Eric Musco forwarded a message from a member of the SWTOR security team. For obvious reasons, he does not give his name but tells us about the activity of goldsellers or credit sellers. In particular, the measures taken by the security team to counter them will be discussed, as well as some advice to reduce their number.
Let's quickly note for those who do not already know: spammers are players who repeatedly send the same message on various channels in games. And since nothing will be worth the original message, I now offer a translation:
Perfect Eric Musco source
Hi people !
I am here today to give you a pretty elaborate explanation revolving around the "spam" messages from the credit vendors that are happening right now, and what we are doing, coming directly from a member of our security team. .
Hello everybody,
I'm a developer assigned to our security team, and that includes fighting credit scavengers, exploiters, vendors, and spammers. Unfortunately we have to be relatively silent about our security work because we don't want the "bad guys" to know what we are doing. The best job we do is where the players don't realize we've done anything at all. I promise you though, we're working hard to make sure the in-game experience is as fun as possible in every way, and that includes ending spam in the areas they post.
The most frustrating message spammers have recently come up with a new approach: whispered messages. We noted that these players were sending a massive number of whispered messages to others on all servers. The amount of message that came out made it completely impossible for us to respond manually. By the time someone saw the message, the damage was done. A large number of players were impacted and spammers could simply log out, their job being done. It was too much of an inconvenience and we quickly built a system to stop this behavior.
Without going into too much detail: if someone makes it their mission to send out as many whispers as they can, and as quickly as possible, there's a good chance they'll be silenced, even if they don't. there is no manual CSR intervention (Editor's note: CSR probably means "credit spammer search" here).
I want to stress that this action takes place only because of the efforts of the players who have been silenced. They performed an action which was deemed sufficiently disruptive and which makes them appear to be spamming or troublemakers in the eyes of the system which will therefore silence them automatically to prevent more spam. If your friend who you've messaged too quickly hasn't reported you, a CSR won't hold any grudges against you, you'll just sound like a spammer to our automatic system. The squelch will eventually turn off (after a time subject to change).
So now I have some queries for you:
- Please do not repeatedly send messages to other players. This is what spammers do, and you don't want to copy them. If you need to grab someone's attention, you can slow down your messages. Copy and paste the same message to others and as fast as possible over and over again is the only way to exceed the current limit. I feel bad for those who might be caught and silenced, but the key is just not to act like a credit salesperson.
- Secure your accounts. All your accounts, not just your SWTOR account. Spammers and credit sellers regularly compromise accounts, by entering associated email addresses, determining passwords for shared accounts or even using Trojans to acquire them by spying on you. Allow "two methods" of authentication on your emails if possible, use the security key on your SWTOR account, use different passwords for different services and try to get used to your data being protected by more than your username. and password when you can. By having two means of authentication you will create more difficulty for them to access your data.
- Please use your right click and report spammers. We pay close attention to this, and the more reports we have about a person, the sooner they will fit into our "likely spam" list to help us track and deal with the case. There was a fairly short time when the reports weren't working properly and our CSRs weren't getting the "check this spammer and banish" messages. This has been fixed, but the time this tool was broken caused a sharp drop in its usage. It works now. Promise! Report them! It makes us all happier when we get to take them out of the game.
- Above all, do not buy credits! Any purchase encourages spam and encourages the wrong people to continue harassing people. While we were tracking and stopping these channels, we discovered links to stolen credit cards, compromised and in-game cheating accounts. It harms the gaming experience of other players and they do this only because they are winning. money. We are doing what we can on our side but we need the players to push them back and refuse to buy from them. With the free character training we have removed a huge credit well and their acquisition has become easier, and thanks to the epic story boost (XP times 12) which allows you to quickly go to the content. high level. Why risk your account information, personal and financial, when you can just protect it?
Truly.
[A developer who will remain anonymous because the sale of credits is literally linked to organized crime and his work may anger them]
PS: We read the forum and your complaints and wanted to tell you. If anything bothers you about these vendors / spammers, an exploit bug, or something wrong, TELL US! We will take action as much as we can and these posts are making a difference. We can't share our work, and as far as security concerns are concerned, we usually try to ensure that you don't see anything that has happened, but we are here working in the shadows to make sure that everything. is going for the best. Sorry, this is the first (and probably the last) post I will put in this thread, but please keep reporting issues, keep reporting spammers, and keep helping us to help you out.
