the people who wrote those obnoxius insults, made a public apology, or, at least, apologized to all the agents who were insulted in that letter. That post was read by hundreds of people, but no actions were taken to restore their honor.
You know better than anyone that you owe them a public apology, especially to her.
Finally, I would like to publicly offer my help to anyone to report any spoofer accounts. This is something that is killing our game and we must not concede to them.