Right.. first off MA will NEVER ask for your password!!!
Second.. on the scamming topic.. I belive the best way to combat scamming is to understand how its done.
All scamming in Project Entropia uses Social engineering to some extend.
Social engineering is a method where you get a person to trust you and then he might reveal some personal info or other to you which he can use to his own gain.
The would be scammer could act as your friend.. Prehaps for months.. before he starts ripping you off.
There has been cases in Project Entropia where respected members of the community were such social engineering scammers. At one point a scammer got the trust of cK and they lend this scammer a lot of high end gear.. never to see it again.
The social engineer is pure evil.. He acts only with one purpose.. to scam you.. and he will act as your best friend for a long time to accomplish this…
So what to do… NEVER lend ANYTHING out you cant afford to loose…
Not even to trusted “friends”… In the case of the cK scamming the person had been playing with them for almoste 6 months before they got scammed.
When I played PE I only lend out stuff I couldent afford to loose to one person… This person I had the phone number off, spoke with on TeamSpeak every day.. And I knew his address…
Social engineering can also be used in email scams.. As we have seen previously scammers will try to impersonate MindArk staff to gain your trust.
This is illigal both by the EULA but alo by international law… you arent allowed to impersonate anybody !
We can only be glad that the persons who are trying to use this more techinical way of scamming isent very good at it.
Again with “knowledge is power” in mind I will now tell you how it could be done… This is to make you understand you cant even trust communication that appeares to be from MA.
If you own an SMTP server (A mail server) you can fake mails.
SMTP servers are stupid so to say. If you tell your smtp server that you are sending a mail from “MB@MindArk.com” it will trust you are sending the mail from that address. In moste scripts for sending mails via a browser you have to fill in informations such as:
recipient, sender, body, header…
Now.. A cleaver scammer would ofcourse not send the initial mail from a hotmail or whatever… A cleaver scammer would send the initial mail from a mail that looks like a MA mail. He can acheve this via such an SMTP server.
(All webhosts have SMTP servers so they are very accessable)
In this mail he could use social engineering to make you belive whatever…
For instance that Marco has been monitoring you helping newbs.. and would like to help you a bit… but he cant do it officially.. so he has to use his private email… or something like this… for the same purpose he neither can use MA’s password retrival system to et your account info… So you have to provide him with it all…
Then he will give 1000 PED pr month to your account.. so you can help newbies more…
or whatever…
But the point is… even if the mail is comming from MA you cant trust any “dodgy” info in it…
If MA asks for your personal info.. there is something wrong.. MA has the means of getting all the info they need, if its legit… if it isent.. you dont wanna help them anyway…
So.. two things to keep in mind…
Dont lend anything out you cant afford to loose (heck.. their account could get locked with your stuff on)
and DONT DONT DONT give ANY personal info to anybody in a mail or on IRC!!
If you dont trust me with the SMTP server mail just give me a fake email and I will send you a mail from an account of your choice…
God@heaven.net ?? 