Support Arkadia's Staffs, Please Help Me Here...!

Hi to all beloved Arkadia's Staffs and members,

I'm a loyal Entropian, who have been staying in this game for nearly 3 years (I created my account, "Onyar Loorden PSS" on 18th November 2009) During the past three years, everything is going fine, until I received an email from Planet Calypso's support on 5th October 2012...

PS: The time that MA sent this email was around 5:01 am, 5th October 2012.

Hi,

We have received reports about you having multiple accounts. As it is clearly stated on the Terms of Use §2.1, you are only allowed to register one active account; therefore this account has been locked.

In order for us to continue with the investigation, we must ask you to please go to this site https://account.entropiauniverse.com/support-faq/sf/ and upload front and back color copies of a current and valid photo ID, where all four corners are visible, and your full name, a document number, and your date of birth are clearly shown. For example aDriver's License, Passport or National Identification Card, so we canverify that you are the rightful owner of this account.

When the upload is finished please send us a support case from the account that you wish to keep, so that we can continue assisting you as soon as possible.

Please note that you can only request to unlock one account, the others must remain locked and after 750 days they will be automatically terminated.

========================================================================================

I was shocked, when I received this email. I tried to login into EU with my account, "Onyar Loorden PSS". However, I found out that my account is being locked down! So, I wrote a support case to MA immediately and I got a reply from Obadiah, one of the Arkadia's supports:

2012-10-05 13:38 Entropia Universe Support:

Hi,

Thank you for your report.

We have detected that several accounts are connecting from the same mac address and ip address, as stated in the Tou you can only have one active account at the time, can you please provide with an explanation for this.

Kind regards,
Obadiah | Arkadia Support

=========================================================================================

I'm even more shocked, because I NEVER created any other account, except my own "Onyar Loorden PSS". I calmed down and tried to figure out, what'd happened here. I checked my computer with antivirus and found out, that there's a keylogger hiding inside my computer! S**t, it's not a good thing... So, I double checked my wireless broadband link and noticed that I've been hacked! Damn, I know the situation is going to be very ugly now...

I quickly wrote another support case to MA and told them, what'd actually happened over here:

2012-10-05 16:48 You wrote:

Dear Obadiah/Arkadia Support,

For you information, I just noticed that someone had hacked my wireless broadband link yesterday and used the keylogger to retrieve my personal information. They'd stolen my Credit Card's information and online bank accounts information.

I'm worry that those hackers might have used my wireless broadband link to create new accounts in Entropia Universe, but with different avatar's name and email address.

I've lost many valuable things during this incident. Hopefully, you guys will show some mercy, and please unlocked my Entropia Universe's account again.

Looking forward to hear some good news from your side as soon as possible.

=========================================================================================
Here's my reply to Obadiah:

2012-10-12 11:32 You wrote:

Dear Obadiah/Arkadia Support,

For your information, I've uploaded both of my National Identificion Card (Front and back) and Driving License (Front and back). The purpose by doing this is to prove that I'm the rightful owner of this account, "Onyar Loorden PSS".

I've been owned and playing this only one account, "Onyar Loorden PSS" since 18th November 2009. For the multiple accounts incident, it's because my wireless broadbank link had been hacked and misused by hacker during the last Thursday, 4th October 2011.

Please locked those invalid accounts, and only unlock my only one account, "Onyar Loorden PSS" as soon as possible.

Thanks in advanced.

========================================================================================
About eight hours later, I accepted a reply from Carl:

2012-10-12 20:06 Entropia Universe Support:

Hi Loorden,

We have received your identification document. Unfortunately, it does not match the information given for this account, therefore, you have not been able to verify yourself as the true account holder. Please upload the correct ID for this account.

Regards,
Carl | Arkadia Support

=========================================================================================

Well, I've done what Arkadia's supports told me to do. However, they still didn't believe, that I'm the rightful owner of my only account in EU, "Onyar Loorden PSS"! I admitted, I didn't take it seriously, the moment I entered my personal information three years ago, when I first created my account. In that moment, I just wanted to play the game as soon as possible and never thought of filling up those personal information with so detailed.

Also, another thing here. If Obadiah and Carl said, that I'm not the rightful owner of my account, "Onyar Loorden PSS", then how could I know the account's username + password, and login to the Planet Calypso's main page written all the support cases to MA? In this case, it's undoubtedly proof that, I'm the only valid and rightful owner of "Onyar Loorden PSS"!

David, Cyrus, Chris and all arkadia's staffs that I didn't mention their name here, I beg on you all. Please help me to unlock my account again. The only reason I'm doing this, because I love EU very much and I will do anything to get my account back. It would be awesome, if any of you here can shed me some light and help me through this darkness moment...

Cheers,
Onyar Loorden PSS.

 

Well this sucks. Hope you get it sorted it.

 

I agree whit Snape. U must have Gold card... i got one my self for free after 5k peds deposits I hope u get your acc unlocked m8 gl

 

Hi David,

Thank you very much for giving such a fast response to this case. Yup, I certainly know, that it's MA supports' duty to keep a good protection on every account. A credit for all the hardworking MA's supports!

I know, it's a little bit inappropriate to post this issue here, but I've totally out of choices here. That's why, I'm giving my last try on this forum and hope you guys will help me get through this toughest moment...

I hope so, KikkiJikki

For your information, Snape. I'm planning to get a Gold Card after this upcoming X'mas. However, I didn't expected that I'll encounter this unfortunate incident, before I have the chance to get a gold card for my account

By the way, I've logged in and tried to correct my personal information. The bizarre thing is, the system won't allow me to do so. It keeps saying these words:

Please make sure that you submit the correct information.
Note that you cannot change this information when you have logged into an Entropia Universe Planet.

It looks like, we can't edit our personal information, once we'd logged into the Entropia Universe Planet, unless we have a Gold Card?

Hi Kevlie,

Yup, I will certainly do so, after the upcoming X'mas and if I manage to get my account back...

 

snape's gold card is made of real gold?
correct me if i am wrong but the gold card system only costs 200 PED, you can get one for "free" if your deposits total more than 5000 PED which i think caused the confusion, and maybe because it was early in the morning in wales and maybe the coffee hadnt kicked in yet

 

Exactly like you said here, Snape. If MA supports didn't allow me to change the information, then I have nothing to do here, but have to wait for them to unlock me again...

Oh, we can buy a Gold card by spending only 200 peds, Fallen? Wow, then it's 25 times cheaper than the 5k peds lol

If MA supports unlock my account as soon as possible, I will buy one Gold Card immediately

 

Sadly mate it seems since you did not have a gold card that the people who have hacked you may have already changed your information. I suggest that you ask support to check if anything on the account has been recently changed and ask them to compare your documentation to what the account said a year ago. That should prove that you own the account and that if it was recently changed that supports you stating you have been hacked. As Snape said I hope you were smart enough to use real information when creating the account as this is real money.

 

Ohhh sorry to hear m8
No GC??? damn m8 i was sure u had that
I wish u the best in solving this issue, i find u a very nice m8 that surely dont deserv this.
Regards
Lazz

 

HI Bill,

You might have the point here, bro. I afraid the same thing happened here as well I have nothing more to request here, just hopefully, MA supports will unlock my account soon enough...

Hi Lazz,

Thanks for your kind words, and yup, hope everything is going to solve up in the end

 

Newest update: Cyrus had PMed me and I've also PMed him as well. Let's see, if we can get this obstacle solve up as soon as possible or not...

Stay tuned!

 

1st MA Needs to make it INSANELY Clear when signing up the important of using your real information when creating your account LIKE HUGE HUGE Letters.

2nd Your story does not totally make sense you say you found a key logger yet you say the only proof you have that this is your account is that you know the login in and password that a keylogger would have sent to someone. A better defense would be for them to check your MAC address from when you created the account if it's the same computer you made the account from. Also i don't understand how you would be getting that message from MA about multiple accounts. Me and my wife and kid all use the same computers having the same IP and MAC so 1st i question why they would ask. but say someone has your password and login from a keylogger that doesn't explain another account logging in on your computer.

The whole thing seems kind of weird.


Bottom line you put false information in for a game that involved real money and MA doesn't have it in big flashing letters but they do say put in your real info. So unfortunately you may have to pay for your mistake by loosing your account. Also knowing how important it is i would have maybe made a new account with your real details and chipped out and transfered everything.

 

When i first registered with EU i put in fake information as well. (like i do with most stuff on the internet). But luckily for me, many years ago mindark gave everybody a chance to correct the personal information they originally put in. I think i had to send a copy from my passport to do it. Hope they'll do it again someday, because i bet there are a lot of avatars where people put in fake information when signing up.

On topic, even if you did have three accounts I think MA should give a temp ban at the most. There have been plenty of high profile avatars using a second account in the past, and they are still around and even making a living from this game.

Gl on sorting this out, i'm keeping some level 5 amps in reserve for when you can get back in

 

Tyvm for the blessing, Snape

Well, first of all, tyvm for spending your time reading my issue here, RexDameon. Secondly, I've already told what actually happened on me to David and Cyrus through PMs (I don't want to repeat over and over again...) I know, it's my fault for didn't put in the correct information, but I guess we all did mistake, right? If a second chance is not giving here, then I have nothing to say about it...

Cheers.

Hey harmony,

Yup, I have the same thought as you did. To be frankly, I think I need to take some action to prove that I'm the only owner for "Onyar Loorden PSS". I will let you know later on...

PS: TYVM for reserving me some nice lvl 5 amps here, can't wait to get in game again and blow them all lol

 

Hello all,

I am speaking up about hardware and hacking and cracking in general. I am an engineer by trade in the electronics, computer and software industries.

About the wireless access point w/ router and gateway, unless you are using the option of cloning your PC's MAC address on the wireless router, MindArk should see other MAC addresses coming off of your Wireless Access Point because the software that MA has installed on your computer will ID the IP Address (TCP/IP virtual software routing address) and the hardware routing address, called the Media Access Controller or MAC for short, there are other identifiable items that MA can check for, such as the Microsoft Windows License and many other thing in the system that show for a unique system and person using the computer.

With this being said, a managed router which includes that of the wireless router + gateway, it has it's own IP and MAC address. My question is this, are you seeing that address instead of the independent computers on the router. Depends on how you have your router security configured in that you can spoof or block external identification of the router and computers / devices on the internal network as this works in tandem with a technology called NAT+ routing.

The thing about it is, you would need to be "logged in" as another user on that specific computer to use the IP address and MAC address to make accounts. While you could spoof the IP and MAC address, chances are, Onyar has a dynamic IP address both on his
computer and on his WAN side of his modem to access the Internet. What this means is the IP address is given a lease and when the lease time is up based on DHCP it will assign a new IP address although the MAC address will stay the same.

So my question are the following:

How can you tell that is or isn't his computer doing all those extra accounts? (since IPs change and MACs addresses don't unless you add an adapter or spoof a MAC address)

If Onyar is not using the MAC clone option on available on many wireless routers and gateways, are you using MA's software or your own network tools to peer into his network? (If you are using your own tools, you might be getting redirected to the Router's IP address and MAC Address and not his computer's stuff.)

I have other questions about this but depending on the outcome of these two questions it will be different in the additional amount of questions asked.


Rule of thumb about how MAC Addresses are assigned from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers aka IEEE an internationally recognized fellowship of engineers of my trade.

If you have a IPv4 MAC address, the standard notation goes as follows;

The first three digits separated by colons or dashes are the manufacturers Identification used for regulatory agencies, such as the FCC in the USA or DOC or other agencies through out the world, the last 3 digits pairs are the serial number of a particular device. Now, if you need an IPv6 explanation and MAC address for that or the pseudo tunneling protocol called "Terredo" which has a virtualized and special MAC address, which it's a combination of the hardware MAC address and a couple of other items in the system which uniquely ID that system that it's being run over the top in TCP/IP.

Another note; MAC address that show up as this (00:00:00:00:00:00 or 00-00-00-00-00-00) and (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF or FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF, also if you see them as lowercase 'ff' it means the same thing as uppercase 'FF', these MAC addresses are invalid.

As far as the keylogger is concerned, use Super Anti-Spyware free edition or Malware Bytes free edition to get rid of it, even
Ad-Aware lite from Lavasoft is good to get rid of malware.

Onyar, buddy, what you need to do is reset your wireless adapter and get in via an Ethernet connection, the RJ-45 type or USB if your router has that connection, turn off wireless access for the time being, then set it up as WPA2 only and change the default login and password for the router, once that is down reboot the router while still on a wired connection. Then select the option to connect to your router management terminal / web interface as HTTPS and not HTTP, to make it that much harder to get into your router from the outside. Once you have that changed and ready to go, now you go to change the actual name of the wireless connection, the SSID, which should be unique not so it looks like all the others when you do a site survey when your wireless is re-enabled later the reason for this is, so many people have made this mistake in connecting with the wrong Wireless Router and using someone else's Internet connection, that is why you make sure that when you are connected to your wireless router you have a previous copy of the wireless router's MAC address and check to see that it matches, if you don't you are on a foreign wireless access point and may be logging your Internet traffic or sniffing the data for passwords, etc.

For example, if it's a Linksys router the tradtional IP address for those are 192.168.1.1 and when you surf to it on the web you will type that number into the address bar of the web browser. When you have a WPA2 connection, that is securing your signal between
your wireless connection on your computer and the wireless router but that's for hardware, the HTTPS encryption is for the software running through the hardware encryption for the browser (client) and the web server application running on the wireless router itself.

Once you have that running as per this description before you go wireless again, you need to look at the services running in your network from the client side, if you are not using any other devices on your network like a media player running through a private cloud on your LAN (Local Area Network) you should lock your computer down so that your wireless network connection is not "discoverable" by other network devices that are yours or maybe not, this a way in for hackers or rather I would rather say people can literally walk right in to your computer and mess with you. Microsoft by default and it's security setting is inherently not safe at all.

If you or anyone else needs to know how to do this and what configurations to set or disable to make their computers and network a little more harden, do speak up, I can refer you to some really good sites in regards to this.

A little about hacking, most people that call themselves hackers by default aren't, they're wannabes. If they are using other peoples' tools or scripted attacks, those are called people are called "script kiddies" and there are a shatload of them out there on the Internet.
Hacking is in general, making a computer or application or library routine do something it was never intended to do in the first place. Now with that being said, the haphazard way in which most Microsoft Windows Operating Systems were programmed, I guess I could call the Windows O.S. itself, one big hack, or a series of little hacks that has become one big problem for many people. To hack, take a lot of skill, time and patience, even in working with a security exploit hole ridden O.S. like Microsoft Windows.

Yes, even Apple OS X (Apple Darwin based most on FreeBSD source and NextStep sources), Linux distro and BSD itself can be hacked,
there is no O.S. on the planet that can't be hacked or exploited, it's the nature of the beast.

Now, I know this next thing will get some people mad, it's about cracking, to crack is to break a password, whether it's intelligent cracking, you know your target, etc., or brute force cracking using dictionary attacks or mathematical approaches. Cracking arguably
takes more smarts than hacking does because if you do it the intelligent way, not only do you have to know hacking (not the script kiddy way but the real way) but you have to know how the security system or application you are interfacing works but you don't have the specifics of the password itself nor how it was chosen.

People who steal passwords on Window's PCs use exploits and IRC based bots to use your computer as a zombie, not just stealing information / data but can use your computer as part of a larger botnet DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service Attack, known as a the
Distributed Ping of Death (DPoD) or other methods.

These tools are found in downloadable software where you may have had good intentions but the people who injected this code may not have (obviously). The keylogger is actually the least of your worries, because, what happens is the virus infects your computer's code libraries, then infects your Windows Registry (really bad and hard to get rid of), creates or loads in a trojan to punch a hole in your firewall of your computer or uses hooking to connect into the stream of an existing network connection to be more covert. Then
the connection is made from the botnet, a keylogger is uploaded started and other botnet instructions are then loaded onto your system with an update of the original virus in case you try to get rid of it.

The best thing I can tell you to do, is yes, it's annoying and yes it takes a long time but, completely wipe your hard disk, and load Windows 7 from a brand new installation, get all the updates from Windows Update, get your security software on your system of course update it, and scan your system, also redownload the anti-malware stuff I had from above, scan the system, then redownload
Entropia Universe.

By the way, the Sometrics offers in the free tab for the most part should be avoided, I have been doing an extended investigation with MindArk in regard to some of those not being safe as per the anti-virus suites such as Norton 360 and many others stating that the plug-ins being installed on your browser have a problem with their reputation, that could be anything from bad coding to intentional shadiness. So, please be careful if you are looking to make PED from outside of Entropia Universe.

By the way, Sometrics was bought out by American Express not too long ago and I have been in talks with in regards to some of those offers and they're looking into them as well.

 

The other thing is this, as far as I know, when you create an account with MindArk you cannot change your information afterward until you get a Gold Card, as I remember it as that way because I was going to change my E-Mail address before I had a Gold Card and the only I could do it was send in my state issue ID in this case my Driver's License since I am in the USA to prove I am actually me because the options were greyed out in my account section. I spoke to a MindArk representative back then and they told me that if I got a Gold Card that I could then edit my stuff readily when I entered a correct time code. Which then that wonderful option for if you deposited more than 5000 PED worth into the system and limited time offer you could get it for free, for which I went with that option, about 5 days later and the GC and reader came in the mail from MA. After I activated it from MA's site I logged in and changed my E-Mail address, I could also change my other details.

As far as I know, the system still works this way as it would make sense it works this way too.