BE AWARE! What TSR *really* do with your account details...

[onyxpetals]

I see your point. maybe they are gathering info and keeping quiet for the time being. but what do we know right? what we have are hunches, we'll see what happens in two or three days. one side will definitely cave.

[kaoz666]

That's an interesting take on the EAxis end of this mess, Zordac. It'll be interesting to see if that might be in fact the course being taken. But of course only time will tell. Thomas has pretty much been busted red handed, or people close to him over on TSR, however it goes. There's no doubt about that. Where my doubt lies is if EA is actually protecting someone who they are affiliated with that blatantly pirated someone else's person info for their own (In this case, TSR) gain.

[skavenhorde]

I see your point. maybe they are gathering info and keeping quiet for the time being. but what do we know right? what we have are hunches, we'll see what happens in two or three days. one side will definitely cave.

Not so sure about the caving part. They could deny it forever saying some mystical hacker did it. But like Delphy said that leaves the topic of the stolen content and how it magically appeared on their site.

[AnneUumellmahaye]

This incident goes far beyond the pay vs. free debate.
No matter on which side you are, no matter if TSR's claim that they were hacked is true or not (I doubt that they're telling the truth btw), you have to deal with one major issue if you are registered there:
Either way you look at it, your personal data is NOT SAFE at TSR.

[saowens]

Thomas can deny all he wants but computer forensics will find the culprit if it comes to that. I'm pretty sure the MTS2 servers are located in the United States so then it could be the F.B.I. up TSR's arse with a microscope even though TSR isn't in the U.S.

I just hope Delphy reported it.

[skavenhorde]

Ok I just have to say OMG!!!

I started a thread over there at BBS asking about What is off Topic

It had like 10 posts in it. All of them civil and about getting information on what was going on and now I went to reply again and this is what I got- http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.2,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23&threadID=0ea6ad0e2f27e770347a3734bca405d2&directoryID=2&startRow=1

I took screenshots and will post them tomorrow to show how civil this discussion was but right now I am beat. It is almost 2 am here and I have to work tomorrow.

I just wanted to say I am glad this happened in a way. It gave me a chance to come out of my lurker shell and really say hi to all of you.

Anyways thanks again for keeping this site up and for keeping us *hopefully* former lurkers informed.

Edit- They have a new warning. I hope it was not because of me because that would seriously be lame. There was not one thing wrong with those posts. Everything was civil. But if they want to turn people away from buying their new game...Then fine by me.
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=4e8943877f9f5548baa14f1faaaa8d98&directoryID=2&startRow=1&openItemID=item.2,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23

[AnneUumellmahaye]

I just hope Delphy reported it.

Oh, I'm sure he's already collecting the evidence that TSR left scattered all over the Sims community!

Kudos to him for keeping cool and staying fair, even though the nastiness of this attack is plain to see for everyone!

Anyways thanks again for keeping this site up and for keeping us *hopefully* former lurkers informed.

That goes for me too

[onyxpetals]

lilithlee over at GOS said that there was an official announcement regarding TSR & MTS, threads bout it will be DELETED and there will be BANNING.

http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=11172.120

[Naria]

Ok I just have to say OMG!!!

I started a thread over there at BBS asking about What is off Topic

It had like 10 posts in it. All of them civil and about getting information on what was going on and now I went to reply again and this is what I got- http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.2,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23&threadID=0ea6ad0e2f27e770347a3734bca405d2&directoryID=2&startRow=1

I took screenshots and will post them tomorrow to show how civil this discussion was but right now I am beat. It is almost 2 am here and I have to work tomorrow.

I just wanted to say I am glad this happened in a way. It gave me a chance to come out of my lurker shell and really say hi to all of you.

Anyways thanks again for keeping this site up and for keeping us *hopefully* former lurkers informed.

Edit- They have a new warning. I hope it was not because of me because that would seriously be lame. There was not one thing wrong with those posts. Everything was civil. But if they want to turn people away from buying their new game...Then fine by me.
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=4e8943877f9f5548baa14f1faaaa8d98&directoryID=2&startRow=1&openItemID=item.2,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23

If my head wasn't spinning from a massive headache and continuing to stare at this computer screen, I would reregister with EA to tell them exactly what I think of their censorship of all these discussions. But as it is, I shall have to do so later or I risk passing out.

It makes me glad to know that there's no way the BBS is truly going to be able to stop people talking about this.

[MaryH]

EA is perfectly within their rights to censor/delete/edit any and all BBS content. It's a private site, and they're the ones in charge of it.
But that does not mean the discussion isn't going to go on without them. They're pefectly aware of what is going on, and they're up to their necks in stupidity in aligning with TSR for the Sims 3.
Before this, everyone was willing to grant them the benefit of a doubt with such a dumb move-now all doubt has been removed, and people are truly looking at the marriage of greed and bad taste with second thoughts.
It will impact the sales of Sims 3 if EA continues to be associated so closely with TSR, to the point where nobody with any sense will even touch the game.
Not everyone wants to have their private info possibly used against them in any way whatsoever.
Let the discussion continue and spread. The more people know what happened, the better. Someone will pay for this huge hacking, although right now it is not evident who will pay the biggest price-EA or TSR. Probably both in customers, accounts and money.
Serves them both right!

[Ali]

well, I'm really not surprised at this development

I would advise everyone to change your passwords here, just in case

Zordac - what was that about UDP searches - what the heck does that mean and how do I check for it?? *is very paranoid*!

[saowens]

Zordac - what was that about UDP searches - what the heck does that mean and how do I check for it?? *is very paranoid*!

Ali,

UDP port scans are one of the ways to find out if there are open ports on your system. There are a multitude of utilities out there in the clouds to use for this. There are also lots of utilities you can use to test your own system and close those ports. The best way to find the utilities would be to just do a google search for UDP port scanners or UDP port scanning utilities. If an open port is found then that is a back door so to speak into your system.

After the door is open anything is possible. Anything.

As far as how to check for it. That depends on how your firewall logs inbound traffic. You just have to look through the inbound logs. Mine logs them by ip address and web site name and the type of attempt. Like UDP or ICMP etc.  so it's pretty cut and dried as to what or who is doing the scan.

Nothing is fool proof but double layering your security, Nating your ip address and turning off ICMP requests is a good start.

There are to many fish in the sea for a hacker to waste time trying to break into something that doesn't seem to be there in the first place.

[Feisty32]

ok i'm really getting annoyed here if tsr is so bad why has'nt somebody reported it yet? untill  then of somebody can give me hardcore and solid evidence of this thing with tsr maybe then i will believe and don't give me links to read about tsr i want evidence some evidence that will prove this about tsr.


i have never downloaded from the booty and i never will end of story.

[Ali]

Feisty - have you read Delphy's posts where he shows the IP addresses that relate to the usage of buggy's account and the one that it Thomas's account?

TSR certainly aren't going to come right out and say it was them. Delphy is being very diplomatic in reporting back what TSR said about a security breach.

And if that IS correct about the breach then it's going to be pretty certain that your data isn't safe anyway

it's certainly your prerogative not to download from the booty, no-one is going to argue with you about that

[saowens]

It's going to be really hard to give you any solid evidence with out sending a link. The news about TSR and MTS2 is all over the internet. Not just this site.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point because I don't judge anything based on what I read some where. I do have personal experience with them trying to hack my system though.

The only reason any one would do a UDP port scan on someones system is so they can gain unauthorized access to it.

I have their ip address the scan was performed from and the name of the domain that it came from. The time it happened. In my case the domain name is thesimsresource.com (yes this is a fully qualified domain name). I am not going to send any of my firewall logs to anyone or post them anywhere though. Sorry. That in it's self would be a foolish thing to do.