Re: Regarding the Use of Third-Party Programs and Player Safety

even if they fix this plugin there's no telling what else people will come up with. maybe its time SE takes their game seriously. ppl been cheating, botting, modding, rampantly for years and yoship doesnt care .

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Why would it be awful and convoluted? How is this different from the checks that need to take place if you try to enter someone's house and they have access set to friends only? Do you think the game sends you someone's entire friend list to check if you're on the list? It isn't awful or convoluted, it's incredibly simple and basic.

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Honestly...it might.

From my understanding with the Glamour system we broadcast all 20 plates to everyone in the vicinity, and there's a "flag" that tells THEIR client which plate to actually show. But you still get all 20 plates.

So, if this is true, it seems SE can't get FF14 to send only 'select data' to other clients.

By internal account ID; do they mean the login ID? or just the lodestone character number?

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

By internal account ID; do they mean the login ID? or just the lodestone character number?

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No, it is a separate ID number that's only purpose is for the severs to internally recognize your account.

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

By internal account ID; do they mean the login ID? or just the lodestone character number?

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A separate number that gets generated with your account. It won't give access to things like login credentials, card details, etc. But since it's tied to your account, it's something that's shared with your alts. Ideally this number shouldn't be shared outside of Squares servers, as while it won't give anything major, it's still a unique identifier that goes with you regardless of what character you're on, which in turn makes it a marker for stalkers if you made a new character to get away from someone.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Wasnt there even an addon to tell you your roulett dungeon before you enter so you may skip what you dont like...?

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There was. My assumption is that it functioned in a similar way in that each instance is assigned a unique ID and the ACT plugin could read the packet containing the ID whenever your roulette queue popped and tell you which dungeon it belonged to.
And then at some point during Stormblood SE did seemingly managed to obscure that ID, making it impossible to know which dungeon you got.

Why they couldn't do that for the account ID is anyone's guess.

Because this is ultimately the only thing that will fix this, even an anti-cheat is only a bandaid when you can just capture the network traffic without even touching the game client.

we need to keep pressure up. the root networking issue needs to be corrected, this is an unacceptable error from SE.

my sub has been cancelled and will not be renewed until account ID's are no longer sent client side in order for the bl to function, or the ID's are encrypted.

if that means I never play again, so be it.

i really hope they will do something this time, it was bad before but the recent situation just made it a whole lot worse and it makes me uncomfortable.

bumping again.

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Originally Posted by Ne_Ya

i really hope they will do something this time, it was bad before but the recent situation just made it a whole lot worse and it makes me uncomfortable.

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I actually thought this would be a wake up call and one of the few situations where SE would actually turn around and acknowledge the issue on their part, but clearly I was misguided in that optimism.

They won't ever lift a finger beyond making a statement which invokes a clause ToS that they are too afraid to actually follow through on, even in situations where it is absolutely justified to do so.

The even worse thing is that it will get worse, because all they have demonstrated in the 20 days since this became 'public knowledge', is that they are siding with inaction. Sure, they may request a takedown... Sure they may pursue the situation legally, but are they going to patch the system which made this possible (or revert it)? - Based on the response, I don't think they will. - After this settles, we'll just be waiting for the next invasive tool that someone creates.. Which if you ask my opinion, absolutely will be worse than this.

At this point my last sliver of hope is that they just aren't communicating until they come up with a solution, but across the 20 days, and not actually making a formal statement on the lodestone, it doesn't set a good tone for my hope.

Man if u downloaded that u one creepy ass person....kindly step outside touch some grass. Learn to reconnect and get in touch with ur humanity and learn its just a game u dont need to be a creep. The ppl who downloaded that and read this thankyou u creeper.

"Internal account ID" being seen.

Please tell me that your actual account ID like the one you else to log into the game, mogstation, store, etc. Isn't being sent to clients .
Please tell me the ID they are referring to is their account ID that only means something to them, and that the people using this addon cant get your actual ID to try to login with.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

"Internal account ID" being seen.

Please tell me that your actual account ID like the one you else to log into the game, mogstation, store, etc. Isn't being sent to clients .
Please tell me the ID they are referring to is their account ID that only means something to them, and that the people using this addon cant get your actual ID to try to login with.

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I see this has been answered in previous responses, thank you. Please ignore mine.

bump. this needs to be handled SE.

we aren't going to magically forget that the bl system you implemented to help prevent harassment, did the exact opposite.

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

bump. this needs to be handled SE.

we aren't going to magically forget that the bl system you implemented to help prevent harassment, did the exact opposite.

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Have there actually been any cases of the plugin being used to further stalk players on their alts? We all know that's what it's for and in theory it can be used to that end, but has it happened yet?

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Have there actually been any cases of the plugin being used to further stalk players on their alts? We all know that's what it's for and in theory it can be used to that end, but has it happened yet?

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what's your point? even if there hasn't been, the exploit square created should still be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Have there actually been any cases of the plugin being used to further stalk players on their alts? We all know that's what it's for and in theory it can be used to that end, but has it happened yet?

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Hold up, let me just ask the entire playerbase real quick.

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

what's your point? even if there hasn't been, the exploit square created should still be fixed.

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That's a "no" then.

Don't see why it matters if it has or hasn't.

There is no justification in a tool that collects account IDs and maps characters and alts to a single ID in an unsolicited manner.

Besides most people just aren't going to immediately know if their stalking or harassment is as a result of this third-party tool or not. People do not have crystal balls, they aren't practicing wizardry. They are going to be concerned about harassment long before, and the fact remains this tool is a very big enabler of this (when there is no other justification for it to exist). Further to this most people are just not going to announce their woes on the internet. Some might, but it's hardly a norm circumstance.

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Don't see why it matters if it has or hasn't.

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Ok ok. I was responding to this ->

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

bump. this needs to be handled SE.

we aren't going to magically forget that the bl system you implemented to help prevent harassment, did the exact opposite.

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Which made it sound like harassment got worse because of this plugin, but to everyone's knowledge it hasn't.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Don't see why it matters if it has or hasn't.

There is no justification in a tool that collects account IDs and maps characters and alts to a single ID in an unsolicited manner.

Besides most people just aren't going to immediately know if their stalking or harassment is as a result of this third-party tool or not. People do not have crystal balls, they aren't practicing wizardry. They are going to be concerned about harassment long before, and the fact remains this tool is a very big enabler of this (when there is no other justification for it to exist). Further to this most people are just not going to announce their woes on the internet. Some might, but it's hardly a norm circumstance.

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To make matter worse, such cases are hardly spoken or tend to be brushed away/downplayed as "just drama lol".

People probably could learn a thing or two by reading the "Dingo case". It's something that happened within FFXIV sometime in the past, and should tell them how low people would go in order to get to somebody when they REALLY want to in general, and just how easily the perpetrator can get away unscathed.

Worse? With this DT BL system, it’s going to be even easier to pick on a target now.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Ok ok. I was responding to this ->




Which made it sound like harassment got worse because of this plugin, but to everyone's knowledge it hasn't.

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Nobody has that knowledge, not even victims themselves will. It's an impossible question to answer.

That OP is correct though. The moment this tool was developed, became public knowledge and mapped a database the size which it has, is the very same moment their reworks to the blacklist system ended up accomplishing the very opposite of what it set out to do. If anyone were to hypothetically set out to harass or stalk someone, this tool absolutely would make it easier. The redesign to the blacklist was meant to make this more difficult and give players more of a peace of mind when they block someone.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Nobody has that knowledge, not even victims themselves will. It's an impossible question to answer.

That OP is correct though. The moment this tool was developed, became public knowledge and mapped a database the size which it has, is the very same moment their reworks to the blacklist system ended up accomplishing the very opposite of what it set out to do. If anyone were to hypothetically set out to harass or stalk someone, this tool absolutely would make it easier. The redesign to the blacklist was meant to make this more difficult and give players more of a peace of mind when they block someone.

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As of today, 1.067.788 characters have been scanned, which is equal to 923.985 unique players.

Basically very close to the entire game population at this point, but people like the person you quoted will be ready to pretend that it's all fine and no one should worry.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Nobody has that knowledge, not even victims themselves will. It's an impossible question to answer.

That OP is correct though. The moment this tool was developed, became public knowledge and mapped a database the size which it has, is the very same moment their reworks to the blacklist system ended up accomplishing the very opposite of what it set out to do. If anyone were to hypothetically set out to harass or stalk someone, this tool absolutely would make it easier. The redesign to the blacklist was meant to make this more difficult and give players more of a peace of mind when they block someone.

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Ok yes, nobody's disputing that. All I asked was if people are still taking about hypotheticals, and it looks like they are.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Ok yes, nobody's disputing that. All I asked was if people are still taking about hypotheticals, and it looks like they are.

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"hypotheticals"

You can find any person and their entire alts collection just by searching them in the matter of less than a second, how is it hypothetical how easier this thing makes stalking ?

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Have there actually been any cases of the plugin being used to further stalk players on their alts? We all know that's what it's for and in theory it can be used to that end, but has it happened yet?

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Originally Posted by Exmo

That's a "no" then.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Which made it sound like harassment got worse because of this plugin, but to everyone's knowledge it hasn't.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Ok yes, nobody's disputing that. All I asked was if people are still taking about hypotheticals, and it looks like they are.

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Sir / Ma'am, all you have to do is say "I think everyone worrying about this plugin is blowing this way out of proportion. This is not that big of a deal, so there is no need for all of you to make "drama" of this plugin" so we can give you your clap and a half for your fishing attempt with your bait/responses and then we can all get back to having an actual conversation.

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Originally Posted by ZXN

Sir / Ma'am, all you have to do is say "I think everyone worrying about this plugin is blowing this way out of proportion. This is not that big of a deal, so there is no need for all of you to make "drama" of this plugin" so we can give you your clap and a half for your fishing attempt with your bait/responses and then we can all get back to having an actual conversation.

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You're flying off the handle for no reason. I was asking if people had seen a post or heard something became as a result of this stalker plugin, because someone said something that suggested there was news on the matter. The answer is "no", fine ok. That's all. You're tilting at windmills with your response there.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You're flying off the handle for no reason. I was asking if people had seen a post or heard something became as a result of this stalker plugin, because someone said something that suggested there was news on the matter. The answer is "no", fine ok. That's all. You're tilting at windmills with your response there.

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That's not what you're saying, you're telling people that the fact stalking is made easier with this specific thing is "hypothetical" until you read about it yourself in the way of news.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You're flying off the handle for no reason. I was asking if people had seen a post or heard something became as a result of this stalker plugin, because someone said something that suggested there was news on the matter. The answer is "no", fine ok. That's all. You're tilting at windmills with your response there.

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You were essentially asking, with your recent posts, for people to give proof that you can see, that proves that this plugin is actually increasing the amount of stalking that is occurring, or if it's just "hypotheticals" that people are going overboard with. You asked for something that is pretty much impossible for anyone in this entire thread to ever prove. There is simply no way to give concrete evidence that this plugin is actually increasing the amount of stalking that is occurring without asking someone who is using said plugin if they are using it for stalking, and I have a feeling they won't be so keen on just going "Absolutely!" to said question so openly. Hence why, to me only in this specific instance since I cannot/will not speak for others, your posts looked like you're just attempting to gaslight people and then give troll responses to them. Hell you even replied to me by opening with me "flying off the handle", which implies that I must be absolute irate with you to have replied in the way I did. I can assure you I am calm and I have no anger towards you. The is the internet after all.

As for "news" on the matter you apparently heard about, if I had to make a guess: then it might be about Yoshi-P leaving a statement recently on the forums some days ago, mentioning that they he and the devs are aware of the plugin's existence and what it does and are discussing to have it removed / take legal action on it, and now several sites are "covering" it.

Link to Yoshi-P's forum statement so players can read it themselves: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Player-Safety

However, due to how this statement is somewhat vaguely worded when it comes to the situation as a whole: some could see this statement as them essentially saying that this entire issue is ONLY because of the 3rd party program, even though this issue only even really exists in the first place because of how FF14's blacklist system is currently implemented and how it handles and interacts with the data it gets. As such, players are still skeptical about this statement Yoshi-P made actually meaning anything until he and the devs actually change how the in-game blacklist handles the data it's getting, otherwise even if they do remove this specific plugin: someone can just make another plugin that does the exact same thing and then we begin the cycle again.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Just add an anticheat in 8.0 we need it at this rate.

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Make sure we can get a refund on time not used if this is applied. I never want a game to be loaded whenever I switch on my PC. These cheat systems load at a kernel level to track everything that is done on your system.
No thank you.

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Originally Posted by ZXN

You were essentially asking, with your recent posts, for people to give proof that you can see, that proves that this plugin is actually increasing the amount of stalking that is occurring, or if it's just "hypotheticals" that people are going overboard with. You asked for something that is pretty much impossible for anyone in this entire thread to ever prove. There is simply no way to give concrete evidence that this plugin is actually increasing the amount of stalking that is occurring without asking someone who is using said plugin if they are using it for stalking, and I have a feeling they won't be so keen on just going "Absolutely!" to said question so openly. Hence why, to me only in this specific instance since I cannot/will not speak for others, your posts looked like you're just attempting to gaslight people and then give troll responses to them. Hell you even replied to me by opening with me "flying off the handle", which implies that I must be absolute irate with you to have replied in the way I did. I can assure you I am calm and I have no anger towards you. The is the internet after all.

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You sound mad. If that's not your intent, you're doing a bad job of communicating your intended tone. But listen, it's clear you only want to interpret things in the least generous way possible, so I'm not interested in talking to you. In the world I live in, it's not impossible for a player to post in this thread or on reddit or anywhere else something along the lines of "my stalker found my alt and messaged me from a new account." We don't need omniscience, we don't need 100% concrete proof, we don't need a total player-wide survey. Let's not be idiotic here, come on.

By the way, putting hypotheticals in scare quotes there is weird behavior considering it was a way someone else described this conversation first. But you're trying to make it out like I'm downplaying things because I used the same word that was in a post I was quoting.

Given how quickly you went on the attack and the attitude of some people here that it doesn't even matter if this plugin has caused harm, it really sounds like some of you don't care about actual victims of harassment, like they're irrelevant to this conversation. You spent so much of your post taking about SE and Yoshi-P it looks like all you want is to score points against the devs.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You sound mad. If that's not your intent, you're doing a bad job of communicating your intended tone. But listen, it's clear you only want to interpret things in the least generous way possible, so I'm not interested in talking to you. In the world I live in, it's not impossible for a player to post in this thread or on reddit or anywhere else something along the lines of "my stalker found my alt and messaged me from a new account." We don't need omniscience, we don't need 100% concrete proof, we don't need a total player-wide survey. Let's not be idiotic here, come on.

By the way, putting hypotheticals in scare quotes there is weird behavior considering it was a way someone else described this conversation first. But you're trying to make it out like I'm downplaying things because I used the same word that was in a post I was quoting.

Given how quickly you went on the attack and the attitude of some people here that it doesn't even matter if this plugin has caused harm, it really sounds like some of you don't care about actual victims of harassment, like they're irrelevant to this conversation. You spent so much of your post taking about SE and Yoshi-P it looks like all you want is to score points against the devs.

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https://i.imgur.com/97xRWtR.png

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Originally Posted by Exmo

That's a "no" then.

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people were being stalked and harassed, along with those behaviors crossing the line into irl, BEFORE 7.0 released.

of course this tool made it worse.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You sound mad. If that's not your intent, you're doing a bad job of communicating your intended tone. But listen, it's clear you only want to interpret things in the least generous way possible, so I'm not interested in talking to you. In the world I live in, it's not impossible for a player to post in this thread or on reddit or anywhere else something along the lines of "my stalker found my alt and messaged me from a new account." We don't need omniscience, we don't need 100% concrete proof, we don't need a total player-wide survey. Let's not be idiotic here, come on.

By the way, putting hypotheticals in scare quotes there is weird behavior considering it was a way someone else described this conversation first. But you're trying to make it out like I'm downplaying things because I used the same word that was in a post I was quoting.

Given how quickly you went on the attack and the attitude of some people here that it doesn't even matter if this plugin has caused harm, it really sounds like some of you don't care about actual victims of harassment, like they're irrelevant to this conversation. You spent so much of your post taking about SE and Yoshi-P it looks like all you want is to score points against the devs.

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continue to play devils advocate and keep this thread alive. genuinely helping me keep it on the front of these forums. appreciate it.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You sound mad. If that's not your intent, you're doing a bad job of communicating your intended tone. But listen, it's clear you only want to interpret things in the least generous way possible, so I'm not interested in talking to you. In the world I live in, it's not impossible for a player to post in this thread or on reddit or anywhere else something along the lines of "my stalker found my alt and messaged me from a new account." We don't need omniscience, we don't need 100% concrete proof, we don't need a total player-wide survey. Let's not be idiotic here, come on.

By the way, putting hypotheticals in scare quotes there is weird behavior considering it was a way someone else described this conversation first. But you're trying to make it out like I'm downplaying things because I used the same word that was in a post I was quoting.

Given how quickly you went on the attack and the attitude of some people here that it doesn't even matter if this plugin has caused harm, it really sounds like some of you don't care about actual victims of harassment, like they're irrelevant to this conversation. You spent so much of your post taking about SE and Yoshi-P it looks like all you want is to score points against the devs.

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Lol. Lmao even. Well, I guess you got your response you were fishing for, so enjoy your clap and a half.

Anyway, back to having an actual conversation now-

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Just add an anticheat in 8.0 we need it at this rate.

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This is not a good idea. Adding anti-cheat will, I suppose, "cripple" the game, since I really don't believe adding it would outright kill FF14 like some players say it would, but it would absolutely hurt the game quite a bit overall. A LOT of people just use mods to change how their character looks to them, be it for RP purposes or because character creator is lacking overall, or use Quality Of Life/Basic Features that should really be in the game at this point in the game's life, like Chat Bubbles. Some also use them for more accessibility options, since the current one implemented in-game are pretty lacking. The Devs no doubt know this, otherwise I think anti-cheat probably would've been thrown in sometime ago given all the situations that came up as a result of the more problematic plugins in the past.

However, this current situation is entirely on Yoshi-P and the Devs to fix. Someone warned that something like this could occur months ago on Reddit, and they were pretty much laughed at for bringing it up as a "who cares lol" type of deal. Now everyone is seeing first hand just how badly Yoshi-P and the Devs implemented the Blacklist system and how it handles the data it receives as this plugin is essentially exploiting that to get all this information to begin with. Them nuking all mods because they don't want to fix their own system would be laughable. They just have to fix their blacklist and how it handles the data it receives in this specific instance.

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

people were being stalked and harassed, along with those behaviors crossing the line into irl, BEFORE 7.0 released.

of course this tool made it worse.

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Maybe I'm clueless, but how does this tool make it worse?

If you blacklist a player, you block their entire account. So even if they were to jump on an alt, or you were playing on an alt, they still cannot interact with you. The blacklist feature makes it harder for those to stalk or harass after 7.0.

The only way they could bypass the blacklist feature is by creating an entirely new service account. They don't need a plugin to do that.

From what I understand, this plugin doesn't even give away personal information, just in game information that is already easy to figure out for the most part.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Maybe I'm clueless, but how does this tool make it worse?

If you blacklist a player, you block their entire account. So even if they were to jump on an alt, or you were playing on an alt, they still cannot interact with you. The blacklist feature makes it harder for those to stalk or harass after 7.0.

The only way they could bypass the blacklist feature is by creating an entirely new service account. They don't need a plugin to do that.

From what I understand, this plugin doesn't even give away personal information, just in game information that is already easy to figure out for the most part.

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it make it worse to provide this information at all. nothing stops a person who already have the criminal mind for stalking someone to create a new account. You dont even have to buy the game since we have such a generous free trial. So people can have multiple accounts just to do harmful activitys. Please dont pretend like people would not do that, people have multiple accounts even without criminal minds in their head. So how it make it worse ? You have a database now which shows everyones character and the alts. Here an example for this situation.

Person A ( attract the stalker by whatever action undercutting market / or not have the same intrest in the person or whatever ) blocks a person
Person B ( the blocked ) is intrested enough to stalk Person A or harras Person A or whatever.
Person B realizes oh i am probably blocked
Person B decides to switch to a new account and there we go nothing will stop them
Person A switches to an alt character to escape
Person B knows this and can just continue his actions on this character.

This is the most basic case of how things can go wrong. But it can gets worse.

Let’s talk about people who use online games as an escape or a safe space separate from their real life. Imagine a teacher, CEO, or business owner dentist, doctor, IT people,someone expected to maintain a certain public image. If they engage in roleplay (RP), ERP, or just act differently in-game, and someone with a grudge gets access to their in-game activities, it’s not impossible that this information could be used to harm them in real life.

Sure, this might sound extreme, but in today’s world, doxing and harassment happen all the time. It’s naive to assume this won’t be misused.


Which one of this cases might or might not happen doesnt really matter since every case is bad and to say its the tools fault is just tone deaf if you and your team which gets money every month created the posibility for such tool.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Have there actually been any cases of the plugin being used to further stalk players on their alts? We all know that's what it's for and in theory it can be used to that end, but has it happened yet?

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It has with me, a stalker I have been dealing with has been wandering around me as my alts they shouldn't know about :(

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Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

It has with me, a stalker I have been dealing with has been wandering around me as my alts they shouldn't know about :(

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I'm sorry this is happening to you. you don't deserve it, no one does.

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..