Conspiracy Theory

Time for a consipiracy theory from the n00b

I noticed a trend on Orientation Island today while I was playing with my appearance. After talking to a few people about this it seems that perhaps this is some sort of scheme that needs to be looked into.

Pull up the Find window and click on the People tab and do a search for "A Flanders"



My guess is somebody is harvesting the $250 starting stipend and the $50 weekly stipend from several different credit cards so they are all free accounts.

Right now there are 67 suspicios "A Flanders" accounts listed.

That's $16,750 up front and $3,350 a week. Not bad for a days work!

(This can't be good for economy, can it?)

lol, and the thing that makes these 67 accounts suspicious is what?

Perhaps the fact that they were all born between Nov. 13-16 and almost every one has a first name that ends with "9p93c"?

P2

In order for a basic account to make their stipend they have to spend time in game playing. I dont see how somebody could go back and forth between that many accounts in 1 day to make it worth it.

All that is necessary for a basic account to receive a stipend is to log in once during the week, although for L$50 a week, I'd have to say, "get a life, loser..."



P2

...and just look at these names:all born in Grover's Mill, New Jersey on the same date - October 30, 1938.

Something is definitely odd here... wait... I think I got it. Nope. Nevermind.

Are there martians involved?

P2

In Live Help, Adam said it was an exploit that is fixed now and it's no longer possible. He also said they don't get paid, so you can have a good night's rest tonight.

May I pass along my congratulations for your great interdimensional breakthrough. I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.

Laugh-a while you can, monkey boy!

You know....somebody should set up a Yoyodyne in world.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/
http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/bbindex.shtml

BigbooTAY!

nope, not martians... 'EVIL - PURE AND SIMPLE, FROM THE EIGHTH DIMENSION!!' (hey, did i get that right? been a long time since i watched it...

My hangar door in Caldbeck has the Yoyodyne logo on it. I was this close to naming my biz "Yoyodyne Propultion Systems", decided to go for something less associated with evil via the 8th dimention.

Obviously you two didn't look into this at all. No, the coincidence isn't just that they had the same initial first name and the same surname.

Abbaz9p93c Flanders
Abbottz9p93c Flanders
Abdulkareemz9p93c Flanders
Abelz9p93c Flanders
Abibaz9p93c Flanders
...

If you don't detect an obvious pattern emerging then i'm not going to attempt to explain it to you,

Check out B, C, D, and E Flanders while you're at it



Good to hear. Glancing at the signup page I don't see that they've added any kind of reverse Turing test to the form so I'm curious as to how they've fixed this exploit?

Hi Intent, (love the name btw)

I'm not trying to speak for those guys but I think Dark and Malachi knew exactly what you were talking about, it's just that they are not surprised at all to see people 'farming' the stipend. We all know it goes on, especially after the Basic resident accounts became free.

What I am curious to know is that even though the Lindens know about this sort of exploitation, why are these avatars still showing up as valid names in an inworld search.

I would think that if this exploit was caught that the offending avatars would be deleted and an annoucement made in reference to it. I've seen no such thing and my guess would be that these avatars are infact still farming the stipend.

Every business wants to show growth, but unfortunately this is not the growth that Second Life needs to be a long term platform. I can only assume that these generated accounts have been left into the system to show this growth.

This thread has a nice graph mapping the total population versus concurrent users, and some good questions were raised there.

I'm sure you are all aware that it is happening, but I can't locate any threads which discuss it being done to this degree.

Here are some more numbers:

1. A*9p93c Flanders - 67 residents
   
2. B*9p93c Flanders - 44 residents
   
3. C*9p93c Flanders - 94 residents
   
4. D*9p93c Flanders - 50 residents
   
5. E*9p93c Flanders - 30 residents
   
6. H*9p93c Flanders - 30 residents
   
7. K*9p93c Flanders - 48 residents
   
8. N*9p93c Flanders - 23 residents
   
9. S*9p93c Flanders - 24 residents
   

This is just those with the Flanders surname. This is 410 new accounts created in the past five days.

Each new account gets L$250 before they even log in.

That's L$102,500 or around US$405 up front and L$20,500 or around US$81 per week in stipends if the accounts log in.

I talked to an E. Flanders who was logged in earlier. It was a short conversation but went something like this:



Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but it does sound rather suspicious.



Well said. Where is the Linden announcement regarding this exploit and if it was an exploit why is E Flanders still allowed to log in and chat with me this evening?

Hotline this. They're probably farming the referrals.

I was around for the discussion you quoted, and mildly intrigued by it, but I had no clue it was that deep a phenomenon.

Intent Unknown I know you are new so I just wanted to point out that it is against TOS to copy/paste a conversation log in forum without there permission. So be careful

You would make a terrible detective.

Too much interrogation, not enough interview/discussion.

Gah. The whole Alt thing has gotten way out of hand with the free accounts.
This is just one issue that I'm sure is happening more than we'd like to think about, but theres a host of other problems associated witht eh No Cost No Risk account creation thing, and thats no-risk griefing.

I mean, I know its cool that people can join with no cost, and the added L to the economy enriches us all, as does the increased number of people for social interactions and such, but the Lindens need to really start dealing with some of the downsides, too.

The Lindens have this odd method of dealing with problems. They tend to not. The group I'm in is a huge target for organized groups of griefers, and unless we an grab a linden by the head and shake them, they tend to not do anything about the situation *shrugs*
And their lack of action on this Farming issue is another problem. Now my deeper thoughts on this are more oriented to the political science thread, but the basics are that the Lindens don't really enforce TOS in-game, and when they do they use very limp wristed approaches, so that there's really no reason *not* to create an alt, farm the referral, farm the stipend, and nuke and crash and bounce your foes, because by the time the Lindens ban you, it'll be about the end of the world as we know it.

Once I figured out what "Hotlining" something meant, I was able to do this.



Hahahah! I know, wasn't I awful?. I sounded like one of those pushy investigative reporters on the local news during November sweeps.

In case anybody is even following this I thought I'd mention that the surname Axon is mildly infested with 9p93c's as well.

Cross posted from an edit to my Hotline post on this topic:

After speaking with a Linden in world there are a few allegations I should retract. However, there are still some loose ends in this situation that deserve a comment.

Apparently these accounts were all registered legitmately and legally by a single person and each additional account after the first did incur a $9.95 registration fee - in all costing this person over US$4000 - for the alleged purpose of locking down a particular surname.

While each account will receive the weekly stipend of $L50 (if logged in during the week) there was no referral bonus farming going on because no referral bonuses were generated due to the way these accounts were registered (you only receive a referral bonus for your first alt, the next 400 don't count ).

The problem that still exists is that these accounts were created using an exploit. An exploit that allowed this person to get around the current alternate account limit of five per household (an exploit that has since been fixed) as described in this forum post.

If this is the case then why are these accounts that were created using an exploit still valid? Shouldn't this customer only be allowed to keep five accounts per the account creation limits?

Agreed. That dialogue sounds awfully like harassment. If I was greeted like that when I first logged, I doubt I would've come back.



Have you thought this could be a business or educational account and that the accounts were created not using an exploit but with Linden permission? Considering that a single account holder holds over 400 accounts and the last names surpass the 150 name limit and the Lindens know about it and have reassured you that there is no fraud or abuse involved, what does that tell you? That Lindens are some how involved?

However, I would like to know about the nature of the z9p93c and z9p93k accounts, without divluging too much RL information. As I said, I suspect they're a business or educational account and the amount of money put up for them would suggest that.

While no actual evidence is in hand, we do have a prime suspect.

If you see anyone matching the following photo in-world, follow closely but do not make yourself noticed, and report immediately to your nearest FIC agent.

I think you must have missed the part where I said the accounts were created with an exploit. Here, let me quote it for you:





I assume that the surname limit of 150 residents was surpassed because of the exploit that was used. Yes there was no fraud involved and no - you are incorrect - the Lindens were not involved until they discovered the suspicious trend, investigated, and subsequently fixed the exploit.

If they Lindens had become involved earlier Mr. Flanders could have saved a bundle of money by reserving a surname through more conventional means.