Persistent "Unstoppable" RMT Spam-Bot

[MageBlack]

-snip-

I totally get what you are saying. I wasnt trying to poo-poo any of the suggestions in this thread, i do think they are all good ones. I was just trying to understand why it seems like some people get 20+ spams a day while I get next to nothing. I know at one point though RMT was harvesting names straight out of the lodestone because it would let them know when people logged in. Maybe its because I don't respond to them or add any as friends. You stated you did once out of curiosity. It could be any sort of response like that flaggs your account as active so they will be more persistent? I know thats how spam email works, you open it or click a link out of curiosity, boom, you are hooped. I have always made it a point of not accepting a single friend request form someone i did not have prior interactions with.

I do hope they can help you guys out though.

Maybe there's an upside after all to the difficulty of creating new characters on Balmung. The gil-sellers must have as much trouble as everyone else creating characters there, but they're dependent on repeatedly creating lots of characters. Must be pretty hard to do on the really crowded servers.

You know what, this actually makes a lot of sense. I'll have to see how many other people on the heavily restricted servers have my luck.

[Nyalia]

I'm pretty sure that denying a friend request is just as noticeable as accepting it, and you can't blacklist someone before denying their friend request.

[Slirith]

Easy way to stop it but it'd never be done.


Make gil untradable
Make MB completely anonymous(no seeing retainer names)
Make the allagan pieces untradable

Only source of trade would be the MB. Would it be worth it? Sure, to many players but not worth it to many more just to combat RMT.

[SCUBA_Instr]

Hi MageBlack,

You're cordially invited to the Adamantoise server.

As of about 2 hours ago, I was receiving about 2 / tell spams per minute.
RMT industries are engaging in saturating spamming of our server.

A quick look at the Search Player tab, with search argument
set to Level 1, the spammer list becomes painfully obvious

Typically, Level 1 GLD, ARC and Lancers with the familiar
nonsense names appear. Level 1 Pugilists, with similiar nonsense names
are the ones who never leave the moogle mail point, except now
they do it invisible or down in the floor. Each time you refresh
the Player Search (level 1) a slightly different set of spam bots
appear. Tonight, RMT is maintaining a an army of level 1 spam bots.

As soon as I remove the Busy flag, to join party, etc. a flood of spam
fills the chat box. It goes on and on and on, nonstop. Come see
for yourself.

[SCUBA_Instr]

Hello,
A New Low from the real money trader criminals.

/Tell chat spam bots are getting personal now.

Some RMT spam bot owners are injecting victim's names into the
spam message. I just receive one, addressing me, by my
character name. No doubt the spambot softare is now retrieving
the names (not all are doing this yet) and injecting the those names
into their /tell chat harassment.

I forwarded a copy to the game masters under "Report Harassment."
Hours later, a quick check of the Search Players tab (for level 1)
revealed that the "getting personal" spam bot is still active.

I would post that message right here, save it would become a TOS violation if I did.

May I recommend, that the Square Enix staff talk to the CCP Software
Security staff? CCP seems to be ahead of the gaming industry for protecting
their servers and networks.

[MageBlack]

Hi MageBlack,

-Snip-

It goes on and on and on, nonstop. Come see
for yourself.

I do believe you. I do know it happens. As I mentioned earlier its one of those cases that SE puts up 5 new ways to block them, they find 8 new ways around them. SE is working on it as I'm sure they are just as upset about it as everyone here is. I was only trying to figure out why there was such a difference between myself and others posting here with the frequency of RMT messages. i was not trying to discredit anyone's complaints or make light of their issues, sorry if I came across that way. I think I have found my answer at the top of the page.

Maybe there's an upside after all to the difficulty of creating new characters on Balmung. The gil-sellers must have as much trouble as everyone else creating characters there, but they're dependent on repeatedly creating lots of characters. Must be pretty hard to do on the really crowded servers.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure SE is aware there is an issue and they are actively working towards correcting it. That is evident by the messages on lodestone they post every so often about how many accounts were banned. Banning an account or removing a player is a temporary solution. What they are trying to do is preventative measures, stop them before they start. Identify the accounts and block them before they can get a foothold.

I wish SE the best of luck in their war on RMT's for their sake and ours.

[LaylaTsarra]

There should be an option to receive tells from friends only. That would stop it for me at least.

[SCUBA_Instr]

Upon reporting the "getting personal" spambot, I had a positive in-game
conversation with a GM. I learned the best way to report spammers. Please allow me
to share this:

Contact Us [tab] --> Report Harassment
You can word the title line as you see fit. Ex: Being harassed by another player.
The body should be structured:

Player Name <- Spammer name.
World Name
Date and Time <-Include time zone
What the player said. <---- Copy paste offender's spam message.

Ex:

Tretfretrere Dsdsdsdsddd
Balmung
Jan 28, 2014 10:42 AM PST

Tretfretrere Dsdsdsdsddd>> WWW._ _ _ _ _ .COM -- Life is good a . _ _ _Game Gil> 1000K Gil = 3 USD. Buy now will get 6% bonus. -- WWW._ _ _ _ _ _.COM --
67688

Date and time are critical toward helping
the gamemaster to mitigate the offender.

[PlayerEx]

Ok take a lesson from CCP Games. Introduce a legal way to buy Gil....... RMTs die out practically overnight.

The method is to allow players to buy a tradeable item from Square. Said item is sellable and only obtainable by purchase. The value of the item is determined by the players and therefore controlled.

With a safe, legal way to buy gil I see no reason why spam bots would be profitable any longer.

[Fumon]

i dont hate bots i hate ppl that need to cheat buying gils from them and it seen like ppl dont stop buying gils cus bots are multiplying every second they making a lot of money from lazy players. why i am in mor dhona and bots still harassing me there when they dont discover maps. nobody besides bots uses search and they can just go there and view everybody in every single map. why dont remove the sending gil option from mail? why somebody that is not my friend can send me private msgs (tells) my blacklist is full i have to unblock a bot to block another bot, cant even unlock all at once and have a lot blocked bots displaying the same name (deleted) while they still occupying room in blacklist. have 3 friends bots request sittinng on a corner of my screen. i do dungs, log in out and they still there. im so paranoid i always try to block anybody sending shouts cus bots always there. we can block 200 bots in less than a week so it means we gonna have to send 200 reports weekly