Mass Mail Hoax of Dec 30

Dear ESF Fan Base,

This is Cucumba, speaking on behalf of the ESF Forum staff. You have recieved an email, which was created by the coding minions, who were responsible for maliciously attacking our site, defacing both it and the forums. During this raid, or perhaps on a seperate security breach, Minion stole a full copy of our forums, a copy of the ESF 1.3 Beta, and as I understand it, a full copy of the source code for ESF.

They have threatened previously to release 1.3, and have now done so, and are attempting to claim that they have been handed this material. Sadly, this is not the case. The 1.3 available for download for them is buggy, and is not he final product we intend to release. We will continue to work on, and release 1.3 in our own time.

The ESF team has not retired, nor are they planning on handing the source code out to other "select groups" (I assure you, Kurt and his group would be dead last for such priveleges) despite claims to the contrary.

If you wish to continue to show your support for ESF, do not download MSF, do not run MSF servers, and do not spread any links you may run across.

Further, there is the chance that MSF may contain altered code that will allow minion to take control of your system, or hijack your steam accounts and steal your steam CD keys. For your own safety, do not run and install this game.

Sincerely,
Rich "Cucumba" Hernandez
Forum Administrator

and making a new post on the esforces main page wouldn`t do any harm

and to be honnest.. i think the esf team has hold the inteam beta`s inteam for a verry long time considering that the beta tester group is BIG and the movements where also big in this year. (movements as in team members that where quitting and new members that where joining)

We are working on that, people who have the ability to do so are not online right now.

Gohanssj2!! said:

and to be honnest.. i think the esf team has hold the inteam beta`s inteam for a verry long time considering that the beta tester group is BIG and the movements where also big in this year. (movements as in team members that where quitting and new members that where joining)

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Well then consider it an unsupported and unsafe [for your status on the forum, at least] version of ESF. Enjoy!

I've been a fan of this mod for a solid four years. No way would I get ESF or some unfinished shadow version of it from anyone but the team.

I'm surprised though; isn't there any legal action you guys can take, or have their IP's take because they've done this? Certainly them hacking the site and stealing your work is a violation of the law.

lol i`m not gonna try it i can`t even get steam running smooth in Fedora Core 6 (yes i`m using linux) and besides.. i want it all to be a surprise so i`m not gonna try the stuff.

SA_Gohan said:

I've been a fan of this mod for a solid four years. No way would I get ESF or some unfinished shadow version of it from anyone but the team.

I'm surprised though; isn't there any legal action you guys can take, or have their IP's take because they've done this? Certainly them hacking the site and stealing your work is a violation of the law.

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they probly can, but there is one bad thing about it.. it will most likely cost them money to start the actions and that`s hard to pay with a mod that`s free
o well.. things like this sadly happen.. what else can you say about them.. they are just lame!!

o btw.. i looked over some files, like liblist.gam, and they did put alot of work in all of this.. they registered 2!! domain for this stuff and they completely adjusted some pictires that that it says "MSF"..

i feel sorry for that person on esf-world that is just called MSF... and way before this happened...

SA_Gohan said:

I've been a fan of this mod for a solid four years. No way would I get ESF or some unfinished shadow version of it from anyone but the team.

I'm surprised though; isn't there any legal action you guys can take, or have their IP's take because they've done this? Certainly them hacking the site and stealing your work is a violation of the law.

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There isn?t anything the ESF can do unless the minions use the code and claim it as there own to make a new product, but I?m not too sure on current copyright laws atm, piracy just makes it too hard to keep up to date.

But to be honest, I think the ESF team brought it upon themselves as if I remember correctly wasn't Kurt given FREE rights to the force pit? Something that was reserved for the most liked member on this forum? Wasn?t he also allowed to be at these forums regardless of his actions elsewhere? And you all knew what he was, what he did to other mods and you all knew who the other minions were, yet you let it carry on.

Sorry but I feel sorry for the coders, modellers and other various people who have been working on this mod and have been let down by the moderating staff and beta testing team

Desmond Tiny said:

There isn?t anything the ESF can do unless the minions use the code and claim it as there own to make a new product, but I?m not too sure on current copyright laws atm, piracy just makes it too hard to keep up to date.

But to be honest, I think the ESF team brought it upon themselves as if I remember correctly wasn't Kurt given FREE rights to the force pit? Something that was reserved for the most liked member on this forum? Wasn?t he also allowed to be at these forums regardless of his actions elsewhere? And you all knew what he was, what he did to other mods and you all knew who the other minions were, yet you let it carry on.

Sorry but I feel sorry for the coders, modellers and other various people who have been working on this mod and have been let down by the moderating staff and beta testing team

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It wasnt a previlage. He was brought in by a forum competition by wining it. Basicly like many other people. Its the fact that Kurt got banned from this forum for posting how to hack a forum that made him so pissed at the comunity.

Also stated by him on IRC. His strike was not at the forum staff members or the Dev team. His strike was at the ESF comunity as a whole. And because his first plan with the leak didnt work out as well as he hoped. He sent the mail.

Also hows the Beta Testing team related to this incident?

Noone of the beta testers didnt do a thing wrong.

so he attacked the members by stealing the teams source code? unfinished Beta? and saying they were retiring? Which part of these hurt any of the members?

Just remind yourself why would kurt, a man who is quite a smart guy be mad at the members for something admins and mods have done? Theres no reason or logic behind it

Sorry but his just pissing about with you, as he did with everyone else

I got the e-mail and tried to notify Pain immidiately, sadly, he doesn't keep his AIM name around, so I couldn't contanct him. Luckily it was delt with before I got the e-mail. I deleted it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a total ******* sometimes, but I'd never do something like this =/

I'd like to keep what ever chance I have left, if any, of being a tester.
:EDIT:

I deleted it pain, wanna check my PC? ^_^

Probably. His first statement to the question why he hacked the forum was.

Because he cound and because the forum staff treeted him wrongly.

Grega said:

Probably. His first statement to the question why he hacked the forum was.

Because he cound and because the forum staff treeted him wrongly.

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still, you all knew he did this to other mods and you let him stay here

Then you act like you never saw it coming, how cunning of you all .....

@Grega

so you actually mean that he basicly did this with the intention of "attacking" all the people that are registered on esforces.. and therefore attacking me, you and everyoneelse.. now this makes the mather a little more personal..

where can i find that bastard!!

and a proposal.
now that a inteam version is leakes i have the proposal of simply putting it online on esforces as a pre beta (or alpha 1 for beta 1.3) so that the esf coders can take advantage of this..

Think of it.. if you do this the esf team will get alot more feedback than just the testing team and therefore the 1.3 product can be way more stable than any previous version of ESF.

or is this a bad idea?

IT`S just a idea.. don`t flame me on it if you don`t like it..

I understand what happened. I doesn't matter to me cause i don't stick around for the game. I just want to know why i was banned from #esf and to know how long the ban is going to be.

It's a bad idea, as the release of source code usally leads to cheats and hacks being made for it, plus the coding team MAY get feedback but they will most likely only get "OMG your game SUCKS11!!!1111" and no REAL feedback for them to use, it's much safer kept IN-TEAM

but a good try at trying to turn the situation in there favour

and with regards to where you can find Kurt, I know the feeling but I think he won't be coming back here for a long time

As far as i know nothing bad happened to my system. I installed it and nothing happened to me.

Snow said:

As far as i know nothing bad happened to my system. I installed it and nothing happened to me.

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Except that you were ripped off into downloading an incomplete and a soon to be/already obsolete version of ESF.

MC said:

Except that you were ripped off into downloading an incomplete and a soon to be/already obsolete version of ESF.

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And that means nothing.

hmm... something i didn`t considered before. if that person KURT could get all our mail addresses it`s likely that he also has all our password hashes..

guess you get the point
password changing time.

Snow said:

And that means nothing.

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Why does it mean nothing? You have a testing version of ESF, so you're more than likely to deal with bugs, glitches, errors, than if you waited until the final build is released to the public. Besides, you never know what's left to be added. The team might have something planned and in development that isn't in the test version you have, but will be in the final version.