Square Enix wants you to forget that the stalking issue still isn't fixed

[Havenchild]

Lodestone ID is not your Account ID tho. So what's your point? All I see are poor excuses that can be dismantled within mere seconds.

Your account ID is irrevocably linked to your lodestone ID. Even IF the client did not store your account ID directly (the mod libraries support storing information) or wasn't the exact same number, it's all moot as long as lodestone exists in it's current form. The mods are working NOT because the account ID is stored or not on the client. The mods are working because lodestone stores that information somehow and it is able to cross reference in real-time. Your lodestone ID or whatever the "hook" is doesn't change. This is why when you change your name it still syncs up to the url of your lodestone page.

They can mask the account ID a thousand times, and the mods will still work. They can change account ID and the lodestone ID and the mods still "work" but will take alil longer (long as the name remains the same at that point). The only way to truly delink and disenfranchise a potential "stalker" here would be a three way scramble of account, lodestone AND character name. Possible for probably individual help desk tickets but no way is this happening on a broader scale. If even one of those is not done in that overton window, you will still get tracked.

The nuance of how it works is irrelevant though. The ultimate point is that outlawing/taking down PlayerScope alone is pointless to a persistent stalker. There are mods still supported that do all of the same features. And SE can't really solve the problem without a massive rework to how the game, website, apps work and I for one highly doubt you would get such a revamp from any company.

You'd have better luck blocking whatever files apps like Dalamud hook to, but those share similar files to the apps/plugins that cosmetic mods are based off of and the moment you kill that SE will lose a sizeable amount of players they know use them.

[MiaBlaze-Cari]

-- snip --

You're still ignoring as to how PlayerScope works and also ignoring the main reason as to why playerscope is problematic for most on this scale. I looked at it's source code (got it from someone who is on their weird discord server and sent it to me, I won't disclose who for obvious reasons). Even tho the dev tried to obfuscate it, which is a silly thing to do when you work with .Net, the code can easily be restored to readable format. It doesn't really matter if a variable has a proper name or just gibberish when the API you're calling isn't obfuscated at all and exposes the datatypes being used. Doesn't even take long for such a small codebase either to get into it. Best part? You won't even need this Dalamud or anything in that regard to get the AccountIDs since they're simply sent by Square so you can just capture the packets instead, completely outside of the game. Each person that loads in on your end gets their AccountID AND ContentID sent to you. The ContentID was always sent which is what allowed name tracking and stuff like that from what I've seen so far. PlayerScope uses the exposed AccountID instead which Square tried to obfuscate (and miserably failed at it btw) to link characters to one account. This wasn't the case before Dawntrail. It doesn't matter how other plugins work when this specific one is effectively exposing all your alts. People have reasons to have alts as this used to be some sort of escape point from stalkers which is now, thanks to PlayerScope, no longer possible. I am not aware of ANY other plugin/mod/whatever being capable of linking the alts of others to their account. The only AccountID you got access to clientside prior Dawntrail was your own but not the AccountID of others. You only got their ContentID. Do you understand now why this is an issue? Or are you still going to play the "But the others..." card?


Look, I totally agree that other mods are also problematic especially on this topic. However you're essentially misunderstanding as to how this thing works.