ASB password scare and related bans

[Ether's Bane]

I think what had happened was just a whole lot of foolishness and apathy.

res thought it's funny to read people's PMs. That's the entire reason. res is a fool who doesn't quite understand that actions have consequences, and that maybe it should consider other people's feelings before doing something, maybe. If it makes anyone feel better, I don't think res or Mai ever accessed anyone's emails or other accounts outside of TCoD-related things (various BfA forums and TCoD itself), so you don't need to wonder about stolen credit card information or anything.

As for Mai, Blazhy, and Allie -- they just kind of ... went along with what res did because they enjoyed hanging out with res, and it's easier that way. Blazhy didn't have enough initiative to report, and she had cared enough about her TCoD friendships to try to keep them (by lying, not her finest decision). And allitersonance considered reporting, but decided that she didn't really care enough about TCoD or ASB to do anything about it (she also says that she didn't realize that res had been stealing passwords until recently.)

In the end, it's just so easy to go along with what your friends when they do something bad. It's so easy to rationalize it away. Admitting that your friend might be not the good person you thought they were is hard. Taking action against that your friend is even harder. And so you go along with them, not really thinking about the impact of your actions until everything comes crashing down on 2.5 years later.

With this in mind, I would like to post one of my favourite quotes:

"It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." - Elizabeth Kenny

 

[Music Dragon]

However, I will say this: I honestly don't think res, Mai, Blazhy, and Allitersonance meant any malice.

"How could they not mean any malice! Look at that chatlog!" You say. A lot of people are shocked that Blazhy and Mai would do something like this, and, frankly, I was too -- I hadn't expected to come back from my 2.5 years of disappearance to, well, this.

I think what had happened was just a whole lot of foolishness and apathy.

res thought it's funny to read people's PMs. That's the entire reason. res is a fool who doesn't quite understand that actions have consequences, and that maybe it should consider other people's feelings before doing something, maybe. If it makes anyone feel better, I don't think res or Mai ever accessed anyone's emails or other accounts outside of TCoD-related things (various BfA forums and TCoD itself), so you don't need to wonder about stolen credit card information or anything.

As for Mai, Blazhy, and Allie -- they just kind of ... went along with what res did because they enjoyed hanging out with res, and it's easier that way. Blazhy didn't have enough initiative to report, and she had cared enough about her TCoD friendships to try to keep them (by lying, not her finest decision). And allitersonance considered reporting, but decided that she didn't really care enough about TCoD or ASB to do anything about it (she also says that she didn't realize that res had been stealing passwords until recently.)

In the end, it's just so easy to go along with what your friends when they do something bad. It's so easy to rationalize it away. Admitting that your friend might be not the good person you thought they were is hard. Taking action against that your friend is even harder. And so you go along with them, not really thinking about the impact of your actions until everything comes crashing down on 2.5 years later.

I won't blame you for being angry, or for wanting to never trusting them again. And it is Blazhy, Mai, and Allie's own responsibility to not act like decent human beings, no matter whose friend they were. But don't think of them as evil bad people then walk away feeling high and mighty, because that's not how it works.

I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree; I think you're biased in their favor because they were your friends (which is understandable). If they were just stealing people's passwords, sneaking into their accounts, reading private information, and trying to hide it... then I might perhaps buy the idea that they weren't being actively malicious. But comments like

res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:01:59 pm
"that is, unless they're still in my account and somehow got the new password!!! because fuck me, right!!!" because fuck you yeah but unrelated

are hard to read as anything other than genuinely mean-spirited, and there are several exchanges...

allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:08:44 pm
so shall we incriminate ommibar?
[...]
res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:53:06 pm
allie come on, go implicate more important people :33

... where they discuss framing innocent people.

Honestly, I don't see how anyone could doubt that this is active malice. It is definitely not a case of "I don't care enough to report my friend"; they are all active participants in this whole thing, and some of them have apparently been confronted about their actions and were wholly unrepentant.

Personally, I believe that if you go out of your way to ruin things for other people and you think it's fun, then that makes you a bad person. Not a thoroughly bad person, not an irredeemably bad person - in that sense I agree with you - but nevertheless a bad person. Sometimes people get swept up in things and end up in deeper shit than they expect. But the attitude matters. If you sit around mocking the people you're hurting while proclaiming yourself an asshole, I don't think you deserve much sympathy.

And yeah, I get that a lot of this stuff is tongue-in-cheek, but they're still clearly aware that what they're doing is wrong. Why should you make excuses for these people when they're not even doing it for themselves?

That being said, I respect your feelings on this matter, and you know what you're talking about better than I do. I'd also like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude. You've done us a tremendous service. Thank you for helping out with this mess.

 

[Autumn]

It may be relevant for those of us not in ASB to know what the hell happened in the Battle of Asber thing that started all this.

 

[Phantom]

I'm agreeing with uv and MD here. And Altissimo. I mean I was in the Battle, but barely and did nothing much besides follow the group concensus on what moves to use. Besides that, I saw nothing and only know what I've been told which sums to 'res and his followers are assholes', to put it frankly.

As for res, I mostly blame him. res in my mind manipulated and brainwashed these people. We all knew these people, active members all, all of them being here for many years. And all of us have the same reaction, disbelief. But seeing these logs... some of them even talk like him. Act like him. He was a bad influence on them, my opinion. Because res has ALWAYS acted like that, even since the first day I met him and he chewed me out in a thread about web design and butchered any self confidence I might have had. He likes to boast and act like he is above everyone. And here I see these people latched on to him and he loved every minute of it because he believed they were basking in his glory. He invaded peoples privacy for the sake of amusement. Like uv said with the sandcastle analogy. He just wants to piss people off and watch them squirm because he likes having power over people.

And while this is a small no name forum, should they have accessed personal information, any at all like phone numbers, addresses, etc it could have real world consequences. Had they used that password to access other things that that user used that same password for they could implicate peoples' lives even more.

But he doesn't care. It's his amusement. He didnt care if there were consequences, he doesn't care that he led these people to be banned.

That's just my opinion.

 

[Tailsy]

i just realised that i've had the asb board masked for so long (i mean also i don't even go here any more rly w/e) that i had no idea it had started again. or even stopped in the first place.

best most active and relevant mod ever goes 2 me. party hats

 

[Vipera Magnifica]

Mai, blazhy, and allitersonance may have just been "going along" with res's actions, but they were still fully aware of what they were doing. In doing so, they chose their friendship with res over their friendship with everyone else on this forum. Had they valued the trust and respect of the members of this forum more, they would not have chosen to actively participate in these schemes.

If there's one thing I take away from this, it's that we have to make ASB grow even stronger. If you want to be angry with this group, channel it into making ASB a better place for everyone. If it really was their intention to "burn ASB to the ground", then we can't let them have their way. Show them that this will not ruin our fun.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Using leeched wifi to pop in and say some things:

UV is pretty much exactly on point.

I'd like to think that blazhy and co. just don't realize how bad their actions had been because it's been going on for 2.5 years and they got used to it, but maybe I'm wrong, because, well, people change in 2.5 years.

Honestly, I don't blame you all for hating these people forever and never wanting to talk to them ever again -- even if you're stepping on someone's sandcastle because you think it's funny, not because you're actually trying to make someone sad and angry, you're still stepping on someone's sandcastle. It's still a shitty thing to do. And there is a reason I chose to leak the chatlogs to get everyone banned rather than trying to let them continue the lies...

It may be relevant for those of us not in ASB to know what the hell happened in the Battle of Asber thing that started all this.

Uhhh, tl;dr is that Negrek planned this big mosh-pit-style battle sort of thing where the normal trainers of ASB had to fight 3 legendary Pokemon. The ASBer group found out too late that there were spies, and everyone ended up being overworked and bitter because of the perceived unfairness.

Longer version is:
Negrek planned this big mosh-pit-style battle sort of thing where the normal trainers of ASB had to fight 3 legendary Pokemon.

There was a private forums/chatbox/something outside of TCoD where the people controlling the legendary Pokemon discussed strategies. There was one for the 30-something Asber battlers as well; it was ran by bulbasaur. I believe this is where res stole all the passwords.

Blazhy, res, and I were the most active participants in the Asber group; we basically came up with most of the strategy for all the pokemon each round. Mai, The Omskivar, and Metallica Fanboy, and some other members were also active, but not nearly as much. Most other people just kind of stayed silent or lurked (sometimes, not even that.)

As far as I can tell, drama reached official levels of existence when it became painfully clear by Round 5 that there had been a spy in the midst of the 30-something ASB trainers. Ever since Round 1, our group's plans had failed as if they've been systematically picked apart -- as if someone had been able to see the exact thing they could do to break through all our backup plans... We weren't dealing enough damage per pokemon to win, and Blazhy, I, res, and Mai had felt really overworked, especially since most people weren't participating. (Not sure about Omski and MF and the other people because I haven't asked them :p) We refused to suspect anyone of spying because TEAMWORK!!! and whatnot, so blazhy, res, and I (and possibly some other people but I don't quite remember) drafted an PM to Negrek asking about the spies.

In Round 7, Negrek officially revealed that there had been spies in our midst all along, who were revealed to be Coloursfall and High-Moon. The people previously controlling the three legendaries (Kratos, pathos, and Allitersonance) had also been really overworked, and they stepped down to let Colours and Moony take control.

The rest of Asber had fled to a new secret forums (run by res) by that point, and but everyone's really overworked and bitter by now. I don't know how much of the bitterness leaked outside of the private forums, but it's evidently enough to make Negrek shut down the entire ASB.

All the drama kind of got shoved under the carpet, and people moved on/forgot about it/continue to nurse their bitterness... Blazhy, res, Mai, and a bunch of other people started rebuilding ASB; I had been too burnt out by this point and busy with real life to continue, so I kind of disappeared for 2.5 years.

I don't know the details of how ASB came back to life; I don't know what happened with Phantom; and I'm also not quite sure exactly how res and Allitersonance ended up being friends, since Allie wasn't on our side -- supposedly res found the chatbox where the legendaries had been planning their commands, and they've been chatting ever since then or something.

As for res, I mostly blame him. res in my mind manipulated and brainwashed these people. We all knew these people, active members all, all of them being here for many years. And all of us have the same reaction, disbelief. But seeing these logs... some of them even talk like him. Act like him. He was a bad influence on them, my opinion.

Blaming everything on res is probably giving it too much credit.

Yes, res did a lot of shitty things. But, be really honest with yourself -- if res hadn't been an asshole to you, and instead actually cared about you, would you have done anything?

Mai, blazhy, and allitersonance may have just been "going along" with res's actions, but they were still fully aware of what they were doing. In doing so, they chose their friendship with res over their friendship with everyone else on this forum. Had they valued the trust and respect of the members of this forum more, they would not have chosen to actively participate in these schemes.

I mean, yeah, they're closer friends with each other than with anyone else on the forums. I think I'm still closer friends with them than anyone else on the forums...

 

[Phantom]

Honestly? (Can't quote Linoone, cell phone)

I've seen res on many occasions be an ass to many people.

another bit with Phantom. I was entered in the last rounds of the Battle. Didn't even offocially make a move. I was invited to res' forum. I left after bfa but was reinvited during a game of mafia where the mafia plotted there. I tried to make an account before I realized I was already a member and that's where it clicked that it was the same forum from way back during bfa. After the mafia I forgot about it again. Then I remembered the place back when I made the Activity of Doom thread where we realized about the ASB moddings that had been done behind closed doors. I remembered that forum and realized that might be where they were all talking.

See I was ticked that those who I'd come to learn destroyed ASB were now given power over it.

So I logged on. This is after I respond to a PM from bluzzy apologizing ahead of time and offering peace since they don't want bad blood.

Then I see the forums, and I see posts where they were systematically mocking me and manipulating me. Bluzzy had said it was obvious I'd been talking to the 'ragelump' people, most of the people who left tcod after the bfa... which I was. (Where I learned it was more than being worn out, it was many insults and lying that ruined it ) Bluzzy then asked res if they should send a PM to try to shut me up about bfa and their involvement. Bluzzy drafted the post, res approved it and it was sent to me. Bluzzy then copied my response, etc, all while mocking me. I posted. Called them assholes. Screen capped the thread and posted it here.

I was snooping around res'forums by now. Aside from many convos talking badly about other members most were rants about ASB. before I could get any further, res banned me. They had a mini panic attack when they realized the mistake they made with their hole in security, backtracked like hell. Then I got scrutinised because I wasn't dropping it because I'd seen the forums and knew there was more going on.

That was my involvement.

 

[M&F]

I'm gonna need to not be on mobile before I comment as I intend to on here, but just on the BfA discussion (and since, again, mobile, look out for 1000 typos): I'd the incident can't really be cited as a major cause of the current situation. The passwords were taken through the BfA forums by all appearances, but that seems to be about it; since that snafu, there have been three years, across which almost all of the newlybans, sooner or later, have provided extensive contributions to building the cuerent ASB rather than destroying it. If they wanted to ruin the game primarily because of BfA, they could have done so sooner and faster.

Discussion of the past incidents may or may not be otherwise relevant to judgement, but in any case, as a subject that doesn't need to be discussed right now, I'd be very careful not to stir up any new drama.

 

[Eifie]

Mmm, I've been wondering whether to say anything about that. I believe that those who were banned were most definitely not always planning to burn ASB to the ground in retaliation for the Battle for Asber or whatever; after they were banned, I believe they thought it would be funny if ASB were to die without them in "revenge". That's all. As such, I don't think bringing up all the bad feelings associated with the events of however many years ago is too relevant to the discussion.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

Just to clarify, passwords were only taken from forums that were owned by res? They weren't taken directly from TCoDf or the current ASB Database?

 

[Negrek]

Correct.

Edit: Well, to be totally correct, either res' forums or forums he had a hand in running (I believe the compromised BfA forum was actually set up by bulbasaur). Definitely not TCoD or ASBDB, though.

 

[DrClef]

Those MOTHERFUCKERS.

 

[Zekrom_B0lt]

on an asb related matter ( i'm not sure how many encountered this ), however i tried to log in to the asb db with my original log in & it said invalid


Will i need to re register then move my pokemon & items to the new asb db account ?


how long untill a reset password system works for the asb db ?

 

[Murkrow]

Thanks Crazy Linoone for the explanation about what BfA is.
(and also for taking the whole thing up with the mods in the first place as well I guess!)

And re: Phantom's posts, I can't help but notice that every time drama happens here there's pretty much always some amount of people mocking other members behind their backs :c

I've got to wonder why the forums res ran presumably stored the passwords as plaintext in the first place, though.

 

[Herbe]

I'm wondering about that too, Murkrow. Maybe he did an email that says you have to change your password like a phishing thing? That's a pretty big security breach right there on those forums imo.

 

[ultraviolet]

on an asb related matter ( i'm not sure how many encountered this ), however i tried to log in to the asb db with my original log in & it said invalid





Will i need to re register then move my pokemon & items to the new asb db account ?

Uh, no, you should have received a temporary password from Zhorken. Use that to log in and change your password.

 

[Zhorken]

No, he hasn't. I reset everyone's password again by mistake last night, and I haven't fixed that yet.

I made a news post about it on the db but I guess I'll cross-post it here since I'm going to delete it sometime next week (the ASBdb is the most impressive project on my résumé and I don't want employers seeing that):

I went to reset Crazy Linoone's password but I tweaked the password reset script without testing it and ended up resetting everyone's passwords.

If I PMed you a temporary password a couple days ago, that's your temporary password again. (If you went through two temp passwords, the second one is your temporary password again.) If you're still logged in, and you're not one of the ones who got a temporary password, you can just set your password in settings. (I forcibly logged everyone out a couple nights ago so this should be safe; nobody but you will be already logged in.)

I'm going to try and figure out how much time it would make to make an actual reset mechanism, and if it's too long to make everyone wait, I'll just PM out more temporary passwords I guess.

EDIT: Okay, the password reset system is like half done. A lot of people didn't set an email, though, so I'm also going to build the whole temporary password system I've been using into the Database, so that I don't have to worry about goofing up again with my messy one-off script. Once again, though, I need to sleep, so it'll have to wait.

Given recent events I'd like to restate that passwords are hashed in the Database, so I absolutely can't see them. I can overwrite them, but that's it.

I've had zero motivation to do anything all day, in the wake of all this, but I'll get the password thing finished now. Sorry.

 

[Wargle]

My temporary password isn't working

 

[Music Dragon]

I've had zero motivation to do anything all day, in the wake of all this, but I'll get the password thing finished now. Sorry.

Don't rush! This has been a really, really rough week for you, and you've done plenty for us already. I think you deserve some rest!