Reverting gps spoofing actions

5 days ago CorsairVL fly over "Beskidy" mountains and destroyed several portals. It was unquestionable spoof, as he flied from one mountain to other in 10 minutes and there is no road between them, and it is winter so even on fast motorbike on snow it is not possible.

CorsairVL was removed from game after two days.

Now it is 5 days after incident and all CorsairVL's portals are still there. Players (intentionally or not) are using them and take advantage of this.

Could procedure of restoring portal to real owner be accelerated/improved as gps spoofing is worst thing in this game?

Also bad thing is that I don't know if someone is fixing it or not as there is no contact with Niantic.

I reported this 5 days ago. Today reported second time. No answer to date.

Coordinates of portals:

49.771145, 19.88579

49.773227, 20.141947 

49.550942, 20.211296

49.623641, 19.618146

49.782418, 20.050541

49.582845, 20.008059

49.489143, 20.338911

Please restore all of them.

Comments

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    This reset has already been logged and is scheduled to be run. Please note, resets are not automatic. They require manual intervention and information gathering, which is done by the Vanguards. We have already been in contact with the agent that reported the account.

  • Thank you

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    With the change of TR we reporters has lost the capability of confirming whether there are already some other players' on a specific case during the report because there is no longer Telegram bot communication. Making a public "Portals Remain To Be Restored" spreadsheet just like we have for IFS registrations every month is very helpful. But I won't be surprised there won't be such file throughout the end of this game.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    No, that is not a feasible solution. Even with the older TR system, we still had cases where other agents were unaware that resets were already in place and didn't know to ask the TRs. They would log support tickets for resets. Back then it wasn't any better.

    Having a public list of portals to be reset will just open it up to abuse as those that did the spoofing in the first place would know how/when to block, counter or respoof. Even legit agents with an axe to grind would take advantage and possibly block lanes.

    It costs nothing to post on the forum to query this and get an answer. Or ping a VG on TG and ask if a particular set of portals is already logged for reset or not. Usually the agents we talk to already informed their community of the pending resets, so they are aware.

  • I would think that reports on the same action a second time just clog up the entire process. Reaching out to a VG seems like it might cause less chaos in reports if there has been a reasonable amount of time passed and no action.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LuoboTiX in short, agents can reach out to a VG to query a reset. All the TRs have done in the past is refer the agent to a VG anyway.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for your reply. That's reasonable (for areas that have Vanguards or widely known). In the future I'll refer to this when people say "You should not post threads about the process of specific reporting. General thread is not for asking so. Please go back to report channel".

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just a note, Vanguards are not region-bound. I handle resets from all over the world. And any one of us would be able to tell you if a reset is logged.

  • As far as we know the TR's and the Vanguards had no direct communication, since TR's were NDA'd away from everyone in the latest version. The whole "I have a bot that responds to me" thing was literally a safety blanket with no actual advantage beyond a filter for fast tracking requests.

    As far as the process goes, once Niantic completed their ticket, Vanguards contact the reporter to obtain the state of the portal, or did when I needed to revert stuff. So the reporter does have known player contact once the ticket is completed.

    This isn't a part of the "With TR's gone it's all invisible" process. Vanguards contact people directly.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    What I mean is, previously some (not all) TR would talk with reporter via the TR bot and provide some further information regarding whether they receive reports for the same target from other players or not, to eliminate duplicate works.

  • Thank you for all this informations. Im new and i just dont know how it works. And it is preety much complicated.

    "agents can reach out to a VG" could you please share how?

    Thank you

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    We're on Telegram. I'm on TG, same username. Or ping us on comms and we'll reach out to you.

  • Thank you again

  • @Gajowy75 I've handled this reset. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on Telegram (same username as here).

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Gajowy75 this reset has now been run.

  • All portals are restored to previous state.

    Thank you!

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Worth noting many regions run xfac anti spoofing chats.

    It's normal to communicate what portals were spoofed and to please refrain from crossing spoofed down lines etc.

    Also to raise possible spoofer IGNs that are active to query whether agent is real etc.

    This needs to be done delicately and diplomatically to avoid escalation into arguments :)

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    I still believe that this could be automated in order to get a link restoration faster, so that manual time invested can be saved.

    It is a known fact that current restore system is being abused and this would not only solve that but also prevent some spoofing since it would not be worth anymore to risk obvious spoofing if it is going to be fully reverted once the ban happens.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Unfortunately, automation isn't currently possible as Niantic doesn't store portal state.

    And, how is the restore process being abused?

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, I don't really want to give away "dangerous info" about this, but I can give you one example of an abuse that is not possible to do anymore so you understand that there are other abuses that are still possible. And I know they are because I know real cases from 2020.

    The example: lets say we got portal A. It's one of those portals, you know. Let's say it is spoofed from Neutral to one faction but in low level. Time passes, no one notices, nothing happens. Now, one day, it gets spoofed by several different accouns from the same faction and it gets leveled up to L8. At this exact moment, it gets spoofed one las time but from the other faction. Now we got an L8 portal fully spoofed but with faction changed. Here comes the abuse: the portal is reported as spoofed and fast tracked for a restoration, which is simple since the last spoofer did it in a very obvious way to get instant ban and therefore a valid portal restoration. Now, the portal is restored on the correct first faction but by NiaGameMaster, which automatically turns the portal as 'legal'.

    This is no longer possible to do, as you very well know, since previous agent names are again displayed and the full spoof intervention would be visible. But this simple example allows me to let you know that there are more ways to abuse the system that are actually happening. And it also indicates that these spoofers have deep knowledge about how the restatement works.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ok let me highlight how resets work. When a portal is spoofed (now, and back then), we look at comms and gather the relevant information from locals. The other faction VG then verify that config and sign off.

    1) We allow a 30 day window from the spoof event to enable us to verify the previous state. If the previous owner was also a spoofer and banned, we would go back to the owner before that. If we cannot verify that anymore, then the portal is neutralised only.

    2) If the previous owner was considered dodgy but not banned, then we have an obligation to restore to that owner. We do not apply "We suspect this is also a spoofer so shouldn't restore to agent xyz". If we did, no portal would get signoff as the other faction would keep saying it's not fair.

    3) If it did happen that a portal was reset to a previous account that was banned for spoofing, we would revert that reset.

    Have there been instances like this in the past that slipped through regardless? Maybe. But those were then never brought up to be rectified.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    In short, we try to revert back to previous legit owner. Not just "previous owner".

  • A reset to a certain state of a portal doesn't turn that state any more legit than it was before the reverted action. It just means that this state wasn't known to be illegitimate at the time of the reset. If earlier actions later are confirmed to be based on spoofing, those actions will also be reverted, they're not protected by the first reset.

    We're aware of attempts to exploit limitations of the reset program, but we react to them. Part of what makes resets take time, often more time than one would wish, are checks and balances in place to avoid resets doing more harm than good.

    You're completely right that we shouldn't discuss concrete examples of current cheating strategies here, but feel free to contact a Vanguard in private if you have something we should be aware of.

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