Bad News - We've Been Spied Upon

[MarkG]

i have some info from server logs that point to a specific member of a team. if the team desires to make this an issue, i will first present the information to the involved team leaders(and see where we go from there)

i'll expect an answer from Jack_www on this thread

[Tiberius]

Thanks Markos.

[Tiberius]

I think the cheater deserves to be excluded from the PtW Demo game, at least. One thing is joining a semi-private (non-password protected) chat and something completely different, sneaky, dishonest, perfidious, two-faced gesture to deliberately deceive somebody in order to what? To do more cheating, to learn passwords and so on.

I'd let MarkG to decide whether to apply further punishment to the cheater.

Can you Mark search this guy's posts in the other team's forums, to see if he told them about our PBEM password (or anything else in regard to us) ?

Can we change our password?

[MarkG]

he hasnt spread the password nor talked about it in the private forum

[vondrack]

Originally posted by MarkG
he hasnt spread the password nor talked about it in the private forum

Well... this is definitely good news. At least it appears to be a problem of a rotten apple, not a rotten apple-tree. Perhaps... maybe... he was just checking if I could have been fooled...? Considering it kind of sports... dunno if we should make it a public issue then...

[Tiberius]

Thanks Markos. He could have done that however in PMs or emails, I think. I don't know what to say. I'd like to know what the others members of Legoland have to say about this.

[redstar1]

If its a choice between keeping it quiet or making it a public issue then I suggest making a post about it, not mentioning MarkG's assistance and not blaming anyone in particular but bringing forward the issue of cheating and how it has already crept in. I don't think we should moan about it but it should be made public....

[Kloreep]

What if we post in the public forum pretending we don't know who it is? This would give the impersonator a chance to at least step forward and admit responsibility.

Whatever happens, I definitely want some form of punishment for the cheater. Popping into an unprotected chat under your own name and BEFORE we ever got the save (as one or two people did in our first, unpassworded room) is one thing; impersonating a member of the team to get into a private chat is quite another. It shouldn't be as harsh as a permanent banning from the game, but I think his team should kick him out for a few days; perhaps even a week. This is a serious matter, even though it wasn't used to his team's advantage; we simply can't have anyone breaking into private team discussions like this.

[Jack_www]

Well let me tell you the first thing I thought was to post about this right away in the forums, then I thought that is was not such a good idea. When the time comes to make a public statement, I would like to come from me with input from all of you. I dont want anyone leaking this information just yet. Well it appears to me that the problem is not as bad as i had once thought. BUt we all must be carefull.

[Sharpe]

Ok, having calmed down from last night .... I agree with the sentiment that we cannot let this incident divert us from the game and we should come to a team consensus on how we should approach it.

I feel that somehow the individual that cheated should be punished- to not respond would sanction such actions when we should be attempting to eliminate (or at least limit) further cheating.

However, we do not want to sour our relations with the "false Nimitz's" team as it seems that their team may be unaware of their cheating (unless they have communicated by email, pm, another forum or chat of course).

If MarkG would be willing to do so, being a neutral party in this, perhaps he could inform the leader of the "false Nimitz's" team that this particular person had infiltrated into another team's private chat by impersonating one of that team's members (without mentioning that it is Legoland) and that sanctions should be applied against that person.

The leader of the team could then decide whether to expel, suspend that person from their team or suggest another punishment.

If the team leader refuses to take action against the player, I suggest that the "false Nimitz" should be banned from posting in Apolyton for a month as that would encompass the Christmas holiday period.

Of course, MarkG or DanQ can decide whether they feel that punishment is needed against this person simply for violating Apolyton's rules.

A message could then be posted in the general PTW Democracy forum, preferably by a neutral person, that an incident of cheating had taken place but not mention Legoland or the "false Nimitz's" team.

Unless there is another incident of cheating against our team, we should not know what team the"false Nimitz" is on, that team should not know it was Legoland that was infiltrated and the other teams would know that there was cheating (and will likely be more on guard ) but not which teams were involved in the incident.

The end result should be that all teams would be more on guard for possible cheating but relations between the teams would be unaffected (except for game results of course )

Sorry for the long-winded post again.

[Tiberius]

Good thinking, Sharpe. I like your solution.

The only thing I'd like to add is that I'd like to know, if MarkG would be so kind to tell us, what the other team will have decided, what the punishment will have been.

[Spiffor]

Very good ideas Sharpe. Probably the best solution
Now let's hope Markos accepts to be the judge in this matter

[Jack_www]

Well I am going to ask MarkG what he is going to do about this. So far i have not heard anything from him yet. I do want to get to the bottom of this and not have to see it happen ever again. I will try and pm him and see what he says.

[MarkG]

Well I am going to ask MarkG what he is going to do about this

eeer let me quote myself

if the team desires to make this an issue, i will first present the information to the involved team leaders(and see where we go from there)

i'll expect an answer from Jack_www on this thread

so, has the team reached a decision?

[Jack_www]

well it seems like everyone wants to do that but i want to talk to some people first before we make a final dession.