Post by nemolives on May 17, 2017 22:15:03 GMT
Before I start, I will state that because of the hard to trace nature of online crime, I only have *suspicions* about the individuals responsible, and an investigation by the UK police haven't been able to find conclusive evidence so far.
But I will go on to show that, even though I've that crime report and the suspected security breach to Portalarium, and mentioned often in passing for some time now that behind the scenes the harassment had escalated to criminal behaviour, neither Portalarium nor the spectacularly toxic community here and on their forums seem to care in the slightest.
But here's what the summary of what I believe happened;
One of Shroud's defenders hacked into my email, had access for an uncertain amount of time, and possibly got into the accounts of at least one other critic who claimed they'd tried to destroy his social connections once in; whilst I can see no evidence of outgoing emails doing the same on my account, I've been tracking further attempts to get back into my account for months, including most recently just yesterday (17th May). And the behaviour of the community since has increased the suspicion it was connected...
**HERE ARE THE PROVABLE FACTS**
On January 5th of this year, my email account was suddenly shut down by Microsoft for security reasons. Checking the details, I noticed there were numerous attempts to automatically sync to it from proxy servers around the world.
I checked my system was clean, changed my password, and ensured there was in fact no devices synced to my account that could be acting as a backdoor... and quietly went to the Microsoft forums to first check what the data I was seeing could mean.
At this point, I hadn't discussed my suspicions with anyone from the critical community, or named the game there that I suspected it might be related too, because I didn't want to slander the innocent.
Meanwhile the attempts to get back in were frantic, as you can see from the comment thread above; As well as proxy attempts via syncing, they tried a direct manual webpage log in using the old password... and forged one proxy to a US city that shares the same name as my UK one.
And that shows they must have got enough information, either through reading my emails, or other data harvesting methods to identify it... because my IP address resolves to my ISP's location, which is in another city, and not my geographical location. And it was a *personal* attack, because they were hand typing some of the log in attempts... whilst my Sent folder wasn't full of spam emails to anyone else, which would normally be the case when it's a simple hijack to send out Penis Enhancer adverts etc, or the returned emails from dead addresses I keep in my Contacts precisely for warning me of that problem.
The attempts, both sync and manual log in continued every few days throughout January and into February; I kept quiet, waiting to see if anyone, anywhere would try and use what they might have discovered.
At the start of the next month though, I suddenly got a circular email from a criticial poster here. They can name themselves if they wish too, but it said the following;
We talked a while behind the scenes; whether the above was honest or not, I cannot prove. For all I know it could have been the hacker again, trying to make me paranoid; What I can prove is that it convinced me, as I'd not mentioned my email hack to anyone yet, that the actual criminal actions against me was likely was connected to Shroud of the Avatar too, from what ever angle.
I thus contacted the local authorities in my country on the 19th February, and in the part where you were required to name who you thought might be acting against you, pointed to both Reddit, the official forums, and the user Jammaplaya as the likely culprit as he was then more than a year into his campaign of sociopathic harassment against rune_74, had claimed Portalarium were helping him with his abuse by leaking information, and had recently turned his attentions to me... including going as far as using both his sockpuppets and main profile to host abuse direct towards me.
Afterwards I then contacted Berek directly on the official forums to warn him that I had opened a police report; Notice too that I also took the time to report yet another example of the fine upstanding community of Shroud backers, a user pretending to a fellow backer who was dying of cancer, just to try and get a few cheap laughs.
I also explained to Berek further in the thread, that my thinking was that whilst I didn't believe that they were leaking personal data, (even Portalarium aren't quite that bad... YET) it was possible that one way to get passwords for a lot of Shroud backers was if their forum database had been compromised, the details purchased, and where those passwords were re-used elsewhere, someone was getting in. So to check their database was secure.
And in the meantime, I asked... just what does anyone have to do to bring the community into disrepute before you'll take action against them.
So far, no action has been taken against anyone posting hate against critics elsewhere, except to delete the most awful abuse on Portalarium's own forums. See the rest of this Subreddit for details.
Meanwhile, I went back to waiting and watching the attempts to get back in. They slowed down over March and had stopped except for one attempt in April, so I started mentioning here at Reddit that the harassment had become criminal, to see if it triggered anyone who knew more to comment, as I had noticed potential patterns, where by the attempts flared back up attacks against critics had been particularly awful recently. I'll come back to that in the discussion of what I suspect shortly...
Unfortunately, I got a letter on the 1st of May from the UK police stating they'd not been able to get enough information to prosecute. So I decided to try and generate more evidence by suggesting ahead of time when I might not be online, for traceable claimed reasons and which I could link to new attacks against my email.
Which should explain this conversation; and why I also have so much contempt for so many of the Shroud community. Before this conversation, the last automatic attempt to get into my email was in March, nearly a month before, although there'd been 1 manual log in attempt on the 22nd of April.
I spoke to @siammang (and he knows it) because I suspected he wasn't entirely being honest with us, on the 26th of April privately, told him I knew about email hacks, and then said "I'm due in hospital in a few hours, and won't be back home for a day or so, sorry." Which wasn't true. I had shifts then but could watch my computer. After which, from the 27th through to the 29th though, my email was being hit again automatically by proxies from Algeria and the West coast of the US, as well as a manual log in attempt on the 29th.
Which could be a coincidence. Except the newest incoherent hate filled account of Jammaplaya was registered at the exact same time, and started to accuse another user of needing a trip to the hospital... Do my comments to @siammang make sense now? Rather a mighty coincidence, and you'd think someone who at least cared about being honest and respectful would answer what I've pointed out to him twice now, that it looks like he at the very least gossiped to someone who I suspect is launching ham fisted email hack attempts...
**Now For The Wider Context, Less Proof, More Flavouring**
Of course, the Shroud backing community has been known for quite some time that they're deliberately toxic to anyone who attacks their Precious. InsaneMembrane talked about having his personal details leaked, and his daughter's threatened on his blog more than a year and a half ago.. I dealt with my own reports of how Portalarium allowed scammers to buy their way out of bans, and people to organise campaigns of harassment by directly using their own Steam forums, at this Reddit thread here. Other users even on the official forums, have also reported how they've had to go to the Police to stop people harassing them. The problem is, even when it *happens* there, on those forums, Portalarium don't give a shit as long as the backers profess to still be defending the game.
But it's more than that; the backers literally don't care. They think any level of slander, abuse, harassment is a laughing matter when it's directed against people who attack their Precious.
One person I mentioned real life hacking too on the official forums proceeded to go on an appalling rant about how they had absolutely no sympathy for one of the named victims, because they dared to have their lighthouse shine into their home... and they'd believed all the vicious rumours that they only had a lighthouse to be a bitch. Look at the recent threads about name changes, and how people take an awful thrill in reporting each other for petty violations of their own self importance.
Or... Observe this fine example from Reddit the last few days; when it's pointed out that in looking for a quote from the developers, I discovered one of the threads where organised abuse of me is still uncensored, 8 months after I reported it, and even leaked the correspondence where I tried to get them to at least look at it; but the response of one @mradventur3 is not to bother reading the thread, but rather to laugh about the abuse.
And then spend days engaging in it himself.
Notice he goes on to try and slander me claiming I was stalking him, *even though I've just stated the context I noticed his name was in that thread too*; and then he literally starts making up alternative realities in an attempt to blacken my name.
This is the video he claims I only ever failed to loot a single corpse, and faked even that. Notice there's three unlootable sheep in the first scene alone, and I go on to repeat the problem with chickens and multiple other sheep.
The priority, instead of addressing and fixing *a basic game mechanic* was to start hurling abuse at the person who pointed it out.
This is the video he claims was only about him, and is supposedly a confession of scatlogical fetishes... In reality of course, it's a general discussion about the difference between having the strength to do good, and just imagining you're good...
Go back and read through that profile for the last few days, and see if it bears *any* relation to reality.
**And all this... just because you don't like a computer game they're hopelessly self-associating with?**
And yet it's officially tolerated by the people developing the game!
No, I can't prove yet my real life harassment is tied to Shroud. But in 30 years of gaming, including the original Ultima games, I've never known any community that's been so prepared to engage in such despicable behaviour based upon a sense of cult like devotion to a game. I literally don't know *anyone* foul enough to behave this way, because at least people with Alzheimers don't know what they're doing... the Shroud community quite willingly cheers on hatred of others simply because they don't have the courage to listen to criticism of their Precious computer game.
But now you can see a more accurate face for what lies behind the Shroud.
I continue to report the hack attempts of my email to the police, the endless proxy alts who turn up to harass people here, and if the same happens to you, I recommend you do the same... even if we can't catch them, let's make sure the historical record at least is never forgotten.
But I will go on to show that, even though I've that crime report and the suspected security breach to Portalarium, and mentioned often in passing for some time now that behind the scenes the harassment had escalated to criminal behaviour, neither Portalarium nor the spectacularly toxic community here and on their forums seem to care in the slightest.
But here's what the summary of what I believe happened;
One of Shroud's defenders hacked into my email, had access for an uncertain amount of time, and possibly got into the accounts of at least one other critic who claimed they'd tried to destroy his social connections once in; whilst I can see no evidence of outgoing emails doing the same on my account, I've been tracking further attempts to get back into my account for months, including most recently just yesterday (17th May). And the behaviour of the community since has increased the suspicion it was connected...
**HERE ARE THE PROVABLE FACTS**
On January 5th of this year, my email account was suddenly shut down by Microsoft for security reasons. Checking the details, I noticed there were numerous attempts to automatically sync to it from proxy servers around the world.
I checked my system was clean, changed my password, and ensured there was in fact no devices synced to my account that could be acting as a backdoor... and quietly went to the Microsoft forums to first check what the data I was seeing could mean.
At this point, I hadn't discussed my suspicions with anyone from the critical community, or named the game there that I suspected it might be related too, because I didn't want to slander the innocent.
Meanwhile the attempts to get back in were frantic, as you can see from the comment thread above; As well as proxy attempts via syncing, they tried a direct manual webpage log in using the old password... and forged one proxy to a US city that shares the same name as my UK one.
And that shows they must have got enough information, either through reading my emails, or other data harvesting methods to identify it... because my IP address resolves to my ISP's location, which is in another city, and not my geographical location. And it was a *personal* attack, because they were hand typing some of the log in attempts... whilst my Sent folder wasn't full of spam emails to anyone else, which would normally be the case when it's a simple hijack to send out Penis Enhancer adverts etc, or the returned emails from dead addresses I keep in my Contacts precisely for warning me of that problem.
The attempts, both sync and manual log in continued every few days throughout January and into February; I kept quiet, waiting to see if anyone, anywhere would try and use what they might have discovered.
At the start of the next month though, I suddenly got a circular email from a criticial poster here. They can name themselves if they wish too, but it said the following;
I'm sending this message out to a few dozen people.
I had to reset my steam password and Reddit. There were some bizarre messages posted that I was contacted over. At first I thought maybe my girlfriend posted them to the wrong people when we were drinking the night before (even though it didn't sound like her language).
That doesn't seem to be the case. As two messages to personal friends were sent while we were asleep.
I would like to apologize to anyone who got these bizarre messages that are out of my character. Passwords have been reset and I am monitoring. I won't point any fingers but there is a sub I post on quite often over a game Shroud of The Avatar. I made some remarks lately about what I think of the game and was harassed a bit. And then this happened.
Again, this should be fixed now but I want to apologize.
I had to reset my steam password and Reddit. There were some bizarre messages posted that I was contacted over. At first I thought maybe my girlfriend posted them to the wrong people when we were drinking the night before (even though it didn't sound like her language).
That doesn't seem to be the case. As two messages to personal friends were sent while we were asleep.
I would like to apologize to anyone who got these bizarre messages that are out of my character. Passwords have been reset and I am monitoring. I won't point any fingers but there is a sub I post on quite often over a game Shroud of The Avatar. I made some remarks lately about what I think of the game and was harassed a bit. And then this happened.
Again, this should be fixed now but I want to apologize.
We talked a while behind the scenes; whether the above was honest or not, I cannot prove. For all I know it could have been the hacker again, trying to make me paranoid; What I can prove is that it convinced me, as I'd not mentioned my email hack to anyone yet, that the actual criminal actions against me was likely was connected to Shroud of the Avatar too, from what ever angle.
I thus contacted the local authorities in my country on the 19th February, and in the part where you were required to name who you thought might be acting against you, pointed to both Reddit, the official forums, and the user Jammaplaya as the likely culprit as he was then more than a year into his campaign of sociopathic harassment against rune_74, had claimed Portalarium were helping him with his abuse by leaking information, and had recently turned his attentions to me... including going as far as using both his sockpuppets and main profile to host abuse direct towards me.
Afterwards I then contacted Berek directly on the official forums to warn him that I had opened a police report; Notice too that I also took the time to report yet another example of the fine upstanding community of Shroud backers, a user pretending to a fellow backer who was dying of cancer, just to try and get a few cheap laughs.
I also explained to Berek further in the thread, that my thinking was that whilst I didn't believe that they were leaking personal data, (even Portalarium aren't quite that bad... YET) it was possible that one way to get passwords for a lot of Shroud backers was if their forum database had been compromised, the details purchased, and where those passwords were re-used elsewhere, someone was getting in. So to check their database was secure.
And in the meantime, I asked... just what does anyone have to do to bring the community into disrepute before you'll take action against them.
So far, no action has been taken against anyone posting hate against critics elsewhere, except to delete the most awful abuse on Portalarium's own forums. See the rest of this Subreddit for details.
Meanwhile, I went back to waiting and watching the attempts to get back in. They slowed down over March and had stopped except for one attempt in April, so I started mentioning here at Reddit that the harassment had become criminal, to see if it triggered anyone who knew more to comment, as I had noticed potential patterns, where by the attempts flared back up attacks against critics had been particularly awful recently. I'll come back to that in the discussion of what I suspect shortly...
Unfortunately, I got a letter on the 1st of May from the UK police stating they'd not been able to get enough information to prosecute. So I decided to try and generate more evidence by suggesting ahead of time when I might not be online, for traceable claimed reasons and which I could link to new attacks against my email.
Which should explain this conversation; and why I also have so much contempt for so many of the Shroud community. Before this conversation, the last automatic attempt to get into my email was in March, nearly a month before, although there'd been 1 manual log in attempt on the 22nd of April.
I spoke to @siammang (and he knows it) because I suspected he wasn't entirely being honest with us, on the 26th of April privately, told him I knew about email hacks, and then said "I'm due in hospital in a few hours, and won't be back home for a day or so, sorry." Which wasn't true. I had shifts then but could watch my computer. After which, from the 27th through to the 29th though, my email was being hit again automatically by proxies from Algeria and the West coast of the US, as well as a manual log in attempt on the 29th.
Which could be a coincidence. Except the newest incoherent hate filled account of Jammaplaya was registered at the exact same time, and started to accuse another user of needing a trip to the hospital... Do my comments to @siammang make sense now? Rather a mighty coincidence, and you'd think someone who at least cared about being honest and respectful would answer what I've pointed out to him twice now, that it looks like he at the very least gossiped to someone who I suspect is launching ham fisted email hack attempts...
**Now For The Wider Context, Less Proof, More Flavouring**
Of course, the Shroud backing community has been known for quite some time that they're deliberately toxic to anyone who attacks their Precious. InsaneMembrane talked about having his personal details leaked, and his daughter's threatened on his blog more than a year and a half ago.. I dealt with my own reports of how Portalarium allowed scammers to buy their way out of bans, and people to organise campaigns of harassment by directly using their own Steam forums, at this Reddit thread here. Other users even on the official forums, have also reported how they've had to go to the Police to stop people harassing them. The problem is, even when it *happens* there, on those forums, Portalarium don't give a shit as long as the backers profess to still be defending the game.
But it's more than that; the backers literally don't care. They think any level of slander, abuse, harassment is a laughing matter when it's directed against people who attack their Precious.
One person I mentioned real life hacking too on the official forums proceeded to go on an appalling rant about how they had absolutely no sympathy for one of the named victims, because they dared to have their lighthouse shine into their home... and they'd believed all the vicious rumours that they only had a lighthouse to be a bitch. Look at the recent threads about name changes, and how people take an awful thrill in reporting each other for petty violations of their own self importance.
Or... Observe this fine example from Reddit the last few days; when it's pointed out that in looking for a quote from the developers, I discovered one of the threads where organised abuse of me is still uncensored, 8 months after I reported it, and even leaked the correspondence where I tried to get them to at least look at it; but the response of one @mradventur3 is not to bother reading the thread, but rather to laugh about the abuse.
And then spend days engaging in it himself.
Notice he goes on to try and slander me claiming I was stalking him, *even though I've just stated the context I noticed his name was in that thread too*; and then he literally starts making up alternative realities in an attempt to blacken my name.
This is the video he claims I only ever failed to loot a single corpse, and faked even that. Notice there's three unlootable sheep in the first scene alone, and I go on to repeat the problem with chickens and multiple other sheep.
The priority, instead of addressing and fixing *a basic game mechanic* was to start hurling abuse at the person who pointed it out.
This is the video he claims was only about him, and is supposedly a confession of scatlogical fetishes... In reality of course, it's a general discussion about the difference between having the strength to do good, and just imagining you're good...
Go back and read through that profile for the last few days, and see if it bears *any* relation to reality.
**And all this... just because you don't like a computer game they're hopelessly self-associating with?**
And yet it's officially tolerated by the people developing the game!
No, I can't prove yet my real life harassment is tied to Shroud. But in 30 years of gaming, including the original Ultima games, I've never known any community that's been so prepared to engage in such despicable behaviour based upon a sense of cult like devotion to a game. I literally don't know *anyone* foul enough to behave this way, because at least people with Alzheimers don't know what they're doing... the Shroud community quite willingly cheers on hatred of others simply because they don't have the courage to listen to criticism of their Precious computer game.
But now you can see a more accurate face for what lies behind the Shroud.
I continue to report the hack attempts of my email to the police, the endless proxy alts who turn up to harass people here, and if the same happens to you, I recommend you do the same... even if we can't catch them, let's make sure the historical record at least is never forgotten.
