[ACCEPTED/REVIEW] A change to the hacking rules

now this isn't the change you're going to think it is. So:

If you're hacked and the hacker scams, you should be allowed to enter the community without recourse so long as you repay your debt. I've seen those who are hacked who have to pardon. @Void kills has a DNT and he repaid his debts that weren't his. I think it's absurd they aren't just allowed to join and have to go through the pardon process as if they did something wrong. Here are the only reasons I can think against this:

1) They left their account insecure, they should have to pardon.

Yes they did and if it happens again, then that may be reason for a pardon. Some people aren't aware of 2FA, or simply forget. Additionally, when people are hacked and come back to a debt that isn't there's, a good chunk of those people wouldn't pay it back and either leave or simply ban evade. Those who pay it back are generally good people and shouldn't have to pardon for something that they took responsibility for and owned up to it.

2) They were gone for like a year. It took them too long to repay so they should have to pardon.

People have lives, jobs, spouses. Give them a break

3) We can't prove they weren't hacked, what if it was a failed scamquit?

Unless there's evidence to suggest this, it's innocent until proven guilty. Again, these are, by assumption, people who were hacked and potentially stolen from separately and have agreed to take responsibility for what their Sythe account owes; these are good moral people usually.

 

I'm shocked this attitude towards hacked accounts isn't already taken, especially those who are paying for a crime they didn't commit... support

 

I couldn't agree with you more @Dunworry - not everyone realizes how important account security is because they might not have an experience with being hacked in the past.

The only problem I still see is that someone could let a friend "hack" their account to scam if they are in a tight spot, and they could repay it once they are able to repay it without any consequences. Obviously this isn't the case in the majority of cases so I don't think the 90% should have to suffer for it.

I fully support this suggestion.

 

Yeah I agree with this suggestion however what I also disagree with is the fact that Pure also fail scam-quit like a few months ago and he was able to simply repay his debts and come back into the community.

I agree with this suggestion completely however I think more action needs to be taken against individuals who actually scam-quit immediately. What I mean by this is that people like Pure Addiction who scam-quit, get caught and then pay it back the next day should not be given this grace period.

Support to an extent.

 

Can you PM what happened?

But yeah I agree with what you are saying, if someone does that they are clearly a threat to the community and that's the point of banning someone.

 

I PMed you what happened.

Effectively hacked users have to pardon and at the moment for DNT users they are given a grace period to pay back the money that they scam and have their DNT removed.

I see this too much in the RaS section. Scammers often use the excuse that they are at work and they will explain themselves in a few hours in an attempt to buy more time to find more victims to scam.

This however should be removed. I find it conveniently funny how most of these scammers are ban evaders and even after they have been shown proof of them being a ban evader, all that's said is "oh I'll give so and so user some time to respond". Scammers should never be given a grace period. Fair enough if there is in fact a "reasonable" IP-Change thats a good enough reason to DNT users however if a victim is convicted of scamming they should be banned immediately rather than being given the rank else they just end up buying more time to scam more people.

TL;DR: Scammers should be banned immediately and the DNT rank should only be provided to hacked accounts and/or accounts that are suspected of having some kind of illegitimate activity displayed on them.

 

Hey, thank you for bringing this issue up,

I fully agree with what DunWorry has to say about not being required to request a pardon after being hacked and repaying the victims, especially for a first time offender. Personally speaking, I was extremely urgent on repaying the victim that my hacker scammed (I posted a ban dispute the next day). However, after creating the thread and receiving notice of who to pay back, I was told that I must ultimately pardon for my actions. I found this extremely unjust to the point where I held off repaying until just recently. I did not want to go through the whole lengthy pardon process for something that I didn't even do. Pardon's should be for users who personally did malicious acts with intent, not people who have their accounts compromised and are willing to pay back the victims. By keeping this system, you are ultimately pushing away users from repaying their debts because of the inconvenience of going through the Pardon system, meaning that the victims of the hackers are going to be left empty handed. This current system is providing the opposite effect that the community needs, which is getting the money back to the victims.

 

If one day, I need some money, for whatever reason, I can turn on a VPN, log into my account, scam some people, and a couple months down the line when I'm in a better position, I could claim I was hacked and repay what I owe for full website access once again. This would be impossible to prove, of course, so how would you attempt to solve this?

If the above were addressed, I would definitely support your notion.

 

How often do you think this is actually the case? Pretty seldom imo. With proof they'd of course have to pardon, but without proof you have to assume they're innocent as per the innocent until proven guilty policy

 

I would argue it isn't the case right now because you still have to pardon. If the rule were changed, I don't see why some people wouldn't take advantage of it. Anyways, there's no way to really predict what would happen so maybe we could trial run it.

If a significantly larger portion of the community are getting "hacked" after the rule change then that would pose a problem that would have to be dealt with at future time.

 

Yeah it's always subject to response from the community after implementation. I just see it as a nuisance for returning ransoms since the recent theme is ease of reintegration. TBH I just don't see it too commonly exploited as those who scam and claim to be hacked would still have to refund, which is where most of them just stop trying to get unbanned

 

It's pretty easy to fabricate a hacking. This would encourage falsified hackings as a method to avert repayment. I rather stay the course and encourage users to protect their accounts to not fall victim to getting hacked. I would only support hackings that pre-date the introduction of 2fa.

 

Reread the suggestion and comment again

 

Although I agree with you a lot I cannot support.

We all know this would just result in more staged hacks by manbabies.

The risk is much higher with authority market users (aka high vouch, well known user, and/or large donor). In this regard I think the trader must be competent enough to set up 2FA and other common-sense measures such as not using the same credentials everywhere.

Lets say for example a $200 donator with 500 vouches gets "hacked", they should take their business seriously and take their security very seriously.

I strongly believe any trader who doesn't take their security seriously and gets hacked should be punished, and I strongly oppose people feeling sorry for them. Maybe I am harsh but if you're here to trade you should take security seriously.

Hypothetical scenario:

You can always put yourself on the other end of the spectrum.

- Lets say you're a lurker on sythe, and then you trade a reputable market user with full trust in them to hand over $500.
- If that user is hacked/"hacked" then you're out of $500 until they can refund. Now hypothetically speaking, what happens if like you say, the said user needs a lengthy period of time to repay you, but you just remembered you have that electricity bill to pay, or that school text-book? Car insurance etc? aka anything of importance.
- Now you have to go and borrow money off a family member, friend, or even take out a loan just because some lazy son of a bitch online didn't take a couple of minutes to check their account security.

 

Support. For all of you talking about fake hacks, it's a very uncommon occurrence and either way they will be dnt until repayment, so it's not like this would become some elaborate way to scam and make thousands.

 

Your hypothetical doesn't hold up because if you're going to spend money online that you need for car insurance, you still wouldn't have that money for the car insurance bill since you spent it. Either way, as Ryan said faking a hacking is an uncommon occurrence. They would still have to pay back the debt, and really Sythe should be operating under an innocent until proven guilty system. The recent theme is allowing users to return more easily, since you can pretty much do whatever you want, against the rules or not, and be a DNT. I don't see too much harm in this. If there is reason to believe the hacking is fake, then staff can use their judgement.

Also I'd just like to add that pretty much every single hacking incident that went through the pardon system has been pardoned if that's their only offense

 

Again I emphasize the importance of security. If people do indeed get hacked, we can't be all fairytale and simply unban them even if they repay their debts. Of course they should pardon if the situation was questionable. It all depends on the nature of the "hack", as hacking is a broad subject and has been done in so many different ways that are are not comparable to one another.

If I rephrase my hypothetical situation to selling 500M, then the trader who is hacked/"hacked" runs with the 500M, then the victim is $500 (approx) down, and if trading is their only source of income, then again, if the hacked/"hacked" user takes ages to compensate for the loss, then the scammed user is $500 down.

You're a smart guy, I hope you've realized that the lenience of DNT is to simply keep the sythe numbers up (which if it counts I also disagree with, its short term mentality) I see only half hearted efforts to increase traffic, and to be honest its a joke as most of us don't even care anymore as we make more money from our paid ads ROI. - I know a slight tanjent there, but I feel the need to remind you of this.

You think its absurd they have to go through the pardoning system "as though they did something wrong", yet in most cases users have been hacked due to their negligence to follow common sense security procedures.

Like I said in my previous reply, morally I almost 100% agree with you. But you have to separate fairytale morals from business. If someone gets hacked then tough shit, its mostly their fault and at least they learn from it. If its not their fault then yeah it sucks, but again its a learning curve.

Some people may scam quit and then pardon & refund and use a hacking as a cover story, just because they're indecisive in their scamquit and/or want another shot at scam quitting for a larger amount.


edit:

^ This is what I'm getting at actually. And it has happened more times thanI can count on both hands on this market and others too.

 

Common sense security procedures is common sense to you. To someone uneducated in the matter who casually games a few times a week online and trades here and there on Sythe, it isn't common sense. I could lecture you about plenty of common sense Ultimate Frisbee plays but they wouldn't be common sense to you because you just don't know the topic. Before you attempt to say that's wrong or an unfair comparison, I still to this day educate people about what 2FA even is as plenty of people do not know what it is or what it does. Why do you think there are even articles still published saying to not use the same password on multiple websites? People will do it because they don't know.

Secondly, you're inadvertently agreeing with me. If their situation is questionable, I said for mods to use heir judgement and require them to pardon if they believe that's the correct choice. I'm only saying don't make pardons the default. If someone says they were hacked and there is nothing to suggest otherwise, once they have repaid their debts they should be able to return to the community.

 

This suggestion has been approved / moved to pending for discussion.