Open Letter To Mana World Server Attackers

[DariusBane]

This is an open letter to anyone whom thinks about attacking the servers of
Mana World. Please reconsider your actions. First of all attacking Mana
World's server/s is plain stupid and counter productive.

The game's source code is open source and available freely to anyone
whom asks. You ask by downloading the source code. The server hosts
a game which is based in fantasy.

So far, the people running the game do so freely. They do not charge
players of the game any money. Players may donate time, effort in
advancing the game itself. We can modify the source to perhaps make
the game better. Some contribute free graphics, others may offer
stories used as quests in game.

The point being this game is an international community effort. We all
enjoy playing it. There are challenges in creating the game. There are
challenges in playing the game. No one needs further challenges via
people being stupid and attacking the server/s. You only cut your nose
off to spite your own face by attacking the game's server/s.

There is nothing to gain on the server/s of the game, as far as I'm
aware. With no fees to the players, there are no credit card numbers.
There is minimal or no personally identifying information aside from
the player passwords.

So you attack a server to get a plain text database of players and
passwords? Oh wow! I am so impressed, you are really elite! You create
lots of frustrated players just so you can attain something of no value.
Way to go! We all must aspire to be you.

Pull your cranium from out of your anus. The server/s here help provide
something good and fun in the world, something which you too can enjoy.
There is no need to attack our fragile world here. No one gains from
such attacks. And in fact, the people running it might decide to start
mandating a fee to players. Lots of us would no longer play if we needed
to pay.

Maybe that's your goal? Fine, why not come out and say so. This is an open
letter to you. Please feel free to respond. If you are not an attacker,
you've no need to reply.

[Len]

They are not doing it to gain anything but our frustration, this post only shows them that its working (which will probably serve to strengthen their desire to continue).

[Freeyorp101]

The tmwAthena save file of passwords stores hashes, not plaintext


---Freeyorp

[argul]

Sorry to ask.

Did I miss something?
Are we getting ddos'ed again?

(I was player first, and during a down time I decided to contribute&develop... so maybe that's their goal )

[Crush]

Motives behind the attacks on the server I know about:
-Being butthurt because they got banned
-Disagreement with the "speak english in public" rule which is required for legal reasons
-Proving that it is possible (and afterwards helping to fix the issue)

[DariusBane]

The tmwAthena save file of passwords stores hashes, not plaintext


---Freeyorp

Nice. But it still amounts to stealing nothing ultimately. I mean do you really need to steal fictional characters in a fictional world, that have no value save for being fun? That's just ridiculous.

MD5 or SHA3 hashes? To me it doesn't really matter aside from passing curiosity. Even if one were to attain the files and crack them, gee, what a feat. It's really not too difficult to modify John the ripper to use rainbow tables as the anvil for a brute force cracking attack. These must be some really super elite hackers. We should all cower in fear.

The point being, their actions prove nothing of value.

They are not doing it to gain anything but our frustration, this post only shows them that its working (which will probably serve to strengthen their desire to continue).

Figures as much. Aside from ignoring are other tactics viable to us as players? Also, have noted a need to create new accounts. Seems my password alters itself at times. And no, it's not always a matter of forgetting or system purge. I use good passwords. They are easy for me to recall yet difficult to guess. Again, what tactics are viable? I do really enjoy the game. Shame a few jerks attempt ruining that.

Would I pay to play? Not unless there were further assurances about security, better content. Although, I might donate a few bits here and there. I don't think a pay to play system would make these problems cease. I think it would only exacerbate matters.

If we as players do not speak up about issues, you as administrators / developers / content developers and so on, do not know to address the issues. And this was meant to speak up to you, as much as to act as an open letter to responsible parties.

Sorry, I don't understand why anyone would value in making lots of folks frustrated. Then again, I never understood the whole 'run up' to the Iraq war, either. I just figured it was a bunch of Nazi fascists overcompensating for small penises or something. Oh well, back to coffee, nephews and exploring why Stephen Hawking is just plain cool.

Motives behind the attacks on the server I know about:
-Being butthurt because they got banned
-Disagreement with the "speak english in public" rule which is required for legal reasons
-Proving that it is possible (and afterwards helping to fix the issue)

Yeah, like I figure. They got baseless motives. Oh well.

[DariusBane]

Sorry to ask.

Did I miss something?
Are we getting ddos'ed again?

(I was player first, and during a down time I decided to contribute&develop... so maybe that's their goal )

Circular argument, mate. Down time due to others being jerks only serves to cause desire to walk away completely. Why would I bother helping, giving freely to jerks whom will misuse, abuse? Would you say I would?

1. Do it prove I'm a better person than them.
2. Do it simply out of altruism.
3. Create advantages for myself in the new code / content.

Well, I'll address these.

1. I have no need or desire to prove anything to anyone here save myself. I can prove to myself privately, or not at all, that's at my discretion. So proving something to someone falls by the wayside as a motivation.

2. Being an all around nice guy is beneficial. Then again, a nice guy sees others being jerks and disrespecting others. Further he sees little done to admonish these jerks. So your nice guy figures, "why bother?"

3. Making advantages for myself in the game might interest me, if the game held me more enthrall. You could argue that I could create that interest in the game for myself. But if I do, then I lose interest too. I already know what's coming. Another motive lost.

So in essence your argument is circular and does not persuade a player to be a developer as well.

[Matt]

I don't care, I hate is game and its players even more!
I will continue to ddos this polish server till my german countryside 10kb upload line burns!

[Len]

I don't care, I hate is game and its players even more!
I will continue to ddos this polish server till my german countryside 10kb upload line burns!

Stopping stealing my dreams! You had seven years to take down TMW, let some other people have a go....

[Crush]

MD5 or SHA3 hashes? To me it doesn't really matter aside from passing curiosity.

SHA-256, as far as I know. I am not involved in tmwAthena development. But afaik they use the same algorithm we use for Manaserv, and that's SHA-256.

MD5 should not be used anymore, because there are several known attacks against it (although most of them only apply to forging signatures, not to cracking passwords).

There is no SHA-3 yet. There are just several candidates from which one will be chosen by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology to become SHA-3 in 2012.

[o11c]

Actually it is (salted) MD5 in tmwAthena, and an imperfect one at that: some of the trailing characters of the hexadecimal are cut off.

Note that the password is sent across the network in plaintext, so you *are* depending on the server admins not to remove the encoding.

[Frost]

This is an open letter to anyone whom thinks about attacking the servers of
Mana World. Please reconsider your actions.

As Argul asked, what prompted this?

--------------------
"Omit needless words." -William Strunk Jr.

[ChefChelios]

Yay feed the trolls... Wohoo

[argul]

Yay feed the trolls... Wohoo

Actually it's quite hard to feed trolls, without becoming one yourself

[Crush]

Yay feed the trolls... Wohoo

Actually it's quite hard to feed trolls, without becoming one yourself

You only become a troll through feeding trolls when you do it intentionally.

At least when you use the proper definition of troll which is "person who intentionally makes controversial postings to provoke a reaction" and not the new definition which seems to be "everyone I don't like".