SE Please start caring about your players privacy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lilapop

I was never under the illusion this community was some magical place where everyone was besties.

---

The implication was that with the kind of massive player influx FFXIV got, a lot of baggage came with it. The blacklist change happened because the devs are conscious of that baggage and balancing it against player safety. Unfortunately the devs were NOT conscious of basic data security practices.

in a step towards undoing some of the damage done by the mod they should remove retainer names from the marketplace. Another good privacy QoL option should being able to craft things without a signature(no one would be able to stalk the crafter or flip something with their name on it).

The JP community is more concerned about this tool mainly because stalking in Japan is quite a big issue, many even opting out from logging in until SE steps in to respond or do something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by programcanaan

in a step towards undoing some of the damage done by the mod they should remove retainer names from the marketplace. Another good privacy QoL option should being able to craft things without a signature(no one would be able to stalk the crafter or flip something with their name on it).

---

Unfortunately this wouldn't stop the tool from pinpointing exactly whose retainer it is and to which character it belongs. It was specifically created for this purpose, and because there's a unique ID on all game accounts, even if SE did this, the tool will still know it's your retainer.

Hello, I would like to apologize from the Japan forum.
I'm using Google Translate, so I'm sorry if the English translation isn't very good.
The operators are currently enjoying mahjong and karaoke on a video distribution site called Nico Nico Douga.
To be more precise, the official event "New Year Doma Mahjong Tournament 2025" was being held, but there was no particular mention of this matter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nagi-Dantes

Hello, I would like to apologize from the Japan forum.
I'm using Google Translate, so I'm sorry if the English translation isn't very good.
The operators are currently enjoying mahjong and karaoke on a video distribution site called Nico Nico Douga.
To be more precise, the official event "New Year Doma Mahjong Tournament 2025" was being held, but there was no particular mention of this matter.

---

Thank you for the information, the English is great, no worries about that.

Unfortunately, I don't think mentioning this matter in that event would be a good idea at all. At most, I would have hoped for Square Enix to make an official post how will they tackle this issue. Waiting for Producer's Live Letter would simply allow the panic to die down and allow the tool developer to continue his work, going under the radar. Square Enix has to act now, while the heat is still on.

I am a Japanese player.
I am using a translator, so there may be some inaccuracies or rudeness in my writing.
First of all, I would like to say that I am disappointed that the management is aware of this situation and yet enjoys playing mahjong as if nothing happened. (Some may feel that there is nothing wrong with enjoying mahjong).
My personal impression is that many people do not see this as a problem because they do not properly understand the current state of this tool. It also seems that some people want to trivialize this situation.
(Of course, I think those who come to post on the forum are aware of the current situation.)
However, if you make a comment sharing a problem that is currently understood, it will be deleted by the moderators.
I have the impression that texts written by foreign players on the forum are less likely to be deleted, so I would appreciate it if you could come and write here as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Violet

I am a Japanese player.
I am using a translator, so there may be some inaccuracies or rudeness in my writing.
First of all, I would like to say that I am disappointed that the management is aware of this situation and yet enjoys playing mahjong as if nothing happened. (Some may feel that there is nothing wrong with enjoying mahjong).
My personal impression is that many people do not see this as a problem because they do not properly understand the current state of this tool. It also seems that some people want to trivialize this situation.
(Of course, I think those who come to post on the forum are aware of the current situation.)
However, if you make a comment sharing a problem that is currently understood, it will be deleted by the moderators.
I have the impression that texts written by foreign players on the forum are less likely to be deleted, so I would appreciate it if you could come and write here as well.

---

Thank you for your comment.

However, our posts tend to get "shadow deleted", meaning there's no comment for the reason as to "why". There was a previous thread about this topic, and it got entirely deleted. Moderators didn't give any comment as to why, didn't close it -- just deleted it. A lot of comments in this thread have been removed as well (mine included) if we mention the tool by its name.

Unfortunately, if Square Enix isn't willing to listen to either side (West or JP players), we're actually facing quite dire situation that will exponentially get worse.

Well, Yoshi-P is going to be taking a stroll through the lion's den on the 24th of January.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5cc5a35fa023aa

He has a special guest, too. I almost died.

Maybe we can politely get his attention, on this matter, in-game.

Or find out his Alt character names, <cough>.

The silence over this matter is deafening (from SE) and doesn't look good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

Well, Yoshi-P is going to be taking a stroll through the lion's den on the 24th of January.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5cc5a35fa023aa

He has a special guest, too. I almost died.

Maybe we can politely get his attention, on this matter, in-game.

Or find out his Alt character names, <cough>.

The silence over this matter is deafening (from SE) and doesn't look good.

---

reminder that the director didn't think rmt was real until he got a rmt spam tell in game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Unfortunately this wouldn't stop the tool from pinpointing exactly whose retainer it is and to which character it belongs. It was specifically created for this purpose, and because there's a unique ID on all game accounts, even if SE did this, the tool will still know it's your retainer.

---

Of course it wouldn't stop the tool that would require a professional marketboard revamp (not happening with anything lol). Removing names from marketboard could make it feel less personal possibly preventing pursuit before it happens. People are emotional and unpredictable when an obstacle has a name or a face they now have an adversary not just a challenge and based on their own personal experiences they're going to formulate an obsession to their target. Plus on the flip side names on the marketboard have been used to taunt other sellers as well (also not cool).

Prevention is worth a pound of cure after all. The tool developer even claims that creation was inspired by MB issues (if that's even true but it's probably true for some). That being said mitigating factors that may motivate one to pursue is still very important.

I mean, even if Account Id is going to be kept this way (which it looks like it is) at least let us set filters for what we want to show.

Online Status:
Display to - All, friends, none

Location:
Display to - All, friends, none

That way a lot of information that would be useful to bad use becomes not so useful.

It might even make for a faster friends list in general since I am sure that thing takes forever to load since its looking up online status and location for everyone on your friends list.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

reminder that the director didn't think rmt was real until he got a rmt spam tell in game.

---

Would be funny if YoshiP's characters were found this way, I'm sure he'd act as fast as lightning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Would be funny if YoshiP's characters were found this way, I'm sure he'd act as fast as lightning.

---

It shouldn't take a developer having their own personal account information getting shared around by stalkers to get the point across that said stalkers are doing it to nearly the entire active playerbase and something needs to be done about it. If they try to lean on their hands-off approach to plug-ins even with THIS then I'll repeat what I've said before. They have no business keeping this game operational with so little regard for player safety.

I've spoken in favor of their consideration for safety concerns under the impression that they aren't just picking whatever random idea they toss that sticks to a wall in the office for fun. But if they aren't even willing to take responsibility for their own colossal failure to protect our new account IDs that they attached to EVERYTHING for the sake of the new blacklist feature then they aren't responsible enough to keep this game up.

Hello. It's me again.

First of all, I would like to thank the North American players for coming to the Japanese forum and alerting us. However, that comment was deleted by a moderator. Perhaps the information was a little too specific. However, a Japanese player who read the information left a screenshot and shared the information elsewhere.

Looking at the current forum, there are even some that have been deleted for unknown reasons. An extreme example of this is the “SHADOW BRINGERS” trailer※. This was deleted because of an inconvenient link in the comment before it, and I believe it was deleted as a conditioned reflex because there was a link in this comment as well. Perhaps the moderators are confused.

※I think it was a light joke planted to judge the forum's deletion criteria (the comment itself was legitimate), but I just wanted to give an example of a moderator falling for it. I apologize for the lack of explanation and the misunderstanding.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Violet

Hello. It's me again.

First of all, I would like to thank the North American players for coming to the Japanese forum and alerting us. However, that comment was deleted by a moderator. Perhaps the information was a little too specific. However, a Japanese player who read the information left a screenshot and shared the information elsewhere.

Looking at the current forum, there are even some that have been deleted for unknown reasons. An extreme example of this is the “SHADOW BRINGERS” trailer. This was deleted because of an inconvenient link in the comment before it, and I believe it was deleted as a conditioned reflex because there was a link in this comment as well. Perhaps the moderators are confused.

---

If I am understanding your post correctly, Are JP not as in tune with what it does, as what we are over at the EN forums?

Hello.
I'm a Japanese player. I'm using a translation, so I hope it's easy to understand.

In the Japanese forum, many of my posts are deleted because the administrators seem to dislike me.
I posted today, but it was deleted because "the content was deleted because it did not contribute to the purpose of the forum." I don't think I said anything abusive or outrageous, and I just wanted them to take action, so I don't know why it was deleted.


~ Below is the deleted post No.168 (posted at jp18:19)~

"Finally..." is my impression.
Character information is like the purchase history of a supermarket membership card, for example. Life patterns and family composition can be inferred from the time of visit, frequency of purchases, and amount of purchases. Income status can also be inferred from purchases. Even if it is not linked
to an individual's name, address, or contact information, the privacy of a person's life is violated by others... If it is leaked, it is a trust issue, so the supermarket will respond immediately.

Character history, especially name changes, fantasy potions, and home world transfers are purchase history for paid services and can be considered personal information.

Not only users but also outsiders are watching Square Enix's information management system. I hope they will take action to ensure Square Enix's social credibility.


That's all.
Is the demand for a solution a reason to "not contribute to the forum"?
I think it's a normal request as a consumer, isn't it?

I don't really understand the deletion criteria of the Japanese forum.

It's rather unfortunate. Seems Square Enix is either oblivious to the issue at hand or is willfully ignorant.

The amount of characters scanned by this tool is growing exponentially, and will most likely be distributed in specific websites, maybe even on the dark web.

Unless there's a way to "counter" this tool (which there isn't unless SE does the job themselves), people must now decide what do they wish to do with the knowledge they've been given. I've seen people on JP forums very angry and frustrated at this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archmortal

It shouldn't take a developer having their own personal account information getting shared around by stalkers to get the point across that said stalkers are doing it to nearly the entire active playerbase and something needs to be done about it. If they try to lean on their hands-off approach to plug-ins even with THIS then I'll repeat what I've said before. They have no business keeping this game operational with so little regard for player safety.

I've spoken in favor of their consideration for safety concerns under the impression that they aren't just picking whatever random idea they toss that sticks to a wall in the office for fun. But if they aren't even willing to take responsibility for their own colossal failure to protect our new account IDs that they attached to EVERYTHING for the sake of the new blacklist feature then they aren't responsible enough to keep this game up.

---

because people are being hyperbolic AF that's not what the plugin is for or what it does, though square should obviously have NOT MADE ACCOUNT ID READABLE CLIENT SIDE, that's the most OBVIOUS server-side thing i've ever seen

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaurhz

If I am understanding your post correctly, Are JP not as in tune with what it does, as what we are over at the EN forums?

---

I am not sure if this is the right answer to your question, but let me explain the situation Japanese players are in.
First, there are those who understand the dangers of the tools and those who trivialize the dangers through normality bias. The latter are those who understand only that their sub-character will be exposed and think it is not a big problem.
Many forum posters understand the danger, but some defend the management, and a sterile exchange ensues.
Simply put, basically JP is just as concerned about the dangers as EN is.
Sorry for the lack of explanation.


I have added an additional explanation to the relevant comment. I apologize for any misunderstanding caused by my lack of wording.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaurhz

If I am understanding your post correctly, Are JP not as in tune with what it does, as what we are over at the EN forums?

---

Many are aware of how it works, but some definitely do not quite understand what it does or how it does it. They're also just generally a lot more of one mind about the fact that Square Enix needs to say or do SOMETHING in the face of essentially every active account's detailed character information history being compromised by these stalkers. It would be nice to see that kind of solidarity over here instead of the frequent downplaying certain people keep coming in here to do (or the sudden extreme defensiveness over it someone is in the middle of disrupting the thread with).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Saraide

So what was it made for?

---

did i create it? to avoid grouping with problematic players like yourself judging by your sig? lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sad-Panda

I don’t understand your anger over this. Yes we know we are lacking content esp in the casual department.
Are you afraid SE will pull resources away from content development to deal with this privacy issue? Why do you not think they can deal with both issues simultaneously ?

---

partly but also partly as i stated above, i do not like people begging for more restriction when we already have a TOS this draconian, you can LITERALLY be reported right now for saying to a tank/healer "you need to put your tank stance up/heal us or we can't complete the dungeon", and if you think that's BS google "prohibited terms FF14" and scroll down to "compelling a playstyle" -.-

&partly being stupid and partly being serious.... it would not surprise me with the way square is run lately, with the CEO trying to demand NFTs be put into ff14 and yoshi.p pushing back, and stating that they would try to include them and more monetization in projects going forward, aaand them pulling the game director off for a few yrs to make ff16.... so yeah it wouldn't surprise me if they shoestring budget ff14 now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Violet

I am not sure if this is the right answer to your question, but let me explain the situation Japanese players are in.
First, there are those who understand the dangers of the tools and those who trivialize the dangers through normality bias. The latter are those who understand only that their sub-character will be exposed and think it is not a big problem.
Many forum posters understand the danger, but some defend the management, and a sterile exchange ensues.
Simply put, basically JP is just as concerned about the dangers as EN is.
Sorry for the lack of explanation.

---

This answers my question perfectly well thanks, I was just going to say because there is some 'video' coverage of it on YouTube by someone called Silly Captain. Obviously I cannot directly link it but the coverage is easy to find.

Well I think I figured out the mystery of "why are posts getting deleted." The mods must have instructions to delete ANY specific information about the severity of the situation, like the number of accounts compromised relative to total number of active accounts that I am now certain Square-Enix does not care about in the least. They should shut this game down until they can take responsibility for leaving a brand new unifying ID no one asked for vulnerable for stalkers to take advantage of.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Would be funny if YoshiP's characters were found this way, I'm sure he'd act as fast as lightning.

---

Considering that it took until YoshiP getting /tells from RMT bots for SE to do anything about that...

A friend of mine sent this to me, it's apparently an actual screenshot from the Discord of that plugin with instructions to opt out. Go to your Lodestone profile for each of your characters/alts and put this line in your profile and it should add you to the whitelist if this is true. I did that for all of my characters/alts since I have a stalker using this now that found my alts. Some may not mind being in this database for their own reasons but women like me are stalked by salty guys that were rejected and more who treat this game as a dating service when I just want to play the game like normal people do :(

Code:

---

ps-hidden

---

https://i.ibb.co/gJXfwzR/Playerscope-opt-out.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

A friend of mine sent this to me, it's apparently an actual screenshot from the Discord of that plugin with instructions to opt out. Go to your Lodestone profile for each of your characters/alts and put this line in your profile and it should add you to the whitelist if this is true.

---

Here's the million dollar question. We'd need proof that it actually works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Here's the million dollar question. We'd need proof that it actually works.

---

I said the same to my friend as I have no way of knowing myself. I'll just have to wait and see when that public server goes live since it's in closed beta atm from what the developer is doing atm. My friend says the current build of the plugin only has a local database that is created from whoever has this plugin from all of the players they see in the game. He told me he will keep me updated on any new developments and hopefully it really does work but as of now, that screenshot is directly from the Whitelist section of that Discord from the developer himself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

Well, Yoshi-P is going to be taking a stroll through the lion's den on the 24th of January.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5cc5a35fa023aa

He has a special guest, too. I almost died.

Maybe we can politely get his attention, on this matter, in-game.

Or find out his Alt character names, <cough>.

The silence over this matter is deafening (from SE) and doesn't look good.

---

do we know server and location

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

I said the same to my friend as I have no way of knowing myself. I'll just have to wait and see when that public server goes live since it's in closed beta atm from what the developer is doing atm. My friend says the current build of the plugin only has a local database that is created from whoever has this plugin from all of the players they see in the game. He told me he will keep me updated on any new developments and hopefully it really does work but as of now, that screenshot is directly from the Whitelist section of that Discord from the developer himself.

---

Yea I trust the fflog dev a lot more with respecting the opt out than the person who made a stalker plugin to stalk whoever was undercutting them on the MB.

Even if you found out his location ingame there is likely going to be like a thousand GM's floating around invis ready to pull the ban hammer out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Here's the million dollar question. We'd need proof that it actually works.

---

I might be dense asking this (early in the morning and all), but doesn't this also require the lodestone to... Not be private in the first place? Which is not ideal either.

Would be best if the developer just checked if the lodestone was private in the first place and base it on that if possible, since, if this is correct then it's only knowledge you have access to if you're aware of the tool in the first place, and seemingly on the Discord.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

reminder that the director didn't think rmt was real until he got a rmt spam tell in game.

---

happened on stream btw, from what i remember.

also another thing that, iirc, the developers dismissed as a non-issue until it publicly happened to them on stream during i think a live letter or expansion keynote. remember how switching audio devices or w/e used to, i think, either cut out the game's sound until you restarted the client or flat out crash the game, or something like that? pepperidge farm remembers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

Well, Yoshi-P is going to be taking a stroll through the lion's den on the 24th of January.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5cc5a35fa023aa

He has a special guest, too. I almost died.

Maybe we can politely get his attention, on this matter, in-game.

Or find out his Alt character names, <cough>.

The silence over this matter is deafening (from SE) and doesn't look good.

---

They will likely ignore you if you try to chat with them in-game, and they will likely make the chat box invisible when they are streaming.

However, it may be possible to inform the many players watching through YouTube comments about the dangers.
The streaming staff are Japanese.
Even if they can set banned words in advance and immediately hide any critical comments in Japanese that slip through, they are not good at understanding other languages.

What I feel is, that Square Enix simply does not care - they have not addressed it in the patch, in any announcements, etc. Meanwhile, the users of the plugin have proudly announced that they have collected every single active player's data (comparing to Lucky Bancho's census data).

I haven't logged in since the news of the plugin came out, but I feel like my data has been logged already, and this is how players have to accept it from now on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by instantramen

What I feel is, that Square Enix simply does not care - they have not addressed it in the patch, in any announcements, etc. Meanwhile, the users of the plugin have proudly announced that they have collected every single active player's data (comparing to Lucky Bancho's census data).

I haven't logged in since the news of the plugin came out, but I feel like my data has been logged already, and this is how players have to accept it from now on.

---

how trustfull is Lucky Bancho ? i dont know but if every data is logged like you state everything is fcked anyway and we learned once again that this company simple dont care about the game / players or anything but money. they rather will put more mog station items from other games for sell instead of makeing the 2 mins of work to make a statement

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dante131

how trustfull is Lucky Bancho ? i dont know but if every data is logged like you state everything is fcked anyway and we learned once again that this company simple dont care about the game / players or anything but money. they rather will put more mog station items from other games for sell instead of makeing the 2 mins of work to make a statement

---

I'm assuming Lucky Bancho uses a script of sorts (like python) to scour character profiles matching his search demands (for example: characters over lvl 70). This, however, just accesses open profiles. This particular tool we're talking about ignores your privacy settings on all your characters because it's taking the unique identifier from the network that's placed upon your account, allowing the tool to see all your characters and retainers without your consent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by instantramen

and this is how players have to accept it from now on.

---

Or we all shame Square Enix for the rest of the game's lifespan for it. If they do nothing about a plug-in that gives stalkers all the power they've ever wanted to harass people then there is literally nothing they will ever do about any amount of harm to their playerbase until someone makes a plug-in that can actually just steal our accounts with exactly as much ease.

Like sure if SE chooses to stick their head in the dirt and pretend their hands-off approach is accomplishing anything but escalating the potential harm that can be done to players we'll have to just accept this game is a stalker's paradise from now on. But we can at least make sure SE can never pull their head out of that dirt without hearing that their inaction is a conscious choice to endorse third-party stalking.

A quick Google search using quotation marks on that particular text to hide yourself reveals a lot of people use it, but it'd be lovely if we could know if it actually works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archmortal

Or we all shame Square Enix for the rest of the game's lifespan for it. If they do nothing about a plug-in that gives stalkers all the power they've ever wanted to harass people then there is literally nothing they will ever do about any amount of harm to their playerbase until someone makes a plug-in that can actually just steal our accounts with exactly as much ease.

Like sure if SE chooses to stick their head in the dirt and pretend their hands-off approach is accomplishing anything but escalating the potential harm that can be done to players we'll have to just accept this game is a stalker's paradise from now on. But we can at least make sure SE can never pull their head out of that dirt without hearing that their inaction is a conscious choice to endorse third-party stalking.

---

I had a couple of thoughts yesterday, and I realize that SE's silence on this actually sets a precedent for its userbase. Since they don't care about solving the issue, this will inadvertently encourage people to use more third party tools, be it NA or JP.

Hello from Japan. I'm using a translation tool, so I hope it's easy to understand.

I think Square Enix is ​​not unaware of this problem, but is intentionally ignoring it. The deletion by administrators on the jp forum is proof that Square Enix is ​​aware of the problem.
Why are they ignoring it? I'm worried.
Maybe they don't want to spend time or money on solving the problem?
Even if they have the will, don't they have enough capacity?

Looking at their passive response to the existing combat mods, I can't expect them to respond to this problem proactively.

There is a movement among Japanese users to report this problem to a public institution that protects consumer privacy since Square Enix is ​​ignoring it.
Without external pressure, Square Enix will remain silent.