Virtual IFS abuse and why it needs to be addressed
This thread picks up on accusations of virtual IFS abuse in Korea from 2020. Previous allegations were met with hesitance because proof of collusion was lacking. Now we have 17 months of data. There are still many steps that need to be taken both by Niantic and the community. First, a recap and an update of the goings-on.
For more than a year, ENL agent **** and RES agent **** have been traveling together with their coterie to cities other than where First Saturday events were held to engage in win-trading. There is no room to doubt collusion when they appear in different parts of the country at the same time and perform the same actions in a coordinated manner. They even take the same breaks to build up farm portals to restock. What is problematic is the fact that these incidents occurred in cities that were not hosting IFS. The farthest city was 300km away, which is the distance between N.Y.C. and Boston, or London and Brussels—take a moment to think about how absurd it would be for a team of agents to sign up for an IFS event in the U.K. and to win-trade in Belgium.
They were clearly aware of the criticism and adjusted the time they spent win-trading. As recently as the March 2021 IFS, they began at 1:20 p.m. and indulged until 7:30 p.m. Since then they adhere to the standard measurement window. The whole point of virtual events was to give agents a shared Ingress experience in this time of a pandemic in the safety of their homes. Did the party in question stay home? No. They chose random sites, sometimes traveling more than an hour away from their town, skirting local social distancing rules. Therefore, it comes down to whether win-trading is a sanctioned act when it takes place far away from a host city.
If you are still unconvinced there was collusion, consider the following case. These agents are involved in cross-faction portal upgrades all year long. Put simply, a RES agent goes around flipping ENL portals so that their green friends can have L8 farms. A full list of portals and perpetrators can be shared here upon request. The same player publicly asked a new RES agent to change factions to protect their clique. Their go-to response on COMM is that they interpret the rules differently and wish to pursue a “peaceful” gameplay. Such an argument would make sense if there were a truce, but actively abetting in win-trading is a totally separate matter. This is the cabal that travels together all the time, even for virtual events during a pandemic.
What now? A small group of players engaging in petty stats abuse would not have received such a reaction had it not been for a high-profile agent who supposedly claims to help new agents. They have leveraged their position to mislead others and to sow discord by citing a former Niantic employee and exploiting loopholes. To give a few examples, "recursion is a sign that Niantic wishes to break down the barrier between factions," and "they can't ban players for breaching the Terms of Service because they're afraid of lawsuits." Niantic should update their Terms of Service which was last modified in May 2019. The IFS page under Support/Ingress Events/ has yet to see any new information since virtual events became the norm. An additional paragraph or two addressing rules will certainly go a long way. Let's not let misinformation take over Ingress.
For those of you who have made it this far, please share your thoughts.
Comments
I translated the article written by Ineras. (to Korean)
이 스레드는 2020년 한국에서 일어난 가상FS 어뷰징 고발글을 다룹니다. 지난 글에서는 담합의 증거가 부족하여 반응이 별로 좋지 않았습니다. 이제는 17개월간의 데이터가 추가되어 있습니다. Niantic과 커뮤니티에서 다뤄야 할 것들이 아직 많이 있습니다. 요약 및 경과를 알려드리겠습니다.
인라 **** 와 레지 **** 는 FS 개최지가 아닌 다른 도시에서 윈트레이딩을 개최했고 스스로 참석했습니다. 전국 여러 곳에서 동시에 해당 장소에 나타나 같은 행동을 한 것은 공모의 정황이 아닐 수 없습니다. 그 무리들은 윈트레이딩에 필요한 무기를 재보급하기 위한 파밍 브레이크 타임을 가지기까지 했습니다. 문제는 이들이 FS가 개최되는 도시가 아닌 곳에서 이런 일들을 벌였다는 겁니다. 제일 멀었던 경우 개최지에서 300km 떨어진 곳에서 윈트레이딩을 진행 했습니다. 이 거리는 브뤼셀과 런던 간의 거리입니다. 영국FS에 참석하는 사람들이 벨기에에 모여 윈트레이딩을 벌인다고 생각해보면 정말 어이없는 일이죠.
그 무리들은 자기들을 향하는 비판을 인지하고 있기에 윈트레이딩 진행 시간을 조정 하기도 했습니다. 2021년 3월 FS날의 경우, 13:20~19:30 이 시간동안 일을 벌였는데 그 이후로는 행사 시간 안쪽으로 어뷰징을 하고 있습니다. FS가 가상으로 바뀐 취지는 코로나 대유행 상황에서 안전하게 집에서 행사에 참석하라는 것이었습니다. 그렇다면 이 무리들은 집에서 머물렀나요? 아니죠. 그들은 윈트레이딩 장소를 그들 임의로 정했고 때로는 해당 지역의 거리두기 지침을 우회하여 한시간 이상 거리의 도시를 선택하기도 했습니다. 따라서 이 윈트레이딩 행위가 개최지에서 멀리 떨어져 있는 것이 허용된 행위인지 여부가 관건이라 할수 있습니다
이것이 담합이라는 것에 아직 확신이 없다면 다른 사례를 제시하겠습니다. 저 양 진영의 사람들은 상시로 서로의 포털을 업그레이드 해줍니다. 그러니까 8렙 파밍장을 만들어주기 위해 레지가 인라 친구의 포탈에 바이러스를 돌려준다는 겁니다. 여기에 관련된 사람과 포탈이 무엇인지 궁금하시다면 요청해주세요, 공유하겠습니다. 그리고 이 레지는 자기 패거리를 보호하기 위한 목적으로 새로 게임을 시작한 레지 뉴비에게 "인라로 진영을 변경할것" 을 공개적으로 요청한 적 있습니다. COMM에서 그들이 말한 것을 보자면, 그들은 룰을 다르게 해석하고 있고, "평화로운" 게임 플레이를 원한다는 겁니다. 지역 유저들 간 휴전 하자는 합의가 있었다면 말이 되겠지만, 노골적인 윈트레이딩을 하자고 하는것은 완전히 다른 문제입니다. 이들은 이곳저곳을 들쑤시고 다니는 하나의 음모덩어리 입니다, 코로나 대유행중의 가상 이벤트에도 말입니다.
뉴비들을 도와주겠다고 자처하는 고레벨 유명유저의 영향력이 아니었다면 스탯 어뷰징에 참여하는 무리들은 참여하지 않았을테죠. 그사람은 자신의 게임 내 지위(?)를 이용하여 잘못된 정보를 전파하고 전직 Niantic 직원의 말을 인용하고 규칙의 허점을 악용해 불화를 초래했습니다. 이를테면 "리커전 시스템이 출시된 것은 Niantic 이 진영간의 장벽을 없애려한다는 의도" 라거나 "Niantic은 소송에 휘말리고 싶지 않기 때문에 서비스약관을 위반한 부정행위자를 밴 하지 않는다" 라고 말을 하고 다녔습니다. 나이안틱은 2019년 5월에 업데이트 된 서비스 약관을 업데이트 해야 합니다. 인그레스 안내 사이트의 FS 페이지에는 가상FS 체제로 바뀐 이후의 안내가 업데이트 되어 있지 않습니다. (중간 번역 불가능) 잘못된 정보가 인그레스를 지배하지 않도록 합시다.
My name is HawkBro, an accuser who know their history of win-trading, I've been reporting on RES Forum of South Korea.
저는 저들의 윈트레이딩 이력을 알고 있고 한국 레지스탕스 포럼에 고발을 해오고 있는 유저인 HawkBro 입니다.
Two guys who mentioned in this article are the Key players. ENL player is a designer of win-trading, RES player is kind of essential ingredient 'cause he/she is the only one who can launch XMPs in their local xfac clique.
본문의 두 사람은 키플레이어 입니다. 인라 유저는 윈트레이딩의 설계자이며 레지 유저는 윈트레이딩의 필수요소 입니다. 왜냐면 그쪽 동네의 진영 섞인 패거리 안에서 버스터를 쓸 수 있는 유일한 사람이니까요.
The abusing by win-trading held six times including last weekend's and those days are same with event day of virtual IFS.
윈트레이딩을 통한 이 어뷰징은 이번 주말을 포함해 총 6차례 열렸습니다. 그리고 모두 Virtual FS 가 열린 날과 동일한 날입니다.
here's history of win-trading by this clique, these win-tradings were held in same day with First Saturday Event, and you can visit my report in 'Ingress Resistance Korea Forum'
이 패거리의 윈트레이딩 이력을 열거하겠습니다. 이것들은 FS 이벤트와 같은 날에 실시되었습니다. 링크를 타고 들어가 "인그레스 레지스탕스 코리아 포럼" 에 제가 작성한 고발글을 보실 수 있습니다
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good job!!
17 months since the first reports? Either you are all lying or Niantic does not care at all.
Win-trade is cheating, but is it even cheating if it gets no sanctioning?
Posting this in the forum is ok, but if you really want to push Niantic to do something you should be posting things in public, like Twitter or Reddit. 😊
I have a slightly cynical take on this...
Isn't the pre-pandemic IFS essentially a sanctioned win-trading event? The whole purpose of it is to go out and have a bunch of skirmishes with the other faction, with competitions for specific stats IIRC. And socializing, of course, but the Ingress gameplay seems to generally be about personal stats and using the other faction to boost them.
And yes, I acknowledge that this is a hot take and will be somewhat controversial. I also haven't attended an IFS because when I saw that the focus was on personal stats and leveling up I wasn't interested. I'm not saying playing for AP and stats is bad, it's just not my cuppa.
FS pre-covid was exclusively about unique hack/capture, meet and greet with others you've only seen as names on Intel, and afters.
Anything else is a bonus.
That a cabal is clearly abusing the setup is a problem that must be addressed.
What are they doing exactly? Are they playing in the same area like a physical FS would? The store still sells loadouts every FS weekend as if they were physical meetings.
I'm just trying to understand the issue here because if they have been attempting to play like a physical FS meeting - pandemic or no pandemic, it seems minor but I would like to be proven wrong here.
There's people who still scrap passcodes from the IFS chatrooms for the 10 powercubes and media which has left some towns not being able to redeem them for their own use.
It you want an example of real win trading and ifs abuse, take a look at NYC.
The two agents who run it are captainkidd and pi(3.14xxxxx). Both players are historically res agents, though now the two of them win trade fields off a portal called "pi mural" in NYC. Kidd has over one billion AP from this. They run both the enl and res side of the NYC first Saturday, plus they flip flop between green/blue constantly. When we had an anomaly in NYC recently, they used green accounts to junk mod portals so res could capture them easier. By them controlling the NYC FS, they have locked the real ENL out of having any say over the time/date/location of first Saturdays.
This is far and above what you're talking about in this thread of two people win trading AP at FS events. Niantic hasn't stopped the abuse for the top FS event in the united States, what makes you think they'll look into this?
You raise excellent points.
The store still sells FS loadouts to make money and because no one bothered to ask why they are needed during a pandemic when Fev Games changed formats. The continued appearance of loadout kits should not be construed as an encouragement to go out. If anything, I see it as inertia.
Assuming the group in question wanted to play it like a pre-pandemic on-site event, shouldn't they have physically been in the host city at the designated portal?
You answered the question, if they wanted to still make a physical FS meeting - they could have done so in their own local area to not violate restrictions with the pandemic. It's hard to really gather the situation of the restrictions as it has changed based on country, municipality, length of restrictions, the exact limitations that the restrictions enforced, etc - this might be where it's hard for Niantic to enforce specifically.
Again, I'm only stating this as I don't know the full details and looking at this from an outsider. I'm stating these questions to help facilitate discussion.
If they wintrade only during IFS, i would say let it go. If they are wintrading and bumping outside of IFS then yeah, wintrading.
Niantic do on occasion issue bans even on days of IFS events. We had some super high stats subbed for a IFS and both got banned. (I think from memory they persisted longer than the event).
That said, I've reported wintraders a number of times without luck on ban. (Outside of IFS).
niantic doesn't enforce anything.
for this to be partially solved, item exchanging between factions needs to be cut and jarvis / ada to neutralize the portal instead of changing its faction without any cooldown. that would leave players that play for the other faction without some of their main advantages
Hrm no on portal neutralise. They useful for bumping portals within when no battle beacons.