Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

[Taskmage]

I submitted the idea to the STF via the Comments and Suggestions email form. This is what I wrote:

The persistent RMT tell spam from brogame.com and now brosale.com needs to be stopped. The tells are a minor nuisance to most players but allowing them to continue makes a negative statement about the amount of control SE has over the game environment and their commitment to combating RMT. I suggest imposing an stricter flood control protocol on accounts created using the 14 day free trial, limiting characters under level 10 to making a tell more often than every 10-20 seconds to players not on their friend list. This would be transparent to most legitimate users but limit the spammers to making 60-120 advertisements in a 20 minute period, a small percentage of a server's population, during which time they would hopefully be reported and removed. If the effectiveness of tell spammers can be reduced enough, hopefully they will abandon the method. Thanks for your time in reading this.

If you are in support of the idea, I would ask you submit in your own words a suggestion for this plan, a version of it with your own improvements, or really any idea you have for combating this problem via the same form.

In a more immediate sense, everyone please submit GM calls on any RMT spammer you receive a message from. It takes hardly more time than sending a tell and not only saves all the people downstream from you from the same annoyance but hopefully helps illustrate the scope of the problem to people who might do something about it. The path to the GM call form if you haven't used it before is:

Main menu > Help Desk > Help Desk > I want to report a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement. > Yes, I have. > Yes, this is a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement. I would like a GM to investigate. > Type your brief report (e.g. "Brobot is spamming tells advertising Brogame.com") and hit Execute.

Rather than going through the menu you can also used the command /helpdesk. I know it looks like a lot and yes there are a lot of silly redundant selections but honestly it only takes a second. I did it waiting on refresh to be ready to recast earlier.

Original OP

1: Make a mule character with a name starting with Aa so you're at the top of the brogame/brosale tell queue.
2: Get said mule to Whitegate.
3: Shout the names of RMT tell spammers as they're created.
4: GM call queue gets 250 complaints per hour on RMT spamming.
5: SE maybe actually comes up with a solution to this crap that's been going on for months.

Incidentally, if your name is near the beginning of the alphabet, sending one GM call with the name and site of the spammer does work. They'll get taken out in a few minutes and never reach the people with names later in the alphabet.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

This "countermeasure" assumes quite a few things, but said assumptions aren't too far-fetched at all.

Is there another point to this thread that I am missing, or was this just a clearing of the contents of the brain?

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Just something I've been kicking around. If someone were to pick it up and run with it I'd love to see what happens. I would've thought they'd have put a stop to this long ago. Maybe a little uproar is what's needed to get the ball rolling.

The tells are a minor nuisance really but it really says something about the amount of control SE has over the game environment and their commitment to combating RMT that these guys have essentially been allowed to advertise freely in-game for months and there hasn't been a comprehensive solution yet.

[Armando]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I never put much thought into it, but it would make sense that they go alphabetically.

That would explain why I get spammed so often.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Yeah, there's a several second delay between me getting a tell on Lago and my wife getting a tell on Liani, then a couple more minutes for our friend Purp to get one from the same bot. I assume they're going /sea all aa, tell all on list, /sea all ab, etc.

[Sabaron]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

That tactic is easily countered by the RMT... You would just randomize the /tell order and your strategy won't work anymore.

I believe the RMT Spam technique relies on an exploit in the communication system that allows for a message to be sent through the system without having a character logged in.

The best way to prevent this type of spam is to modify the message transport system to make sure that the message is actually coming from an active character.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

That tactic is easily countered by the RMT... You would just randomize the /tell order and your strategy won't work anymore.

It only has to work long enough for SE to notice. Even if they randomize the tell order, the second part of the OP still applies. Actually report them and you save the people who would've come after you. Moreover if the community actually picked this up, then whoever it was in Whitegate that got the first tell could do the shout rather than relying on Aamule.

I believe the RMT Spam technique relies on an exploit in the communication system that allows for a message to be sent through the system without having a character logged in.

No, they're logged in. I always do a search on them so I can properly report their zone on the STF(u) form. It's always a zone in a starter city, naturally.

[Feba]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

A simple filter that forwards all messages containing set strings to GMs would be effective in the short term, but they'd work around that. There's really no good solution; either you admit you can only react to spam (bad), shut down any sort of trial system (worse), or embrace RMT yourself (worst, in FFXI's case, but we're getting there).

On the other hand, it would be simple to lock trial accounts (or all new accounts) out of the /tell system (and /shout while you're at it) until they complete a quest. They already have the 'go pick up 50 gil' thing, it would be very easy to add a short tutorial quest afterwards. Use those NPC markers they had to put on the map, for one, and use it to give new players a quick explanation and tour of the town so they know where to go for things like new spells and armor.

It would also be fairly simple to add a new command, /rmt or such, that would be much simpler than the current GM request form. Just '/rmt gilsellerchar' and have that character automatically reported to the STF for bannination. Then just advertise that in server messages for a few weeks, and encourage people to use it (maybe give out some kind of token prize, like cookies or something, automatically mailed like in the valentine events so as not to waste GM time). Obviously, abusing it would be punished just like the current GM system.

Third solution could be to offer a trial period that costs $13, but is refunded if you don't break the TOS. Although any credit card information is enough to keep some people, myself included, from trying a game. I'd put it as a last resort.

---------- Post added at 03:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 PM ----------

as a sidenote, I have to disagree pretty strongly with Taskmage's idea of bogging down the GMs with a lot of identical complaints being a great way to deal with RMT. You're just interfering with the GM team at that point. Clearly, report all of the RMT you deal with, with a complaint attached, but spamming them wouldn't help things at all.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

That tactic is easily countered by the RMT... You would just randomize the /tell order and your strategy won't work anymore.

I believe the RMT Spam technique relies on an exploit in the communication system that allows for a message to be sent through the system without having a character logged in.

Except every time I do a /sea right after getting the /tell, the character was there.

Few minutes after I GM the name, though, gone...

[Mhurron]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I believe the RMT Spam technique relies on an exploit in the communication system that allows for a message to be sent through the system without having a character logged in.

That would be a colossal hole in the system. They are logged in characters.

RMT is going to be around for the same reason spam is going to be around. Most of it is not technically decipherable from legitimate uses. If it can be played, it can be exploited.

The tell spams can easily be removed. Get rid of the tell feature, or prevent new character creations. How do you like that? You can send a tell, they can send a tell because at that level they are no different then legitimate players. They don't use the same characters for very long, most likely they are getting banned. Then they simply make a new one and do it over again.

Other then actual exploits, of which this most likely is not, there isn't really any difference between legitimate and RMT users.

[Sabaron]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

I had always assumed it to be a message transport exploit because I used /sea on the characters each time they send me a tell and I've never been able to detect them.

If it's based on rapidly creating and destroying characters, then once the spam is detected the account would be shut down within minutes which means that in order to run the spambot, one would need to sacrifice a credit card number and a POL ID to instantiate the account from which the character originates or use a hijacked account to make the character.

Depending on how fast the spam is reported that seems like an inefficient means of marketing based on the expense. I'm just wondering where they keep getting the POL IDs from to do this... The only truly efficient way to do it would be to use hijacked accounts.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Removing tell entirely is clearly not an option, nor do I imagine SE could be talked out of the free trial thing, but surely there's a solution that could at least cut down the abuse. Some sort of enhanced flood protection for players under a certain level, maybe. Say one tell every 10-20 seconds to non-friendlisted players for characters under level 10. Most normal users would hardly notice the restriction but it would severely impair the abilty of a bot to spam advertisements at any effective rate.

And my Whitegate idea was only half serious (though still half serious) but honestly I don't think SE can be counted on to fix clearly broken things unless it gets hammered over the head with them. Can we get kotaku to write something scathing about them? That seems to work.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

My countermeasure was calling myself Omgwtfbbqkitten and Foobar.

I'm never at the top of the list, Foobar is rarely RMT spammed in tell and Omgwtfbbqkitten is just too long for RMT to type or care to read.

[Murphie]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Just limiting /tell on Trial Accounts to people on your friend list (other games do this) would be a start. That way /tell still exists, and Trial Accounts don't go anywhere.

[Taskmage]

Re: Hypothetical RMT countermeasure

Depending on how fast the spam is reported that seems like an inefficient means of marketing based on the expense. I'm just wondering where they keep getting the POL IDs from to do this... The only truly efficient way to do it would be to use hijacked accounts.

FINAL FANTASY XI 14-Day Free Trial

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:51 PM ----------

Just limiting /tell on Trial Accounts to people on your friend list (other games do this) would be a start. That way /tell still exists, and Trial Accounts don't go anywhere.

Tells are still rather important to getting into parties and getting the full experience once you reach a certain level. I think blocking it out entirely would be a little much but as I said above you could restrict it to the point where it would greatly hinder spammers but still be usable for legitimate players. But I do think it would be fair to say that mainly trial accounts would need to be affected by this.

---------- Post added at 09:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 PM ----------

I submitted the idea to the STF via the Comments and Suggestions email form. This is what I wrote:

The persistent RMT tell spam from brogame.com and now brosale.com needs to be stopped. The tells are a minor nuisance to most players but allowing them to continue makes a negative statement about the amount of control SE has over the game environment and their commitment to combating RMT. I suggest imposing an stricter flood control protocol on accounts created using the 14 day free trial, limiting characters under level 10 to making a tell more often than every 10-20 seconds to players not on their friend list. This would be transparent to most legitimate users but limit the spammers to making 60-120 advertisements in a 20 minute period, a small percentage of a server's population, during which time they would hopefully be reported and removed. If the effectiveness of tell spammers can be reduced enough, hopefully they will abandon the method. Thanks for your time in reading this.

If you are in support of the idea, I would ask you submit in your own words a suggestion for this plan, a version of it with your own improvements, or really any idea you have for combating this problem via the same form.

In a more immediate sense, everyone please submit GM calls on any RMT spammer you receive a message from. It takes hardly more time than sending a tell and not only saves all the people downstream from you from the same annoyance but hopefully helps illustrate the scope of the problem to people who might do something about it. The path to the GM call form if you haven't used it before is:

Main menu > Help Desk > Help Desk > I want to report a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement. > Yes, I have. > Yes, this is a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement. I would like a GM to investigate. > Type your brief report (e.g. "Brobot is spamming tells advertising Brogame.com") and hit execute.

Rather than going through the menu you can also used the command /helpdesk. I know it looks like a lot and yes there are a lot of silly redundant selections but honestly it only takes a second. I did it waiting on refresh to be ready to recast earlier.

---------- Post added at 09:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 PM ----------

Edited OP and stickied, barring objections.