EVE Information Portal

RMT is just something we're focused on now as well as botting. We're also responsible for the overall security of the client/server EVE product, I'm presuming Dust, and CCP's corporate infrastructure. There's plenty to keep us busy.

We're pretty sure he can rub himself just fine.

Spam is more than annoying. It's the retail level of shady internet practices, RMT being one of them. Add to that the fact that spamming rarely is viable without automation. You will probably find that some spammers are integral to the RMT enterprises.

Because of PLEX Eve is a bit of a special case, and the RMT'ers don't use spam in the same way as in other games. But I think they probably try to carry over their experiences in running spam bots in other ways. Using spam bots for jita scams would be an obvious supply line for RMT enterprises.

Firstly, have a look at what I said about this earlier in the thread here.

To elaborate, as far as the game is concerned Sreegs' statement "this stuff just simply shouldn't exist" is actually quite true. If it weren't for a bot mining those minerals, they wouldn't have been instantiated into the game world. If it weren't for a bot getting those NPC bounties, they wouldn't have increased anybody's wallets.

Your comment "it was illegally acquired, same as counterfeit money or any RL criminal activity, This however does not invalidate the ASSETS, just the method by which they were acquired" misses the fact that items don't always exist in the game's economy to be moved around - some items (minerals, mods, ships, and ISK included) are simply created out of thin air through various in-game activities. CONCORD bounties don't exist in the game and come out of a CONCORD wallet, they are simply an amount added to a character's wallet when they kill NPCs.

Likewise, Faction BPCs/mods, Deadspace/Officer mods, and general loot simply get spawned into existence when certain events happen. If those events are being caused by bots, then all those things being spawned are being created by events that are outside the bounds of the game space, and therefore, as Sreegs has said, simply shouldn't exist.

Build something into the New Player Experience / tutorials?

Judging by some of the posts from botting forums reposted on nozygamer and elsewhere, flooding the petition queue is a deliberate spoiler tactic by the botters (and it wouldn't surprise me if by the RMTers as well). They're attempting to drive up the commercial cost of your campaign against them by compromising your customer service.

It might be worth improving communications with your customers here by explaining this counter-campaign and advising that petition responses are being delayed due to heavy workload. Just provide your GMs with a template response to this kind of petition so that people at least know that their petition has beenr eceived and read by someone.

I disagree… are you telling me a bot is not a ‘avatar’ on an ‘account’ initiated by a real person? Do we have avatars and accounts in the game that CCP’s servers did not initially accept as ‘legal’ upon creation?? Is Skynet playing EVE???

The correct statement is;
“If it weren't for a player’s illegal use of a bot mining those minerals, they wouldn't have been instantiated into the game world. If it weren't for a player’s illegal use of a bot getting those NPC bounties, they wouldn't have increased any player’s wallets.”

In both cases it is not the use of the games mechanics BY a bot to ‘create’ assets that is illegal, it is a REAL PERSON’S misuse of an avatar on an account via the use of a bot that is the illegal act. Actually, one can argue as the bots code is executed by a player then, by extension, the player DID initiate the software that created the normal server response to generate the assets. The player just did so willfully and knowingly in direct contravention of the EULA, Policies and Rules.

ALL assets such as ore, Faction BPCs/mods, Deadspace/Officer mods, NPC loot & salvage are simply created out of thin air in the server. Some, ore and salvage for example, are then used (modified and/or combined) by the players to create other assets, mods, ships, etc., but the BASIS for ALL assets ingame are ‘virtual things’ created in the server. ISK is the same as ore in this regard, only it is a virtual monetary numerical change created in the player’s wallet.

Now, what we can argue is should these, bot mined or ratted, items have been created? Of course not, but then again “illegal drugs just simply shouldn't exist", but due to the illegal acts of real people, it does… and again it is the illegal acts of people, not the tubs and scales and tools they use to make the illegal drug that is the key issue. Now we destroy the illegal drug as it is a harmful social poison with no redeeming value, however, as I argued before, RL law enforcement auctions off all the illegally used ‘tools’ they can such as cars, boats, planes, houses, etc., etc.



Please explain to me how;
“…all those things being spawned are being created by events that are outside the bounds of the game space…”

If what you meant by ‘bounds’ was, “…all those things being spawned are being created by events that are outside of the EULA, Policies and Rules of the game…” then you will find me in complete agreement.

And the EULA, Policies and Rules have to do with how the players PLAY the game. IE The bot itself does nothing illegal, it is its USE by a player is the illegal act. The bot is just a tool. We do not punish the knife used to kill, we do not throw away the stolen diamonds... we punish the murderer… then we sell the diamonds.

Was suggested I cross post this from MD (where in particular I was asking if there was some contract trick I was unaware of).

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Ok so this may very well be RMT related. Which is why I reported this via petition and email a month ago (neither responded to, but that's beside the point, I wouldn't particularly expect nor warrant one).

If it is RMT then many of those below may have already been caught, there are certainly a few Doomheimer 666ers in the list. That the transactions continue into recent weeks would either hint at the scale of the task facing Sreegs' team or at the normal continuance of some other, perfectly legal, business practice I'm unaware of.

But if it is RMT, the scale is... significant.

Scam contracts. We've all seen them, many of us may have fallen for one. Few would fall for the exact same one, several times a week, over several months to the tune of tens of billions of isk. I stumbled across such an example in a public contract history, got suspicious and started following the spiders web, those who were routinely scammed, who were they scammed by, were the scammers also scamming others etc? These were all very obvious scams, almost always following the format of "you will pay 100m, you will get 1 noob ship / unit of trit / laser crystal, you will also pay 10 PLEX" - the sort that falling for once might be understandable, falling for several times a week points to something else.

Anyway, partial unravelling of said spider's web below. Names have been masked as an attempt to avoid falling foul of forum regulations but the date and timestamps are all correct as seen within public contract history. It's perhaps worth noting that almost all of these contracts were completed within minutes of being posted. ISK transfer amounts approximated based upon 500m plex for easy maths.

(a) gave:
5.1b to (b) on 04.17 @ 10:30
5.2b to (c) on 03.23 @ 07:53
500m to (d) on 03.14 @ 03:50
4.7b to (e) on 03.14 @ 02:55
1.1b to (f) on 02.20 @ 11:57
4.3b to (g) on 02.19 @ 07:45
5.2b to (h) on 01.31 @ 07:10
3.1b to (i) on 01.21 @ 02:00
1b to (j) on 01.11 @ 19:57
1b to (k) on 01.11 @ 19:17
3.3b to (l) on 12.28 @ 06:15
2b to (m) on 12.17 @ 14:17
2b to (n) on 12.17 @ 13:39
2b to (o) on 12.07 @ 09:22
1.5b to (p) on 12.07 @ 07:27
3.2b to (q) on 12.07 @ 07:23

(b) received:
5.1b from (a) on 04.17 @ 10:30
6.1b from (r) on 04.17 @ 01:19

(r) gave:
6.1b to (b) on 04.17 @ 01:19
1.5b to (s) on 04.16 @ 13:56

(c) received:
5.3b from (t) on 03.24 @ 00:28
5.2b from (a) on 03.23 @ 07:53
10.6b from (u) on @ 03.23 02:00

(t) gave:
5.3b to (c) on 03.24 @ 00:28
4.7b to (v) on 03.24 @ 00:28
2.6b to (w) on 03.23 @ 15:45
3.6b to (x) on 03.23 @ 13:24
1b to (y) on 03.23 @ 13:06

(e) received:
4.2b from (z) on 03.26 @ 05:01
4.7b from (a2) on 03.20 @ 03:15
4.7b from (b2) on 03.16 @ 16:03
4.7b from (a) on 03.14 @ 02:55
3.7b from (c2) on 03.02 @ 22:20
3.1b from (d2) on 02.26 @ 06:27
3.7b from (e2) on 02.24 @ 01:17
5.3b from (f2) on 02.11 @ 19:32
5.2b from (g2) on 02.08 @ 01:14
5.3b from (g2) on 02.07 @ 05:38
2.1b from (h2) on 02.02 @ 03:58
3.1b from (i2) on 01.31 @ 18:36
3.1b from (j2) on 01.31 @ 00:32
4.1b from (i2) on 01.30 @ 20:31
6.2b from (k2) on 01.27 @ 06:05
2.6b from (k2) on 01.26 @ 02:55
2.5b from (l2) on 01.16 @ 06:06

(z) gave:
4.2b to (e) on 03.26 @ 05:01
2.6b to (m2) on 03.26 @ 04:09
2.1b to (n2) on 02.26 @ 05:33
1b to (o2) on 02:26 @ 04:51
3.7b to (p2) on 02.26 @ 03:58

(g) received:
2.6b from (q2) on 03.22 @ 01:39
4.3b from (a) on 02.19 @ 07:45

(q2) gave:
6.2b to (r2) on 04.15 @ 02:25
5.1b to (s2) on 04.08 @ 22:28
1b to (t2) on 03.31 @ 03:24
2.6b to (g) on 03.22 @ 01:39
6.4b to (u2) on 03.03 @ 03:22
2b to (v2) on 01.17 @ 18:10
4.1b to (w2) on 01.17 @ 15:27
2b to (x2) on 12.30 @ 00:52

(u2) received:
7.1b from (y2) on 04.02 @ 05:33
7.1b from (y2) on 04.01 @ 09:08
7.4b from (z2) on 03.19 @ 06:23
6.4b from (q2) on 03.03 @ 03:22

(z2) gave:
7.4b to (u2) on 03.19 @ 06:23
6.3b to (a3) on 03.18 @ 18:31
7b to (b3) on 03.11 @ 03:19
5b to (c3) on 03.11 @ 02:44
1b to (d3) on 03.09 @ 18:00


So what's going on? If it is RMT I fear the scale is *vast* - this is merely the very partial unravelling of *one* web I happened by chance to stumble across using public in game tools yet it covers hundreds of billions of isk across dozens of characters.

Or is this merely some other (legal) business practice routinely used that I've overlooked?

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(name of "(a)" supplied in petition of 25th March and of email tied to this account sent 3rd April - naturally holler if you need them again)

Thought everyone might like this one. Not only did this guy get caught for RMT, but he is/was the developer for a mission bot very popular with the RMT crowd.



His bot right now apparently is crippled. Here are some tears from a frustrated user.



Congratulations to Team Security for catching this guy.

NICE JOB GUYS
HANG EM ALL !