NianticVK, plz read carefully

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  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    @Toxoplasmolly , other agents here try to offer solutions, but the reply above poses a lot of challenges and cynicism. Wish agents are more than welcome to offer solutions rather than just accepting the status quo.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    So, my area once suffered from rampant spoofing. Now, it does not. What did we do?

    1. We stopped giving the trolls any attention in public.
    2. We filed support tickets through the appropriate channels.
    3. We stuck together and supported each other as a team.

    That is all.

    If some Agents choose not to accept this advice, that is their choice. The consequences [1, 2] are exactly as I described previously.

    At the end of the day, spoofers are people, which ultimately makes spoofing a social problem. Technological solutions merely delay the day of reckoning.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes if you read my threads on the forum that were months ago or probably years ago...you may notice that I've been complaining about my concise and accurate anti-spoofing reports were not reviewed at all. However you may see that even "XM Ambassadors" jumped out only to tell me that "keep trying to file reports".

    Around those posts I've fully proved that it's almost merely "talking to the machine" which often results in vain and we as volunteers to make the gaming environment better by filing reports deserve better response but what did I get? I got endless and quite a bunch of "Disagree" from those "XM Ambassadors" and even "Vanguards" because they are not happy to see me on the forum saying and proving "a lot of reports are not reviewed" with data. Meh.

  • on which comments they disagreed you? you can contact me in telegram, i'll show by whom you were disagreed

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2022

    So basically the 'if I ignore it, it will go away' surrender strategy again.

    Since when has this passive startegy become a prioritized "solution"?

    Spoofing is spoofing not "trolls". The real harm has already been done.

    If "surrending to spoofers" is ok, isn't quitting the game even better?

    If we don't play this game then we don't worry about spoofers. Great!

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭


    Yes. The problem of the "if I ignore it, it will go away" saying is that usually those spoofers are cheating not only to get attention but also help its alliance to reach the target such as building some fields/block links. This saying sounds like spoofers will go away as long as people pretend to not being able to see them but it as a "solution" will never work for the latter scenarios.

    Even if it's spoofers purely for trolling, firstly regarding those attention-wanted cheaters, it's the common case that you back off a bit; he responds by trying to take advantage, not go away. Secondly, the real harm has done in-game. How are people supposed to "simply pretend to not see it" when other players have to take the mess left by spoofers? Ultimately, even if the spoofers went away because he felt bored...at what expense? At the expense of AFK of 20+ normal and good players, for a single trolling spoofer?

    I see it very strange that such passive strategy was repeatedly mentioned as a solution. It never is. This should be a common knowledge, isn't it? Then why was it repeatedly mentioned? For what purpose? You definitely has the idea.

  • The nature of the (IPV4) Internet ensures that banning an IP risks quite a bit of collateral damage: many devices share the same IP.

    Not only that, but they tried and there was significant pushback from the community, because the IPs they were banning were all VPNs used primarily by Chinese players to access the game since it's blocked by the Great Firewall. A large portion of the legitimate playerbase at the time were denied access to the game, until they reverted it.

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭

    Frankly speaking the device identification and anti-fraud could have nothing to do with proxy. Nowadays almost every MMORPG or mobile game developers, as long as they are responsible for the network infrastructure, have the basic knowledge that:

    1. Banning IPs can be adopted as a strategy but it's not simply banning IP. Firstly the nature of a specific IP should be analyzed with some other information for example the ASN of this IP. Is it a (broadcasted as) proxy IP? Is this IP address centralized used by multiple irrelevant players?
    2. It's not necessary to use IP address to identify accounts that have connections. There are many techniques to analyze the network structure behind a specific IP address

    I know that you do not mean it but I have to point out, in case discussed further, that "players are using proxies" is not an excuse of "we cannot analyze IP address". And "we cannot ban IP address" is not an excuse of "we cannot analyze blatant spoofers & multi-accounters and ban their devices" either.

    Not to mention the fact that currently players in Mainland China do not all rely on proxies to logon onto Ingress. Direct connections via iPhone/iOS account login are now widely used.

    When players asked "can Niantic just ban their IPs" they meant more likely "can Niantic limit the use of devices of identified spoofers so that they could not create new accounts VERY EASILY". There is no need to emphasize technology about "IP" and run away from the real question. I know that you do not mean it but I have to point out, in case discussed further.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    The spoofing in my area has gone away and stopped. That's called "winning."

  • TheKingEngineTheKingEngine ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2022

    Oh really? That's called "successful escaping" as far as I can see.


    Imagine a player X playing a soccer. Somehow the referee is missing and nobody is auditing the game. X and his teammates called the organizer and was told that "your match was not even part of a league so we won't do anything about it just keep playing".


    The opponents also noticed the fact that organizer and assigned referee went to do some other things, and started cheating freely. Instead of kicking the football they are now throwing the ball to the goal. Very soon they reached 100:1 but nobody jumped in to for example show red cards.


    X says, "We must stop giving the trolls any attention", and keep playing normally, while the opponents are scoring every 10 seconds.


    Several teammates of X do not agree on that because it's obvious cheating not trolls. They try continuously making complaints via phone call to organizers and media and even calling the police. All attempts were replied with response like "We have taken appropriate actions" but everyone on the track can see that things are still completely out of control without a single trace of being stopped.


    Actually, the opponents now are just standing in front of the team of x and throwing balls onto them directly because it seems that they would receive no punishment.


    X says, "We must stick together and support each other as a team", "Listen to my advice and we will win". Thus some of his/her teammates in the next 30 minutes are simply pretending that everything is still normal, while being thrown on countless balls blatantly. Simultaneously most of his/her teammates left with extreme disappointment.


    Ultimately, after so many speechless minutes, the opponents left the game with 65536:1 because they started to feel boring. Almost all the audience have left long before that because they could not get the idea of the game any longer.


    X says, "Yeah, we win, we win as last man standing, that's all", together with the remainning 2 teammates out of 11.

  • Thanks for the lively discussion on this thread. Based on the content of the discussion, I will be closing it for future comments. Also, we now have a dedicated thread for this: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/18223/concerns-re-spoofing-a-dedicated-thread

    Please review the above link and make sure to follow the Community guidelines.

    Thanks!

This discussion has been closed.