Until last summer we experienced regular issues with mass hacking a couple of times a year, usually around Christmas and then again in the middle of summer. Nowadays, this is pretty much constant with hundreds of accounts being targeted every day. Many of those are old trial accounts or accounts that have been disabled for years and don’t hold anything of value to the RMT types. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of accounts that do have assets and ISK that end up being cleaned out – even the characters themselves being sold off. The damages are sadly not repairable in some cases, regardless of valiant efforts by GameMasters to help the unfortunate victims. The cost in resources is high for Customer Support, with highly trained and experienced GMs working almost exclusively on hacking cases – good people whose time and talent would be much better spent on enhancing the gaming experience and increasing the quality of service we are able to give to our customers.

The methods the hackers use differ and constantly change but the result is always the same – your account is ruined. However, users can take steps to limit the chances of getting attacked and following is a list of things that can help make your accounts more secure.

Do not use the same usernames and passwords for different games
Every day, we see countless attempts to log in with pairs of usernames and passwords, amongst them many usernames that don’t exist in our systems. Obviously, those non-existing usernames have been harvested from somewhere else. They have been gathered via keyloggers, phishing sites, trojans, hacked forums and whatnot and long lists of such username/password pairs are traded between RMT types for use against gamer accounts all over the place. A good way to avoid problems with this is to simply use different login details for each game.

The same should also go for third-party sites and forums as those are quite often targeted by the hackers to harvest login details. Login details for such third-party sites may or may not be encrypted so keeping separate usernames and passwords for your gaming accounts is the way to go.

Change your passwords regularly
If your login details have been harvested, a regular change of passwords may prevent attacks from being successful.

Use strong passwords
Passwords should be complex and difficult to guess. Using a mix of numbers and small/capital letters can reduce the dangers from brute-forcing and lucky guesswork on part of the hackers. Avoid using common dictionary words and keep in mind that longer passwords are less vulnerable than short ones. A minimum length of 16 characters with a mix of lower case, capitals and numbers is strongly recommended for heightened security.

Do not share your login details with anyone
If you give someone your login details, your security is only as good as his. If he is hacked, you are hacked – given that he won’t simply use or sell your details himself.

Don’t accept files from sources you don’t know
A lot of the mal-ware on the Internet specifically targets gamer accounts. RMT in online gaming is a huge racket – your login details are a valuable commodity and the pitfalls are many. Keyloggers and trojans – all geared towards the destruction of your accounts lay in wait, poised to strike when you open that file or go to that website. Phising schemes abound and social engineering is rife, on an Internet that often seems without law or consequence. One cannot be too careful – it’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you.

Regularly scan your systems for security threats with up-to-date anti-virus software
Protect yourself by running updated anti-virus software to find and fix security threats that may have found their way onto your systems. There are many such programs available, some free and some not free, but definitely worth spending time to set up and the money to purchase. It’s imperative to maintain a virus scanner and Operating System by actively checking for new updates and applying them, especially for the virus scanner. Using a firewall is also recommended as an optional measure.

Also see this forum discussion for more suggestions on better security.

By following the simple steps above you can make your accounts more secure and limit the dangers of being attacked by hackers who are after your stuff. Please be sure that we are not sitting idly by either – we are currently working hard on account security upgrades to get this problem under control. There are several items on the menu and the we hope to implement the first countermeasures in the next few weeks. However, we urge all of you to step up your own security at home by following the suggestions listed above.

Together we will vanquish this evil monster!

Powerpoints are prepared and black dev shirts have been ironed. Come join us at any of the four speaking sessions we’ll be a part of–from fighting the good fight against RMT to cloth simulation and from scaling EVE’s universe to scaling CCP itself.

Signs of Faith

“God; Emperor; Theology Council.” Nusi tapped the triangle he’d drawn on the board. “That’s the theological underpinnings, at least, and – luckily for you – this isn’t a politics class, so that’s all we cover.” He glanced up at the timepiece on the wall. “Well, that’s it for today’s material, and we still have time to spare. It wouldn’t do to let you go early, so…any questions?”

No, he reflected in the silence, it wouldn’t do to be too forward, would it? That would be gauche, under the circumstances. This group was a fast-track class; unprompted enthusiasm would be unseemly. He moved forward a little.

“Annoli, you were looking thoughtful a few minutes ago. What was troubling you?”

“Well…” she started slowly, “is it true that the Khanid aren’t allowed in the Council chambers?”

“Ah, I should’ve known it would involve his Highness. He’s too old for you, you know…” A few quiet chuckles rumbled around the room, and then a hand shot up. “Yes, Garund?”

“I’ve heard it’s never stopped him in the past, sir.” More laughter.

“Ok, ok, let’s not be having fun at his Highness’ expense.” Nusi shot a quick glance into the corner of the room. “Does anyone know the answer to Annoli’s question?”

A more furtive hand went up. “Aleine?”

“My pa tole me that it was the symbol that they dint like. He said there was something about it that upset them.”

“Good, very good. Yes, the Khanid people, be they Imperial citizens or Royal subjects, are allowed entrance, but the Royal Seal is…well, it’s not banned, per se, but it’s not welcome there either. Now, does anyone know why?”

A deeper silence, filled with thoughtful faces.

“Well, since we have time, I’ll explain properly. We’re going to go on a journey through some symbols, because you can’t really appreciate the significance of the situation until you understand the background. First–”

Nusi moved back to the board, wiped it clean, and drew a circle with a small inverted triangle at the base.

“What’s this? Teilf?”

“That’s, uh…the first man?”

“The first men, yes. Unbroken circle, God become man – looks a bit like an upside-down egg, I always thought. That’s probably symbolic of something, too… Anyway. First men. This leads to–”

A second symbol, one half-circle above the other, open sides away from each other, with the same inverted triangle at the base of the upper one.

“Do you know this one as well, Teilf? No? Adi?”

“Something to do with the dark?”

“Exactly. This is after the Fall and so on, during the Long Dark. Man and God entirely separate, with man below on his planets and God above in the heavens. An age of savagery and barbarism and general unenlightenment – an age which still persists to this day outside the confines of the Empire. And, yes Annoli, outside the Kingdom as well. His Highness remains an enlightened man in that respect. Which brings us to–”

A more familiar symbol, the two semicircles laid one on top of the other, with the upward-arcing one broken where the other crossed it.

“This one you know; it’s the Imperial Seal. When we came out of the Dark and formalized the Imperial Creed, man and God were reunited together again, albeit imperfectly. United but not conjoined, primacy of the Divine and the rest. This is Citizenship 101 stuff, which I’m told you’ve all passed now, yes? Good. Aleine, you have a question?”

“Yeah, uh..what does this have to do with the Khanid?”

“I’m getting to that! One final detail you need to know about the Imperial Seal. You remember from earlier that the Theology Council asserts that the rule of God comes before the rule of man? Well, the symbology at work here is the underpinning of that concept. Just as the Emperor above rules over the people below, so God above rules over man below. Primacy of the Divine isn’t sufficient: the implied heirarchy is critical to the rationale.

“So then. When Khanid II upped and left, Heideran–” a glance again into the corner of the room. “That is to say, of course, Emperor Heideran VII, immediately declared him in breach of precedent, along with various other things. The Theology Council, though, followed due process and sent a firmly worded message to Khanid inviting him to explain his actions. There was a bit of a delay, and then his Highess (as he is now) replied with this–”

The same symbol again, but drawn upside-down.

“The delivery was, in fact, a very nice rendering of the Imperial Seal, done carefully in his House colors, but inverted.”

Nusi looked around. A lot of blank faces, but a few sparks of dawning comprehension.

“Rial, what property of this little sign is making your eyes bulge in such a curious manner?”

“If…well, if…if the Council gets its authority…the thing on top… If the Imperial Seal is saying that God’s law is better than man’s law, then…” The student glanced back over his shoulder.

“Then the Royal Seal is saying that man’s law is, shall we say, more important than God’s law. It’s a historical discussion; nobody’s saying that it’s true. But yes, that’s what Khanid was trying to say – or at least, that’s how the Council interpreted it. With a single, simple image, he denied the theological root of the Council’s authority, telling them that he could damn well do as he saw fit, so long as he broke no secular law – which he hadn’t, because Heirs are above such things. How, do you suppose, did the Council react to this…Indlar?”

“I guess maybe they weren’t very happy?”

“Hah! You’re damn right they weren’t happy! They passed down judgement pretty promptly after that, and even though those Justices have all since passed on, the Council as an institution still hasn’t forgiven Khanid. That’s why it’s extremely unwise to take the Royal Seal into the Council chambers. They see it as a direct challenge to their authority, even now. Teilf, you have a question?”

“Didn’t they, like, know about the symbol before? Like when Khanid started using it or something?”

“No, because Khanid’s reply was the first time anybody had seen it! It seems that he made it up just for this purpose, but decided to keep it afterward as his Royal Seal. Only his Highness knows exactly why, but once he made the decision, he stuck with it. There’s other readings of it, too, and again, nobody but Khanid knows which ones are intended and which aren’t. For example, given this – the inverted Imperial Seal or the Royal Seal or however you want to think of it – you can arrive at this–”

The second symbol, with the two separated semicircles, but inverted.

A glance again into the corner of the room. “This symbol is frowned upon, but I’m allowed to explain it in this context so you know the truth. I’m not going to ask you to speculate on its meaning; there are many ways to interpret this, some of which you may come across over the years, but there’s only one correct interpretation, which is that the Imperial Creed is part of our heritage and our culture and our very identity, but that our future is among the stars. I stress again that Khanid II has never indicated that his Seal implies anything more than rejection of the Council’s authority, and that other readings of the symbology here are simply incorrect. And that, I hope, answers the original question in a reasonably comprehensive manner.”

A hand crept up lazily in the back corner of the room.

“Zweir, you have something to ask?”

“You’ve shown us five symbols. What about the sixth?”

Nusi stared long and hard at the boy, and then answered with a smile that contained no hint of mirth.

“There is no sixth symbol, and that’s all we have time for today. Class dismissed.”

Kamela, The Bleak Lands – The Star Fraction has been the victim of corporate theft with two towers worth over one billion isk being stolen by former director Misan Pal’taek, now a member of Stimulus (a member corporation of Rote Kapelle), and two associates.

The Star Fraction member Jade Constantine described how the theft was conducted: “[Misan Pal'taek] employed two agents: the first was a tower gunner who actually did the unanchoring of our defense towers, he was named Taloc Tsukuyomi; he was aided by another of Misan’s agents, an industrial pilot named Sevok Kurouto. All three are, [from now on, put on a 'Kill On Sight' list] by the Star Fraction and in time we will take our revenge against them.“

Jade Constantine explained that Kamela is an important staging point for The Star Fraction and key to their low-security system operations. She considers the loss of these towers less of an isk problem and more of a strategic issue as not only did the thief steal the towers, increasing the vulnerability of Star Fraction forces in the system, but also “[Misan Pal'taek] informed Sev3rance of this weak point. We struggled to replace the staging towers and were immediately attacked by Sev3rance and the CVA.”

Former The Star Fraction Director Misan Pal’taek commented “I had left an associate in The Star Fraction star base holder corporation, Hebog y Tan. He simply unanchored the two towers in Kamela, taking all the ammo and modules with some unnamed assistance,“ She firmly denied the alleged involvement with CVA and Sev3rance – “I never actively worked with any CVA forces. I currently am fighting several CVA [allies] nearby actually, Fidelas Constans and the past couple of weeks against Tread Alliance and Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive.“

Shortly after this event one of the allegedly-involved pilots was shot down by The Star Fraction, causing a allegations of hypocrisy regarding their NRDS policy. Star Fraction’s public response was to state that shooting someone involved in an act of theft is clearly a case of valid hostility but calls for a public release of verifiable evidence continue.

Lustrevik, Heimatar – Silver Night of Re-Awakened Technologies Inc, Electus Matari is sponsoring a writing contest, wherein he wants to hear pilot-authored stories of the people of New Eden.

Whereas much of the news and fiction popular amongst pilots surrounds the comings and goings of the capsuleer community, this contest will judge the best story concerning the doings of any citizen other than a capsuleer.

Silver Night reminded potential entrants that there is more to New Eden than spacecraft, stating that there are also “mining colonies, planets, moons and stations” adding “the possibilities are nearly limitless.”

The prizes range from rare pirate faction battleships with 300 million isk provided for fittings, to Fleet-issue battleships and cruisers.

Entries for Silver Night’s contest can be up to 3,000 words long and must be submitted by 21:55 on the 21.03.112.

GalNet References
Silver’s First Annual Fiction Contest

So, how was the fourth CSM summit different? Several key things were changed. First of all we had two days of CCP discussing current and future design ideas while we had only one for CSM3 and none for the first two. And not just discussing but brainstorming with the CSM. And not only that, because by having the CSM in Iceland so early in the development process of Tyrannis a subtle effect is noticeable in the overall design course EVE is on. Taking a conscious step backwards and have the CSM discuss macro designs and the general heading of EVE’s development was taken.

Another change is that we had a dedicated secretary taking the minutes, instead of having the Secretary of the CSM taking them. That resulted in the minutes being published six days after the CSM was in Iceland! The minutes are available here. And it left the CSM secretary free to participate in the discussions as keeping up with 11 to 13 people is doable but leaves little room for the person to express itself.

As the minutes indicate there is solid progress going on with the CSM and you should all keep an eye on this space over the next weeks when we will give you further insight into it. Some quantitative data will be given out at a later date and the changes being made to the CSM will also be detailed.

But what did the CSM members feel about the summit?

Tim, aka Sokratesz commented that ”I was very skeptical initially, but the trip has convinced me that CCP has an active interest in the playerbase and is willing to listen. One of the best moments for me was when Noah [CCP Hammer] grabbed a pen to take notes during a heated debate between council members.” He also noted that ”The goons weren’t living up to their reputation. They were actually being useful”

Asher, aka Mrs Trzzbk states that “Making the CSM an official stakeholder in the development process was extremely significant. It will be in a much better position to address the long standing concerns of the player base while still remaining a valuable sounding board for CCP. From this, to our discussion with the GM department, to the sincere debates with CCP staff on features both large and small I believe we had an extremely productive summit.”

Jason, aka TeaDaze: “I wasn’t sure what to expect from the summit other than further debating the issues we’d already raised with CCP. I was pleasantly surprised that whilst we did spend over a full day on those issues that a large amount of the time was spent on discussion and feedback about current and future plans. I can see improvements in the CSM process but going forward it needs to gather even more support from the player base. If the stakeholder promise works out I think the CSM is in a good position to achieve something unique in the gaming world.”

John, aka Zastrow, the only reelected member of the CSM has the word: “While there has been very little communication between CCP and the CSM between summits, at the summit it is very clear that CCP takes the CSM very seriously. For 3 days straight we sit down for all day meetings with the Executive Producer, Lead Game Designer, and a senior programmer and go over their proposals for the next expansion and our summit agenda.”

Until the next blog!

Hello eSports fans!

It is my proud duty to bring to you the details of Alliance Tournament VIII – it’s like Alliance Tournament VII, but with an extra I!

Along with this blog release comes the latest update to the Alliance Tournament section of the site. Cast your eyes a little bit to the left, and a little bit downwards; almost…almost…there we go! Both the rules and the format sections have been updated, so I’d like to explain some of the thought processes behind these updates.

We have seen quite a bit of evolution in the rules between tournaments five, six and seven, to the point where the rules in seven were praised so much that it kind of left me wondering where to go next. I spoke to a lot of people in-house over various ideas for changes to the way we do things, and we were kind of struggling to make a decision. Our next stop was the CSM, who were firmly of the belief that the rules are fine the way they are and that further evolution of the tournament would occur naturally with balance changes and ship changes in EVE. In the end, this made the decision; we would not completely rewrite the rules for Alliance Tournament VIII. So what did we change?

Well, the first major change is that pilots may only compete on behalf of alliances that they have been members of for a minimum of 60 days before the beginning of the tournament. Much like real life sports events, this creates a ‘transfer window’ and will curtail some of the more undesirable methods of player-switching that sometimes take place in tournament teams. The second major change is that the maximum number allowed of any given ship type has gone up to three, from two. We felt that this limitation was a good thing but maybe a little too strict, and that three would still do the job of stopping complete homogeneity in team setups.

As far as points go, Heavy Assault Cruisers have gone down one point in cost, T1 cruisers drop two points, and faction cruisers go up by a point. These are the usual simple balance changes that will always occur; HACs were too expensive in AT VII, as were cruisers, partly by design as these ships had been so popular before. They should now be in line with other ships in cost vs effectiveness.

Now, on to format. The team selection procedure has been one of the toughest things to get right, so this time we’re going to try a slightly different approach. 16 slots will be reserved for the top 16 finishers from Alliance Tournament VII, and 16 slots will be sold via auction. The remaining slots, however many that may be, will be allocated by random draw as in previous tournaments. The decision to use an auction method came about because it was something that we had already talked about – allowing the ‘big alliances’ that have sometimes missed out on a tournament spot a way to leverage their size and make sure they get in to the tournament. The CSM brought this idea up also without it being mentioned, and since we were both on the same page it became a final decision. At this point we have not yet decided on the precise auction method; details will be announced in the alliance tournament forum soon.

We also have a slight change to the way teams score points through Intentional Handicapping. This is a system that allows teams to purposefully put themselves at a disadvantage in order to give themselves a large potential for scoring. The minimum number of points allowed per team has been reduced to 50. We don’t expect this to hugely change the format, but it may allow for some interesting comebacks and does mean that teams who are happy with their setup, for example maybe somewhere in the 90-100 points range, can choose not to use any ‘filler’ ships and instead aim to gain a few extra points. And now, for the grand finale…

Flagships!

“A flagship is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, a designation given on account of being either the largest, fastest, newest, most heavily armed or, for publicity purposes, the best known. In military terms, it is a ship used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships.”

Flagships are the elite of your tournament team. They are the strongest, toughest, most damaging (and most expensive) ship you can field. Flagships must have a name, and successful flagships can become the stuff of tournament legend. The disadvantageous side of this, though, is that flagships are famous. As a tradeoff for their power, your opponents will know in advance what they are capable of when their setup is advertised for all to see. This raises the question of when you should field your flagship -if at all. Do you use it in the early rounds, and risk losing it? Do you save it for a late game where you may need some extra power? And if you do that, will your opponent predict it and counter it? And will we see some rare battleships fielded as flagships, heralding the return of the most expensive ships in Eve to the tournament? I’m excited just thinking about it.

And that, PvP lovers, brings us to the close of this summary of the changes for Alliance Tournament VIII. We hope you like the rules, both the things that have stayed the same and the things that have changed, and we hope you are looking forward to June 5th as much as we are! We have some more announcements we will be making in the leadup to the tournament, so stay glued to the news and keep a watchful eye on the tournament forum.

Until then – fly deadly!

On second thoughts, don’t fly deadly. That’s the worst signoff I’ve ever heard.

Why, oh, why and what are you doing about it?

As soon as the first failover happened, we, per our policy, opened up a support case with the vendor regarding the incident, since our logs, surprisingly, showed nothing. Their response was that the problem had been caused by a race condition in the system.

We have worked closely with the vendor’s support and development teams in an attempt to isolate the bug, collected vast amounts of diagnostic data and implemented changes that were considered potential solutions by the vendor. We believe we’ve found a workaround that makes it unlikely that the bug is triggered, but does not 100% prevent it. This has yet to be confirmed however.

As one can imagine it is difficult to diagnose a running, high performance production environment like ours without causing lag or other performance or reliability problems. The vendor has been working diligently to attempt to reproduce this issue in their lab, although collecting diagnostic data from similar systems presents a major challenge – doing so without negatively impacting performance levels for customers.

We do have programmers and virtual world system administrators working on putting together a test script to run on the database server we use for Singularity and Multiplicity, and if we are able to reproduce the issue there, we can supply our vendor with code that reproduces the problem in their lab.

I, personally, have been spending quite a large part of my work hours the last 3 months communicating directly with the vendor, collecting diagnostics data, setting up collection tools and working on things related to solving the SQL Server issues.

In short, we are using all the resources at our disposal to resolve this issue. It is a high priority issue for all parties involved as it affects not only our system and customers, but can affect equally massive systems and user bases using similar network and database solutions.

What have we done already? What do we know?

We know that problem lies in the TCP stack and likely has something to do with handling of closed or closing sockets. Our vendor has asked us to implement a few potential fixes or workarounds. We’ve adjusted various networking features and upgraded our SQL Server engine with a version that has a workaround for issues of this nature. The database handler in the EVE application server uses session pooling and we’ve experimented with changing various settings there. Turning off recycling of idle sessions seems promising as a workaround that makes triggering the bug less likely.

We still are working toward a fix, as I said before, and we seem to be able to make the failovers happen less frequently with the latest workaround. Expect to hear more in the near future on our progress with this issue.

Intaki, Placid - A major push by Federal Defence Union forces in the last week has resulted in 13 systems which were originally held by the Gallente Federation returning to its governance, including Intaki Prime.

The 13 systems resecured by the Federal Defence Union between 21.02.112 and 27.02.112 were:

Essence
** 08:53 27.02.112 Vifrevaert

Verge Vendor
** 03:49 20.02.112 Jovainnon
** 18:50 21.02.112 Loes
** 04:50 22.02.112 Hevrice
** 00:53 26.02.112 Melmaniel
** 23:53 26.02.112 Muetralle

Placid
** 18:50 22.02.112 Brarel
** 08:51 23.02.112 Vey
** 17:52 23.02.112 Agoze
** 14:51 24.02.112 Intaki
** 15:51 24.02.112 Frarie
** 22:53 26.02.112 Reschard
** 08:53 27.02.112 Eugales

Faraelle Brightman of FDU corporation Eleutherian Guard claims that the battle for Jovainnon in Verge Vendor was a very close thing. State Protectorate corporation Space Perverts and Forum Warriors United [PERVS] managed to engage and conquer an FDU outpost just in time to protect the system’s vulnerable control bunker early in the day, but persistent efforts from FDU forces spearheaded by Handsome Millionaire Playboys [HAMPB] rendered the bunker vulnerable again and went on to destroy it.

Both PERVS and Costolle Military Assistance Corporation had been resisting the efforts of Handsome Millionaire Playboys and their FDU allies in Verge Vendor, both by capturing FDU outposts and engaging with FDU-aligned pilots as they attempt to force State Protectorate forces to deploy elsewhere, but the attacks appear to have been too persistent and widespread for them all to be met effectively. According to John Tanashima of ICS-762 Drunken Butterflies, the main FDU onslaught coincided with a substantial curtailing of PERVS operations, leaving only a few corporations and a number of individual pilots directly in STPRO service to oppose system captures.

Loes and Hevrice, a system that had already changed hands three times this year, fell with what HAMPB representative Tavis Darwin describes as “only light resistance,” but then the conflict in the region reached a stalemate that was only broken with the fall of both Melmaniel and Muetralle to the FDU 4 days later.

Meanwhile in Placid, an organized coalition of FDU corporations were pushing towards the recapture of the Intaki homeworld. Azure Horizon Federate Militia, Moira., Eleutherian Guard, Strix Armaments and Defence, ArmoredCore Armed Forces and many other FDU affiliates worked intensively in the pirate-infested region to capture State Protectorate installations and drive out occupying forces.

Different corporations in the FDU coalition took on the task of organizing and leading the strikes to recapture various systems, with Azure Federate Horizon, sources claim, taking a leading role in the liberation (those in the Intaki separatist and pro-state movements might prefer to say “reconquest”) of the Intaki system itself.

John Tanashima accorded particular respect to Luminaire General Julianus Soter as an opponent. His corporation, Moira., took the lead in the assault upon STPRO defences around Eugales. “General Soter of the FDU did a great job organising an attack, they changed tactics. Started to take space superiority in a single system and pound the Caldari Navy down, instead of looking for deserted systems to take them by surprise.”

Tanashima felt, however, that the sudden reorganization and drive from the FDU was not the only factor involved. He continued, stating “At the same moment, the Space Perverts and Forum Warriors Incorporated corporation diminished its global presence, leaving a small core of Caldari capsuleers to defend. Any one of these without the other would have diminished the STPRO effectiveness in keeping systems, but both at the same time… Well, you can see the results.”

Meanwhile, more reports coming in of further systems falling to the Federal Defence Union – a forthcoming report will give more details.