Does niantic even care about proof of spoofing?

I am so done trying to support fair play, encouraging other agents to give their best to have fun and visit their communities, to challenge themselves to use ingress as a way to get fun, exercise and explore, to this point it is clear to me this doesn't matter at all to the ones supposed to enforce this.

Yesterday an agent that was around for a while contacted me, didn't paid attention to him because didn't seem anything wrong until he sent me captures of his phone where he has the spoofer app overlay and even sent me a video with his codename while using the spoofer app, i tried to play along (he asked me questions about portal criteria and things related) to get as much info as possible, took shots of any evidence you could wish to have a solid report. And guess what?

NOTHING HAPPENED, Not even the "Ok here you go 1 strike so you can perfect your spoofing technique"

Even the day my report was responded, the same day the agent contacted me and i asked if "anythin new" but no not even a warning.

WHAT DO YOU WANT NIANTIC? are you really that cynical to say everywhere you want "we encourage fair play and the three strikes policy thing, we good, we fair, we (insert self praise word)"

And that is not the worst, the ones who are spoofers or cheaters don't get punished but mostly the ones to get a sanction are the ones who played legitimally, they are the ones to get banned or sanctioned with the minnimum of proof or evidence because support looks like to have random outcomes, one day i get a mail sayin i got banned because i "was getting a payment for submissions" and till to this day i dont even know what thing i did say, did or how support came to that conclusion, and so others who were exemplary players and got banned and the new spoofers get away.

I lost my faith after all this

Next the photos sent to support, i blurred the agent name i have even more photos but i think i make my point with these three, feel free to express what you think of this.




Comments

  • The thing with screenshots (and photos/videos) is that they can easily be faked and will therefore not be used by Niantic to determine wrongdoing.

    If their own data doesn't confirm spoofing, nothing you add to reports is going to chance that.

  • As i said there was a video, the video depicts the user using the spoofing app and the profile clearly was seen in the video

  • And as I said, these things can be faked so Niantic does not use them.


    I know it's discouraging but it's the best Niantic can do.

    If they would accept any photo or video as definite proof, many people would be falsely banned just because someone has a grudge on them.

  • Then why the option yo attach imagen or files if anyway all files can be faked?

  • Because there are things that they can verify after following up on their end. Like the time two smart spoofers in my area were talking about what they use to do it in comms lol


    Aside from that, it can help with upholding bans after appeals I'd imagine.

  • Good point, in this case i don't necesarilly ask for a ban but for at least a warning or an indicator so the player knows.

  • That is not true, we had a spoofer who admitted in comm being a spoofer, he encouraged other players to spoof, explained the methodology he used to spoof all of this IN THE COMM, sent screenshots and proof during 4 whole months to get him banned (It was another agent who did get the agent banned), it was just not me all the local community knew it and also tried, just by checking his account (10km walked, 4000 portals visited, missions from all 5 continents) it was obvious he was a spoofer.

    Also i do have comm evidence, as i stated in my original post i sent a lot more of screenshots about what he had said in the comm and his behaviour (like capturing portals at 3:00AM in a long park wich opens at 10:00 AM and also in areas off limits due to a construction taking place).

  • https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/ingress/?s=agent-protocol&f=report-inappropriate-gameplay&l=en&p=web

    "The following information is all you need to share while reporting a player: 

    • Abuser Agent name
    • Date/Time of the event (including timezone)
    • Name of the Portal affected 
    • Location of the Portal/Intel Map link 

    Any additional details mentioned in the ticket may not impact the investigation. Please note that duplicate tickets or mass-reporting only delay our response time on all tickets."

    It saves you time, it saves OPS time and seems to be very effective.

  • Imagine a scenario at work where someone is stealing time. You report that employee. But doesn't get fired on the spot.

    Instead, what you don't know is that employee is being investigated.

    I trust that because you didn't get the results you wanted, Niantic is watching that agent to perfect their detection of spoofers. Yes it is frustrating, but for the long-term, it's for the better.

  • NIA should just reject the game from being ran on rooted devices and that's it. Otherwise there will always be tools like this.

  • Same here, my harasser is using and sharing 186 stashes with his group of friends only to try and bully me and others out of the faction because we do not approve the spoofing, shared accounts etc... 14 weeks of reports and nothing happens...

    The entire 3 strikes your out policy is fake when you bought items or frackers they can't just ban you without a refund, which is part of the issue

    Krugs beard simply doesn't care, and his fake smiles and success stories on instagram only prove that this asshat is unfit to act on the role assigned to him... And nobody within niantic ops is really enforcing the TOS as we don't generate enough profit for them to bother... But thank you for wasting your time just like I did

  • NIA has never been consistent on enforcement. We have agents around us who spoof with impunity. And I also don't think enforcement is applied evenly between factions.

    Supporting evidence? Brokers Guild. A worldwide conspiracy that went all the way to NIA itself. If anything warranted a lifetime ban, it was that. A list of everyone involved was obtained. Several were in our area. Where they held accountable? I wouldn't be writing this it they were.

    In October, my friend was banned over a misunderstanding concerning client versions! He is a beta tester and apparently forgot or made a mistake by using the incorrect version during an anomaly. So they ban him just before an anomaly after he flew from NJ to Amsterdam to participate!

    And this is how they treat a L16 who gives his valuable time to help Niantic improve their product. One who is willing to travel around the world to support their events. While we see them all but ignore spoofers, skimmers, and outright cheating.

    I have seen it too many times to stomach someone saying, "it's the best Niantic can do." Yeah, apparently the best they can do is nothing. Unless you're an ENL agent. Rules enforcement is a joke. And in my experience applied unevenly.

  • @JamesonStewart you should really take the tin foil off.... The brokers guild agents got 30 days. The enl one that was caught a couple months ago was a week. Dunno what you're in a tissy about, other than playing the "I'm green so only bad things happen to my team" card.

    We have an agent with AT LEAST 5 accounts here (both colors) that we can't get anything done about. I'm pretty sure if I went to his level, I'd be banned within a couple hours. Yes, I'm RES.

  • thesolothesolo ✭✭✭✭✭

    They already do. If your device is rooted, Prime (as well as HP and Pokemon) won't run.

    Of course, then users get around that by installing apps that mask their device as a rooted device. Niantic tries to check for that as well, but they're limited by what they can do, and it becomes a game of ****-a-mole. They look for software, so people rename it or work around it so that it gets past the search. It's rampant in the PoGo community, unfortunately.

  • Niantic have had issues in the past around 2012/13 where players where falsely reported as cheats, usually by spoofers who were called out in comm.

    I got a 5 week ban after I told a spoofer that I'd just checked the CCTV of the property I was at and he wasn't there. To capture the portal would have meant trespassing a building site, and to have been deployed where he did (on top of the portal) he would have had to have been stood in the same room as I was.

    He went on a rampage and took every portal I had in the area and was jumping all over the place with extremely fast times. I told him I would report yet him and his friends got together and claimed I was harassing him in comm and using CCTV to monitor him.

    I got 5 weeks ban and he got nothing, and gloated to everyone that he'd taken me out of the game. A scalp as they called it.


    More recently niantic have gone to using their own evidence and not just out right bans, which I think is the right way to go. Yes they may take time, but eventually they come good and remove the cheats

  • I've also recently had a player ask me about an overlay on a screenshot of mine, he was convinced bit was a player tracker........... It was Google maps lol

    😂🤣

  • 4nte4nte ✭✭

    Welcome to the club!

    Unfortunately there is not much we can do, except noting that niantic is trying to do his best, which of course is still way to insufficient.

    The only way to go, was written in the beginning of your message: being active in your community and promoting fair play.

    That's the only way to go, but unfortunately for any person like that there are at least two that cheat, and in the end also you will get pissedboff, and you will reconsider playing and spending time in a game where spoofers always win, like many many players already did.

    So far so long, keep going and enjoy the game while it lasts.

  • I think the issue is NIA wants to stop spoofers, but doesn't know how to reliably detect them. As a result, they come up with algorithms that approximate what they see from suspected accounts and make those into blanket policies that "prove" someone is cheating. The recent ban wave hit a lot of players I fully believe are legit, as well as casuals that are friends and family members of more active agents. Sure, a backpack account may hack a portal or 2 only when you're around, or hold your keys or some spare gear that you can't hold right now, but so would your spouse, best friend or coworker. By making their detection rules follow behavior patterns that are common with illegitimate game actions, they have been sweeping up a large number of legitimate agents in an overly broad net, and still haven't found reliable ways to detect truly illegitimate game actions, screwing over the entire game ecosystem in the process. They aren't a very large company, so I give them some slack for doing the best they can with the resources they have, but I'm hoping they get some better talent in the doors to apply a more common sense approach to rules enforcement, or they will end up alienating their entire player base in very short order....more than they already have, that is.

  • It's not our responsibility to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. It would be VERY easy for a competent developer to detect and flag questionable players for further human review. The fact of the matter is, Niantic has NEVER cared about spoofing in ingress.

  • I think you are underestimating the effort it takes to detect and flag questionable players.

    Spoofers do anything that makes them look like legit agents. Those that don't, get banned very quickly.

  • Reminds me of the time I stumbled upon a YouTube video of someone teaching how to spoof and he had his agent name clearly displayed in the video while demonstrating it. I made a report on this person with the video linked for Niantic to see just to see what would happen and absolutely no action was taken on that person's account. Made me realize how useless reporting is most of the time.

  • Cuz "Videos and Images can be faked" remember that

  • Don't be disheartened. If spoofing in ingress is bad, pogo is 100 times worst. I had seen L5 raid with 5-6 full lobbies in a open park area with 3 players on the ground. Each lobby holds 20 players. It is like 3 legits vs 100+ spoofers.

    Some ingress players may seem legit but they spoof at home or in office to get keys and items. This is where bans came in for some who people feel are truly legits. I had also met a new player who gets warning for purchasing items online because he can't glyph. Other than that everything he does is legal.

  • Yes, they do take it into consideration if you submit verifiable proof.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    The spoofers get banned more often now than before. It's a better system for sure. But you have to realize it will never go away. It's just the challenge of this type of gaming system. You throw multi accounters into the mix and the game gets extremely discouraging because there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. I've seen it many times in person but the reports go nowhere. You just have to accept the cheating to play this game. Many people have given up instead. It's like playing checkers against an opponent who has a handful of spare game pieces they can use at any time. What's the point of even playing?

  • StranditStrandit ✭✭✭

    I think this is 100% accurate if a bit demoralizing. I am also very curious to see what happens when Redacted ends. I don't assume there's some magic detection sauce that only functions on Prime -- we know Pokemon Go also has a spoofing problem. Still, there's certainly some possibility for improvement.

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