Thottbott and PlayerAuctions?

Post by **Ddrak** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:56 pm

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 9&from=rss

IGE owns PlayerAuctions.
IGE owns OGaming.
OGaming owns Thottbot.

This means IGE owns all the data collected by Thottbot... That's a non-trivial amount of stuff, and not to mention that you have zero guarantees that Thottbot isn't collecting even more stuff than it advertises from your system (not that PlayerAuctions would ever do that - they're an upfront and honest company, right?)

Dd

Burz · Post by **Burz** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:01 pm

Ireland own's Ogaming.

Grygonos Thunderwulf · Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:08 pm

the proof I saw was inconclusive. I think it's speculation at best at this point.

Akhbarali · Post by **Akhbarali** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:50 pm

I read a bit of the link and links from that article and am left with one unanswered question. Why would anyone care? What data could they be mining that would be of concern to the average user/player?

Akhbar

Post by **Ddrak** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:59 pm

Basically you're trusting IGE to run arbitrary code on your computer. I'd be guessing the "data" that would be a concern is username and password. After all, can you guarantee that Thottbot is only lifting inventory information from the client?

Alternately, if they choose to target certain accounts for hacking, it gives them a nice databse of who to approach first for social engineering, including names of alts, friend's alts, chat conversations about who has whose password etc.

Dd

Ariannda Kusanagi · Post by **Ariannda Kusanagi** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:16 pm

Ddrak wrote:Basically you're trusting IGE to run arbitrary code on your computer. I'd be guessing the "data" that would be a concern is username and password. After all, can you guarantee that Thottbot is only lifting inventory information from the client?

Alternately, if they choose to target certain accounts for hacking, it gives them a nice databse of who to approach first for social engineering, including names of alts, friend's alts, chat conversations about who has whose password etc.

Dd

Maybe i'm stupid (which is quite possibly true) but wouldn't that a lot of work, or require more effort then anyone wants to put out, just to catch people using each others accounts ? i mean checking logs randomlly and what not. It's not like when you've petitioned and reported lines of text.

Bahd Zoolander · Post by **Bahd Zoolander** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:44 pm

No work at all really. If the Thottbot program is sending usernames and passwords to a database someone just needs to pick a pair and steal the account. You can decide which accounts would be the best to grab by the inventory they send back.

Croinc · Post by **Croinc** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:24 am

Funny that I have never botted and have never had any problems with account shit. Also funny that every single person I know that gives their PW and account info to others has been ripped off at one time or another (over 10 peeps).

Also funny that Ariannda is an idiot and it said so in this thread.

/wave

--Cro

Ariannda Kusanagi · Post by **Ariannda Kusanagi** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:27 am

Fuck you Cro =p I never had any problems with account sharing and i've had access to something like 20 accounts over the years. Granted not everyone that i had access to ever had acces to me, but still i never had a single problem with account sharing.

gineeva · Post by **gineeva** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:40 pm

I guess some place are being busted for data collection.

http://www.eq2archives.com/

Sux..it was a pretty decent site too.

Post by **Ddrak** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:56 pm

Ha - that's about the best dummy spit I've seen in a while.

Dd