7/7/2015 - Exploit Situation

[Alex]

It has come to light that there is an exploit that has been abused in Politics & War. I will shed some light on what I know about the exploit, and how it is being handled. It's important that you read through the whole post, so that you can understand the situation fully.

 

For several weeks now, I have been aware that there is some sort of exploit being abused in the game. The players behind the exploit have been using it to spawn money and resources, and have been sending that money and resources to players and alliances of their choosing, in some sort of effort to "sway" the tides of the game, and play God. These players were smart enough not to spawn in too much money or resources at a time, and to launder it through trades in small amounts at a time so as not to bring suspicion onto themselves. I have been able to track a lot of this activity, and monitor it as I've attempted to discover the exploit.

 

To say that I've been idle or avoiding the issue would be incorrect. With really no information other than that such an exploit exists, it has been extremely difficult tracking what exactly the exploit is, or how it works. For example, I had heard rumors that it involved the Trade system, so I rebuilt the trade page. I told you all that it was simply to improve the experience (which was a bonus, clearly) but truly it was to double check and scour for any sort of bug that could've been abused to spawn money into the game. I've made a number of other smaller, not obvious changes to the code, and scoured page after page looking for potential exploitable code, making improvements everywhere I could.

 

The players that are behind the exploit are the likes of Sith/Pol Pot, Ghost (who was banned some time ago, though I left his nation in an effort to entice him to divulge information about the exploit to me), Death, and NMA. There are others, such as Last187, that have been receptacles of some of the spawned cash. He has been banned as well. Let me make it clear right now, that I will track down anyone who has conspired with the cheaters, and they shall be banned and removed from the game, forever.

 

I've been increasing monitoring efforts to catch the cheaters and find the source of the exploit, with the intention of finding the exploit, fixing it, and then banning and remove all of the cheaters and those that conspired with them. Due to an information leak, however, we're doing things a bit backwards. Those involved are going to be banned and removed from the game, first and foremost.

 

As for the integrity of the game and the exploit itself, it is clear that I, alone, am insufficient to find and fix it. For too long have I attempted to create, manage, and code Politics & War by myself. I am, as of this announcement, officially bringing aboard a second Administrator, Malone. He has agreed to work with me to double-down on security measures, improve all aspects of the source code, and between the two of us I am confident that we will be able to find and fix this exploit and restore the integrity of the game.

 

Until we are confident that the exploit has been fixed, all Credit Purchases have been disabled. I don't want anyone spending their hard earned money on in-game benefits when someone else could be getting those same benefits for free.

 

Lastly, there will not be a game reset. The fact of the matter is that this exploit has happened, and the money that has infiltrated the game has changed the course of the in-game politics forever. However, the silver lining to the exploiter's strategy of laying low is that the amount of money spawned into the game is as minimal as can be hoped from this type of thing. We will be working to catch anyone who has conspired with the cheaters and remove their nations outright, removing a large chunk of the spawned cash. I am asking the community to come together and expose anyone that has been abusing this exploit for their own personal gain so that we can restore things to their rightful order. I am very sorry that we will not be able to completely remove the effects of this exploit, but we will be doing everything we can to keep them as minimal as possible, and they are certainly far from gamebreaking.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this whole post, and please believe that we are doing everything within our power to get all of this resolved as soon as possible.

[Moreau]

Wow

[Caillou]

o/ Sheepy

o/ Malone

 

I applaud your commitment to the game and us, the community. I have faith that you guys will reinforce the stability of Orbis. 

[Alataq]

\o/ Thank you for what you do for the game.

[Princess Bubblegum]

So 400 mil wasn't funneled to VE?

[Kastor]

This doesn't feel right.

[MRBOOTY]

Tiggera was on the receiving end of a lot of that stuff, but surely you knew that I happen to agree with this decision, and I hope we can get everyone. I'm pretty dang sure some alliance leaders that will remained unnamed very much did have a part in this, and so I would really recommend going after alliances that benefited from this a lot. 

 

 

Also, people who know Last well seem to think Pol Pot may have been his multi... And considering the people who he helped, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Boony]

So 400 mil wasn't funneled to VE?

I could be wrong but that money was funneled through regular trades and without their knowledge (until later).

[Phiney]

So last is getting banned minutes after I declare on Him?! Typical.

 

Edit: good post too.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Phiney

[Dwynn]

First, I posted about the exploit to bring the spotlight to the community. This game has a good core community and the exploit was bad enough and had gone on long enough that it needed to be said.

 

I will do everything in my power to assist Sheepy. This game and this community deserves that.

[Moreau]

Wohoo

[Adama]

Given time, as long as the exploit is removed and the cheaters banned, the game will correct itself politically and economically. The money spawned in will eventually not amount to much anymore, and with the light of truth those associates of the cheaters will be shunned. While it can't take away the damage already done, or the effects from it in the medium term, it's important that the community not panic as it's not the end of the world as long as the exploit is solved.

[Alex]

So 400 mil wasn't funneled to VE?

 

I do believe that some amount of money was funneled to VE, and other alliances, through the trade system. Like I said, the cheating nations would spawn in money and then buy offers from nations in certain alliances at higher-than-normal rates to get them extra cash.

 

I think $400,000,000 is probably a very high estimation, put out by those that abused the exploit. You also have to keep in mind that no matter what "amount" was truly sent to VE or any other alliance was traded for resources, which hold value. So even if VE did receive $400,000,000, that might've been in exchange for resources valued at $300,000,000; etc. The people who did this exploit want to see the game ruined, and are going to insist that massive, massive amounts of money were spawned into the game. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

[Godfrey]

This post gives me hope for the future of the game. 

 

Hopefully you two working together can solve this. A lot of damage has been done already and it's not possible to completely correct this (outside of a reset), but if you can squash the exploit and ban as many people who were involved as possible I will be pretty happy.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Godfrey

[Princess Bubblegum]

Unfortunately by the sound of it there are still people who can profit from this. The exploit has not been found. Until such time as it is found and patched, people are literally wasting time playing the game with any seriousness. And even if it is eventually found, the exploited cash/resources will continue to benefit some players above others. 

[Atzuya]

 

... as of this announcement, officially bringing aboard a second Administrator, Malone.

 

*silently cheers in the damp corner*

[Keegoz]

A reasonable response to the hand you were given.

[Aksel]

I'm glad to see the move of second admin.

 

I do dare to say that I am a bit disheartened and I don't have that weird pull to be excited about playing this game at this current time. I'm in agreement with PB - that until the exploit is found, in totality, and corrected, the game is a waste of time to play - as those exploiting and those that exploited are still benefiting.

 

I wish Sheepy and Malone luck - none the less.

[saeton]

Given time, as long as the exploit is removed and the cheaters banned, the game will correct itself politically and economically. The money spawned in will eventually not amount to much anymore, and with the light of truth those associates of the cheaters will be shunned. While it can't take away the damage already done, or the effects from it in the medium term, it's important that the community not panic as it's not the end of the world as long as the exploit is solved.

Look at what happened when abbas et. al. did a similar thing. It pissed people off for a couple of weeks, but nothing screwed up anything too bad. Yes, this was pre-reset, but still. This won't do much to effect the overall game in a few weeks anyway. And all those involved will be SHUNNED. 

 

Unfortunately by the sound of it there are still people who can profit from this. The exploit has not been found. Until such time as it is found and patched, people are literally wasting time playing the game with any seriousness. And even if it is eventually found, the exploited cash/resources will continue to benefit some players above others. 

>implying people take this game seriously regardless

Edited July 7, 2015 by saeton

[Alex]

Unfortunately by the sound of it there are still people who can profit from this. The exploit has not been found. Until such time as it is found and patched, people are literally wasting time playing the game with any seriousness. And even if it is eventually found, the exploited cash/resources will continue to benefit some players above others. 

 

 

I'm glad to see the move of second admin.

 

I do dare to say that I am a bit disheartened and I don't have that weird pull to be excited about playing this game at this current time. I'm in agreement with PB - that until the exploit is found, in totality, and corrected, the game is a waste of time to play - as those exploiting and those that exploited are still benefiting.

 

I wish Sheepy and Malone luck - none the less.

 

To address you both:

 

From what I know, Sith is the one who knows how the exploit works. I'm not sure that anyone else actually knows how it works or can do it themselves. I believe this is the reason that I have been unable to find out what exactly the exploit, is because they've kept it under very tight wraps.

 

That said, (in theory) the next time they attempt to use the exploit we should be obvious and we should be able to catch it almost immediately. I was actually very optimistic about finding and fixing the exploit myself within the next few days, but there was suddenly a drop in activity from the cheaters. It was a waiting game until the post alerting the community was made. That doesn't change the fact that we're more prepared than we've ever been in finding and fixing this issue, so I do believe there's reason to be optimistic. Also, anyone spawning in any large amount of money at this point is going to be painfully obvious, with the whole community on watch.

[Shellhound]

So now Malone really has become a Judge.

 

Glad to see that you are working on this and that you've brought Malone on board, hoping this gets resolved relatively quickly and all involved are found and punished.

[Alex]

Given time, as long as the exploit is removed and the cheaters banned, the game will correct itself politically and economically. The money spawned in will eventually not amount to much anymore, and with the light of truth those associates of the cheaters will be shunned. While it can't take away the damage already done, or the effects from it in the medium term, it's important that the community not panic as it's not the end of the world as long as the exploit is solved.

 

I believe this is exactly the correct attitude. The effects of this exploit will be apparent, but will become less and less significant as time passes.

[MRBOOTY]

Unfortunately by the sound of it there are still people who can profit from this. The exploit has not been found. Until such time as it is found and patched, people are literally wasting time playing the game with any seriousness. And even if it is eventually found, the exploited cash/resources will continue to benefit some players above others. 

I think Sheepy has found a way to track it now. 

 

I do believe that some amount of money was funneled to VE, and other alliances, through the trade system. Like I said, the cheating nations would spawn in money and then buy offers from nations in certain alliances at higher-than-normal rates to get them extra cash.

 

I think $400,000,000 is probably a very high estimation, put out by those that abused the exploit. You also have to keep in mind that no matter what "amount" was truly sent to VE or any other alliance was traded for resources, which hold value. So even if VE did receive $400,000,000, that might've been in exchange for resources valued at $300,000,000; etc. The people who did this exploit want to see the game ruined, and are going to insist that massive, massive amounts of money were spawned into the game. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

So no money spawned in directly? That's a big deal

[LordStrum]

Good to see this. As long as people continue to give a !@#$ like today, all things will pass.

[Princess Bubblegum]

Well if sheepy can track the cash and spot the exploits when they happen and is confident that the exploit isn't game breaking, then there shouldn't be a need to limit credit purchases anymore, right?

Edited July 7, 2015 by Princess Bubblegum