Keeping It Sneaky: On CVA & Account Hacking

By now, virtually the entire Eve community has heard about what happened the other night in Providence. The CVA alliance was very suddenly and abrubtly disbanded and robbed blind. At first thought to be the work of a Goonswarm mole or disgruntled director in the same fashion in which BoB was taken down, allegations soon followed of account-hacking. *Sigh*, drumroll please! Aaaand que forum-drama, aaaaaaaand ACTION!

In reading the Eve-O forum thread on this, I’ve realized there are multiple arguments about radically different ideas going on here. It’s not as cut and dry as “CVA was disbanded al la BoB from the inside, are you for or against this”. With CCP’s revalation that there is indeed evidence of account hacking, this becomes two distinctly different discussions. Discussion #1 revolves around the issue of corporate espionage and theft, while discussion #2 concerns out-of-game Real Life crime and offense. I’ll address these individually.

Concernng issue 1; I am whole-heartedly supportive of the idea of  Corp infiltration and the like. Actually, I think its one of the more ingenious and unique aspects of Eve. On the above-mentioned forum thread, there seems to be a lot of whining about needing new rules that prevent a single individual from lying and worming their way up to the top of a Corp and then disbanding and/or economically crippling it. The usual weepy carebear complaints ensue: “Whaaa, CCP needs to make new rules against this!!” or “This needs to be addressed! It’s an exploit!” or my all-time personal favorite, “It’s not fair!!”. *Ahem*, to my furry carebear friends out there: you’re right! There should be a rule to prevent this sort of thing from happening to a Corp. But you know, actually, come to think of it…there already IS a rule out there to prevent this! And that rule is “Less Fail”.

Seriously, this is not hard guys. Want a good method of preventing some sneaky prick (read: totally rad and seriously awesome guy I want to be friends with) from breaking into your Corp wallet and assets and robbing you blind? DON’T LET HIM. Even when it comes to huge mega-corps/alliance like CVA, there’s really no need for more than three or four people to have access to anything important. To me this just seems like common sense I guess (albiet “comon sense” and “carebears” are two words that rarely do find themselves at the same party).

Corporate infiltration and gross theft is fascinating to me, and I find myself reading and re-reading the famous ones over and over again. Haargoth and BoB, Guiding Hand Social Club, E.I.B.; these amaze and intruige me. Call it underhanded, spiteful, a dick move…whatever you want. But someone cunning and diabolically sneaky enough to get themselves into a position of power to then abuse it using legal game mechanics is a genius in my book. And if doing that took a long-con approach, I tip my hat even more. That my friends is sociopolitical savvy at it’s finest. Let’s be honest, alts probably make up a quarter of the population of Eve, at least. And not all of them are catalyst-flying mission-salvaging alts with painfully unimaginative names (ie “Mr. Moz” and his super-secret salvaging alt, “Mrs. Moz”…Morrissey-references aside, dude…really?) if you get my drift.

The other subject of debate is the idea (edit: now knowledge) that one of CVA’s directors’ account’s was hacked, allegedly by ISK sellers. Now, ok, plausible enough explanation. Account hacking does happen, especially when it comes to creditcard-fishing ISK sellers. Although that said, was this attack targeted specifically at CVA, or did some ISK seller hit the jackpot when they cracked open some random account and found themselves with the keys to the CVA kingdom?

Personally, for the record, I find both isk-buying/selling and account hacking deplorable and deserving of a life-ban from Eve, if not criminal charges. ISK buying/selling because it undermines the entire spirit of the game, and account hacking because it’s taking things a giant step too far. Let’s not forget folks, this here is a GAME, and to push arguements or disagreements into the realm of real life is breaking the fourth wall so to speak. If taking your anger and agresssion out on a character in Eve crosses over into taking anger and agression out  on the actual person behind the character, you’re doing it wrong. Also, you should probably find something better to do with you time than Eve.

TL;DR version:

Ninjas; totally down with spying, infiltration, theft, and generally sneaky and devious behavior. NOT down with acount-hacking, isk buying/selling, and other shit-headed actions that undermine the fact that this is a game we all love.

Keep it sneaky folks.

o7,
-Aiden

Edit: CCP has announced that due to the fact that this WAS a hack, and therefor a breach of legal game-mechanics, the disbanding of the CVA alliance will be reversed. As of downtime tonight, CVA will be returned to active alliance status. Meanwhile, the rest of us can go on not really being phased by the e-melodrama that has and will probably continue to play out in the far corners of 0.0 space that no one really goes to anyways =P.

~ by Aiden Mourn on October 29, 2009.