Two questions regarding blacklisted RMT's.

[Demeos]

First Question:

While some accounts use character names that are clearly random letters meant to be easily thrown away, most are legitimate names that are most likely from hacked accounts.

So provided that those hacked accounts have been unhacked and returned to their rightful owners, when can we start taking them off our blacklist or will we just never know whom to take off of the list?



Second question:

A handful of names have been replaced in my blacklist with <deleted>. Are these still blocking the names that were originally entered or can I just delete <deleted> as they would no longer be blocking the names that were originally entered?





...Basically I've recently reached over the 100 mark on my blacklist and it occurs to me that I might want to consider making room for any future RMT's.

Oh, quick suggestion while I'm thinking about it. Account-based blocking. Blocking the name of one character on an account blocks all current and future characters belonging to the offending account. At the very least, it'll make blocking RMT's easier and make it so they can't hop between characters on the same account and so on.

[Conradus]

First Question:

While some accounts use character names that are clearly random letters meant to be easily thrown away, most are legitimate names that are most likely from hacked accounts.

So provided that those hacked accounts have been unhacked and returned to their rightful owners, when can we start taking them off our blacklist or will we just never know whom to take off of the list?

SE policy is that players are never notified of actions taken concerning accounts other than their own, so, no, you won't know unless you meet the character again and it's obviously no longer an RMT.

Second question:

A handful of names have been replaced in my blacklist with <deleted>. Are these still blocking the names that were originally entered or can I just delete <deleted> as they would no longer be blocking the names that were originally entered?

I would assume that would be because the account and the associated character have been deleted. Since the character you blacklisted no longer exists, it should be safe to delete them from your blacklist; since the entry is pointing to a non-existent character, it's not actually doing anything.

[Cirsce]

First Question:

While some accounts use character names that are clearly random letters meant to be easily thrown away, most are legitimate names that are most likely from hacked accounts.

So provided that those hacked accounts have been unhacked and returned to their rightful owners, when can we start taking them off our blacklist or will we just never know whom to take off of the list?

Second question:

A handful of names have been replaced in my blacklist with <deleted>. Are these still blocking the names that were originally entered or can I just delete <deleted> as they would no longer be blocking the names that were originally entered?

...Basically I've recently reached over the 100 mark on my blacklist and it occurs to me that I might want to consider making room for any future RMT's.

Oh, quick suggestion while I'm thinking about it. Account-based blocking. Blocking the name of one character on an account blocks all current and future characters belonging to the offending account. At the very least, it'll make blocking RMT's easier and make it so they can't hop between characters on the same account and so on.

Spamming is a huge issue. Most accounts that get hacked seem to have a life-span of less then 12 hours. People posting on the forums give a window of less then 12 hours for them to log off, their account to get comprised, the random named character to be created, the person to spam, and their account to get suspended.

The very earliest I have heard of after your account getting unlocked is 10 days. Some are waiting over 2 weeks.

I'd assume it's safe to say that after 24 hours you won't be seeing that exact same name spam again until maybe 2+ weeks later if the account that got comprised is unlocked and they delete the gibberish named character the gold seller created and it's up for creation again.

Just to be clear, I'd assume that 98% of spam comes from hacked accounts. Most hacked accounts have gibberish named characters created on them. People can see this even after they're been suspended because it shows your characters on the mog station.

Considering there is such a small time frame that RMT spam under one account I don't really see the benefits of account based blocking. My solution to this problem is creating a chat channel that doesn't include shouts just for cities. People hardly talk with all the spam anyways and after you get a linkshell going with your friends or join a free company that's where most of your chatter comes from anyways.

In the case that people get hacked and they weren't suspended, I'd assume 48 hours is enough time for them to realize it and change their password / take care of the breach.