POL News May 21, 2007 "Warning about damage that can occur from harmful programs"

Vandoura

Vandoura

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POL News May 21, 2007 "Warning about damage that can occur from harmful programs"

May 21, 2007 03:00 [PDT] From: PlayOnline
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Warning about damage that can occur from harmful programs</B>
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Recently, we have received numerous calls from players who have had a third party log in to their PlayOnline account. This has resulted in lost items, gil, or even deleted characters.

Among these reports, there where many reports of players connecting to a site in order to get unauthorized third party programs, or actually using a third party program, were then infected with harmful programs such as viruses and spyware. In these cases, these programs likely transmitted PlayOnline IDs and passwords to a third party. Additionally, there were reports of players who had suspicious programs installed when connecting to websites that were told to them by strange players over the tell channel. In these cases, many people also were affected by unauthorized account access. We have also confirmed in our investigations that there are third party programs that can do these things out there.

These unauthorized programs are of a wide variety. Some make it so that FINAL FANTASY XI runs in a windowed mode rather than full screen, some allow players to transport to a spot when a specific monster spawns, and some that commence attacks on monsters automatically. Now, any use of a third party program is a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement. We will issue a serious penalty when we have evidence of a third party program being used.

To protect players from having their accounts logged into, on May 11, 2007, we posted "Notice for Windows Users: Recommended Precautionary Measures" on "Important Notices". If you are playing with the windows version, please read the announcement and we ask you to be extra cautious.

If you are unable to log-in with your PlayOnline account/password, or notice a change in your gil or items, please do not hesitate to contact us.

To protect your valuable characters and their data, and to also prevent you from being penalized for violating the user agreement, please keep away from third party programs and suspicious URLs.
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http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news10410.shtml


Yup, Now is proof that SE will ban you for using Windower :P
 
I think they've always said they'll ban you for using Windower.

After reading this, my question is what kind of slack-jawed mouth-breather downloads and installs a third-party program after some stranger sends them a /tell about it? Please point them my way, because I have a lovely vacation home in Xarcabard I'd love to sell them.
 
They said "Now, any use of a third party program is a violation of the PlayOnline user agreement."

If I knew how to bold the Now I would. Half the people always said yes windower is agenst the rules, the other half said no. And then there was a mix of people who said "Fuck that, I need a window mode! Screw SE." So this is 100% proof that Windower is agenst the rules and is cheating I guess.

Is everyone still going to show windower screen shots now?
 
You won't get banned for using Windower unless you admit in-game that you're doing it, in which case you're an idiot and deserve your banning. Anyone who downloads programs randomly and runs them is also an idiot and deserves their banning and item theft, too.

Rappa's Handy List of Things Not to Say In-Game:
-(Mob name) is at (exact percentage) hp!
-Wow (player not in your pt but in your alliance), you have a lot of mp!
-Don't bother with tp reports, I know how much tp you have.
-You should stand at 9.5-10.5 to use your bow. / Wind instruments have a range up to 9.9. / etc
-Anyone else having problems with windower? / Can you help me with windower? / etc
-/sh Attention Square-Enix GMs, I am currently running Final Fantasy Eleven in windowed mode!

Probably more, but you get the idea.
 
Last edited:
Halifirien said:
I think they've always said they'll ban you for using Windower.

After reading this, my question is what kind of slack-jawed mouth-breather downloads and installs a third-party program after some stranger sends them a /tell about it? Please point them my way, because I have a lovely vacation home in Xarcabard I'd love to sell them.
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yeah this I really dont understand. In a couple LS's, Ive had people complaing and say "IF YOU GET RANDOM /tell's FROM ANYONE WITH A URL IN IT, DONT GO TO IT!" Because they did... wtg
 
Hmm..so the rumors were true of weird things going on with people's accounts this weekend??

A couple of people that I know who don't use windower believed they got hacked, or their data was screwed up with.

Two individuals are good friends of my gf, while the other guy is an IRL friend of mine who also plays this game.

One of my gf's friend said his entire friendlist got wiped, and someone he did not know in the game got put onto his blacklist. Luckily nothing was stolen.

Her other friend stated that they lost their Bibiki Bay shell, and all of their completed Aht Urghan quests were wiped from their list.

I dunno. It sure sounds screwy. I don't think they were using windowerer.

As for my own friend, a few nights ago while helping him with ToAU missions; noticed his entire friend list was wiped. No items or gil was reported lost.

He doesn't use windower; he plays full-screen mode on the PC. So I'm not sure how this could've happen to him, unless server data is going corrupt for people, or maybe he is not up-to-date with windows security patches??

I'm not gonna mention their in-game character names for the sake of privacy, and not giving anyone an open shot at them for a windows security attack.

Still, any thoughts?
Who knows, although our server is most fortunate unlike others, maybe the hardware is starting to overheat, and we're due for a server crash? :shock:

I just hope us players don't lose all of our hard-earned stuff.
 
some allow players to transport to a spot when a specific monster spawns, and some that commence attacks on monsters automatically.
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Separate topic from my original post...

In my past couple of weeks in sky, I've noticed this kind of activity with RMT.
Especially with the NM, Despot, which I've made a decision that are basically married to. (>.<)

If someone finds out the gist of how their honeymoon went, feel free to share. (lol)

Anyway. I heard from different shell leaders/members, that RMT used to do the same when Ulli was hard to get. Position hacking, voke bots, etc.

If this is the case, I hope SE's STF finally starts doing away with them once and for all. I'm sure sky leaders/members of shells wouldn't mind of it were cleaned up a bit. Right?
 
Kizaryo said:
Separate topic from my original post...

In my past couple of weeks in sky, I've noticed this kind of activity with RMT.
Especially with the NM, Despot, which I've made a decision that are basically married to. (>.<)

If someone finds out the gist of how their honeymoon went, feel free to share. (lol)

Anyway. I heard from different shell leaders/members, that RMT used to do the same when Ulli was hard to get. Position hacking, voke bots, etc.

If this is the case, I hope SE's STF finally starts doing away with them once and for all. I'm sure sky leaders/members of shells wouldn't mind of it were cleaned up a bit. Right?
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New way to pop Despot: Get a drop item from the Groundskeepers ONLY in the holes in the wall, from all over Ru'Lude, and makes the spawn point in the middle of the walkway where he spawns now.

This should be done with ALL sky NM's, because if they do it with only a couple, the RMT will just move to another
 
Rappa said:
You won't get banned for using Windower unless you admit in-game that you're doing it, in which case you're an idiot and deserve your banning. Anyone who downloads programs randomly and runs them is also an idiot and deserves their banning and item theft, too.

Rappa's Handy List of Things Not to Say In-Game:
-(Mob name) is at (exact percentage) hp!
-Wow (player not in your pt but in your alliance), you have a lot of mp!
-Don't bother with tp reports, I know how much tp you have.
-You should stand at 9.5-10.5 to use your bow. / Wind instruments have a range up to 9.9. / etc
-Anyone else having problems with windower? / Can you help me with windower? / etc
-/sh Attention Square-Enix GMs, I am currently running Final Fantasy Eleven in windowed mode!

Probably more, but you get the idea.
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Bingo. No ones dumb enough to argue Windower was against the rules. However, SE will not straight up ban you for using it alone. You usually have to do one of the things Rappa listed for it to occur.
 
As far as windower is concerned, this is the most aggressive stance SE has taken to date. I am confused why they would mention Windower though. Windower *does* collect data from your computer - ie... www.ffxiah.com. However, while they could easily steal everyone's information, they have not.

Still a wise idea for people to update their passwords and keep them secret. When in AIM or such and you get links, make sure you trust the link... Ie... if it says HAY GAIZ! CHK TH15 P1C7URE! I would avoid clicking it...
 
I don't think they are mentioning the LEGIT version of windower per se. I believe what's happening is people are being lead to download versions of the windower program that aren't legit and are getting fuxored because of it. If someone tells you to get windower from http://www.geocities.com/~haxxxxxxor/lolwindoweripromise.exe you probably shouldn't.
 
Arctyrael said:
As far as windower is concerned, this is the most aggressive stance SE has taken to date. I am confused why they would mention Windower though. Windower *does* collect data from your computer - ie... www.ffxiah.com. However, while they could easily steal everyone's information, they have not.

Still a wise idea for people to update their passwords and keep them secret. When in AIM or such and you get links, make sure you trust the link... Ie... if it says HAY GAIZ! CHK TH15 P1C7URE! I would avoid clicking it...
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I'm a compter n00b but I don't think Windower has anything to do with ffxiah.com AH data is stored on SE's servers and ffxiah.com gets their stuff from there or else anyone on PS2 or Xbox's transactions wouldn't appear. And mine do.

I may be way off or misunterstood what you said tho.
 
Veresko said:
I'm a compter n00b but I don't think Windower has anything to do with ffxiah.com AH data is stored on SE's servers and ffxiah.com gets their stuff from there or else anyone on PS2 or Xbox's transactions wouldn't appear. And mine do.

I may be way off or misunterstood what you said tho.
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Actually, it's a seperate program that gathers data from those checking AH history. It doesn't have anything to do with windower, to my knowledge. If it does, it could be coded to run seperately in the background, like any other datamining/logger does.
 
Veresko said:
I'm a compter n00b but I don't think Windower has anything to do with ffxiah.com AH data is stored on SE's servers and ffxiah.com gets their stuff from there or else anyone on PS2 or Xbox's transactions wouldn't appear. And mine do.

I may be way off or misunterstood what you said tho.
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What I have noticed is that stuff that sells ultra fast, such as Gigant Squid, will sometimes not appear on FFXIAH. Plus the fact that Cliff is listed as the data gatherer for FFXIAH seems like windower is involved. My theory is that it just reads the transactions list loaded into the client's memory at specified intervals.
 
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