Fake GM Message Warning

[Phanex]

Hey guys and gals, I did a quick check and haven't seen anyone metion this so...meh here i go.

Ok last night right before we were about to do Dynamis, a fellow LS mate said that he got a Message from a GM telling him his account will be frozen soon and he'll have to goto "playonline" to fix the issue.

Now I was thinking that was odd, if his account was going to be frozen, they'd just do it, but ok np. Then I got the same message. After a sec of trying to figure out what I did wrong, I noticed the "playonline" address was playonline.te... so I took a clooser look. this is about how it looked:

"Vasoline>!



[GM]Vasoline> Blah blah blah, account frozen, please goto <please insert fake POL web address here> /blah blah blah blah"

When I hit the /r it only showed Vasoline. So i told everyone that was getting same message, don't go it's fake it's got to be, etc, etc. To prove my point after explaing it to them, I send a very nasty /tell to Vasoline involving his mom, dad, dog and a vibrator, and he didnt' respond to to me.

So this is for all the new peeps that come through looking for news and guidence, I know most of the senior peeps know this would be fake.

Oh, I did send a message to the real GM about it, but they never got back up with me about it. SO good luck ya'll.

[Takelli]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

When I hit the /r it only showed Vasoline. So i told everyone that was getting same message, don't go it's fake it's got to be, etc, etc. To prove my point after explaing it to them, I send a very nasty /tell to Vasoline involving his mom, dad, dog and a vibrator, and he didnt' respond to to me

It was most likely a bot.

But... who would fall for this? They would never redirect you to the PoL website if your account was going to be frozen. Also, they would send you to GM jail and talk to you about it. Besides... PoL is a seperate from FFXI.

Its just like the Rmt tell that I got telling me to go to pcgamerusa. They are getting depserate, and are trying to get as much money as possible. They even have a warning up on the front page that says Do NOT go to links that are sent to you in game (Before entering the FFXI game)

[Mhurron]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

But... who would fall for this?

The same people who keep getting malware and blame everyone but themselves. The same people who continue to use their systems even after they know they're infected. The same people who fall for 419 scams. People are idiots.

BTW:

very nasty /tell to Vasoline involving his mom, dad, dog and a vibrator, and he didnt' respond to to me.

This would have been an interesting screenshot.

[Phanex]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

But... who would fall for this?

Oh i agree, I thought it was weird in general, but at the same time, the guy was going to goto the website after the event.

To him and others that didn't figure it was fake, it did look real enough at first glance. The only thing that showed up in the log was [GM]Name. He put a lot of empty lines between the real name and the fake GM name. I only caught the playonline.te.

But like Mhurron says, alot of ppl just don't know any better. So I posted to warn those few ppl.

[Kailea]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

The same people who keep getting malware and blame everyone but themselves. The same people who continue to use their systems even after they know they're infected. The same people who fall for 419 scams. People are idiots.

BTW:


This would have been an interesting screenshot.

yeap, and half the people that fall for it, wont admit they went to the site, because they know it will make them look like a moron.

[Elwynn]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

I actually found one of those in my scrollback when I was idle (he was already nuked by the time I saw it), and it appears that whatever 3rd party tool they use to inject the tells stuffs newlines into it. If SE can't detect THIS and auto-ban as using 3rd-party tools, they're totally incompetent. Not even the Japanese client can stuff newlines into tells.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

But... who would fall for this?

This person:
ok, so i just 20 mins ago got hacked... - Forum - FFXIAH.com

Lulz.

[Mhurron]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

whatever 3rd party tool they use to inject the tells stuffs newlines into it. If SE can't detect THIS and auto-ban as using 3rd-party tools, they're totally incompetent. Not even the Japanese client can stuff newlines into tells.

Technically, you probably can inject \n or \r\n into tells via the interface. You should be able to put the raw ascii code into the text input. The proper way of handling this is not to see if anyone is doing it to ban them, but to sanitize the input in the tell box allowing people to \n all day long because it never reaches anyone else.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

When I hit the /r it only showed Vasoline.

I just wanted to point out that when you reply to GM's, the [GM] tag does not get thrown in there, it looks just like a regular player's name.

Or at least, that's how I remember it from my conversations with them.

[Phanex]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

I just wanted to point out that when you reply to GM's, the [GM] tag does not get thrown in there, it looks just like a regular player's name.

Or at least, that's how I remember it from my conversations with them.

That may be true, but when they contact you it will have [GM], and this guy didn't.

[Kailea]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

This person:
ok, so i just 20 mins ago got hacked... - Forum - FFXIAH.com

Lulz.

.
.......wow.... some people..... lol

[Elwynn]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

I did find it amusing that I saw none of these fake messages on Fairy until after the warning message (which had been up for at least a week) got replaced by the monthly "our billing system sucks so we have to shut down account changes for two days" message.

---------- Post added at 09:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 AM ----------

Technically, you probably can inject \n or \r\n into tells via the interface. You should be able to put the raw ascii code into the text input. The proper way of handling this is not to see if anyone is doing it to ban them, but to sanitize the input in the tell box allowing people to \n all day long because it never reaches anyone else.

Unless the client's input box supports your OS's clipboard, you can't just paste a linefeed or return in there. Go ahead, try alt 010 or alt 013 and see what it does when you try to force key codes into it.

Now if you're using Windower to do it, guess what? Third-party tool. BAN HAMMER. (if SE had any brains or balls)

Unless you can show me how to do it with an unmodified client, without windower, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do this without violating TOS as part of the process. Ditto for messages longer than the input buffer (other than what auto-translate can do when displayed in a different language, but that should only get longer on the client side)

[Amberly]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

I had the same issue but his name was gnnapple lol. Trying to make the 2 n's look like a m. It was a poor atempt but funny.

[Elwynn]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

I just read that ffxiah thread. Epic lulz all around. Especially "[GM]lolcat".

It seems that the scammers have realized that stupid people are stupid, and don't need the blank lines to be fooled. So they aren't even bothering any more.

[Mog]

Re: Fake GM Message Warning

This person:
ok, so i just 20 mins ago got hacked... - Forum - FFXIAH.com

Lulz.

Why does it not surprise me that it's a mithra.