A friend sent me this conversation:

<Ecka Estenk> nope , I was watching you
<Iron Lord> for?
<Ecka Estenk> to see
<Iron Lord> if id do what?
<Ecka Estenk> if you were one of the greifers SWAPMEET is handing spotted data to ...
<Iron Lord> no
<Ecka Estenk> since that is the purpose of SWAPMEET
<Ecka Estenk> "Sol SDL , swapmeet is relaying the fact that you are here in an ec to all the rats and griefers.
<Iron Lord> it is?
<Ecka Estenk> of course it is why the fuck do you think Westacular put it in m7 ?
<Iron Lord> idk lol
<Ecka Estenk> well, work it out .....

--------------------

1) I'm not Westacular. The devs can confirm this for you if they ever get enough free time to do so. West dual boxes way better than I ever could. Though I'm honored you regard me so highly.

2) I didn't place SWAPMEET in M7 to spy on people. I placed it in N-15 to act as a shopbot, then TGFT tanked the bot's standing (The Guild of Free trahahahhahaha) so I placed it in M7 instead so I would not have to worry about TGFT tanking my bot's standing again. So in a way, TGFT had a hand in the decision to place the shopbot in M7.

SWAPMEET offers reasonable prices on most items it sells. Like 250k for an avalon (I have 200 in stock at the moment) . And since all the items can be equipped by new player with low license levels right in M7, I am doing the entire galaxy a service.

Happy buying.

-Knauf

I guess maybe we should start a thread that lists the many spotter bots in fact run by TGFT. Let VO see who the real spotters are.

tgft utils support it

thanks for the clarification wes

TGFT (and others) have an obsession with who's alt are whose. As if an actor can only play one role. As for the spotters, spot away. And remember, anytime you see a TGFT the Eye of Sauron is upon you.

Isn't most of TGFT way too old for this immature, pushy shit?

Its not about who has the most spotters, it's about what they are used for. One side uses it to easily grief the people being spotted, the other uses it to avoid meeting such a griefer.

And when did hornyblower go anti-TGFT?

@Nico Okarr

Ahoy mate! I'm sure I know you under a different name so I'll clarify the fault in yer perception.

(1) I'm not anti-TGFT. To my knowledge their activities don't hinder the preservation, promotion, and protection of a strong UIT pilot base and as such our paths share the same trajectory. However, their pilots frequently address my pilots as if they are former members of TGFT. To clarify, only myself and Cincinnatus have ever borne the TGFT tag. It seems as if the concept of alt separation is foreign to TGFT culture.

(2) Under my leadership, the Office of Strategic Services is currently conducting a proof of concept demonstration in the Pelatus System which, due to their own culture, TGFT finds itself alone in the exclusionary group. That being said, I offer my apologies for any disruptions.

(3) Finally, as to 'The Eye of Sauron' reference, TGFT does more than simply collect 'spotter' data. Some time ago during a communication with TGFT 'Smudger,' he provided me with my account data including the expiration of my subscription. More recently, their now Commander was able to divine that my log-in is not associated with an 'H.Hornblower' account. It's all together creepy I tell you; on par with the invasiveness of the National Security Agency. To wit, all my devices are now free of TGFT utilities.

See you on the other side mate!

That kind of sounds terrifying, not sure if its true. Good thing I don't use those plugins anyways.

I don't like any kind of spotters, they keep the sector active and nasty CtC bots pile up sometimes. Maybe the game could log you out at one point but I don't think the community would be happy with that idea, it having more cons than pros.

oh so afking at bractus c-5 is illegal?

that's how i formed a bot army..

That's a pretty astounding allegation Hornblower... i plan to look into that.

Seems like something somebody would want to immediately report to the developers via a ticket.

You did that, right HH?

It’s Guilds api that they claim is safe and so on and so firth. They should know what it can do if they don’t maybe it should revoked till they can

I'm sure they know our info is safe from this sort of thing, but what they might not have known is that someone is spouting rumors without checking the facts.

What color is the sky in your world?

My apologies for the reactions to my direct testimony. Not rumors, but recollections of events that transpired before my own eyes. As for an abuse ticket, the thought never occurred to me. Between several cross replies to what were deemed frivolous tickets and a newly acquired intent to simply play the game, I moved on. I do think it's important players know that data mining is occurring with the installation of plugins, but it's a Darwinistic world and security in the final sense is a personal responsibility. That is all, carry on.

Just to clarify for Whsitler: Yes this was reported (more than once and by more than one person) and yes GS knows it is possible via the Lua API. Their stance is that pulgins are not supported, and that we should vet our own plugins before we install them (H.H had this plugin installed, it cannot tell you this info about people who do not install it). In their defence they have recently made it harder to hide code by means of obfuscation, but obviously the none-coders out there still have no idea what they are installing. This is actually a fine situation (a little paranoia goes a long way - it is mainly paranoia, no real sensitive information is shared, no real names, billing info etc is not exposed - the account expiry is sent by the server on login), and I am very grateful for the open Lua API. It is not like things like this are not possible without it, I had access to a great alt tracker/roid/trade db/auto follow before it was possible in Lua, with 3rd party and somewhat hacky scripts. These could have easily exposed me to all sorts of nasties which the Lua API simply cannot.

This is one of the reasons I get so het-up about this particular plugin, not only was it promoted by the guild to its own members (this is fine imho), but they shared it on a somewhat trusted public site and advertised it as a "trade data sharing plugin" - when it was actually more of an "account data and personal information stealing plugin" - hence the term spyware being thrown about. In fact until Incarnate stepped in and told the guild they should have some form of disclaimer, the guilds answer was basically "yeah, and what? we will do what we like!". So yeah, this is not so much rumour as proven facts, and the developers are well aware of it.

[edit]

They have worded it very carefully, but this is from the voupr plugin page: Collects and transmits data on sectors, players that you encounter and price data for items in stations. Data translated is not anonymous and will provide information about your location and those around you to TGFT. Analysis of this data could reveal sensitive details about your characters movements, travel companions, and be used to identify alternate characters. -- and people wonder how the hell I find them in empty sectors, thanks for the info TGFT!...lol

yoda if there were actually people in game I could possibly understand why you are still so bent out of shape about TGFT plugins... but jesus dude, there's nobody to spy on anyway

I'm not bent up wally, was just clarifying for whistler! It is great that you all trust TGFT with your info, especially as they have no idea how to keep this information private! Remember how this was all discovered in the first place? :)

[edit for wally - I know he loves them]
I have no idea how quiet VO is or is not, but didn't I recently see a thread saying how numbers were up? Eugh, geez, I guess that didn't last long.

[edit 2]

Oh well, seeing as VO has no players to track, you all may as well get a taste of my anti-tgft-utils plugin. It has been modified to not transmit any data apart from a simple login and some fake data about charname/location, and can be downloaded HERE

So, greenwall... i've been trying to buddy everyone lately, for the ultimate mission of seeing what the upper limit for the buddy list is. Quite a grand, noble, and hair raising goal, i know, but it also has a consequence of giving me something to estimate the charts to show. Now, i havent buddied anywhere near everyone; not all accept, and i only see so many people in 100 during the limited times i log in, and of course there are those who run silently when they play, but.

During the lowest times, there are a minimum of 10 people online in the list.
During peak, a minimum of 22.

This doesnt account for the majority of USF, TGFT, or many members of ONE, SWA, or EDIT. I also dont log in until the evenings, either, so anyone who plays during my mornings/afternoons is probably not listed.

Finally, if you watched the player chart on at least a weekly basis, you'd be able to see that its "gone up" twice - i mean that the chart had to rescale, since the measure went off top - since gameplay in august, which was a particularly quiet month. Sundays are typically still the most active, with weekdays (especially weekday afternoons) being dismally quiet.

Oh, greenwall. Seeing as you've logged in very sparingly and only very recently, how can you tell VO is quiet? You know the IRC isnt very active these days, right? Its not that no one is talking, its because the irc link is down.

Speaking of which, i could run IRC during parts of the weekend, if CrazySpence would contact me about it~