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

[Kahnha]

they can't guys spaghetti code and not enough devs to work on it

[selmon]

I haven't used this forum in roughly 4 years, but I read Yoshi-P's statement today, and it felt so incredibly tone-deaf to me that I really want to state my opinion here:

1.) Plugins are not the problem. The amateurish and inherently insecure implementation by Square Enix is. I have been working as a developer for more than 10 years and just the idea of sending out the account ID tying EVERY character to one account is such a rookie-ish mistake, I am very surprised this passed or happened. You can read this ID with anything, also with things that are not plugins.

2.) Banning the plugin will not fix this. The code has been out for weeks or months - I read through the sourcecode of the plugin and before it was taken down it already had 11 forks just on Github. A fork is basically a copy of the code. And that's just the number we know of. This Github repository with the code being down does NOTHING to prevent this plugin still circulating. It does NOT undo the damage already done. I read the source code. It accumulates the data on a specific server. This data is already out there. Big damage is already done. And this is your fault. This is the equivalent of your banking website not using https for your bank account and then saying in order to fix this they will maybe try to get one hacker to court who simply read your password and login (cookie) from the network traffic. This implementation is the same level of amateurish and I am still flabbergasted this passed. The only thing you can do for damage control is to immediately revert the blacklist feature and then potentially implement it server side. As it stands it does a lot more harm than good.

[selmon]

3.) Stalking is a huge problem in this game. I have witnessed cases of sexual abuse, domestic violence, illegal weapon ownership and threats with selfsame, multiple cases of attempted sexual assault - all in real life between people who met ingame first, a couple with police cases attached to them, all with members of this game's community. I have seen people having to get new phone numbers, new email addresses and new online identities due to insane amount of stalking attempts from very special individuals in this game. I have experienced stalking myself as well. This community is huge. This community is very social. A lot of this community is extremely lovely and nice. But a good chunk (just due to its sheer size) of the community is also batshit crazy, abusive, stalky, and violent. And SE in general does NOTHING to prevent this or even stop it when it unfolds ingame. And this community does not only consist of raiders. I have seen cases of people doxing the entire name and addressess of other people in shout chat due to some feud. Would you really want individuals like that to know every one of your alts, every place you have been ingame? There are SO MANY ways to stalk people by now in this game but this is one of the gravest, since it means you basically can't play this game anymore if you ever get stalked. All of your characters are instantly known. Characters you potentially worked for months on are now doxxed and viewable to anyone "interested in you". And yes, of course those people are at fault for doing all those things. But it's SE who really does not give any thought to this at all, who does implement this in the most amateurish and irresponsible way ever. I still... I can't believe anyone REALLY thought this implementation was a good idea.

[Araxes]

Banning and removing all people who use third party tools will not prevent nor fix this issue from happening again in the future.

Of course it will. When people realize that using third party Software gets actually punished they will stop using it.

[SongOfTheWind]

Of course it will. When people realize that using third party Software gets actually punished they will stop using it.

Damn, I envy your worldview. It is so innocent and pure.

[CCheshire]

I went on a break starting in Jan, thinking it'd be nice to return in Feb, but woo boy when I read that latest update on the blacklist changes.

I feel like it should be at the very least pinned on the forum if not on the lodestone for everyone to read now. I'm posting in agreement with everyone asking SE to fix their implication of the new blacklist to work more securely and stop dodging the main problem with third-party program's excuses.

[Clockworks]

Of course it will. When people realize that using third party Software gets actually punished they will stop using it.

It quite literally wont.

[Lilapop]

Yeeting plugins does nothing because, again, this is an exploit in how they send data to the client and back. Yeeting all plugins does nothing to address the issue. You are missing the point, like a substantial number of people in the thread.

Do tell, how is reading data sent normally an "exploit"? Also, you're missing my point, not vice versa. If they purposefully target one plugin, it'd set a precedence that would then have to be followed.

[Kuroka]

if half the playerbase play barbie online/sl and treat the game as a h-game, we have a greater problem than queues (and you probably miss the point that half the current playerbase is litterally whole ARR playerbase)

This. Pretending like this is secondlife and even 1/4 of those players actually play - even those wo do, who fully engage with everything the game has to offer AND defend themselfs here are for sure just a minority...

And too many come because of plugins, not the game...

A paid subscription game should not have third-party programs/tools connected to the game. I pay for the game how it is, not for cheaters who cannot wait for a queue e.g.

I will welcome the day when there is anti cheat installed so none of those tools will be working anymore. Will e.g. halve of the players quit? I don't care and will not miss players that try to cheat.

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

[tank2fish]

Do tell, how is reading data sent normally an "exploit"? Also, you're missing my point, not vice versa. If they purposefully target one plugin, it'd set a precedence that would then have to be followed.

If you had read anything in this thread that discusses the nuanaces, you would understand. As it stands, I'll go ahead and assume you and everyone else suggesting banning plugins can't read.