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Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 27 post(s) |
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CCP Phantom
C C P C C P Alliance
1187
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Posted - 2012.04.26 13:45:00 -
[1] - Quote
Our Team Security is ever watchful, hunting down illegal activity in and around EVE Online.
CCP Sreeg describes in his newest blog some of the ongoing operations and their impact on illegal activity like RMT. Since he knows that we all are curious people, hungry for numbers and statistics, he also included exactly this: numbers and statistics of seized isk and assets and more.
Please read CCP Sreeg's newest devblog here. CCP Phantom - German Community Coordinator |
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CCP Punkturis
C C P C C P Alliance
1820
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Posted - 2012.04.26 13:54:00 -
[2] - Quote
Hi Five to my Team Security bros CCP Punkturis | EVE UI Programmer | @CCP_Punkturis |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1028
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Posted - 2012.04.26 14:01:00 -
[3] - Quote
CCP Punkturis wrote:Hi Five to my Team Security bros
Only 800 likes less cool than our UI programming bros :( "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1034
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Posted - 2012.04.26 14:21:00 -
[4] - Quote
spookydonut wrote:Hey can you give us an updated count of false positives?
At fanfest sreegs said it was only 1 false positive.
I know for a fact that it's at least 15 now, and maybe as high as 50.
That is untrue and as I elaborated in every single case we've found where someone was flagged for RMT who shouldn't have been, they were doing something else they shouldn't have been. Not so much a false positive as a positive for the wrong activity.
It may be mincing words a bit but there's a very big difference from my perspective as these aren't really innocents getting caught in the crossfire. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1046
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Posted - 2012.04.26 14:42:00 -
[5] - Quote
Simvastatin Montelukast wrote:Other then isk, did the banned accounts have lots of :
Ore? Faction Goodies? other items of interest?
Assets are calculated into an isk value for the sake of simplicity. You can imagine that items seized run the gamut. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1049
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Posted - 2012.04.26 14:48:00 -
[6] - Quote
corestwo wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:spookydonut wrote:Hey can you give us an updated count of false positives?
At fanfest sreegs said it was only 1 false positive.
I know for a fact that it's at least 15 now, and maybe as high as 50. That is untrue and as I elaborated in every single case we've found where someone was flagged for RMT who shouldn't have been, they were doing something else they shouldn't have been. Not so much a false positive as a positive for the wrong activity. It may be mincing words a bit but there's a very big difference from my perspective as these aren't really innocents getting caught in the crossfire. If this proves to be true in some of your ongoing investigations (I have a friend who is still banned who only just received any sort of reply from you guys after almost a month of hearing absolutely nothing...) will you come out and admit it?
I believe we have. We've also reimbursed people who were wrongly caught in the crossfire. I'll add to that though that everyone in prison is innocent and not everyone claiming to have been caught in some massively wide net that doesn't exist is doing so honestly. :)
I don't feel any pain one way or another by admitting a mistake. We did the same by admitting we had any false positives at all. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1076
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Posted - 2012.04.26 16:16:00 -
[7] - Quote
Kazanir wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:That is untrue and as I elaborated in every single case we've found where someone was flagged for RMT who shouldn't have been, they were doing something else they shouldn't have been. Not so much a false positive as a positive for the wrong activity.
It may be mincing words a bit but there's a very big difference from my perspective as these aren't really innocents getting caught in the crossfire. I have refrained from commenting or arguing with you on the forums, thus far, because I seriously respect you for this undertaking. You are doing a good thing and have to contend with a legion of idiots while doing so. Props. However, the response time we are seeing on certain things is a little disconcerting, and it is what motivated corestwo to post. In the case that corestwo is posting about, it took us nearly a month to get any sort of response despite repeated petitions and e-mails to your security@ e-mail address. Having to wait for such a long period of time without even a "we are looking at this" e-mail, while you are posting about the low false positive rate on the forums -- I'm sure you can see how these events make me sad. Nevertheless I have tried to be patient, but now it has been a month since the original bannings. Also, I know of at least one person who was unbanned a week ago and who had all of his accounts compensated with 14 days of game time for the false positive ban. You declined to provide an explanation for the false positive to this person, but I can only surmise that you considered him innocent rather than in the "was doing something shady" category. I'm trying to say this nicely because I genuinely want your efforts to be successful and I respect what you have done so far. This is why I haven't been harassing you about hypotheticals like the previous devblog thread. But the case I'm talking about is almost a textbook example of a false positive and so far it isn't being handled very well. Right now we have 200 billion ISK in assets (belonging to around 20-25 real people who invested in the bond) that are sitting unusable and have been for a month. In light of that situation, continuing to read posts about "no false positives" and "doing something else they shouldn't have been" at this point is aggravating. It is especially aggravating because there is no way the lost income from that 200B in assets will be compensated fairly by CCP if the person IS unbanned -- it is just gone, and there is no way for you to fairly rectify the consequences of a false positive of this magnitude. Like I said. I don't have any desire to start an Internet slapfight or rake you over the coals on this stuff since I think you're doing a pretty good job at a great thing. But yeah -- there are still issues, and for me they aren't just hypotheticals. Ranger 1 wrote:In all fairness, if your internet "friend" actually was doing something in violation of the EULA (botting, RMT, or otherwise) are you really sure they would admit it to you... I have access to the API data of the banned accounts that were mentioned by corestwo so I could go check if I really wanted to. But yes, in this case I am sure.
I stand behind what I said because it was true. The petition system is the place for you to air these complaints.
"I know a guy who said a thing" doesn't quite cut the mustard and unless it's your account you are not a part of the conversation by matter of policy. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1079
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Posted - 2012.04.26 16:36:00 -
[8] - Quote
Solo Drakban wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:I stand behind what I said because it was true. The petition system is the place for you to air these complaints.
"I know a guy who said a thing" doesn't quite cut the mustard and unless it's your account you are not a part of the conversation by matter of policy. We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia. The corp is mother... The corp is father... Repeatedly claiming something is true doesn't make it so, regardless of how many people are posting in this thread on their knees wondering how to get the stain out of their clothing.
Repeatedly saying something isnt so doesn't either. That's all the discussion that will occur in this thread on this subject. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1085
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Posted - 2012.04.26 16:39:00 -
[9] - Quote
Camios wrote:Nice, I hope to hear news from your team every month. You could turn this into a monthly blog like "The tales of security Dad" where you tell us numbers.
That would really be a good marketing move.
Burn them all.
On a side note: what did you decide about 'scarlet letters'?
There's been no decision reached yet and I'm still going over the various responses. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1085
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Posted - 2012.04.26 16:45:00 -
[10] - Quote
Mahni wrote:Can you give us the number of of accs that were paid with plex and money?
I can not right now. I can say that I was surprised by the percentages if that's indicative of anything. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1096
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:07:00 -
[11] - Quote
SXYGeeK wrote:
o/\o High fives for team security.
Kazanir gave us a very measured and respectful viewpoint as one of the folks "caught in the crossfire" his and others accounts may not have been banned, but that doesn't mean they aren't affected.
I do think the response was a little vacuous.
I'd love to hear something like.. "Yes I'll see where the petitions are hung up" or "our team is currently looking into this and other potential false positive petitions" or even "I am sorry to report there are findings of legitimate wrong doing" but i understand there is a limit to how much you can disclose about specific cases.
Thanks for the hard work security bros !
The intent of the response isn't to be vicious. The fact of the matter is that I can't discuss this here nor can I discuss an individual's situation with anyone other than this individual.
No matter how nice the post is or how rude the rest of the posts on the exact same topic are the response cannot be any different.
Were I a guy playing a videogame who had a bunch of his space stuff tied up in some other guy who I thought was innocent I might be a bit put out and I understand that completely. This just isn't the venue for that discussion as frustrating as that may be. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1096
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:10:00 -
[12] - Quote
Bagehi wrote:Ines Fy wrote:Quote:4.2 Trillion or so isk in assets has been seized from RMTers or suppliers. Your economics guy was complaining that was too much isk in the economy. He also says that goods are not isk and removing goods is not a sink for the isk. So what about the Eve Central Bank make an auction of of this seized goods with starting bids of 50% the market value and this way the ECB can remove even more isk from the economy and we all win in the process? I like this. There was suggestion at Fan Fest that the confiscated PLEX might be sold to players, why not some of these assets as well? If it is just a pile of Merlins and Rifters, it wouldn't really be worth it, but (from the value) I'm going to guess there is some nice shiny stuff in that 4.2 trillion isk pile of assets.
One problem I have with this is that we're seeing patterns of activity where the isk is botted up and in this case we're printing isk at a rate which it should not be happening at out of thin air.
At the end of the day though I'm not an economics guy so the assets sit in the banned accounts until or unless someone decides to use them for something.
I'd considered at one point using them as a reward system but I can't get over the fact that a lot of this stuff just simply shouldn't exist and that can't be good for an economy. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1096
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:23:00 -
[13] - Quote
Chribba wrote:Very nice! This is good to see.
However I am still wondering if you have any actions planned for spammers and the likes that are, many that are most likely a funding for RMT as well I'm sure.
Spam is a problem! It keeps cluttering up channels and some are very easy and obvious, day old alts. I personally report bots every day but some still keep spamming weeks in. Will there be a team/plan to instantly ban spammers sometime too?
imo some are so obvious it doesn't need any investigation - just an instant hammer.
Keep up the great work, hope to see the next update you give with even more RMT/botters/spammers gone.
/c
Spam is an annoying problem and I am not sure it should reside with us but I'll start some emails internally and see what kind of conversation I can stir up. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1102
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:36:00 -
[14] - Quote
Xyfu wrote:I'm worried about how effective this is. Were I an illicit ISK seller, I'd temporarily close shop and wait for you guys to utterly **** every other one, then go on to something else, (say, network manipulation becomes a bigger problem than RMT, or some ****), then start back up.
After all, it's been nearly 10 years of good business, what's 10 months of downtime?
You should encourage them all to do this. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1107
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:48:00 -
[15] - Quote
corestwo wrote:These two words...they do not mean the same thing.
I can type what I want "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1107
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Posted - 2012.04.26 17:49:00 -
[16] - Quote
Gogela wrote:CCP Sreegs - Were there any unique items seized? By that I mean ships like the Freki, Mimir, Adrestia, Utu, Silver Magnate, Guardian-Vexor, etc... of which only a few have been released in the game and there's no way to add more?
I don't think so but we'll look. As I said in the blog these really aren't EVE players. They don't enjoy the game or play it as anything other than a business. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1131
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Posted - 2012.04.26 18:31:00 -
[17] - Quote
VaMei wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:Ines Fy wrote:Your economics guy was complaining that was too much isk in the economy. He also says that goods are not isk and removing goods is not a sink for the isk. So what about the Eve Central Bank make an auction of of this seized goods with starting bids of 50% the market value and this way the ECB can remove even more isk from the economy and we all win in the process? One problem I have with this is that we're seeing patterns of activity where the isk is botted up and in this case we're printing isk at a rate which it should not be happening at out of thin air. At the end of the day though I'm not an economics guy so the assets sit in the banned accounts until or unless someone decides to use them for something. I'd considered at one point using them as a reward system but I can't get over the fact that a lot of this stuff just simply shouldnGÇÖt exist and that can't be good for an economy. I like the idea of an GÇÿEBCGÇÖ. It gives CCP a tool to sink isk from the economy without manipulating taxes & fees. Using confiscated goods (goods only, no isk) to do it would be rather like a SheriffGÇÖs Auction, but the isk would go back to the central bank rather than continuing to circulate. I understand that you have reservations about returning ill-gotten goods to the economy, but thereGÇÖs a sizeable amount of isk in circulation that was created through illicit means as well; and Dr. E. seems to be more worried about the isk at this point.
The isk was created to purchase the goods. :) "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1132
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Posted - 2012.04.26 18:45:00 -
[18] - Quote
I'm seeing some confusion and need to point out that the botting actions are still ongoing. This is an RMT-related blog and doesn't touch upon botting numbers at all. We'll do those another time. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1156
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Posted - 2012.04.26 19:23:00 -
[19] - Quote
Toawa wrote:Sorry, but I have an irresistible compulsion to be pedantic here.
RMT ISK sales are not "illegal." They do not meet any countries' legal definition of a crime (AFAIK). They are against the EULA, but breaking the EULA is not illegal (despite certain protestations by certain US federal courts and politicians whenever it happens suits their PR interests). The EULA has language specifically dealing with EULA violations, specifying cancellation of the account.
A more correct term would be "unauthorized."
I feel that I have to point this out precisely because of the aforementioned US federal courts and politicians (especially politicians!) who go out of their way to cast everything they don't happen to like as being a crime; the fact that you don't like something does not make it criminal.
(Of course, fraudulently breaking into an account may, depending upon the circumstances, meet the legal definition of a crime, but that's not what this devblog was about.)
Selling something that doesn't belong to you against the agreements you've agreed to an the will of hte rightful owner seems pretty illegal to me but you're free to use whatever words make you the most happy. :) "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1186
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Posted - 2012.04.26 20:44:00 -
[20] - Quote
Mikk36 wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:Toawa wrote:Sorry, but I have an irresistible compulsion to be pedantic here.
RMT ISK sales are not "illegal." They do not meet any countries' legal definition of a crime (AFAIK). They are against the EULA, but breaking the EULA is not illegal (despite certain protestations by certain US federal courts and politicians whenever it happens suits their PR interests). The EULA has language specifically dealing with EULA violations, specifying cancellation of the account.
A more correct term would be "unauthorized."
I feel that I have to point this out precisely because of the aforementioned US federal courts and politicians (especially politicians!) who go out of their way to cast everything they don't happen to like as being a crime; the fact that you don't like something does not make it criminal.
(Of course, fraudulently breaking into an account may, depending upon the circumstances, meet the legal definition of a crime, but that's not what this devblog was about.)
Selling something that doesn't belong to you against the agreements you've agreed to an the will of hte rightful owner seems pretty illegal to me but you're free to use whatever words make you the most happy. :) To my understanding, if it were illegal, you could sue people for RMT'ing or botting the game, but you can't, so all you can do is terminate their accounts and stop providing them the service.
Your ability to sue people and legality are two distinct and different things. You can sue someone for anything. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1189
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Posted - 2012.04.26 21:45:00 -
[21] - Quote
Haifisch Zahne wrote:Graphs! Where are the graphs!
Graphs are Stillman's department "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1264
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Posted - 2012.04.27 11:37:00 -
[22] - Quote
Ken Kyoukan wrote:Jita spam should be easy to clear up,
Just add an internal timer, messages outside this timer are free, inside the timer would give a cspa isk cost warning and charge as well as starting a second timer, this second timer is used to double the isk cost/message.
Continual spam...spam...spam... Would (per spammer) become: Spam... Priced Spam, Double Priced Spam, Expensive Spam, Extortionate Spam, Minimal Spam.
Always worth a try, and CSPA charges are in game supposedly for spam prevention, so lets use it in spam heavy systems like Jita.
P.S. CCP Sreegs, Just so you are aware, I'm still waiting for a reply from my earlier post, evemail and email.
Neither of your evemails requested a response. You gave me information. We may or may not use it. I appreciate it and read it but there was nothing in them that seemed to require a response of any kind. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1269
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Posted - 2012.04.28 12:52:00 -
[23] - Quote
Ken Kyoukan wrote:Many thanks for the receipt acknowledgement CCP Sreegs.
Sorry that I have an AS Condition, if you were offended in any way sir.
No no not offended in any way, we just get a lot of email so if the email doesn't require a response I generally don't send one. :) "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1269
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Posted - 2012.04.28 12:57:00 -
[24] - Quote
Tazuki Falorn wrote:Hi. I'm the person mentioned by Kazanir et al. earlier in the thread. Obviously I'm now unbanned but I can't say the process was in any way a good experience. Tickets were ignored or closed without comment, e-mails to security@ went unanswered - after 2 weeks of trying and failing to get anyone to reply I gave up. It's very difficult to get unbanned when your protestations of innocence disappear into a black hole.
Luckily, my CEO and another director spent a bunch of their time pestering people at CCP via various sources, eventually getting a reply to the effect of "If he is innocent, please explain Dodgy Character's actions". Dodgy Character (not his name) being a freighter/industry guy I legitimately bought and transferred to one of my accounts. Apparently it had something to do with RMT before I bought it and the character transfer wasn't taken into account when bans were handed out :(
I'm all for getting rid of bots and RMTers but there really needs to be a system in place to deal with ban appeals in a reasonable timeframe, especially with the way skill training works. My lost game time got reimbursed but I'm still out a month of training on multiple accounts.
We're working on improving this but I will say that everyone appeals which floods the system. We didn't have anything in place to check for character transfers and that'll be rectified. CS doesn't have insight into our investigations and we don't have the people to be handling petitions so we're working on creative ways to get around that.
In this particular case the evidence was there of wrongdoing but we didn't note the transfer of character. We made a mistake in that regard and for that we apologize. We also compensated you for more than your time lost.
Ultimately it's easy to say "answer petitions faster" and as a customer that's really where your concerns end. Unfortunately for us the solution just isn't that simple. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1269
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Posted - 2012.04.28 13:03:00 -
[25] - Quote
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:corestwo wrote:
Taking a good long while to properly investigate is fine and we'd be okay with that, if not for the whole lack of any contact at all. A month without so much as a "We're looking at it and will keep you updated."
The previous similar thread I was just saying the same concepts. CCP Sreegs is really REALLY commendable in his job, it's really going to finally kick those RMTers in the ass. BUT The "customer care" department following the applied bans it's slow as hell. He can tell "it's not my job don't tell me" all day long but this is the very only place where we can post something that will not be completely ignored by CCP employees. The times are BIBLICAL, 2 months is right the average. I have 2 petitions stuck in the same queue since 1.5 months now (just asking for clarifications about EULA and asking for CCP to investigate on a suspicious guy). I NEVER got a single "we are working on it" message. Just nothing, full ignore. I filed a simple petition on another account about a skill question and that too took 3 weeks to reply. Can CCP hire some more people? If CCP Sreegs creates 1000 bans a months CCP cannot keep the same GMs they hired when they banned 10 people a month, their queues EXPLODE. Once again, CCP Sreegs is doing RIGHT GOOD and deserves all the applauses but please pass on your CCP colleagues the big, big discomfort the months long petition queues take just for the first reply.
Neither one of those petitions has anything to do with my team or this thread. I thank you for the kind words and understand your frustration but I have to point out that your feeling that this thread is the proper place to air those concerns because you don't feel anyone is listening anywhere else is misplaced. This isn't a CS thread and those are CS issues. You really need to voice your displeasure to them in the form of a petition.
I'm sympathetic to your plight but I also find it a bit offputting to have my thread sullied with complaints about another department. When the queues are long they know they're long and put a lot of effort into reducing them. That's really not your problem at all but there's also not much I'm going to be able to respond to. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1273
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Posted - 2012.04.28 15:01:00 -
[26] - Quote
fantazmythe wrote:absolutely epicsauce job your doing guys, *^5's team security*
just out of curiosity, what's the plan for you guys after you have effectively stamped out RTM. will team security be disbanded and you guys reassigned or will you stick around to make sure it doesn't flair up again?
just curious is all, your doing an excellent job and would be interested to see your awesomeness put to great use after the RMT problem is fixed.
P.S i realise that you still have a long way to go to stamp out RMT
RMT is just something we're focused on now as well as botting. We're also responsible for the overall security of the client/server EVE product, I'm presuming Dust, and CCP's corporate infrastructure. There's plenty to keep us busy. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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CCP Sreegs
C C P C C P Alliance
1278
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Posted - 2012.04.29 00:50:00 -
[27] - Quote
Lapine Davion wrote:CCP Sreegs wrote:CCP Punkturis wrote:Hi Five to my Team Security bros Only 800 likes less cool than our UI programming bros :( Darius JOHNSON security officer of my heart. <3 We know what you are doing about RMT. But what does Team Security plan to do about RTM (Rub The Mittani)?
We're pretty sure he can rub himself just fine. "Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012 |
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