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GMC account ‘Hijacking’

A small number of GMC members are kicking up a fuss claiming long time member Games, who managed to ‘hijack’ James Rhodes‘ account, should have his recently instated ban from the forums reversed.

If you read James’ account of the story he did give his password to Games…

“Unfortunately, a GMC user called Games recently obtained my account details for the GMC. I feel like an idiot, and once you read the outline, you’ll understand why.

I’m told by another user on my MSN list that a user called Games has a GMBot, capable of performing practically any request.
Me, being my usual self, set out to prove that it’s fake.
I change my GMC password to “password”, so that my account can’t be compromised (in theory of course).
Send the details away, and viola, the request to make a post happens.
I change my GMC password back to it’s original, so that the details I just gave away can’t be used to login.
Around 5PM AEST, there’s more posts by me. Only now do I realise that the Remember Me option must not time out sessions if the password changes (even though the password changing dialog says it will log you out).
I report any posts made by Games and report his IP address to his ISP. I constantly remove any content from the posts and topics he made under my account.
At my request, Yourself puts me on mod preview until I can get the current sessions on my user reset by KC LC.
That’s the reason I feel like an idiot.

EDIT: It should be noted that I accept the blame he got my username and password in the first place. While this directly lead to what he posted, I believe he had other choices knowing this information (such as ignoring it, or letting me know it was a stupid thing to do) and I don’t accept the blame for what he posted. You may not agree with this, but that is my view on the matter.”

James Rhodes on Roket-Games

Please no one else be so stupid to give your GMC password to anyone.

What do you think?

5 Comments

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  1. That’s what I had thought. I thought it was kinda weird seeing those guys saying that they all wanted him back. Come on, he’s not that nice of a guy. 😛

  2. Online petitions shouldn’t be considered as it is; I mean sure, they are. But what if Games is controlling the members who have created the petition?

    Note that I done zero research on the matter – it’s just a thought.

  3. I honestly look back and I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s one of those events where you wake up in the morning and go “Oh god I hope that was a dream.”

    While I’m at fault for giving someone access to my account (albeit temporarily), Games is still responsible for what he did with it. If he was as helpful as he and other members say he is, he wouldn’t have taken the course of action he did, nor would he impersonate a bot on the very community he supposedly aided with his presence.

    It’s recently occurred to me that the only purpose of this imitation would be to get account details. There is no other reason for it. But if he had not obtained my account details and had I not dealt with it the way I did, he would have been able to scam accounts from other users, and it may have gone undetected.

    What concerns me is that the petition creators (two of which I held in high regard) would rather jeopardize their own reputation by supporting Games, rather than trusting the actions of the moderators and administrators.

    It would be naive to pretend that this hasn’t been a learning experience, and that I don’t see certain things with more clarity now. However, I feel that brooding over the past is not the right course of action, and I need to get on with what I do best: program.

  4. This is a somewhat misleading entry. It puts Hach-Que at fault when, whilst some blame does rest on his shoulder, the finger should be pointed at Games. I object to the quotation marks around ‘hijack’, it implies the writer doesn’t agree with the use of the term. It was a hijacking, regardless of how he came to have the account details. Just because you have someone’s details it doesn’t mean that you’re contractually obliged to frame spam them. Regardless of how long Games has been a member, or how much he had contributed to the GMC (which, in my opinion, is questionable) he was fully aware of his actions and how they broke guidelines, so he must live with it.

    As for the members who started the petitions (whom it should be noted one of which has changed their tune) I believe they were just trying to stir trouble. Anyway, I hope they enjoy their indefinite mod preview statuses.

    I hope we don’t see this type of thing happening on the GMC again (but I know we will)

  5. I do think that it was stupid – but am very surprised that James went to the extent of telling them his password, but everyone makes mistakes.

    I’m glad it got under control before anything majorly serious happened.

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