Serious Problem with GhengisFarb

BigFree · June 18, 2003, 17:54

He has been lurking in and posting in Team Sunshine's private forum. He has done so numerous times despite my asking him not too. With him being on another team, it is reprehensible for him to do so. He is cheating for all intents and purposes.

It is not an accident, it is a deliberate action on his part.

I'm asking him to be banned from the PTWDG II Forums permanently. He has had access to Sunshine's plans for the game. He already quit the PTWDG I, for who knows what reasons, I suggest he do the same for this game.

Niessuh · June 18, 2003, 18:53

He has also written in our forum, but I believe that it was made simply to see if he could accede, I do not see bad intentions in this. We noticed that the forums were not safe.
I think that if He had bad intentions then nothing had been written.

Ming · June 18, 2003, 19:18

If he posts again in that forum... he is toast. He has been warned.

GhengisFarb™ · June 18, 2003, 19:20

The definition of "lurking" is to stand off to the side and not be seen. Anytime I test the Private Forums to see if they have been made "Private" I post. I for one want to know the minute they actually become Private.

As for your repeating asking me not too. I am getting very sick or you continuously lying. Blatant lying. You have NEVER once asked me to stop. If you had I would have respected your wishes.

This lying has already cost the Apolyton team credibility in the ISDG and I seriously doubt that credibility will ever be completely restored.

If you are going to post lies I suggest you do it somewhere where those that know the truth aren't likely to catch you.

Now, let's all play nice as I see no reason to continue a heated topic like this when the primary purpose of this site is to play/discuss games and have fun.

Ming · June 18, 2003, 19:38

Interesting... it seems somebody actually set your status to allow you to access all teams...

Test them again... It will be interesting to see if you stil can. And check your own teams forum out as well

You can reach me via PM...

Master Zen · June 18, 2003, 19:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Niessuh
He has also written in our forum, but I believe that it was made simply to see if he could accede, I do not see bad intentions in this. We noticed that the forums were not safe.
I think that if He had bad intentions then nothing had been written.

Yes, if someone really wanted to lurk for evil deeds, the last thing he would do is post and reveal his presence. Again, if someone felt unconfortable with that, and I personally would if this had continued for more time, I guess they should have asked him not to first.

Again, I'm sure this was not done with any true harm in mind, and I hope the mods find out how to solve the privacy issue first before any disciplinary action is taken.

Master Zen · June 18, 2003, 19:56

EDIT: Double post (damn server problems)

GhengisFarb™ · June 18, 2003, 20:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
Interesting... it seems somebody actually set your status to allow you to access all teams...

Test them again... It will be interesting to see if you stil can. And check your own teams forum out as well

You can reach me via PM...

And there you have it, BigFree.

At least your lying has gotten me removed from the PTWDG II.

I have no idea where this personal vendetta you've been waging for the last several months has come from but people are catching on to the fact that you routinely lie to accomplish your goals.

alva · June 18, 2003, 20:09

Amnesia troubling you again MZ?

-

I'm gonna set one thing straight here, not sure if it's needed (it shouldn't be!), but.
I almost resigned from the first PTW game due to well known reasons, but so far I stayed, mainly due to improving circomstances, but for other reasons aswell (time invested being one).
However I'm NOT going to be as patient with this one, so if we can't get along and play in a gentleman fashion I'm out.

I'm not pointing fingers here, just mentioning it.

With this one I wanne have fun from start to finish.

Have a fun game

BigFree · June 18, 2003, 20:23

Ming, did he have access to the ISDG Forums as well?

GF, I sent you an email and I told you in this post below not to be there and not to post. What part of this didn't you understand? You knew you were not supposed to be there, yet you went anyways. It is not good form to access (not to mention post) in a private game forum in which you are not a member.

You have no excuse GF, IMO.

As far as my reputation for the truth, ask other's that know me.

GhengisFarb™ · June 18, 2003, 21:01

1) You never emailed me. You and I both know you are lying about that. This is another example of how bad you are at it. You "emailed " me. Anybody would know that if you had wanted to request what you "claimed" you would have PMed me and not emailed me. You were too busy making up fabrications to try to bolster your arguments that you didn't think through what you were making up and chose a method was illogical.

2) The fact that you edited my post after I had responded to WhiteBandit is a further example of your pathetic vendetta against me.

3) I don't go in your forums and browse around so there's no way I would know you were posting to me. The only time I went back was when I noticed WhiteBandit had posted in the same forum seconds after I had. WhiteBandit and I have an ongoing dialogue for quite some time and I was pretty sure he had posted a reply to me.

4) I seriously wish Ming would close this thread as I am tired of defending myself against your childish accusations.

BigFree · June 18, 2003, 21:17

I've PM'ed you in the past and you were very slow to respond, I thought an email would get a quicker reponse.

I did send an email to you, I'm not lying or exercizing a vendetta against you. What I am doing is pointing out to others that you have browsed and posted in a forum in which you knew you were not supposed to.

I guess I can go along with the excuse you have for not seeing my edit to your post or even not recieving my email, but I cannot excuse you for entering and posting in a private forum. You made another post just yesterday (that I will not post a screen shot of.)

Saying that I'm a lier is unfounded. Saying that you are guilty of entering and posting in a private forum is fact.

Ming · June 18, 2003, 21:56

And why should I close this thread? GF... you are the one that CHEATED by looking at other teams forums.

What part of the word "private" do you not understand.

The fact that you "could" doesn't mean you should. A man of honor wouldn't have

Instead, you seemed more interested in flaunting the security than doing the right thing... which was to NOT LOOK OR POST.

Civ and all games are a matter of trust. I play Civ II MP with a bunch of people I trust... And those people have earned that trust. I'm shocked that somebody would purposely cheat, and make no bones about it... again, the fact that you could doesn't give your right to actually do so.

Master Zen · June 18, 2003, 23:03

Now if he had access to the ISDG forum then I'd be worried...

My point is that since this game hasn't even started, there really wasn't any harm done and at least I am not pissed or anything of the sort, in fact I kinda laughed at his posts in our forum

. But on the other hand, I would consider anybody accessing the ISDG forum as VERY serious business and contrary to the pledge that we all took. I really, REALLY, hope this was not the case but if it is, then the most gentlemanly thing to do would be to admit it if it happened.

Ming · June 18, 2003, 23:27

I will grant you that the game hasn't started... however, it's a matter of principle.

In Civ II MP games, anybody "CAN" load up the map and look. The point is, even though we can, we don't.
It's a matter of trust.

Again... saying that you can, therefore you do, is a lame excuse if you ask me. It shows the true nature of the character.

Master Zen · June 18, 2003, 23:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
I will grant you that the game hasn't started... however, it's a matter of principle.

In Civ II MP games, anybody "CAN" load up the map and look. The point is, even though we can, we don't.
It's a matter of trust.

Again... saying that you can, therefore you do, is a lame excuse if you ask me. It shows the true nature of the character.

Yes I agree, I know you're not a Civ3er but perhaps you know that Civ3 PBEMs are plagued with bugs which allow pretty much anyone to access the maps and units of other civs. Like you say, it is a matter of principle not to cheat this way besides the fact that it is also just not fun!

I think that if he really wanted to do harm, he just would have lurked and not posted, that way no-one would have known he had access to the forums. However what worries me is if he or anyone else might have had access to the ISDG forum or perhaps some other of the original PTWDG forums.

EDIT: is there a way to know which people are browsing a forum? I know most boards have this feature, although perhaps it is purposely ommitted in Poly to save queries... especially considering how slow the site can get on occassion...

Ming · June 18, 2003, 23:58

I not only can see what forum they are browsing, I can see what threads they are looking at... posting on... or editing... or whatever. Any Mod can.

What bothers me here is that "somebody" changed his permissions to be able to view all the forums... I was shocked to see that when I checked his account.

Master Zen · June 19, 2003, 00:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
I not only can see what forum they are browsing, I can see what threads they are looking at... posting on... or editing... or whatever. Any Mod can.

I meant the users, some boards you can see what people are browsing each forum, I know vB has this feature. That way if you see someone browsing a private forum that you know he is not a member of you can bring up the issue. It's impossible to have the mods checking everything at every moment but the users can do this for them. I know I'd scream bloody murder if I saw someone who wasn't in the ISDG or in my GoW team browing our forum...

Quote:

What bothers me here is that "somebody" changed his permissions to be able to view all the forums... I was shocked to see that when I checked his account.

With the database problems Poly has had, do you think perhaps it had accidentaly reset his permissions or something? Also I know he had asked for a change in modship for the Glory of War forum at around the same time, perhaps something got screwed up in that process... btw, by "all forums" do you mean all private forums or just the PTWDG II ones?

Ming · June 19, 2003, 00:20

As to the first... it slows the server to show who is browsing specific forums like you have seen at other sites. The way things are going now, not a good idea

As far as it being a poly problem, nahhh... it takes somebody with rights to make that kind of change. Could somebody have done it accidently... maybe... but that's a "tough" mistake to make. And as far as his access.. it only looked like the game II forums.

Togas · June 19, 2003, 02:02

Bigfree isn't lieing and saying he is is really low.

I don't understand why GF would actively try to enter the private forums, read the threads, and post replies to them. We have replies in 2 different threads from GF starting from the 16th and then again on the 18th.

When it happened on the 16th we asked him to stop with posts in the thread and thought that it was just a silly prank. When it happened on the 18th, BigFree and others on the team were definately not pleased.

BigFree is our leader and brought this matter forward in that capacity.

--Togas

Master Zen · June 19, 2003, 02:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
As to the first... it slows the server to show who is browsing specific forums like you have seen at other sites. The way things are going now, not a good idea

speaking of which, any insider news on why the server's having trouble?

FrustratedPoet · June 19, 2003, 04:34

Quote:

Originally posted by alva

I almost resigned from the first PTW game due to well known reasons, but so far I stayed, mainly due to improving circomstances, but for other reasons aswell (time invested being one).
However I'm NOT going to be as patient with this one, so if we can't get along and play in a gentleman fashion I'm out.

I agree. Some people here seem intent on turning these games into their own private soap operas and disrupting things for everyone else.

For the record, GF posted in our forum too (twice I think), but I didn't really care since the game hadn't started. It was just a bit of fun. We didn't specifically ask him to leave either - there seemed no point since we assumed the access problems would be solved soon anyway.However, if he had specifically been given authorisation to all forums (I didn't authorise him for our forum, that's for damn sure) then that changes things.

Did GF know he had been authorised for all forums?

And who has the kind of power to do that? Presumably only Mark, Dan and Ming....

OPD · June 19, 2003, 04:56

Ghengis posted on our forum too. Although I told him to get the hell out I don't really see it as that big of a deal, he's not the kind of person to cheat. If anything he just alerted us to to the fact that the forums may not be secure, so not to post secret stuff.

BigFree · June 19, 2003, 05:28

What if secret stuff was already there?

There's a problem with a "no harm, no foul" stance. People still get punnished for crimes even if no one was harmed, as it should be.

It is a matter of honor and trust that I feel was violated, for the most part; whether or not he will use any information to cheat is a question only he can answer.

If he was simply testing "Security", he could have simply posted in this forum about it or started a new thread. He did not. He posted in two different threads in our private forum! If he thought it was a joke, I am not laughing.

To stay away from another teams private forums, security loophole or not, goes towards a persons character; and in this case, it does not speak well for GF, IMO.

GhengisFarb™ · June 19, 2003, 06:27

Quote:

Originally posted by BigFree
What if secret stuff was already there?

There's a problem with a "no harm, no foul" stance. People still get punnished for crimes even if no one was harmed, as it should be.

It is a matter of honor and trust that I feel was violated, for the most part; whether or not he will use any information to cheat is a question only he can answer.

If he was simply testing "Security", he could have simply posted in this forum about it or started a new thread. He did not. He posted in two different threads in our private forum! If he thought it was a joke, I am not laughing.

To stay away from another teams private forums, security loophole or not, goes towards a persons character; and in this case, it does not speak well for GF, IMO.

If you had secret stuff in your forum then it shows how clueless you have been. The PTW II forums have had the same backdoor since GodKing discovered it. I know nothing about these permissions Ming spoke of, the backddoor only alllows you to access the last forum posted in. There is no ability for the person who breaks in to search through forums or pages it is a simple glitch that needs to be fixed.

The other teams aren't posting secret stuff, I know the team I was on before I was forced to resign from Demo Games is holding off discussing secret stuff until the forums are secure, if I had realized your team had secret stuff I wouldn't have tried to test it. Honestly, to my knowledge none of the other teams are posting any secret stuff. The only things I saw was Cake or Death polling over Cake or Death, Sunshine discussing what they should name their cities.

I understand that Ming wants everyone to not access the Private Forums out of principle. But if Apolyton isn't going to make the forums private because they want us to not access them out of principle why did they give us private forums in the first place? They should have just left us our threads and said don't look at these if you are not on the team.

It would accomplish the same thing.

I haven't tested the access since Ming told me not to, but I can bet its still accessible to everyone unless someone has fixed the forum bugs.

BigFree · June 19, 2003, 06:41

GF, you wouldn't know if other teams are posting secret stuff or not unless you asked them. You never asked me or anyone on team Sunshine. For you to assume that it would be otherwise shows how callous your actions were.

As far as my being "clueless", yes, I had no idea someone could use a "backdoor" to gain entry into our forum. But why would I expect such a thing? What kind of person goes around looking for such "backdoors"? I wouldn't think anyone assigned you that task on behalf of the people who run this site.

AND, if you can't understand doing things (or not doing them as this is the case) out of principle, then you have no idea about codes of ethics or honor.

My father once told me that locks were basically to keep honest people honest; for a determined thief would find a way in anyhow.

Hot_Enamel · June 19, 2003, 08:08

For a game that was supposed to be focussed on having fun ... we have had a wonderful start.

Hot Mustard · June 19, 2003, 08:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
For a game that was supposed to be focussed on having fun ... we have had a wonderful start.

Agreed.

I'm not on anyone's side, but hasn't everyone heard the expression, "No harm, no foul."?

GodKing posted in our forum to let us know that it wasn't secure, and I was glad that he demonstrated it. As a result, we have discussed nothing other than what we should use for civ customizations (Name, Title, etc).

Anyways, GF has pulled out of everything now, so it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that the security problem be solved, and despite several postings by Ming in this thread, I have yet to hear that it has been...

Ming · June 19, 2003, 08:46

GF... Try again... I want to see if it's just a matter of permissions... or if other action is needed.

Arrian · June 19, 2003, 09:21

:sigh:

-Arrian