Giving away accounts

[Général_Argos]

Just wait and come back later...

[Peeka~]

I'm really not liking this solution because I just want you to stay Teot or you could have your brother change the pw's and not keep the information on your pc? If that is whats scaring you?

[GM-Ayu]

I can probably jail+mute your char so it can't escape or get out to use your identity to do whatever malicious contention. When people who steals account realize that it's an account they can't use, they usually leave and it's reasonably effective like what J J J say.

I think that's much better than just throwing your character away. The fear factor now may be causing you to do rash decisions, so it's best not to go for something permanent that's irreversible too. Let the GMs keep the char and you just leave the account be, then at least when it's all settled, we can just reverse the things.

[Kadar]

I'm really not liking this solution because I just want you to stay Teot or you could have your brother change the pw's and not keep the information on your pc? If that is whats scaring you?

The hacker could use a keylogger and have your password as soon as you type it in once.

[Peeka~]

I'm really not liking this solution because I just want you to stay Teot or you could have your brother change the pw's and not keep the information on your pc? If that is whats scaring you?

The hacker could use a keylogger and have your password as soon as you type it in once.

Though her brother has another pc btw.

[Jaymyster]

i think its better to just ban it instead of muting and jailing ayu because teh hacker will go on it like... meh, shes jailed, ill come back later and try, and eventually he'll try randomly in the future and be successful.

i think banning and unbanning is better cause bann usually means, BANN!!

he wont come back :-)

[Aaronock]

Now to get around the keylogger problem too, couldn't a GM that deals with pwords like Aki get on the account and another GM just ban it? Well...I suppose Miss Teot would have to agree to the terms and tell the GM's to unban it when she arrives back :]

[Avogadro]

Honestly, this is a huge amount of unnecessary worry and work for something that should be relatively easy to fix, assuming a few things:
1) whoever this person is does not live in the same house that you do
2) whoever this person is does not have direct access to your computer.

There is a very straightforward way to handle this, that requires only a basic knowledge about computers and potentially a few suggestions that will just make life easier anyway. Based on what I've read this person does things that are implausible at best, unless your computer is full of viruses and trojans.

1) Read the following steps. If you can not do them, find someone who may be willing to give you a hand.

2) Find the driver disks that came with your computer. If you don't know where they are, you can usually get drivers from the internet. Save them to a flash disk or DVD.

3) Back up things like pictures and documents. Burn them to a DVD. Back up programs if you absolutely need them, but be aware that any trojan/keylogger/etc install can be hidden in an exe with no difficulty at all.

4) Go to your local electronics store (FutureShop is a decent enough bet) and pick up a wireless router. I'd recommend the Linksys WRT54G, as it's been out forever and is one of the most functional, easy to use routers on the market IMO. Maybe pick up an extra network cable if you don't already have more than you need.

5) Plug your DSL modem into the WAN port of the DSL router. Plug your computer into port 1 of the router. Yes, you could use wifi, but if you have a desktop near your router, what's the point? Just cable it. At the same time, call up your ISP and ask if they can change your IP address, or how often it refreshes.

6) Now that your hardware is ready, get out your windows install disc and put it in the CD drive, reset your computer. (note: I've never actually done this with XP, but 2k works exactly like this. I suspect XP is similar, but someone can probably confirm)

7) When the computer resets, you should be able to select the option to fix/repair a windows installation.

8) There should be an option to reinstall windows. Ideally, this will involve deleting everything and starting from scratch.

Protip: If you can, but THIS IS NOT NECESSARY, create two drive partitions. 10Gb should be enough for the system drive, everything else on the other partition.

9) Follow the instructions for the windows installation. It should take around half an hour to an hour.

10) Once windows boots, you may have to use the drivers you downloaded or found the discs for earlier. Use as necessary.

11) Create an administrator account. Give it a good password. I suggest something like you passport number backwards, or every odd letter of the street and town you grew up in. Under no circumstances should your password make any verbal sense, and should ideally just be a random string of 8 or more letters and numbers. If you can add punctuation, do it. Now commit this to memory. Under no circumstances should you write this down, and if you do, keep it in your wallet. Leaving passwords next to the computer is a terrible idea.

12) Now you can go through and start reinstalling programs and backed up files. The most important thing to ask when you do this is "do I absolutely need this program?" If I had to pick, you could probably get by with 99% of what you want to do with just:
- Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox)
- VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org)
- uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com)
- HeRO, obviously
- some sort of office program, but I'm not advocating torrenting Office... despite listing torrent software....
- some sort of music software. but itunes can burn in hell.
- some sort of IM client. if you're into it. Googletalk is likely the best.
- Adobe acrobat, as pdfs are everywhere. Flash may be good too.

But seriously. Keep It Simple. The worst thing you can do is install a bunch of garbage programs that do nothing more than make shiny flashy icons on the screen or stupid purple gorillas on the taskbar who show you interesting web ads. Seriously.

13) Now create a user account. This will be the user account you use, and have logged in. Don't give yourself the permission to install anything. Why? Because it doesn't give anyone else the permission to install anything, either. Give that a good password, too.

protip: The idea is not to make your life difficult, but to make it next to impossible for anyone who finds out your password to do anything meaningful to your system. Sadly, it only akes about ten minutes with a screwdriver and a laptop to get every password in your system (believe me, it's scary easy if you have physical access to the disc), so the best bet is not to let anyone on your computer. EVER. This may seem mean, but consider what you're going through now, and consider that if you do this right, you will likely never have another virus, spyware, and cut your crashes down by posibly infinity billion percent.

14) Make sure everything works on the user account. It ideally should.

--- At this point you're technically done. Your computer is now trojan and virus free, with no spyware and likely 50% faster. You can stop here and play RO again without fear that anyone will be accessing you. The wireless router will prevent most external attacks from getting in. Nobody can watch what you do online, and your life will be a lot smoother.

The rest of this e-mail is what I like to think of as "Security tips from an angry old man". They will seem excessive. They may seem unreasonable. But I've run the same unpatched windows system with no virus scanner for 8 years now and have had a total of zero detected viruses (download a scanner every 6 months or so, and no go so far).

1) Now, stop using internet explorer. Granted, the newer versions are shiny and finally support things like browser tabs, but it's just a sad fact that the vast majority of browser hacks are for IE. Until this changes, I'll avoid it like the plague.

2) Never, ever, ever, EVER run any e-mail attachment that comes from anyone. Sure, you may want to see that funny slide show of kitties in shoes that your best friend sent, but really? How do you know that their e-mail wasn't hacked and that slideshow turns out to be a trojan. If you absolutely have to, I guess you can run some things, but I make it a rule that unless someone talks to me directly and confirms the contents of the file they sent, I will not open it. And if it ends in .exe, .inf, .bat, or any other executable format, do not want.

3) On the subject of e-mail, if you don't use webmail, at least don't use Outlook. They've fixed a lot over the years so now it doesn't auto-run attachments, but I've given up on it. Gmail is just so much better.

4) Just be careful what you download. If you're unsure, get a trial virus scanner and test it. Especially with torrents.

5) Don't give out your password to anyone. Ever. And if you break up with someone, change it immediately, regardless of if they know it or not.

Anyway, I hope this at least points the way to how to fix this problem, but remember that if you do things properly, the internet can be a lot nicer.

[mahawirasd]

You miss me Ayu? Bc I miss you and everyone T_T
Honestly though, I cant keep those chars bc my hacker knows them and will always get me through them by the IP. My hacker is playing on the server and just wont go away T_T
I hope to be able to join you guys again...well see what the detective says since I filed a report ^_^

first off: +1 to avogadro for a very thorough explanation/instructions. Hopefully miss Teot can carry them out well enough or at least get some1 to help her with it.

second of all: try changing your PW with another computer, go to an internet cafe or sumtin if necessary.

third of all: don't give out your items etc, coz u can come back someday after you resolve the problem. We all miss you.

4th: i highlighted what you said, is that true?
can we confirm that?
isn't it against the rules to hijack another person's account?
maybe you can talk with panda about logging IPs that have accessed your account to pinpoint who that person is and block that IP from getting into your account.


-w-

[Général_Argos]

@avogadro: If the hacker managed to crack in her computer once, why woudln't he be able to do it another time? Btw, if the hacker rooted hero's box, and that her computer connects to hero for playing purpose, what could happen do you think?

Giving advices here and there is all nice, but what she need is to contact specialists ;o