Shard #12 The Humanist - What actually happened
This is just to provide some clarity about the Shard #12 Humanist situation which spawned in Bangalore, India.
After several plans were considered and discussed with local ENL in the spirit of XFAC, it was decided that the shard would be sent west to the South American Target. The shard moved smoothly through Southern India to the southern tip of Sri Lanka where the Enlightened(with possible advance Intel shared from Enlightened India) decided to steal it and score it by themselves with a plan of their own.
The moment the shard situation escalated to a faction vs faction situation, RES agents in the region successfully blocked out any potential links from either Sri Lanka or Maldives while trying in vain to initiate discussions of an XFAC approach to move the shard with Sri Lanka ENL.
After several futile attempts at XFAC collaboration with Sri Lanka ENL, ENL of multiple countries(involving possibly the Enlightened agents of India, and definitely the Enlightened agents of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Maldives) in the region suddenly decided to take down The Cocos Club(https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=-12.188011,96.828791&z=17&pll=-12.188011,96.828791) on Coco's Island which is a remote portal between Indonesia and Australia with a suspiciously low level account(Agent damaress).
This takedown was synchronized with a link from Indonesia to the Maldives by Agent AbdulTutik from this portal(https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=-6.322384,106.663204&z=17&pll=-6.322384,106.663204). (Shamefully, this link is still being maintained by the Regional Enlightened to have their regional control.Refer below) Next jump, the Enlightened agents complicit in the cheating managed to link to Indonesia to move the shard which eventually reached the Target in Taiwan.
A point to be noted is that this was the second attempt by a spoofer to take down the Cocos Club portal on the same day. During the first takedown, the resident Resistance agent recaptured the portal and the Resistance managed to remake the links taken by account after a suspicious takedown by a level 4 account(IGN:PoliceNIA). The second time around after failing to block out the Cocos Club during the first attempt, it was ensured by the Enlightened that it was done using a level 7 account(IGN:damaress) with an agent(AbdulTutik) available to make a link.
Agent damaress was later banned just before the shard moved into the target in Taiwan. This was not just an attempt at stealing the shard(which can be accepted if it was a legit effort) but there was spoofing involved to clear the way.
Comm Text:All times are in IST(UTC+5.5) and the activities happened on 27 Sept 2019 and can be verified from the Comm(Refer below for activity on Intel)
Failed First Takedown of The Cocos Club due to presence of local Res agent
08:51 PoliceNIA destroyed a Resonator on The Cocos Club
08:53 PoliceNIA destroyed a Resonator on Friendship Mast
08:54 ioislander deployed a Resonator on The Cocos Club
Second Takedown of Cocos Club and synchronized linking to Maldives
12:19 damaress destroyed a Resonator on The Cocos Club
12:23 AbdulTutik linked Mural to Gan International Airport Departure Gate
The main reason for this post is to provide clarity about the what really happened with Shard #12 The Humanist and to make it clear to every community all around the world that the Resistance in any region was not part of the efforts to ensure the scoring of this shard which was tainted by the cheating of the Enlightened. Most of the Ingress community should see this as a similar situation with shard #8 which was actually handled and moved by a spoofer and reset by Nia OPS. If not treated the same way, it shows that those agents are alright with spoof clearances during shards but not spoof captures or looking at the faction and not the action involved.
As for the timing of the post, several other regions are still continuing to work Cross-Faction with the remaining shards. It was decided to leave this post for later(until the maximum possible rewards are reached even if Niantic decides to cancel the scoring of #12) so that the actions of cheating involved to move #12 is not an influence on the event benefits rightfully earned by other hard-working agents around the world.
Comments
Ban agent AbdulTutik involved in linking. @NianticBrian
Ban agents who involve in cheating and NIA OPS should give a unbias response whether to count #12 or not. Waiting for response. #AGAINT #SPOOFERS
This kind of behaviour is against the spirit of the game. It trivialises the time, money and effort that agents put into the game. I hope that Niantic acknowledges the incident and acts accordingly.
Concur, spoofing Cocos twice was dirty pool.
Cocos Club has been submitted for reinstatement after spoofer was banned.
Sad that this spoiled the x-faction party.
Spoofing becomes a major pain nowadays.. I am not blaming Any faction is specific. Everyone who play the game should do a community check for Spoofers and Niantic must address this asap coz Ingress is at the brink of loosing long and valuable agents..
Spoofers don't bring u money.. they make u loose money by destroying ur valuable player base.
Hope to see a official tweet regarding this matter. We don't need any 3 time Warning. U guys can ban all account by banning IMEl no blacklisting.
As soon as Nia gets rid of scanner redacted and its obsolete API, cheating situation should improve. A lot of ENL agents will suffer from that globally.
You mean as soon as they use the same backend that so successfully prevents cheating in Pokemon GO? 🤭😂
scnr.
Banning IMEI can also be circumvented. Even that isn't foolproof.
Yes MAC, IPs and IMEI Numbers can be spoofed, Prime should have controls to prevent this!
Prime is not a systems app. I don't see how a mobile game would or even could prevent someone from messing with their device settings, given the systems permissions required to do this
It would be interesting to hear about any feedback from the agent that linked to get their side of the story.
Also what was the timing between Coco Club was spoofed and links for shards were made? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
In case it is confirmed that shard linking was done by the use of spoofers then Niantic should remove the shard from the score.
Its in the post 👆
4 minutes? Looks pretty coordinated. Especially since I guess that both sides are carefully monitoring remote blocking links. Still maybe the player who linked wants to share their side of the story.
without any further feedback niantic should remove the shard from the score.
Unless the player who made the link was watching Intel about what was happening hundreds of miles away and was also ready with the necessary keys to make the critical links (which takes a lot of time to plan), we can safely rule out coincidence and luck factors. At least from a practical standpoint. Wouldn't you agree ??
Oh I agree that it does not look like luck or coincidence. As I said it looks like a coordinated effort to benefit from spoofer.
From my side it is always a benefit to hear from the other side. What was their interpretation of the situation? What is their evidence to support their claims that this was not coordinated with spoofers?
And in the absence of any feedback and evidence from the other side - you can only assume that this story is correct since niantic banned both accounts. So the shard should be removed from the score
I do not think the shard should be removed from the score. The spoofing wasn’t caught when it happened and the shard made several successful jumps with the work of legit agents. Taking it away from the score negates all the work the agents did. Ban the spoofer/s now and move on.
The fact that the spoofer wasn't caught fast enough is a different part of the problem. As for the legit agents involved in the movement of the shard until the cheaters took over, you're talking to one of them and this is our view shared through me in the post. The ban happening too late is no fault of those behind this post.
As for the score, we think that we have been extremely considerate to wait for the 11th shard to be scored before bringing this up ensuring the reward for 10-12 scored which is the maximum which is currently possible even if Niantic decides to cancel the scoring of this shard because of the situation of shard #8. The opinion of those of us who were involved in the movements of the shard is, we would rather see it not scored than know that the shard which was in our region was scored by cheating.
The agent were able to do the work with the help of spoofers... How do you not get that? The shard wouldn't have scored without spoofers.
I do understand it. I think it would have scored eventually anyway. I am not trying to disagree with the agents involved. Just giving my opinion.
Because if it's only running Unity there will be no spoofing, right? And there is no spoofing in Pokémon Go, which is all Unity, Right?
Most of enlightens in srilanka they are thinking spoof is there own heritage.old enlightens learning to their little agents how cheet with spoof.we should make them report as soon as seen with evidence
We looked into the actions and timings surrounding Shard #12. We talked to people involved, players who were coordinating efforts on both sides and those in contact with people involved to have determined the following:
The blocking link from Cocos Island to Sri Lanka was dropped at Cocos Island by a bad actor at 06:49am UTC. A "link rail" was then thrown four minutes later at 06:53am UTC by an ENL Agent from Indonesia. With the next jump window occurring at 11am UTC, Sri Lanka ENL already had a plan in place to drop this blocker in Sri Lanka and link the Shard. Sri Lanka ENL Agents arrived and dropped the portal that would have held the link from Cocos Island at 10:22 UTC, even though the blocking link was taken down by bad actors. The shard was linked shortly thereafter to Indonesia, in time for the 11am UTC jump window. Without the actions of the bad actor we are extremely confident that this jump would still have occurred as planned given everything we have been able to verify.
It is a shame the Shard was interfered with, depriving those coordinating and in place the opportunity to execute their plan as intended. However, the outcome in all likelihood would have been the same.
The outcome of this investigation is that Shard #12 will not be moving and will continue to be counted. We acknowledge that bad actors interfered but the evidence is clear that the Shard would have moved regardless with the outcome having been the same.
EDIT: Timezones and match can be hard at times. The link dropped by Sri Lankan ENL Agents in the post previously read 12:22 UTC. That was a typo it was 10:22 UTC. 12:22 UTC was with the +2 timezone of the data collection and we failed to adjust that timestamp accordingly like the others. The link in question was at this Portal. Agents can view COMMs to verify: https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=8.618552,81.217259&z=17&pll=8.618552,81.217259
Thanks for the response.
This is great consolation. Thank you for putting out this statement.
Can't we play normal? People come up with all sorts of pointless workarounds. It will all be exposed.
This conclusion doesn't make sense. The link was initially spoofed down and shard path created. Spoofing of the link gives no credibility to actions performed after.
Kindly reconsider your judgement.
I am very happy NIA have acknowledged. The shard may very well have made it regardless. Just FYI though, agents noticed immediately that Cocos was spoofed and reported.
Bad actors make this a sucky subject. Cocos was obviously valuable and it's spoof prevented further, if any more links. Paired with a rail 4min after the spoof is still eerily suspect. Did no one notice the portal was killed and left blank? That just screams spoof and doesn't exactly equate to link as soon as possible in my book.
After this point, a key portal is spoofed. A rail is up and the other team can "claim" they were heading to other end, but the damage is done.
Maybe it is factional bias, I appreciate the openness and statement Niantic but still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Real agents did real work, but all any are talking about is the bad actors.