Un-ignorable Spammer is back (Weekend)

[Loreineth]

Gold Spammer using colored text is bypassing the ignore, spamming gold-selling site. Saw him, put him on ignore, but just goes right on spamming. Try to ignore him, says already on ignore list.

I guess they know there won't be any GMs on to stop him. Can we please fix this problem, SSG? Or detail someone to get rid of them on the weekends.

I'm on Landroval, but they're probably doing it on the other servers, too.

Support Request #5380749 when I reported him, but he still spams past the ignore and report.

[Khazvere]

*shrug*

[Brinswith]

They choose to do it at the weekend because there is little to no in game support during those days. Notice how infrequent they are during the week and then come Saturday they ramp it up. The staff know about it. They said they are looking into it. All we can do is just try to ignore it or filter out World Chat to a separate tab.

[Sbaker1689]

Two easy fixes that imo are the best solutions to this problem. First would be to add a chat filter to the game so players could filter words or phrases so whenever anyone says them the messages are filtered out before they are even shown, could have a GM version that would automatically filter those things for everyone on every server. Would even be handy for people who don't want to see LFF messages in World chat for example so they could filter out "LFF" and any message with "LFF" in it won't show up at all in the World chat (or whatever channel they apply it to) for them.

Second would be to add an automatic mute function to the report gold seller button, if enough people report that person they are instantly muted until a GM could review it. Could even add some sort of reward to it so if you report a gold seller and it is confirmed to be a gold seller you could get say 10LP and possibly make a multi tier deed about it so after so many successful reports you get progress towards a title, like the first tier could be "Apprentice Beggar Buster" and go up like the crafting tiers do.

Both options would allow the players to do something about this when a GM isn't around which seems to be every time gold sellers are active. The second option seems the best imo as it would stop all gold sellers in their tracks if enough players are vigilant enough to report them and with rewards for doing so it would make people even more likely to report instead of just ignoring it.

[Dinara]

Gold Spammer using colored text is bypassing the ignore, spamming gold-selling site. Saw him, put him on ignore, but just goes right on spamming. Try to ignore him, says already on ignore list.

I guess they know there won't be any GMs on to stop him. Can we please fix this problem, SSG? Or detail someone to get rid of them on the weekends.

I'm on Landroval, but they're probably doing it on the other servers, too.

Support Request #5380749 when I reported him, but he still spams past the ignore and report.

I was on Landroval yesterday and saw this also. I reported him also. He was jumping between the World Chat Channel and the Trade Channel. It went on for hours.
SSG, PLEASE fix this! When you try to inspect him, it says this player is off line or doesn't exist. How is that possible? Some players were saying he was spamming from a Discord Channel, how does that work ? Do you have a leak somewhere?

[KhenDrask]

I was on Landroval yesterday and saw this also. I reported him also. He was jumping between the World Chat Channel and the Trade Channel. It went on for hours.
SSG, PLEASE fix this! When you try to inspect him, it says this player is off line or doesn't exist. How is that possible? Some players were saying he was spamming from a Discord Channel, how does that work ? Do you have a leak somewhere?

They have a back-end into the (Obviously broken and unsecure) chat servers. Can't even actually ignore them, so the only option is to turn off whatever chat channel(s) they are in. SSG just doesn't care. Probably part of EG7's new income strategy.

[Nydhogg]

So I understand they're not using the game client and connecting directly to the chat servers instead and that it is difficult for SSG to stop it.

What I don't understand is why my ignore doesn't work? In theory there should be no reason why my client can't ignore these messages. When I click again on ignore, the message "That player is already in your list." pops up. So my client knows it should have ignored that message. It's not like the spammer is attaching a fresh account ID to each message to circumvent ignore lists. My client recognizes them as someone in my ignore list, yet it still chooses to display the message to me?

[EasternSUn]

The bigger worry if someone can access their in-game chat from outside what else can they attack. Is our account information secure? Come on SSG stop this outside access to your servers except from the game client.

[Nydhogg]

The bigger worry if someone can access their in-game chat from outside what else can they attack. Is our account information secure? Come on SSG stop this outside access to your servers except from the game client.

This fear is unfounded. The chat server is open access: anyone should be able to send a message. It's a completely different system to account information. In essence all the chat server does is receive a message and broadcast it to everyone else. There's no "hacking into their server". It's doing exactly what it's meant to be doing.

Sure, they don't use the official game client but all the game client does when you press send is send a request to the chat server. You can send the exact same request to the chat server from your web browser, don't need the entire game client for that. It's incredibly difficult to differentiate what sort of client the message originates from, all requests look identical. Someone just has to look at the request the official client sends and imitate it.

[JiiPee]

So script kiddie has find out how to connect chat servers directly most likely.

Currently spamming on Arkenstone and reporting/ignore have no effect at all.

[JiiPee]

The bigger worry if someone can access their in-game chat from outside what else can they attack. Is our account information secure? Come on SSG stop this outside access to your servers except from the game client.

They haven't been in past and SSG still haven't added 2FA what should be required and stantard at year 2021.

Script kiddies milked so much out from leaked accounts info, now that all inactive accounts has milked empty, they have start to attack other parts of game like chat server right now.

[Ulrek]

*shrug*

Exactly.... I use the old fashion ignore... I pay no attention....

[Braer]

Their offer to sell lifetime accounts with 10k to 50k LP suggests accounts that are from 18 months to 8 years in disuse.

I'm wondering if WB offered to sell the account page code for an additional dollar and Daybreak passed on it.

That they are spamming during times we'd expect some GMs to be about can't be a good sign.

[Braer]

They haven't been in past and SSG still haven't added 2FA what should be required and stantard at year 2021.

Script kiddies milked so much out from leaked accounts info, now that all inactive accounts has milked empty, they have start to attack other parts of game like chat server right now.

The spammers have access to legitimate accounts so more authentication may not help. SSG has said it's not the chat server being hacked and that they now know how they are doing it. Presumably they have gone through those steps and recreated it. Just lack the ability/expertise to fix it?

But if the spammer account has to level up by farming to access chat they may as well start using more appropriate names like tonight's "Account" on Evernight. My guess Account is a level 20 on a ftp account.

[Gaiandrial]

Two easy fixes that imo are the best solutions to this problem. First would be to add a chat filter to the game so players could filter words or phrases so whenever anyone says them the messages are filtered out before they are even shown, could have a GM version that would automatically filter those things for everyone on every server. Would even be handy for people who don't want to see LFF messages in World chat for example so they could filter out "LFF" and any message with "LFF" in it won't show up at all in the World chat (or whatever channel they apply it to) for them.

Second would be to add an automatic mute function to the report gold seller button, if enough people report that person they are instantly muted until a GM could review it. Could even add some sort of reward to it so if you report a gold seller and it is confirmed to be a gold seller you could get say 10LP and possibly make a multi tier deed about it so after so many successful reports you get progress towards a title, like the first tier could be "Apprentice Beggar Buster" and go up like the crafting tiers do.

Both options would allow the players to do something about this when a GM isn't around which seems to be every time gold sellers are active. The second option seems the best imo as it would stop all gold sellers in their tracks if enough players are vigilant enough to report them and with rewards for doing so it would make people even more likely to report instead of just ignoring it.

A better solution would be for LOTRO to Care enough about the users to give them REAL chat support. GM support is virtually non-existant. I frequently hold concerts that are disrupted by the same group of "kids", who have been reported Several times, yet they still come back under new alts/alias's even when banned. Wanna stop That? Ban by IP ..... IF you can that is. Somehow I don't thing SSG has that capability.

Before SSG took the reins we could get a GM to help in a timely manner, NOW we file a report and are given a message that it may take >1 day for a reply. Yeah, it took 'em 5 (FIVE) days, then they apologized with the excuse that the delay was due to the number of tickets. That's right, apparently a 5 DAY backlog of tickets. I guess they only have one hamster coming in part-time to deal with them.

That's not Customer Support, that's Customer Neglect.

[maartena]

Reality check:

The spammers are abusing the chat server by not logging on but somehow inserting messages. This is why they cannot be ignored. They are aware of the issue, but I think at this moment they have no clue how to fix it, as this has been going on for the better part of a year. What happened here is that the chat system is probably built on ANCIENT code that has not been update for a decade or so, and the people who originally coded it have long left (or been made redundant) SSG, and now they are left with a system they can't figure out.

Basically: They don't know how to fix it, and as such they are not bothering to. If they did know, they would have done it about a year ago.

[shino047]

Reality check:

The spammers are abusing the chat server by not logging on but somehow inserting messages. This is why they cannot be ignored. They are aware of the issue, but I think at this moment they have no clue how to fix it, as this has been going on for the better part of a year. What happened here is that the chat system is probably built on ANCIENT code that has not been update for a decade or so, and the people who originally coded it have long left (or been made redundant) SSG, and now they are left with a system they can't figure out.

Basically: They don't know how to fix it, and as such they are not bothering to. If they did know, they would have done it about a year ago.

They are logged on, I know exactly how they do it, anyone can do it and it's simple af

[Braer]

Reality check:

The spammers are abusing the chat server by not logging on but somehow inserting messages. This is why they cannot be ignored. They are aware of the issue, but I think at this moment they have no clue how to fix it, as this has been going on for the better part of a year. What happened here is that the chat system is probably built on ANCIENT code that has not been update for a decade or so, and the people who originally coded it have long left (or been made redundant) SSG, and now they are left with a system they can't figure out.

Basically: They don't know how to fix it, and as such they are not bothering to. If they did know, they would have done it about a year ago.

If this was remotely the case then why are the bulk still from characters you can "friend" and see their various levels and even some familiar kinship names, even if a little elderly? Sometimes you can catch their day's spam start and last login month is not current. Because the bulk are existing chars on worthless (to them) accounts to spam when no GM's are on and take no effort/time to setup. The super spammer requires preparation, in game, else they'd all have the same MO. With no GM involvement even if we can report successfully we all get to see at least one message, barring our switching off /wd and /lff. But even all the numerous reports we can make, it only generates one reference number for that named spammer, so not flooded with reports to deal with.

"somehow inserting messages" is tosh. I fully support the rest of your assertion.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

They are logged on, I know exactly how they do it, anyone can do it and it's simple af

Truth


This isn't some galaxy brained hacker using some kind of client spoofing to send messages to the chat server... its a simple process that has been making the rounds on the various discords for several years now. Anyone can do it. Newly minted goldsellers / gearsellers / raiders do it, as evidenced by the fact that there are like 5 competing goldsellers / gearsellers on Arkenstone who use the same trick.



Funniest part is the improper "workaround" patch to stop it in the short term isn't that complicated... I can only assume they haven't done so because they still haven't figured it out or are down a completely different rabbit hole from what is actually going on.

On a completely unrelated note: the various goldfarms these spammers use to get the majority of their gold are STILL not patched, despite hundreds of tickets being submitted by kinships worth of people. Zero fixes despite detailed reports. SSG gets what it deserves for ignoring / auto-closing tickets.

[Braer]

The rabbit hole of names rather than unique ids maybe. e.g. MD statue naming errors.