Local spoofer contiunes interference with ENL activity (Korolev, Moscow region)
Hi, forum readers. I am sorry to distract you from your discussions. This post is mostly aimed at the Niantic support, as we don't have another effective way to communicate with them.
1) After the recent post 1 account was banned, but 2 of the mentioned accounts, Skarlotina and Rezwera, continue spoofing, see https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/123014/#Comment_123014 and ticket 10635097. Thier operator AgentMarshall10 also continues playing.
2) Recently another spoofer cocojambaby (ENL) resumed his activity. He has been reported previously (#9998803, he was also mentioned in #ETR_2020_2021 and #10538365). No actions were taken so he continues the actions aimed at the prevention of ENL gameplay. We ask you to investigate the ticket #10669074 and stop (or, most likely, pause) the spoofing activity.
11 Nov 2020 UTC+3
Spoofer threw the link blocking Ilya95's home portal from nearby park created after the home portal flip by local RES agent, DCSnow (19:39). Nice cooperation, by the way.
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.915679,37.854053&z=17&pll=55.915679,37.854053
19:47 <cocojambaby> deployed a Resonator on Костинское распутье
19:47 <cocojambaby> linked Костинское распутье to Котельная Суворовская
Soon after that he appeared in other part ot the city (3.4 km away) to destroy another ENL home portal previously flipped by ADA Refactor to save its mods and level:
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.91504,37.799571&z=17&pll=55.91504,37.799571
20:04 <cocojambaby> captured Красочная песочница
20:04 <cocojambaby> deployed a Resonator on Красочная песочница
Afterwards his activity resumed on the remote portal. He covered the previously mentioned home portals with a field:
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.89771,37.793652&z=17&pll=55.89771,37.793652
20:19 <cocojambaby> created a Control Field @Визит-центр «Чаепитие в Мытищах» +364 MUs
20:19 <cocojambaby> linked Визит-центр «Чаепитие в Мытищах» to Доска Почета РКК Энергия
20:19 <cocojambaby> linked Визит-центр «Чаепитие в Мытищах» to Красочная песочница
Spoofers do whatever they want to help local RES agents. RES community is aimed at achieving their goals by all means (backpack accounts, trespassing, inappropriate behaviior, see tickets 4448444, 7987914, 8775411, #ETR_2020_2021, 10433745).
Please investigate the connection between the spoofing accounts and real agents and take action!
Comments
Also this spoofer flooded ENL favorite portals to prevent farming.
I should note that it took cocojambaby 11 minutes to get from Красочная песочница to Чаепитие в Мытищах (20-05 to 20-16). The real route takes significantly longer, more than 20 minutes, see link
We have provided all possible evidence of cheating by the aforementioned players.
See also the previous topic.
Here is another ticket: 10669315
Spoofers are a worst problem of Ingress leading to the game popularity fall and 1* Play Market reviews. Unfortunately Niantic support handles our requests very poorly, and Trusted Reporters don't escalate the urban reports. It would be great for people suffering from spoofers to have a separate communication channel with support. It would also be beneficial for Niantic, as it would help them to understand new cheating techniques and prevent the ways of ToS violation.
Nia, please take action!
The spoofers should be banned.
cocojambaby is banned, thanks for your attention
Maybe should ask why someone start to spoof and change game mechanism so that playing withouth spoofing is possible?
If a game requires actions at real-world locations, you will get spoofers. Regardless of what that action/game mechanic is.
There are several reasons why players would spoof
A new spoofer appeared in several hours after cocojambaby ban. His name is fightfirewfire. Due to sharp location changes he has only 6 km in Trekker medal at level 7, although he has captured more than 50 portals in different parts of the city throughout the day. The report 10688440 is sent. We ask Niantic Support to pay attention to the spoofers' activity and take action.
"If a game requires actions at real-world locations, you will get spoofers. Regardless of what that action/game mechanic is."
You’re right, but in Pogo, for example, that’s not a problem. And it doesn’t just help you move forward in the game. For many who would like to play Ingres, spoofing is the only way to get a big field covering cities destroyed.
This is the big difference between Pogo players and Ingres players. I have seen several times when lvl40 Pogo player to help juniors in the game and help them win in gyms, battles etc. Lvl16 ingress players just try to block as much as possible and keep others from playing as long as possible.
Once you’ve spofed once, it’s easy to continue. The game mechanics attract you to this.
but in Pogo, for example, that’s not a problem.
That is not true. In my city there are huge problems with spoofers in Pogo who keep their wayspots of their color and quickly recapture them if anybody touches them.
and what do you lose? 50 free coins a day? it hardly makes you or anyone else stop the game?
I agree on that, spoofer activity in PoGO is much less impacting and that is actually the reason it is "accepted".
Until Niantic doesn't take REAL actions on this, this is a spoofers game.
Thanks a lot, fightfirewfire is banned!
Well, I wonder if we should start encouraging people to come over the forums to post spoofers activities.
And we have another spoofing account named Gromozekka. Please see tickets 10733873 and 10733873.
Spoofer levelled up in nearby city, Mytishchi, and soon after achieving L6 he moved to Korolev to destroy ENL L8 portals (15 Nov 2020 UTC+3):
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.91553,37.786107&z=17&pll=55.91553,37.786107
22:44 <Gromozekka> captured Лазалки
22:44 <Gromozekka> deployed a Resonator on Лазалки
22:48 <Gromozekka> destroyed a Resonator on Красочная песочница
22:48 <Gromozekka> destroyed a Resonator on Зелёный Футбол
22:49 <Gromozekka> destroyed a Resonator on Workout
His movements are unrealistic and rapid. You can verify it by checking his route between 22:44 and 22:48 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/55.91553,+37.78611/'55.91504,37.799571'/@55.919059,37.766196,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m10!4m9!1m3!2m2!1d37.78611!2d55.91553!1m3!2m2!1d37.799571!2d55.91504!3e0
It also seems that at 23:17 operator also used unknown ENL account to destroy mods of flipped ENL favorite portal https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.920644,37.86976&z=17&pll=55.920644,37.86976
Several home portals were filpped to prevent their destruction, and operator has levelled up his ENL account tutaBaracuda on the remote cluster (15 Nov 2020 UTC+3), see ticket 10734785
23:55 <tutaBaracuda> [faction] tutaBaracuda captured their first Portal.
23:55 <tutaBaracuda> deployed a Resonator on Ежик С Грибом
23:55 <tutaBaracuda> captured Ежик С Грибом
Now he destroys flipped portals with it:
00:14<tutaBaracuda>destroyed a Resonator on Зеленый мини-футбол
00:15<tutaBaracuda>destroyed a Resonator on Яркие Лазалки
00:15<tutaBaracuda>[faction] tutaBaracuda created their first Link.
00:15<tutaBaracuda>linked Граффити Сергей Палыч to Ole ole ole
00:15<tutaBaracuda>linked Велосипеды у Азбуки Вкуса to Ole ole ole
00:15<tutaBaracuda>[faction] tutaBaracuda created their first Control Field
00:15<tutaBaracuda>created a Control Field @Велосипеды у Азбуки Вкуса +6 MUs
Niantic, is it so hard to ban all existing and upcoming accounts associated with the spoofers' IMEI? Is it so hard to find and ban the main account associated with new spoofing accounts? Please do it not to waste both our and your time.
FluffySpider tried to save portal 'Яркие лазалки' from the spoofer, but spoofer used @tutaBaracuda account to destroy flipped portal.
The situation in our region is dramatic. I think the problems could easily be resolved if Support paid attention to our reports mentioned at the end of the initial post. Now bad actors know they can do whatever they want and their main accounts will not be deleted.
Once again we ask support to verify all information that can make it possible to identify and ban the operator — IMEI, wifi subnetwork, unique serial numbers of the device etc.
its too easy just make new acc to spoof and destroy for legit agents.... i dont know what niantic should do its obvious this is destroying the game for rest of us.
tutaBaracuda and Gromozekka are banned, thanks for your support!
The invite system, when you can trace the entire chain of accounts, does not seem so old-fashioned now, does it?
Are you talking about the in-app recruiting option? An invite was not required to join the game.
Niantic does not get all that information about devices, especially if the game runs on a computer with an emulator.
But have they learned, in the following games, pogo, hpwu, and Catan spoofers will not do such much damage. Game mechanics have improved
During the last night two more spoofing accounts were created. As usual, the city became green during holidays, and the operator decided to help local RES community to regain some influence. The spoofings accounts names are lyshkama (RES), luytuk (ENL).
lyshkama activity took place from 4:24 AM to 8 AM 4 Jan 2021 (UTC+3). It included destroying ENL clusters with R/VR mods (04:31 <lyshkama> destroyed a Resonator on Зелёный Футбол https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.914834,37.799605&z=17&pll=55.914834,37.799605), capturing strategic portals on restricted access area of spacecraft center Energia (06:15 <lyshkama> destroyed a Resonator on 55 Лет Полету Человека В Космос https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.919906,37.797771&z=17&pll=55.919906,37.797771). He even levels up RES favorite portals and deploys Rare Mods in them (11-30 - 11-40 AM +RHS https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.930144,37.816207&z=17&pll=55.930144,37.816207).
After the operator finished with RES account, he created ENL luytuk account, to deploy unneeded Mods in ENL home portals. He was active from 11 AM to 12 AM 4 Jan 2021 (UTC+3) on portals https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.920644,37.86976&z=17&pll=55.920644,37.86976, https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.92057,37.87003&z=17&pll=55.92057,37.87003.
Please take action.
Tickets 11552456, 11552403, 11552481, 11552544, 11552584 were sent.
Now 2 mentioned spoofing accounts, lyshkama (RES) and luytuk (ENL), work together to create a nice XF-layered field (https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.915592,37.824211&z=14)
Impunity gave rise to another spoofing account, SypIzSemuZalup (RES). It is used to destroy ENL fields and farm anchor portals (https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=55.899154,37.856956&z=17&pll=55.899154,37.856956). Together they have covered part of our city with nice field
The reports have been sent, the fast-track form has been filled, but there is no response for days. What a shame
such a creative nickname he selected... 🤣 good to see you had some positive feedback on some report. all ours ends like below.
Lambert, 10:33 PM
Agent,
Thank you for reporting this issue. We’re writing to confirm that we have carefully reviewed your report and have taken action where appropriate. Note that not all outcomes may result in a ban. Based on our policy, we may warn a person, place restrictions on their account, or take other appropriate actions.
For privacy reasons, we cannot discuss actions taken against other agents; therefore, you will not receive any additional updates on this report. If you need to report a new incident, please submit a new report from the Help Center: http://ingress.com/support.
Thanks again for your help in keeping Ingress fun and fair.
Best,
Quietly handling spoofers is more likely to get them to stop rather than giving them the spotlight like this...
I fully disagree, quiet handle only results in recursed spoofers.