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Technical Difficulties Due to Attacks from the Third Party

This is an announcement about PlayOnline network technical difficulties since Apr. 9, 2005. It has come to our attention that recent technical difficulties with our PlayOnline server are due to an organization-wide DDoS attack from an anonymous third party. We have determined that this activity was undertaken with malicious intent and specifically targeted our network. Our technicians are taking every measure possible to prevent further attacks. However, attack methods have varied, which has caused a more time-consuming review of our network protection. Currently we are unable to determine the precise source of attack. However, with the cooperation of ISP companies, our investigation continues to make progress. Law enforcement authorities in Japan, the United States, and Europe have been contacted for support. We chose not to make an announcement of this nature earlier due to the unwanted effect it could have on our investigation, on the investigations of authorities abroad, and for stopping information that could be used to undertake additional network attacks. The most recent server difficulties and PlayOnline service interruption, however, have persuaded us to disclose more information on this matter to our users. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience these attacks have caused in recent days. Attacks continue at this hour in intervals and we regret that our investigation cannot allow for estimates as to when we expect service to return to optimal levels. Our technicians will continue to select the most effective measures available as we work with local and international authorities to take legal action against those obstructing PlayOnline service. We ask for your understanding and cooperation as we strive to maintain the best service possible. Thank you.

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DDoS is?
# Apr 26 2005 at 11:05 AM Rating: Decent
I was wondering what DDoS was so i went off to www in search of info. This page seems to sum it up pretty well.

http://www.block-ddos.com/what_is_ddos.php

Also makes me wonder if part of the reason SE is having trouble catching the offenders is bc they are using trojans to use our computer against us. but i'm no "script/hacker-tracking-guru" so i couldn't tell you.

To added to the blame game:
anyone think that maybe this is being done be a competitor? Maybe.... Microsoft (joking, if Bill had a problem with SE he'd just buy them out)
OMG
# Apr 23 2005 at 12:00 PM Rating: Excellent
/rant

Well I have read some disturbing posts here. I am not talking about the announcement that was made by SE but the flames posted by players. Do you think that SE wants to **** us all off?

No they dont and I will tell you why.

It is really simple it is money. Think about it ppl, if SE can't provide good service they lose subscriptions no matter how good the game is. (money lost). If SE has to keep employees at the server sites overtime or create new shifts to monitor the servers they lose money again in labor. Now lets say that these hackers are caught then they may be able to recover some (prolly not near enough tho) of the money lost in taking the extended measures to stop and/or catch the hackers. There is that chance that the ppl causing the problems will not get a monatary fine for the trouble(no recovery of lost funds) they have caused. So you think that SE is keeping this information from us just to spite us? no they are keeping this information from us so that they can form an investigation and catch the hackers. If the hackers are in fact players or are monitoring the POL and SE websites they would know that SE is onto them. Further more by announcing that there are "Server problems" SE could be using that as bait for the hackers to try some more of their tricks while monitoring software is running in an attemps to locate them. I highly doubt that this is a political attack on either Japan or the US. Why do I think this? Simple again who really cares about ppl playing video games? What kind of political statement would that send? "Your population cannot play its favorite online video game!! MWUUUHHAAHAHAHAHAHAH!!" {um...} no. That sounds like something that Pinky & the Brain would come up with. I think that SE did the right thing by waiting to tell us what was going on. I too had times when I got booted and could not get on. Was I upset? yes. At one time I was in a very good PT with my THF(I have not had a PT with THF in a while) and was looking forward to getting a few levels under my belt and at 42 that takes some time. Well I got DC and could not get back online for about 3 hours. My PT I had was still where they were when I left and they were all 2 levels higher than me. I do not blame SE for this I just accepted it for what it was and hope that it gets better. Well it looks like things are better now I have not had this problem in over a week. IF you think that I will keep just accepting the DCs and keep paying my money and supporting SE the answer is no. Accept that no matter how well you design software or firewalls some one will be malicous enough to hack them yes. With that "yes" I also expect some form of prevention from future occurances.

/endrant

Edited, Sat Apr 23 13:01:02 2005
Moving on...
# Apr 23 2005 at 4:50 AM Rating: Decent


Edited, Tue Apr 26 16:20:05 2005
hmmm...
# Apr 19 2005 at 11:42 AM Rating: Decent
well for most of the posters learn what a DDOS is before posting, and odds are the culprits have no connection with any of the things that have been proposed. Most likely some some script kiddie got ahold of some DDOS sofware and has been running it thinking they are all cool.

Insider...
# Apr 19 2005 at 10:26 AM Rating: Decent
My guess is it a disgruntled employee. Working in the I.T. security sector myself I have found more often than not my invesigations lead back to an insider...

Or maybe blaim the Russians, oh wait they aren't communist anymore. Let's blaim China. /Brainwash

LOL
RE: Insider...
# Apr 19 2005 at 12:37 PM Rating: Decent
Forgive me, this was posted in wrong space.

Edited, Tue Apr 19 13:47:16 2005
RE: Insider...
# Apr 19 2005 at 12:36 PM Rating: Decent


Edited, Tue Apr 19 13:38:53 2005
Re.gilsellers
# Apr 18 2005 at 8:34 PM Rating: Decent
he has a good point, theres no way bush could win twise in a row.......those damn gil sellers,girrrr
RE: Re.gilsellers
# Apr 19 2005 at 12:51 PM Rating: Decent
Re Bush, per David Letterman, and I agree...while Bush should be worrying about the war and economy, he is tucked away at the White House or the ranch set at Crawford playing video games. His favorite new game...Grand Theft Election.

All the conjecture about SE's inability to maintain their servers is just that...empty conjecture. Fine, they didn't tell us what was going on because they wanted to catch the bad guys. Kewl...then DO it and let us get back to the service we are paying for or issue us refunds for lost time. Period.
Intervals
# Apr 18 2005 at 6:05 PM Rating: Decent
I saw the post about intervals, this makes me even more worried, for all we know it could be a 10 yr old server someone got off of e-bay and hid in a shed somewhere with a cable running to it. If thats the case even finding the source won't garauntee finding the culperate. For all we know the starwars geek, the moogles, and the uber dude from this forum might already be far away from that server.
seraph
# Apr 18 2005 at 1:33 PM Rating: Decent
***
1,276 posts
RE: seraph
# Apr 26 2005 at 10:42 AM Rating: Decent
could you be a lil more specific, there are many post there....
heh
# Apr 18 2005 at 1:28 PM Rating: Decent
*
116 posts
Someone up there, I think it was Stalinfalcon posted:

Quote:
Wow. Now THAT surprises me. I thought the Chinese were mad because the JPs were DENYING their transgressions, not ADMITTING them. Once again I /bow to the JPs and question the Chinese. Imagine an American textbook ADMITTING they were wrong for the Prague firebombings, the Tokyo firebombings, the Nuclear bombs; instead of completely ERASING the Prague issue (books don't mention it so it obviously never happened) and JUSTIFYING the Tokyo issue and the Nukes. Imagine the American textbooks ADMITTING that the American GI of WWII was hated in Europe (not deified as the Texas Institute of Brainwashing ang EA Games would have young America believe) because of sexual misconduct (yes, rape). Thank you for clarifying that point, akaturaVan, because my faith in the JPs had been shaken. It is vindicated and my abhorrence for the Chinese has grown. It takes GREAT character to admit one's wrongs. /clap Japan! ~s!~ (/salute)


No. you were right the first time. Japan is trying to OMIT (as in leave out)the events, not ADMIT that they happened. Don't start saluting, claping, bowing and jumping on the "Japan is teh roxxors!!" bandwagon quite yet Stalinfalcon. Let's get our facts straight first, and keep our "abhorrence" of the Chinese to a minimum without some justified cause eh?

"[i]And its unrepentant tone and omission of Japan's wartime atrocities -- including germ warfare and the forcing of tens if not hundreds of thousands of women into prostitution -- have outraged many Japanese educators and liberals.[i]"

"[i] highly inflammatory, with passages defending Japan's militarism as an attempt to liberate Asia from western colonialism and claiming that resource-poor Japan was pushed into a corner and used aggression as a last resort. Similar logic was used by Japan's wartime leaders.[i]"

-http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/14/japan.textbook.ap/-

Edited, Mon Apr 18 14:45:15 2005
LOL!
# Apr 18 2005 at 11:29 AM Rating: Default
48 posts
bwahahahahahahahaha im suprised this hasnt happend sooner, with the amount of disgust an anger some people have towards SE-FFXI. very very very funny, least imo.
Go get 'em!
# Apr 18 2005 at 9:20 AM Rating: Decent
/em grabs his torch and pitchfork.

The moogles did it! Let's get em!

Think about it. There's at least one moogle for every play, not to mention mules. They know your player ID's, passwords and all your intimate details (aka what you do behing the door of your MH). Who better to stage a DDoS attack? When you log off and go to bed/work, moogles log on and spam the FFXI servers. Come on guys. Its so obvious!


Pfft! I love how people read a few paragraphs and then begin spouting crazy theories like they have everything figured out. lol
Hello??
# Apr 18 2005 at 8:58 AM Rating: Default
Does anyone ever read the news? Or are you all too busy playing FFXI, the Chinese have a huge motivation for wanting to disrupt a large scale and lucrative Japanese company. So stop tryin to log on to FFXI, got to CNN.com, and find out what is going on in the world.
*smacks SE*
# Apr 18 2005 at 8:32 AM Rating: Default
Dear SE...

wake up, you're over a month late on acknowledging issues...and the excuse "well, it's a 3rd party attack so we wanted to pretend it wasn't happening so you wouldn't notice" just doesn't cut it when we assumed with each update you'd fix the problem that we kept noticing and you WEREN'T acknowledging.

Great...you could have not told us precisely what the issue was...I was ok with that. What was not alright is ignoring the problem altogether. A simple "we're having technical difficulties, the servers boot people unpredictably and don't allow them to log in for hours at times, we are aware of this and are trying to figure out why" would have sufficed.

No need to tell us "why" but merely the need to acknowledge problems existing before people get frustrated and start thinking that the announcement is an attempt to cover negligence by SE.
RE: *smacks SE*
# Apr 18 2005 at 9:46 AM Rating: Decent
they didnt tell us because they didnt want to let the attackers know they (SE) were onto them....
the last thing they want is for the attacks to change or stop before they can bring justice to the culprits.
us
# Apr 18 2005 at 7:50 AM Rating: Excellent
We play with the whole world. My party last night was with a group from England. Earlier my party consisted with both Japanese and Americans. The world is getting smaller and we are finding ways to play together instead of as history has shown, warring agents each other. I love the diversity, or differences. Let's not let a loner stop our parties. Let's not let the hatred destroy our fun. I will see you in the game and all will be right in our world.
RE: us
# Apr 18 2005 at 10:23 AM Rating: Decent
Bravo! I am glad to hear a voice of reason amongst this Sea of Banality! There needs to come a time where we all realize that we are in 'this' together.
SE is being attacked, and instead of the loyal followers gathering together to show them support, some chose to attack the very thing that they complain about.
So here's an idea: Suck it up and let them fix the problem!
another wacky idea
# Apr 18 2005 at 7:49 AM Rating: Default
I dunno if this has been proposed yet (seeing the quality of explanations people have given so far, I wouldn't be surprised if it has)-

What if SE is using this as an excuse for the poor quality of their servers? Maybe it's not the chinese gilsellers who are angry about WWII war crimes. Maybe it's all a lie...

Well, I guess all those stupid conspiracy theory movies did ***** up my brain. Anyway, I'm sure SE will fix whatever problem is out there. But I know that if I keep lagging out randomly (which wasn't a problem until recently), I may be switching to WoW.
hmm
# Apr 18 2005 at 7:04 AM Rating: Default
well I think this is bad and all, but I think due to the vague description of "third-party" I don't think we should be naming names or...countries. even though gilsellers and MAYBE the chinese are on top of the list of suspects.
>_>
# Apr 18 2005 at 6:34 AM Rating: Default
well this is the most retarded sh*t i ever saw to be honest , i mean i fu**ing childish can some ones a$$ get
Sad to say
# Apr 18 2005 at 3:37 AM Rating: Decent
19 posts
But I really am getting so sick of getting punted at night that I honestly hope they get caught, imprised and then butt f'ed till their rear ends bleed!
politics
# Apr 18 2005 at 3:14 AM Rating: Decent
****
6,424 posts
I'm pretty sure gilsellers aren't involved. If anything, they are hit as much as normal players, except that to them wasted time = wasted $$. Judging from the number of known gilsellers still active, only the aggresive ones have been banned, and they probably got new accounts asap.

I do think the DDOS attacks are caused by Chinese hackers (or sympetisers elsewhere), probably those that got banned for things like speed hacks etc, and that it's related to the current political issues.

Intervals
# Apr 17 2005 at 9:34 PM Rating: Decent
"Attacks continue at this hour in intervals and we regret that our investigation cannot allow for estimates as to when we expect service to return to optimal levels."

Does anyone know what these intervals are/were? Just an area would be nice. I really need to do something. :-/
DDOS info
# Apr 17 2005 at 9:27 PM Rating: Excellent
**
951 posts
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/ddos.attacks.html

If you're not sure about what DDOS is, read up about it here.
Who's really to blame????
# Apr 17 2005 at 8:59 PM Rating: Decent
Blame the chinese! In one word, "no". Why would a chinese hacker decide to disrupt FFXI servers?? SE may be based in Japan, but the game is played by people worldwide and there are no political gains to be made in ******** with a bunch of teenagers and middle-aged bald men. The most likely suspect would be an ex-gilseller since they were recently banned, destroying an opportunity for them to make some cash. But for right now, it really doesn't matter. As long as they get the problem fixed. Now quit wasting your time and log back in. :P
RE: Who's really to blame????
# Apr 18 2005 at 9:07 AM Rating: Decent
***
2,214 posts
Quote:
SE may be based in Japan, but the game is played by people worldwide and there are no political gains to be made in ******** with a bunch of teenagers and middle-aged bald men.


Hey, I am not *THAT* bald, and I have a few years yet to be considered middle aged... :P
____________________________
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/729735/
RE: Who's really to blame????
# Apr 18 2005 at 12:05 AM Rating: Decent
Quote:
Blame the chinese! In one word, "no". Why would a chinese hacker decide to disrupt FFXI servers?? SE may be based in Japan, but the game is played by people worldwide and there are no political gains to be made in ******** with a bunch of teenagers and middle-aged bald men.

I'm not blameing anyone for this not even the chinese but it can be anyone really. And if you diden't know whats going on in china right about now or a week ago there kinda pissed about the new version of the japanese history text book released that talked about how they slautherd and raped chinese women when they "tried" to take over china... so alot of chinese are boycotting (don't know if i'm spelling that right) alot of **** stuff even beating *** students in china just b/c there *** so.... over all I woudlen't be surprized if it was a chinese person

Edited, Mon Apr 18 01:07:08 2005
RE: Who's really to blame????
# Apr 18 2005 at 3:16 AM Rating: Decent
46 posts
Wow. Now THAT surprises me. I thought the Chinese were mad because the JPs were DENYING their transgressions, not ADMITTING them. Once again I /bow to the JPs and question the Chinese. Imagine an American textbook ADMITTING they were wrong for the Prague firebombings, the Tokyo firebombings, the Nuclear bombs; instead of completely ERASING the Prague issue (books don't mention it so it obviously never happened) and JUSTIFYING the Tokyo issue and the Nukes. Imagine the American textbooks ADMITTING that the American GI of WWII was hated in Europe (not deified as the Texas Institute of Brainwashing ang EA Games would have young America believe) because of sexual misconduct (yes, rape). Thank you for clarifying that point, akaturaVan, because my faith in the JPs had been shaken. It is vindicated and my abhorrence for the Chinese has grown. It takes GREAT character to admit one's wrongs. /clap Japan! ~s!~ (/salute)
RE: Who's really to blame????
# Apr 18 2005 at 10:38 PM Rating: Decent
34 posts
Long on sarcasm and short on logic. Good job. The American WW2 soldier was the savior of Europe, and for you to say "wait a minute! Some soldiers raped some people so we must have been evil" is the same idiotic hand-wringing that was actually horrified that soldiers in Iraq would stoop to the cruelty of putting underwear on some jackass's head. Give me a break! Every war has rapist soldiers. What made the Japanese invasion of China so bad was the magnitude of the cruelty. Murders and bombings for weeks and months on residential areas with soldiers passing through soon after to rob corpses and steal things that families couldn't carry away from their homes as they left in millions, walking to unknown cities to beg for scraps, fighting weather and illness. This was done for imperial reasons, not retaliation or self-defense. You have no idea, apparently, and you seem to like to side with the Japanese (whom I also like), but before you break out the knee pads, you need to get a realistic and proportional view on history and leave the weak arguments of "we did it too so everything's okay and America is evil" back in elementary school.
Shit happens
# Apr 17 2005 at 8:12 PM Rating: Decent
wow this is my 4 post on 1 topic... I love hearing wht ppl think... Its so interesting... But that one person is right... If everything comes bak to norm, and it dosnt happen agian, no one but the person who did this gets hurt, I lvl to 75 in one day, and world peace ect... Im just fine.. ^_^
Connection hacking
# Apr 17 2005 at 5:57 PM Rating: Decent
I've been reading all the forums and read the one about the IP adress. Here is my theory. Considering that any player is sending player data and commands to a server, that person has limited axcess to that server, so this means a person connection to that server with a different connection that works off of some of the playonline files might be able to hack using the very files used to play the game. Doing this would have to go through an ID, so there is a possibility that someone is doing this through random character's ID's so that the hacker is impossible to be found unless a trap account was made to catch the hacker. It wouldn't be hard to get someone elses playonline ID eithor, people pay others to lv their character all the time, they give their user info and everything, which is completely unfair to those of us who lv our characters through the hard work of our own xp training.
....
# Apr 17 2005 at 5:26 PM Rating: Default
So, i'm betting is some middle aged, balding, fat, lazy, Starwars Geek, who still lives with him mom, that hacked.. the FBI, CIA, State Capital servers, they all say "Caught in 5 seconds, with 20 years in jail" so, what better then to ruin the fun for all the little kiddies of the world who play the game (this was brought up while the middle-aged guy had a bad memory of being beaten up by the video game junkies in highschool and telling him starwars sucked) thats my theory... kinda funny if you ask me...
RE: ....
# Apr 17 2005 at 10:57 PM Rating: Decent
Congratulations on your description of the majority of MMORPG players.
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