Should I give my personal information to a private server?

Started by Bue, Feb 08, 2021, 06:47 PM

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neethree

Distilled, you are being way too narrow-minded, and Bue, a tad too far in the opposite direction.

The concern shouldn't be about random individuals "trolling" you, but the bigger scale of things. Sure, it's very unlikely that someone is going to find your info and target **you** specifically just to minorly annoy you, or phone you or anything else silly like you're suggesting.  But if your data becomes breached, you become a name in a long list of names that bots will have a field day with. The more info you give to services, whether it be your average joe starting an RO server or a random-donkey forum on the internet with no real accountability - all puts you in a more dangerous position.  Each layer of information you provide to people puts you at another level at risk. Sure, someone with just your email can't really do anything. But if they get your email from one source, phone no from another, date of birth from another, password from another - well, now you're in a real s*** position.  When this sort of information gets compromised it gets distributed on huge scales, and people with malicious intent use bots to cycle through all of the information to try and see what they can get out of it. Origins was recently victim to a "hack" where user details leaked from non-oRO sources were used to steal game accounts. You can only hope that the "hacker" only bothered to steal items in a video game, and not get into peoples' emails or bank accounts. Yes, any service can be subject to breaches, but let's be real - million dollar companies that are severely accountable for data management are on a whole other level than a guy hosting a video game pserv. While it is also less likely that services like this will get hacked, it still happens, as does malicious admin / disgruntled GM leaks.

Neffletics has the best take in the whole thread. The user should always retain the right to submit fake information. Being mindful and cautious is something everyone should be a little bit more of.
Current Server(s):
None ;-;

distilled1

Quote from: Bue on Feb 10, 2021, 12:14 PM
Whatever the chances may be. The risk of exposing your personal information still exist. That is the point that I am trying to make.

You can do all the mental gymnastics you want to justified it, but exposing your real phone number will always put you at risk of real life harassment through phoning calling and text messaging.
"Whatever the chance may be"? Even if it's 0.000001%? Whatever the chance, you say?
You're the one doing the mental gymnastics in attempt to worry people from playing on Ragnarok Travels. We all know why you made this thread, because you're repeating the same things you were just saying the other day in the Ragnarok Travels thread.

The point you're trying to make is dumb, obvious, and not even worth mentioning unless this thread is directed at 8 year olds or something. Then okay, I guess thanks for informing the young and extremely naive, except you didn't make this thread for that. It's obvious why you made this thread, constantly mentioning "warlords", as in "Warlord J", the admin of Ragnarok Travels.
You're a straight up troll, trying to project your paranoia on others for whatever reason.
Maybe you have a grudge against Ragnarok Travels for being banned, being unable to play due to not having a phone, or whatever else, but only an idiot would believe that you made this thread out of the kindness of your heart. You're so full of chowder, you should have a bread bowl for a beard!

You're more likely to get poisoned eating food than any of those things happening. Are you going to stop eating food? Hopefully not.
You're more likely to get killed in a car crash, or on a bicycle than any of those things happening. Are you going to walk everywhere for the rest of your life? I doubt it.
DOWN WITH MULTI-CLIENTING!

Bue

This is not some conspiracy against your server. You are being paranoid.

Everyone is in agreement that you shouldn't give private servers your personal information.

You are the one doing mental gymnastics to downplay the risk of having your personal information leaked.

I have also ran private servers and other services since high school. I know what kind of power I have over someone if they gave me their personal information, especially their phone number.

What if I leak your personal information to internet trolls? I don't have to take any risk. Do you think I would be responsible if I leak your information? Can you proved I leak your information? And what if the internet trolls actually harass you? There is always drama on private servers, you think people won't have the incentive to do it?

Naruto

Quote from: Bue on Feb 08, 2021, 06:47 PM
It appears that some private servers are now asking for personal information. And I want to start a discussion to help players stay informed about some of the risk involved, so I will start by posing a few questions.

Should I give my personal information to a private server? If not, why?

Are private servers held accountable if they leak my personal information?

maybe try playing on official servers if you dont like how accessible your information is to COMMON people

pardon my phrasing

...................

Eiponpon

Quote from: Bue on Feb 11, 2021, 04:45 AM
Everyone is in agreement that you shouldn't give private servers your personal information.
no we're not. most people here think you sound nutty

Id give to a private server over a soulless megacorp any day. and the info is hardly "personal". rms has your info btw. better delete your account

dahman

Quote from: Eiponpon on Feb 11, 2021, 03:12 PM
no we're not. most people that play TravelsRo and defend themself here think you sound nutty


uhm, i fixed your typing.

no offense, but while reading this thread, that came into my mind x)

i can totally understand Bues concerns. and they are kinda valid. but also applys to alot of other stuff aswell outside RO.
We all agree to this kind of stuff 1000 times in our lifes.

but there is no right or wrong here.
some ppls feel good to give out personal datas to a random company.
some doesnt.
some ppls feel good to give out peronal datas to a random guy setting up a RO server.
some doesnt.
its a personal choice of handling your own data.

u guys are taking it much to personally it seems.

bottom line is:
ITS A RNG GAME- like a card drop!
very small chance - maybe 0,01 ( /heh) of something "bad" happening with ur data.
j/k

everyone is free to take the very small risk in favor of a smaller chance of having multiclient abusers.
i guess i whould not care aswell, and do this phone number thing, but i whould just use a prepaid throwaway number.

Bue

Some people never had their accounts hacked.

Some people never had their personal information leaked.

And some people never caught the attention of internet trolls.

So I can understand why some people think that this could never happen to them.

However, the people that make the chance argument are suffering from cognitive dissonance.

They understand the risk, but they are desperately telling themselves that it could never happen to them.

If you been around the private server community for as long as I have, then you would never trust a private server warlord with your personal information. I have been in some of these development communities and they are usually a combination of immature, incompetent, or malicious.

There is also a long history of accusations made against private server warlords and their henchmens right here on RMS. And they always get away with it. It is funny how quickly we all forget.

In my opinion, private servers should never ask for more than your username and password and other information that can easily be faked. There is no need to expose yourself to risk.

Boreas

QuoteIf you been around the private server community for as long as I have, then you would never trust a private server warlord with your personal information.

No offense, but being around for a long period of time does not necessarily mean that you are an expert in this field.

Anyway, at topic: I would never give any private ragnarok server my phone number. Not because I'd be afraid of them calling me but simply because I think this is way more information than a server should collect in the first place. Usernames, fine, passwords, fine, email address, fine (you can just register a disposable one, easy), birthdate, fine to a certain extend (if ppl can fake it, who cares). However, I see no need to drop them my address, phone number, shoe size or whatever elese. Why is that needed for their service? To prevent ppl from multi clienting? WHat stops me to ask my sister, mom, friend, whoever to "lend" me thier number so I can sign up ten time son the server? Or maybe I simply own more than one number. I used to have four numbers at some point because of work, etc. which I could have easily used to sign up multiple times.

Long store short, let's not be paranoid about leaked information. The moment you step on the internet you are at risk of getting hacked, leaked, exposed, ddosed, impersonated, harrased, etc. Don't like that? Sstay offline. Otherwise dela with it accordingly. Don't hand over your private informaiton to every retard on the internet. It's that simple.

neethree

Speaking of giving personal information over to RO servers, I was reminded me of a little anecdote. I remember as a kid getting banned or having my account locked on iRO and for some insane reason I had to send them a scan of my passport before they would unlock my account.
Still don't know why they wanted it. Or why I did it - I was only a kid and I remember having to beg my mum to do it, because she was quite rightly "why the f*** does a game want your passport.", but lo and behold after I did it I got my account back.
Thinking back that was incredibly stupid and careless and my thirteen year old face is probably in an archive somewhere from one of Gravity's many hacks.  I want to say "thank god that doesn't happen these days" but YouTube it seems are doing something similar, blocking you from watching "age restricted" videos until you verify your YouTube account with a copy of your ID. I was really appalled that they were doing that.

But yeah. Don't be paranoid, but stay smart. Never give anything that you don't *need* to in this information age.
Current Server(s):
None ;-;

Bue

Quote from: Boreas on Feb 12, 2021, 07:54 AM
No offense, but being around for a long period of time does not necessarily mean that you are an expert in this field.

I have been playing on private servers since 2006 when servers were listed on voting websites.

And I have been posting on RMS since 2009 when I started experimenting with private servers.

I agree with this sentiment completely, but everything I have written so far is based off of my own experience with private servers and other activities.

Quote from: Boreas on Feb 12, 2021, 07:54 AM
Long store short, let's not be paranoid about leaked information. The moment you step on the internet you are at risk of getting hacked, leaked, exposed, ddosed, impersonated, harrased, etc. Don't like that? Sstay offline. Otherwise dela with it accordingly. Don't hand over your private informaiton to every retard on the internet. It's that simple.

I agree, but specifically, don't give your personal information to private servers.

They don't care about protecting your personal information and are not accountable for leaking your personal information.

And don't be stupid and give your phone number to private servers, especially if you rely on your phone.

Stay safe everyone.

Eiponpon

kro requires a social security number. and big corp is even worse with your data because they have incentive to sell it. there is nothing wrong using your phone number for verification if the pserver is doing it to provide a better experience for the players. personally im glad that servers who care enough to do more than the bare min exist. means there is still hope

Phanneh

Quote from: Bue on Feb 08, 2021, 06:47 PM
Should I give my personal information to a private server?
No.

Quote from: Bue on Feb 08, 2021, 06:47 PM
If not, why?
Risk of hacks or of leaks.

Quote from: Bue on Feb 08, 2021, 06:47 PM
Are private servers held accountable if they leak my personal information?
I STRONGLY suspect it'd depend on the jurisdiction the server's in, and on any specific terms you agree to.
More than just accountability, the question is whether or not the private server administration can even reimburse you in the first place.
Most probably not; while not literal men of straw I don't expect most to have real lawsuit-deep types of pockets.

yennar

no you shouldn't, even if some people in this forum will say it's paranoid. It's just common sense.

Ragnarok Online Servers come and go all the time - most of the time there is also 1-2 people behind, who don't really care about data privacy or law at all.
I'll even don't like giving a mail adress out, because they can spam me then and i hate changing mail adresses - so i often use temporary Mail-Adresses if I create an account on those sites.

Phone Number? Never. Ever. You never know what those guy(s) are up to.
Just imagine: you'll join on a small RO server - the Admin wants your phone number for "security" reasons
You quarrel with the Admin - you get banned/leave - and the admin still has all your phone number and can harass you however he wants.

And why would they even need it? Donations work regardless, so they dont need it for cash-grabbing, which often is the number1 of reasons to open a server

Eiponpon

"no you shouldnt, its just common sense" says man who gives number to every app on his phone, all of them purely financially motivated and willing to sell his info

most servers do not verify accounts at all, coincidentally most servers are full of cheaters. kRO is right on this and so is any server that cares enough to do more than the bare min

Nairanduo

Quote from: Eiponpon on Feb 18, 2021, 01:26 AM
"no you shouldnt, its just common sense" says man who gives number to every app on his phone, all of them purely financially motivated and willing to sell his info

most servers do not verify accounts at all, coincidentally most servers are full of cheaters. kRO is right on this and so is any server that cares enough to do more than the bare min

Most apps never verifies with SMS anymore. They most likely ask for an email to associate a unique ID of your phone. Not your actual number.

Here's what you don't understand about giving your personal info however small it might be, can greatly risk a danger for your personal life. When a big mega evil corp such as kRO that you constantly keep describing leaks your data they can be caught accordingly and be sued harshly as there's always a log or a security breach that shows which registered user do what and when they did it. When a company does it, it is logged. Meaning that should you catch them doing this, then you have the advantage of disrupting their work ethics. Those employees can be jailed, or be permanently fired while also being filed in their records for breaking the law. And not only that, but the traffic sellers do not gain any privatized information. A number for them only means potential scam sales increase. That's why the scam salesman wants you and only you to give out information in good faith. That's to argument that they never fished out any details from you.

In Korea you can gain exorbitant punishment for even leaking the slightest of personalized data whether it comes from a legal development team or a private citizen. While worldwide isn't so harsh on these laws, it should give you an example of how much of a difference it makes when these people gets caught.

When an unregistered company, whether they take money or not does this, it is not logged. They are not registered in the system. They use heavy security measures to ensure to avoid being caught. It is extremely hard to prove that they stole from you, and it becomes especially dangerous if those that holds your personal data happen to have -funny- ideas such as finding your home address to send a SWAT team to you as a "prank". And yes, this is a thing now with Indian scammers whom disguises themselves as authorized in-house firms trying to trick you into downloading/running executables to downright gaining remote access to your computer without you even knowing about it. Purposely calling the police to victims if their threats of blackmails to get money do not work. People have died over these "pranks". And that's from fully trusting those individualists that claims total privacy for not being a part of the big evil corporation elitists. If private server owners wanted to they could do equally if not even bigger damage as they're under the radar. That's the problem. So far this hasn't happened. I sincerely hope this will never happen or be expanded upon.

I want to preface that I am not saying or believing that your server does this. But you've got to understand why some people do not want to give their information out and why these constant hit and miss comments makes people all the more skeptical of you.

If you don't care about these things that's fine. You can do whatever if that's what you want. It's your choice. There's always a small risk when doing something. I personally don't think you should live in fear of something always happening or think of immediate worst case scenario. I do not think giving away emails leads to much if you're careful. If your instincts do tell you anything feels off, don't do it. It is in their full right to choose not to out of concern. Just as it is your right to share the information if desired.