Thursday, October 26, 2017

Resource Wars - How To

EVE Resource Wars In Game Activity

Hello space friends I just discovered how do the new "Resource Wars" after trying a few different times and doing it wrong.

I wanted to share what I've found, so you hopefully won't make the same mistakes I did.

1st: What are EVE Resource Wars?

It seems from my brief attempts at doing these, its like speed mining without keeping the ore you mine. I know it sounds crazy, tell me, I've done 7 of them so far. But they are kind of fun.

The activity isn't without reward, its just ... different... which IMO is good. EVE needs different activities to break up the click and wait which  has been mining. Its interactive, its not in the same star system hour after hour and its quick. Well, the ones I did were quick, I'm sure the harder ones aren't as fast.

2nd: Where can I find this amazing activity?

"The Agency" button. Its this little button I never used, or knew existed. You can find it on your task bar and it seems to work like that old external Agent site used to. You can find the old school agents with it, asteroids belts, anoms all sorts of stuff we old timers just saw on our overview.

With in it, there is a drop down that says "Resource Wars". They are broken up into levels that are based off a faction relationship with some corp. Before I started this my standing with that corp was 0, but with my connections skill or which ever skill gives you free points, I was able to do Level 2's without even doing 1s.

It looks like this.


This is what it looks like if you're in the correct ship and have the correct amount of faction. If you don't have the right about, or someone in your fleet doesn't have the right amount that pilot can't get past the entry warp gate. So before you take your space friend (or in my case 2 other characters) make sure everyone is in the correct ship and has faction to enter.


Some information that threw me on this, which perhaps I'm just dense but seriously I didn't know how mining really worked... I couldn't figure out from the description if I was the one hauling the ore or not. I kid you not I tried fly to one with a hauler, thinking I had to haul 10,000 units. I was honestly perplexed trying to figure out if I had to warp out of the site, drop off the rocks for my hauler which couldn't enter, then warp back again...

 Like that description at the top was 'events I'm about to experience' would happen like this.

 The hauler is an NPC hauler, all you as a pilot need to do is fly there, mine 10,000 units and drop them in the hauler, which for this mission is an NPC Orca that is waiting for you to drop ore into.

Took me a little while to figure that out.

3rd: What kind of ship do I need?

There is a list of frigs on the 'mission window' that you can bring. All of them are T1 frig, no faction.

Well I went in with what I could fly with 3 pilots (I triple boxed it) flying this exact fit.

[Venture,]


Lows: 
Capacitor Flux Coil II



Mids:
Small Shield Booster II
EM Ward Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Highs:
Miner II
Miner II

Rigs
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Drones:
Hobgoblin II x2


 This was a bit overkill IMO. I could have done the mission with 2 of these. The trick is to not let your miner II's totally cycle. I'm sure this is some sort of mining tech I never knew, but I guess the rocks are very small and a full cycle of these miner IIs is more than is needed to destroy the rocks.


You could I'm sure do this with T1 versions of this fit, if your quick. You do need to kill the rats, so I think that would be a challenge with just 1 venture.  The rats I was fighting were fit with a web, so you may have trouble doing this site solo even in a blingged out Venture. The web would make it hard to mine 10,000 ore then drop it off before the timer expired. Not only that, but darn near impossible to kill 2 rats with a single venture.

4th:  Once I'm in the system where do I go?

Well if your familiar with the Blood Raider Celestial Beacons, these work very similarly. They are right there on your overview.



The timer doesn't seem to start till you land. At which point this guy pops up and gives you a scary message.


He wants you to destroy the pirates. Add the pirates to your overview...

KEY Overview Point!

Make sure this Ore type is on your overview, do this before you start, or you won't see the dumb rocks. Failed one of these missions because I couldn't figure out WTF he was talking about. Mine rocks? what rocks?!?


Empire Asteroids

There is a little timer on the left that tells you whats left to be done and there is a ticking timer which is super annoying if you let it get below 1:00. (Ive never head that before in EVE and I thought I was losing my mind)




Once the Orca is filled and the pirates are dead.

You are rewarded with all the left over rocks being deleted from your cargo and this message.Which personally I thought was dumb. The "ACCEPT" button is actually something you need to press. Like I wouldn't accept it.. "O no don't give me money and faction.. " :P Even if I didn't want it, wouldn't a "DENY" button next to it make more sense? Seems silly to have just 1 button. 



Anyway... You're also rewarded with what I thought was a fairly hefty chunk of faction points. Which for me in Amarr is awesome. You used to need to do level 1 missions in low sec in order to not be killed by Amarr and raise your faction standing. After about 40 of those I wanted to jump out a window.This is way better.. because if that kid loses her doll one more time.. i sware.. so help me.

After about 7 of these with my 3 characters my Amarr faction was a net of 0.184 which is awesome!

I haven't a clue what the LP is used for I guess I'll eventually figure it out, but I wanted to share some pitfalls I came across while trying this thing.


My opinion on this as an activity in EVE.

I'm going to be totally honest, I'm not a miner. The activity for me has always been just boring. IMO this Resource Wars is what mining should have always been. Its interactive, it makes you think, it keeps you engaged and can't be done by a 5 year old. (not making that up, I had my daughter when she was 5 mine, even she got bored)


Great job CCP. You keep adding stuff like this and I might stop being so critical of you.


(pff who am I kidding, I love to hate you)  <3




Friday, August 18, 2017

The Transition to Vampiric Bitter Vet

 TLDR: Newbie makes newbie mistakes, I semi restrain myself from destroying him utterly, or have I?

Perhaps its the natural evolution of vet-dom, but I wasn't always like this. I've come to realize, that I'm the worst kind of bitter vet. The kind of vet that feeds like a vampire off of the life force of newbies.

In the past, I've enjoyed myself observing my fellow low experienced players like a kind of Jane Goodall, cataloging the behavior of the Mountain Gorillas and their primitive use of tools. Giggling at the similarities and discoveries they make, hopping to reach that place in our evolutionary past and possibly learn something once forgotten.

Naw, fuck that.

Instead of peacefully observing the primitives in their natural habitat, I've found a level of amusement tormenting them in creative ways.

Here we begin the tale of Eve-iL Shenanigans a player I met in Military Wormholers. MW are a collection of vets and newbies trying to do what they can to play this great game called EVE. 

ES as I'll refer to him is no different than you and I except he doesn't fully understand the game to the level we do. He hasn't had the hope and wonder of EVE brutally crushed out of him. He thinks the game is actually a sandbox and simply creativity is the only thing stopping him from succeeding, what a sucker. I'm kidding, hes a nice enough guy, just slightly naive. 

Military wormholers, like other newish wormhole corps is constantly trying to improve its PVP doctrine. They even elected a PVP fitting coordinator, who proceeded to send email after email about what ships he thought we all should bring in to make a cohesive group.  

Along comes ES and his hauling services. His dream, as best as I can figure out, is making an EVE business of sorts by hauling equipment to the wormhole from Kspace at the ever fluctuating rate between 5 and 10%.  So he made us a google doc with complex instructions on how to list the items we need that he could eventually haul in. Adorable right?

I inadvertently at first and later overtly explained to him that everyone worth their salt in Wspace has their own means of hauling shit in and out of the wormhole. But he wasn't having it, he was set on being our corps main go to connection to the distant Kspace market place. Not wanting to crush his hopes and dreams with the realities of this game, I played along. 

Shortly after the PVP doctrine mail went out with 3 ships listed on it, I figured I would use his hauling services and save me some time. I told him, "I'll pay your 10% fee, go ahead and bring me 1 of each ship" have fun, be a space/wormhole hauler. 

He then explained to me that he didn't have the capital for all the space ships on the list. He also mentioned to me that his hauling business wasn't taking off the way he'd hoped. No one was really using it. Not wanting his hopes and dreams to be dashed I broke him off a billion isk. "Bring me change and run along." Thinking I was being tremendously magnanimous with my money and giving this little fellow some business he was striving for. He then begins to complain that our current high sec is 20 some jumps from Jita but he could go to Rens and buy everything, but everything would cost more. 

Sigh, I tried to explain to him, thats not my problem. This is your business, you can't charge people more for a hauling service entirely based on how much effort in jumps you were willing to do. After some checking, we both agree that Rens is near to the Jita price on most of the items but the faction mods for the fits will need to come from Jita. 

Shortly after that conversation I discover that he's using his bestower to do the hauling. By the time I figured it out, he was hauling a scimitar that ended up costing me 540 million through high sec in a bestower. I then told him that any 5 million isk catalist could pop him before concord saved his little hauler. He then asks me if it would be OK if he autopilots. To which I responded with NO!

 O well, newbie mistakes, I get it. Surprisingly he managed to make it the entire way with 1 ship.  He sends me the change. 

Now I know this kid didn't make the fits, but I've bought and flown many scimitars and none of them really ever cost me more than 250, who faction fits a roaming scimi?! O well... 

Fast forward to last night. The conversation is happening in coms about this guy trying to figure out how to run a market in our wormhole. Why not simply fit a market hub in fort? Well the only one who wants a market is the newbie. He's still trying to figure out how he's going to get his 5 to 10 percent from the market hub if its installed. He's doing his best to get out of paying for the fuel it costs to run the hub, complaining that the % that he makes would never pay for the fuel, this is going back and forth for some time. I get bored of the conversation I just fly out and buy it along with as much fuel as I can carry. 

I'm not making this part up, when I was about to head back with my 1 billion isk market hub, he says on coms "Would you like me to haul it for you?" I damn near spit out my drink. 

Now the bitter vet in me said something not very nice to him and for that I was sorry. "did you just hear me key up the mic and say nothing? That was me struggling to say something other than go fuck yourself" Those weren't my exact words, but it something to that effect. 

He disconnects from coms. 

Realizing that instant I just wrecked a newbie and possibly a future EVE player I instantly felt bad.  But in that instant of feeling bad and potentially crushing the dreams, the vampire EVE Vet takes over. It hit me... Why don't I just log in my trading alt who can field 200+ orders? I could undercut him by 1 isk forever, I giggle to myself and realize how terrible that would be to do to my fellow player. He would never sell a thing, meanwhile I rule the market with my alt, giggling to myself, driven to log in day after day for the only reason being to undercut this poor son of a bitch...forever!

Then I came to the realization that I would need to plex that market account to turn it on and pay for a market that I would only be using to torment a single player, day after day. 

Think of the cost. I 'd have to buy every item he wanted to sell, bring it in the wormhole, then sell it by undercutting whatever price he might have made at the time. I'd pay for the upkeep fuel, the initial module cost and the plex cost to keep the market character account running. 

And I actually did the math.. I had the money to keep it up for months! I could play exclusively to just crush the hopes and dreams of this 1 would-be corp hauler marketeer. 

I salivated in delight with the thought of the delicious tears he would generate. It gave me renewed spring in my step. How diabolical have I become?! 

Not being totally drunk on the future of destroying a newbie, I come to my senses. 

I figure the best way to satisfy my sadism was to place all the parts of the ship he initially hauled in for me on the market, at 20% mark up. 

No sense not turning a profit. 



 

Monday, July 24, 2017

J155616 - Baiting Bait



Its nice to know that even years later, people that you've enjoyed spending time with still manage to find you at just the right time.

Since my last post I've been trying to get fights from the people of J155616. I think the main active corp in the hole is named "Unreasonable Bastards" with a sub feeder corp called "Reasonable Bastards". I don't know if they some how own the hole or are renting it or its an alt corp, I honestly haven't figured it out yet. There a lot of corp names in this hole. One group owns the POCOs, one owns the Fortizar another owns a Astrahus.. Its crazy. Honestly it doesn't matter as long as they fight.

In the past week or so I've moved into target (J155616) multiple alts and I'm up to 3 active accounts deep into this venture. First I started with some fun and tried to dual box two sniper (Rapid HML) ravens. I was going to go bigger, but I'm still just getting back into the game right now and don't really want to commit too much.

My targets didn't disappoint and brought the heat. I was streaming it and shared the stream with my targets, because fuck it, why not?

They were able to bring a good fight, but sadly outmatched me with a really good warp in. https://zkillboard.com/kill/63517884/

RIP one sniper raven. The goal of that ship was to keep jumping around and pew off cruiser sized targets. Sadly, they only brought other battleships and my ravens were very cap sensitive.  Once they got that warp in and landed at 0 on me, I failed to MJD to safety in an effort to keep my two dual box ships together.

After I blew up, they tried to trap me out of the wormhole by bubbling the high sec hole. I was going to come back with more ships and fight, but it seemed they didn't really want me there with them in the first place.

The following days I attempted to get their attention by shooting at one of the POCOs with two bombers. On the sly I kept a cloaky legion waiting to jump on whatever their response would be.

Only one guy responded and he bit the bomber bait with a tengu. I was milliseconds from locking him my legion before he popped my stationary bomber. https://zkillboard.com/kill/63588032/

That would have been a great fight, but he wasn't having it and ran. The next thing that happened made me slightly sad. The tengu pilot logged in a Nid. /sigh

Who brings a carrier to a fight in a C2?!?!

Well, looks like the fun police arrived.

I spend the next few nights doing the best I could to scan out holes, jump on targets, but looks like with me living in their hole, they just aren't that active right now. Kind of a shame, someone brings snacks to your house and you don't open the door :(.

Tonight tho...

 I'm in target hole with a cloaky Legion, bomber and a falcon. I notice two different groups using the high sec connection. One a group called "The clown car" and the other "A band apart." (don't forget the dot). Two groups not connected with the people who live in target. 3 potential targets! WEEE. 

I drop a drag bubble from one of the connecting holes to the high sec. Sadly nothing really amazing happens, some interceptors saw me before I was able to make anything with the camp. The good part is, I managed to annoy both "the clown car" "a band apart" at the same time.

I watch the connecting holes a little longer and eventually commit to attacking a lone hauler belonging to a band apart. It was bait, I knew it when I attacked it, but never not bite AMIRTE!?!

Onyx drops along with a Sac. and I barely make it out with my ship. YAY!

Still watching all connecting holes with my characters. Clown car and a band apart begin fighting in clown cars home hole. I watch about 7 ships belonging to a band apart come and go from clown cars home. Not wanting to be left out, I mention the high sec connection location to a friend named Shaded Rose I knew from SUSU 2.0.

 He brings a fleet to the high sec :) and proceeds to jump into target with a scout, mapping out all the holes. I share with him the sig names all the parties are using and figure I could  get something going.

Now, I'm positive that clown car and a band apart know about my legion because of the failed gank attempts earlier. Good time for me to reveal myself ! Sure enough, I jump into "A band aparts" home hole only to find they are trying to roll with a raven.

I lock it up with the cloaky legion and it scram/webs me. O dear its a tarp! I see on D scan. HFI and sleipniers...

I tell Shaded bring the fleet... O DEAR its a trap of a trap.. DOUBLE TRAP! Shaded brings the fleet from high sec and warps to A Band Aparts home hole.. Murder happens.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63679791/ Sleip #1

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63679804/ Sleip#2 

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63679798/ The bait raven I baited.. :)

I managed to get on that kill and do top damage with my Legion!! yay..

Always nice to have friends outside the friends you are shooting at. Special thanks to Shaded, Doom Gen and love of my EVE life, the Windam Wizard himself, Glyndi!




Sneaky Sneaky.. I know but that's wormholes, you never really know whats going to happen.











Saturday, July 15, 2017

Making a Friend

Well its been about 5 months to the day since my last post. Needless to say, but I will, I've taken a break.

It wasn't a rage quit, it wasn't any particular action by any one group, party or happenstance. I just didn't like playing anymore.

My absence from the EVE has really made me reevaluate what I want out of an internet game. What brings me joy and keeps me coming back isn't 'something new', which other games offered. I figured out that playing with friends hits 9 out of 10 points on my chart of happiness.

I've always told people who just started playing EVE, JOIN A CORP! ASAP. Its not because of what the corp can bring to you, its because you need them as human interaction. EVE isn't about you vs the game, because the game has no clear end, or goal.

There are those who think gathering ISK or ships or mods is the eventual goal. They refuse to interact with people out of fear they might lose some of that "item/money", this might work for a bit, but in the world of EVE the ways of making money and things to spend them on are a bottomless pit. The game will simply let you go full retard with multiple accounts, multiple billions of items and money, run by you in exactly the way you want it to be run. But to what end?

Eventually, you'll reach a stopping point, a number in your mind that you don't exactly know, but know that you've past it and the challenge isn't there anymore. You look for more challenges, you find them, but eventually those two dry up. The number gets bigger and bigger, but you keep passing your point of, darn, I should just stop doing this now.

I got to that point. Worse, I made internal rules of expected behavior and outcomes when I encountered other people. I'd ask new people I've met the same set of questions to narrow down exactly how to deal with them.

1. Do you require Ship tags.. if yes.. I yell at them about how dumb it is. If they say No, I ask why as the next question. If they happen to answer correctly to me, I'd continue with the next line of questions.

2. Do you require a API.. if yes.. I yell at them..


This goes on and on till I eventually rule them out for whatever invented reason I come up with in my head.

The thing is, if you ask the same questions from people, and you ask enough of them, you will eventually just get the same answers. You hear the answers you want, you know their play. The risk isn't there, because you know what to expect, without risk, there isn't challenge, without challenge, why the fuck am I even trying?

Back to burn out because I've "done it all" in my head. Even the human side of the game. I know your reaction, given the circumstances I've created for you. blah blah blah blah.. Back to boredom and back to not playing EVE.

Well that sucks!


So here I am. The saltest of vets seeking a fresh perspective I haven't seen yet. So I logged in and decided to fit up one of the new T3 Cruisers and dive into some holes.

I've talked to a couple recruiting wormhole groups, one was someone who I've had past negative dealings with so I ruled that out. I talked to another group who said they were part of a C1 group, but when I asked why they had their FF set to legal, they gave me some fishy responses. I think it was a reverse safari corp, so I passed.

Since I despise local chat and wormholes are my home, I said fuck it, started up the stream for some sniper action, and waited for them to find me. Started broadcasting my location to the stream watchers and jumping into a wormhole connected directly to Amarr.

All went well till I nearly cross jumped a Tengu in a connecting C2, Tengu scout vs a proteus scout, sure, I'll take that fight, I waited for him to uncloak, he cloaked up before I could lock him. I jumped in for quick look to see if they dispatched anything I could kill, nothing, so I jumped back.

He reveled the fact he was baiting for friends when he uncloaked off the hole a couple minutes later. I would have tackled him right off the bat, but a few minutes later he just accidentally turns off his cloak he so quickly activated minutes before.. NOPE, thats bait and not the fun fight kind.

I activate one of my other accounts to bring some back up if needed.. suddenly I see a bhaal on the hole. So its proteus scout vs Tengu and Bhaal. Not the best way to bait at this point, because I'd have to be a total idiot to do that, and total idiots don't fly proteus.

He opens a chat with me and asks to brawl!.. I said sure 1v1 Bhaal. I don't think he was expecting that response.But being a sporting guy he agrees.

This whole time I'm expected to lose my bhaal by a double cross or at least a 3rd party, but fuck it, its only ISK, and I might make a friend.

We 1v1 and I win, I don't blow him up, two reasons, I didn't really care to win that much, the other, I couldn't prevent the MJD with my disruptor.  :P

Then he comes with a domi, still only 1 person, then he even brings a DST to drop me off more Navy 800 Cap charges!

Each time I just let the ship warp away, good fights with a stranger, and just for the fun of it.

He says that he's have such a good time that I deserve a KM.  He brings a hurricane and I blow it up. He brings a drake and warps off, he's about to bring a cyclone, but I remind him that if he simply brought something smaller and flew a little different, my large guns couldn't hit him.

He brings a Vexor and honestly it was one of his hardest hitting ships, but I eventually chase it off with my drones.

Then he brings a Amarr assault frig (forget the name) and he orbits me till he runs out of missiles, then runs.This whole time, I'm streaming our fights on this wormhole, totally expecting to be 3rd partied by someone, anyone, but nothing. It was just he and I sharing a good time.

Later I discovered, and I mean that I didn't know it, I was flying that Bhaal in a full slave clone. That bhaal was faction fit and had an EHP of 133,000k. I went on a suicide run into an unscouted hole, to fight someone I didn't know, in a 2.6 bil pod, in a 900m isk ship. The entire time, I'm telling everyone watching where I am and how to find me over a twitch stream. I'm such an idiot!

But here's the thing, I had fun.

The key was me putting myself, my expectations in check, taking a risk and interacting with a stranger.

So here's to you Hobb lol

Thank you for letting me have fun with this game one more time.







Saturday, February 18, 2017

Down but Not Out



Welp, here I am again. Posting with a less than stellar EVE update. But, if you hang in there through all the remorse and self loathing, I have a nice space story for you! Won't that be fun!?! Now on to the brief sadness.



Now when I was going through the process of leaving NoVac, I was hurt. I had some really good friends there, a lot of people who were great to me and the through crossed my mind to simply burn them with a blog post. I was like a pissed off ex girlfriend who lights all your stuff on fire in the drive way. I was going to tell all 4 of my readers that NoVac was the devil!

Then someone said this to me, I honestly forget who it was (I'm sorry).

"I can't wait for the review of our corp on his blog". 

Those were some of the hardest hitting words, besides "Spear we really don't need you here".  Not because I was leaving, or that this person totally wrote me off before I had actually left the corp, but that my rage was expected.

If you look at some of my older blog posts, you could easily make that assumption, hell, I've made that assumption. I'm just some child who joins a group of people only to be eventually washed out for one reason or another, then bring a rage fueled editorial about my experience in that corp. Good old Spear, up to this usual shit again. Well I'm not going to!

If I could put my experience with NoVac into a phase, when asked what it was like, here it is.

I wasn't good enough. 

Just that simple statement should tell you everything that you need to know. Just add that to any task that I attempted to be some what competent in. Be it, forming for a fleet, bringing the correct ship, scanning a chain, fitting a ship... you name it. I wasn't good enough. The grim realization of that fact really brought me down, because I really tried!

 Not just saying that, "I tried',  the way teenage kid says he really tried to be employee of the month at a fast food restaurant. I mean going to work, sweating, giving it 110%, busting your ass, then being told that you aren't needed anymore and never were in the first place.

Knowing that if you left such an organized, finely honed machine and the problem wasn't the machine, it was you. Knowing it was you who tried your hardest and were still found lacking isn't fun. It sucks. That sucks really really bad, but, the sun rises tomorrow and it doesn't give a shit if you're sad. 

I know this post sounds all down and out, but I'm not out just yet. I've had a vacation! Yes, I went to Mexico for a week. Got the old batteries recharged the best way possible, exploiting economically challenged countries by drinking all their of ultra cheap beer!

 I also made a new space friend before I left.

Space Story time. 


So after all the terribleness of my last corp, I was left with billions in ships and mods that were required to be used in that group Now without the correct support to deploy these expensive space vessels, they are just huge kill mails waiting to happen. I've got better things to do with my isk!

So I went about plexing one of my market trader accounts and began the process of stripping all my space ships and repackaging them for sale. As a naturally frugal person, crushing over 13 billion in subcaps, each, with rigs installed was a painful process. I think I might have lost about 2 billion in rigs, once it was said and done. Uggg.. My inner jew says "oi vay!".. (I come from a Jewish family, so i can say that, fk off SJW's)

I then went about process of shipping all my space craft/modules to my trading characters and began the long painful process of liquidating my hard assets. 400 some sell orders later, all I needed to do was wait. But how to spend my time.

I've been wondering about something I heard someone say was possible and wanted to try it myself, but never had the time. The trick was, finding a C6/C5 wormhole to make it happen. best way to find a wormhole is to start scanning.

I launched my scout character into the friendly space of Amarr and dropped probes. Behold, a wormhole, lets jump in! Bubbles can happen, 3 medium anchored bubbles to be exact, and some guy in a rupture waiting to kill me once I uncloak.

Assessing the situation, I noticed all kinds of wrecks, ejected cans and corpses all over the place. This guy had a direct connection to Amarr was killing every single pilot dumb enough to not jump back out.  Well sir, I won't add to your wreck pile, I jumped straight back out.

Now remember, I had stripped nearly every ship I had for sale, so I was at a loss as to what to bring to fight him. So I got inventive!

I still had a legion that, for whatever reason, wouldn't repackage (yes I repaired it) and a whole bunch of faction mods I hadn't moved yet. I quickly tosses some stuff together with one of my pilots and jumped through the Amar connection this guy was camping.

He was brave, but no match for a rapid light missile legion. Poor bastard didn't have a chance, he did get me to 97% armor, so that's saying something.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983253/ Rupture

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983307/  and his pod too! 


Turns out, this fellow had been trapping all sorts of pilots in this wormhole, who where just waiting for a white knight to some along and free them from their confines.

Moments later, some other guy uncloaks, but with every despot ruler, they just get replaced with another despot ruler who does the exact same thing.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983177/  Buzzard

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983187/  and his pod.

Then some other guy shows up moments later...

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983081/ Shuttle

https://zkillboard.com/kill/59983112/  and his pod

This connection as some crazy good action! All sorts of stuff just letting me blow them up and pod them.

I'm not much of a camper, so I figured I'd take apart the bubbles and consider this an interesting find.

Then some guy opens a convo with me. Its the guy in the shuttle who I podded. He's asking, very nicely if he can get back into his wormhole. I said, "Well, since you asked nicely and I'm feeling kinda good from blowing up a bunch of stuff in the matter of minutes with little to no work" " Sure come on in!"

 He jumps in, in a shuttle and proceeds to fly off somewhere in the hole. Then he asks I could be so kind to guard the hole, while he runs ships out, because hes being "burned out" (his words). I was like, "oooo a hole in conflict" I want details. I said 'sure, as long as he tells me the story'. He doesn't have a TS server, so I ping Bronya asking to use his old Isogen 5 TS server to talk to this guy. 

Bronya says cool and the guy begins to tell me about how he essentially stole (started using while they were away) all the assets, Astrahus's and "capital ship" from some people he knows IRL in some way. Now I don't usually condone stealing from friends, but when he explained it, they really did paint him into a corner and he really does have the right 'friendly' attitude, I'll cut him some slack. He's by himself, doesn't seem to enjoy "Surprise pvp" very much and wants to make an effort to live in this hole.

After some long Q&A, turns out that the prior owners of the equipment in this hole may or may not have paid some people to level the wormhole. I don't know if any of this is true, he could be a total thief, I honestly don't know, but he did give my corp blue status to dock in the astrahus, so I can at least stick around to see what happens.

Now all this happened the night before my trip to Mexico and as of right this second, a week later, the astrahus's are still standing and I can still dock there.

I don't know whats going to happen in this hole, who's fighting who, why they're fighting, if someone is lying or if someone isn't. I'll find out with some time. None of that really matters at this exact second. What does matter at this exact second, I have a reason to log in and keep on keeping on.

 Down, but not out.























Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Wormhole Life Culture Part 2: API Key Required or is it?

Hello everyone!

During my last blog post I stated that I was looking for a corp. The crux, I wasn't going to provide my API key. Many of you thought I was just being a pain in the ass, which in most situations is totally true. Honestly though, I really wanted to know what people were looking for when they asked for one. Worse, when they asked for said requested API key to NEVER EXPIRE.. *cringe*.  Now prepare yourself for some, excessive cursing, half-assed assumptions, straw man arguments and misleading conclusions. Seriously... I'm terrible at blogging/writing/spelling/punctuation and kind of an idiot.

For those of you who don't know what an API key is, here is a CCP guy talking about it.




Wormhole Life Culture Part 2: API Key Requirement 

In the past, API's have had there place, but with the release of citadels to keep your assets safe, along with great sites like EVE Who, EVE Hunt, EVE board, and just plain old Google.  You can figure out without much effort what a person has done and if past history is a record of to come actions (9 times out of 10 it is) what a person will do in the future.

Some of the things the above mentioned sites can't do:

  • EVE mail - Personal, Corp, Alliance communications to this character.
  • EVE Contacts - Who your EVE Contact friends/enemies are and what standings you have for them
  • Wallet and Assets - How much money you got and what you own
  • Contract history - Who you sold things to and for how much. 
  • Transactions - Who paid you, or who you paid. 
 All of the above go back about a year, usually a lot less.

There have been multiple 3rd party API readers, but an easy one to use with just a quick API key. I googled API reader and came up with API Jackknife. I suggest you input your own API and see exactly what everyone could see before you submit your API to others or leave the thing to not expire, ever.


Why we shouldn't use them for Corp Application Intel Gathering. 

Privacy 

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say" --Edward Snowden

1st Its none of your business who I mail and what we talk about.

2nd The idea that a small amount of information found could be the clinch pin on taking apart a potential infiltrator is a total fallacy.

This fallacy has become a scenario that any recruiter runs through his mind each time he speaks to a potential recruit. The recruiter then builds up a case in his mind during the interview, for or ageist a potential applicant. The thing is, the information on which they make their decision may be inaccurate or incomplete. They are putting together a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces.

If you can't see the potential harm in that, well the Trump presidency has some open positions for you.

Let me give you an example from my own API.


What you're looking at is the transaction history (about a month mind you, that's as far as this site goes back) from my main character Longinius Spear and others.

If you can't figure it out by looking at this, I gave a character Sir Lomax 2 billion ISK and bought/sold some items. This you could categorize as a "suspect" transaction. It would tell the potential recruiter that Sir Lomax is my alt. Which he is.

Now you could draw all sorts of conclusions from this transaction if you simply didn't ask, "hey, do you have any alts you want join the corp?" in which I would say. Yes. or No.

Simply asking me on voice coms will give you any level of answer that I'm willing to give you.

The issue occurs, when I don't give you the answer you're looking for.

Let say, I don't give you an API key. You would never know that I gave 2 billion ISK to Sir Lomax. What then? What potential scenario do you see occurring that you could have prevented by now knowing Sir Lomax is an alt?

Everyone without missing a beat says "infiltration from a hostile corp" and that's the final part of the argument for them. They have build the case in their minds that they can either prevent an infiltration or stem spy activity by building this case based on fractured data.

Some key things that make this a this stance apart.

1. This is only the previous month or two's transactions. Its not EVERY transaction EVER in the history of this characters. You aren't seeing the full picture, you're not even seeing a glimpse you are just seeing the past transactions the API viewer is letting you see. I can circumvent your very cleaver expected API requirement by simply waiting a month or two. In the programing world we call this garbage in, garbage out.

2. Lets say I did want to transfer money two this potential spy alt from a hostile corp. Because lets say I'm not a spy. (hard to believe) How hard would it be for me to simply put items in my cargo hold of a ship, eject that ship at a safe spot and get in that ship with my alt? You can't see this transaction from an API. Its totally untraceable by anyone other than CCP.

I can't be the only one who's thought of this, its not like I'm a master spy here, you just need to see what the API key actually looks at, then don't do those things. Its not all that hard.

The thing is, most recruiters know this, and when asked directly why even bother, I'm told.

"It weeds out the ones that don't bother with hiding it" "Its, low hanging fruit". Keeps out idiots, essentially.

The follow up response I've had is, "do you need to protect yourself from idiots?"

The fact that an API key requirement intel gathering tool is used at all boggles the mind. Its like trying to figure out if a employee is going to steal things by simply asking him, "hey are you going to steal things from us". Anyone with any sense would simply say "No". The idiots I'm assuming would simply say "Well now that you ask me, yes that was my goal for working here in the first place".

Except in the case of EVE API key requirement, you aren't even asking them, you're just looking at bank transactions between people you don't know and don't have an API key from, then making the assumption that because he didn't give you that name in the first place, the other party must be an accomplice.

Transactions might be one of the easiest things to hide, and yet there isn't a full API recruiter who doesn't look for them. They have build this idea in their head, that this small glimpse of information will protect them in the future, if they simply justify it to themselves by going over useless searches of activity.

I feel like I'm in a crazy alternate reality, where all the EVE recruiters are TSA screeners who think they are going to uncover the next big plot by asking every single person to take off their shoes.

Side note: For those who don't know, even during internal and external audits of TSA screening, they are about 10% effective? Its like everyone is going through the motions, that don't actually do anything, just for the sake of doing them, because the hind sight vision they've constructed would be totally foiled, had they asked.. "hey would you leave the box cutters at home?"

Its all for a completely false sense of security. STOP IT!! I can't keep the TSA from doing dumb shit for no reason, but for this little thing, in this little instance, I'm taking a stand, and you should too!!

Hey Spear, why don't you just play along, what damage could a FULL ACCOUNT API set to NEVER EXPIRE really do?

Here's one, a site called "EVE Skunk".

For those not familiar with the site, its powered by leaked API's to this guys website. API's gotten from god only knows what way.  You go there and read alliance/corp mails from people who at one point in time gave their API keys to the site (doubtful) or gave it to a person who then created an API with full EVE mail access.

Not sure how this could happen?

Lets say I'm a recruiter, I demand everyone EVE mails me a full never expire API. I save that in my special EVE mail folder and recruit like 20 people. I then have access to 20 other emails. What happens when I (the recruiter) thinks about going to another corp, which requires full never expire API's? I submit it them... the new corp now has API's  of all the people who provided API Keys and thus whatever corps they went to's internal mails. 

So on and so on and so on.

It gets worse, many people use the same never expire API for each application they submit, because why make a new one if you're simply shopping around for a new corp. You could have submited an application to a rival corp, who refused you and is now getting mails from whatever corp actually accepted you. 

I've already ranted about the effects of the "Location" selection on a full API, because for those who don't know already, you can simply enter ill gotten full API's into a wormhole tracking program for someone who apped to your corp, forever creating their own little wormhole chain maps.  These maps keep updating every time you travel anywhere,  you can then exploit those maps for god only knows what reason. They aren't even in your corp, but every time they travel through a wormhole, you'll know it! (hi wingspan)


I think the largest damage that the FULL API or Git the fuck out fallacy creates is a future lack of trust in your corp mates. It gives a person with a suspicion a very small bit of information, that can bring doubt on normally innocent interactions. This fallacy hurts human interaction, which really is at the core to why many play EVE. This can lead to drama, accusations and worse.

For those of you who would do an extensive API scrub, before allowing someone to join your corp, I hope my words/opinions have helped sway you to stop doing it. Stop requiring it because the best way to get to know someone is simply talk to them. Ask them what they are about, give them a small level of trust, but don't let their overall exposure to access be categorized as reckless. If they don't play often, kick them. If they sit in coms muted for long periods of time, why the fuck are they they in coms?! These are common sense observations anyone can do, and won't show up on an API screen.

A quick story...

A few years ago I was CEO of a very small wormhole pvp corp. We didn't require API keys to enter. We figured, we could simply sort out everything we would need to know by talking to them and reviewing kill boards. Along came an applicant with a slightly shady past, he had been in another wormhole corp that I was in personal contact with at the time. They had slight falling out and that applicants history was called into question. I said fuck it, and recruited them anyway because shady fuckers is what i wanted in the corp.

After getting to know him from simply playing with him in fleets and in coms, he's someone I would call one of my great EVE friends. This pilot later became one of the top wormhole FC's in the game and is still doing great things.

Take chances, invite crazy people, but be smart about it. Don't give even your best friends access to your items, because even after years and years of playing this game, there isn't a single person I'd trust in this game. NEVER TRUST ANYONE! better advice, don't think your ridiculous background checks would ever give you reasons to trust because people flip for weird reasons and none of those reasons can be weeded out with an API Key mandate.


Let me give you some examples i got from conversations I had with recruiters during my time looking for a corp.


Convo #1 

[ 2017.01.05 01:03:54 ] Longinius Spear > Saw your reddit post for LS pvp group, still recruiting?
[ 2017.01.05 01:04:37 ] Ed Hinken > o/
[ 2017.01.05 01:05:04 ] Ed Hinken > yeah were always looking for new members
[ 2017.01.05 01:05:26 ] Longinius Spear > cool, what area do you all call home?
[ 2017.01.05 01:05:56 ] Kuts Mesumslak > o/
[ 2017.01.05 01:05:58 ] Ed Hinken > we live in l lonetrek
[ 2017.01.05 01:06:07 ] Ed Hinken > close to veil tribute and jita
[ 2017.01.05 01:06:17 ] Longinius Spear > Tama then?
[ 2017.01.05 01:07:09 ] Ed Hinken > not to far
[ 2017.01.05 01:07:37 ] Ed Hinken > jan nalvula taisy kinda home
[ 2017.01.05 01:08:02 ] Ed Hinken > its a really good area for pvp we get a lot of traffic going through to jita from null
[ 2017.01.05 01:08:26 ] Longinius Spear > ha, yea I would assume so :)
[ 2017.01.05 01:08:32 ] Ed Hinken > ;)
[ 2017.01.05 01:08:46 ] Ed Hinken > i see you been playing for a while
[ 2017.01.05 01:09:11 ] Longinius Spear > yea, lots of wormhole stuff
[ 2017.01.05 01:09:26 ] Ed Hinken > nice we done the wh thing for a god year
[ 2017.01.05 01:10:06 ] Longinius Spear > API key required?
[ 2017.01.05 01:10:12 ] Ed Hinken > yeah
[ 2017.01.05 01:10:18 ] Longinius Spear > why?
[ 2017.01.05 01:10:38 ] Ed Hinken > just to look over your contacts
[ 2017.01.05 01:10:51 ] Ed Hinken > we dont care about aything else
[ 2017.01.05 01:11:01 ] Longinius Spear > what are you looking for? persons?
[ 2017.01.05 01:12:15 ] NastaKilla > Hey
[ 2017.01.05 01:12:24 ] Longinius Spear > hi
[ 2017.01.05 01:12:27 ] Ed Hinken > NastaKilla our ceo
[ 2017.01.05 01:12:31 ] Longinius Spear > o/
[ 2017.01.05 01:12:34 ] NastaKilla > sup, Just got back
[ 2017.01.05 01:13:41 ] NastaKilla > hows it going, you looking to join our pvp corp?
[ 2017.01.05 01:14:06 ] Longinius Spear > yea, but I was wondering about API thing, really more curious why its required
[ 2017.01.05 01:14:53 ] NastaKilla > Its pretty standard in any corp you join, Allows to to figure our if your intentions are bad
[ 2017.01.05 01:15:00 ] NastaKilla > figure out*
[ 2017.01.05 01:15:09 ] Longinius Spear > O yea, hows that done exactly?
[ 2017.01.05 01:16:03 ] NastaKilla > Okay, So an "API key" is a code set for your account that gives anyone who has it the ability to look into your contacts, Wallet, Mails, Implants etc
[ 2017.01.05 01:16:22 ] NastaKilla > When creating an API key you are able to select what an observer can view
[ 2017.01.05 01:16:40 ] Longinius Spear > Yep. How does it give the viewer the information if my intentions are bad?
[ 2017.01.05 01:17:23 ] NastaKilla > I'm able to see if you make regular transactions to certain accounts, that would suggest to me that theres another account
[ 2017.01.05 01:17:28 ] NastaKilla > things like that
[ 2017.01.05 01:17:36 ] Longinius Spear > and if there was?
[ 2017.01.05 01:17:50 ] NastaKilla > If you tell me you have another account its cool
[ 2017.01.05 01:17:58 ] Longinius Spear > right, then why the api?
[ 2017.01.05 01:18:25 ] NastaKilla > API allows me to see facts, then when i ask a question if a person lies to me I already know about it
[ 2017.01.05 01:18:54 ] Longinius Spear > so you ask questions you already know the answer to, in the idea that they would lie?
[ 2017.01.05 01:19:04 ] Longinius Spear > So its a screening for liars?
[ 2017.01.05 01:19:26 ] NastaKilla > Yes, Its one aspect of judging character
[ 2017.01.05 01:23:10 ] Longinius Spear > Thank you for answering my questions

Convo #2

[ 2017.01.12 22:06:48 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > o7 mate
[ 2017.01.12 22:07:01 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > How are you?
[ 2017.01.12 22:07:20 ] Longinius Spear > Good, you?
[ 2017.01.12 22:07:45 ] Longinius Spear > So lets say I ap up and you ask me for an API, and I say No. What happens?
[ 2017.01.12 22:09:10 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > It basically comes down to, how big does -my- ego get I suppose
[ 2017.01.12 22:09:22 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I could say screw it, you're in
[ 2017.01.12 22:09:42 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > What kind of music do you like?
[ 2017.01.12 22:10:10 ] Longinius Spear > Depends on what i'm doing
[ 2017.01.12 22:10:22 ] Longinius Spear > but back to API requirement even after you know fully well who and what I"m about
[ 2017.01.12 22:10:38 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Right
[ 2017.01.12 22:10:48 ] Longinius Spear > thats really why I want to talk to you, I'm desperate for a logical conversation on the topic
[ 2017.01.12 22:10:56 ] Longinius Spear > because as of late, i've yet to have one
[ 2017.01.12 22:11:20 ] Longinius Spear > Most people say... "well If you have an email saying you're going to do something bad" I'll see it
[ 2017.01.12 22:11:25 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Well, pond is always full of other fish, so you'd always find a corp that wouldn't require one
[ 2017.01.12 22:11:40 ] Longinius Spear > ....
[ 2017.01.12 22:11:45 ] Longinius Spear > I want to know WHY
[ 2017.01.12 22:11:47 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Yea, but that's where the intelligence gathering stops for most people
[ 2017.01.12 22:12:14 ] Longinius Spear > I could assume, but every scenario in my head comes out with very outlandish things
[ 2017.01.12 22:12:36 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > For a player like you, there isn't much an API could tell me
[ 2017.01.12 22:12:45 ] Longinius Spear > The truth really is, most people know to ask for it, but they don't really know what to look for
[ 2017.01.12 22:12:48 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > (Hence, I'd learn towards waiving that requirement for you)
[ 2017.01.12 22:13:01 ] Longinius Spear > they heard somewhere sometime that it was good to require it, still haven't a clue why ..
[ 2017.01.12 22:13:06 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > As I said, most people's intelligence gathering stops at looking at a message
[ 2017.01.12 22:13:45 ] Longinius Spear > So you're saying, you don't require it... ? I'm confused...
[ 2017.01.12 22:13:59 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Ok, let me explain;
[ 2017.01.12 22:14:26 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > As you said, most people don't know what to look for, which makes API keys useless for them
[ 2017.01.12 22:14:28 ] Longinius Spear > What would you see in it that you simply couldn't see looking at a kill board or corp history. what scenario do you see occuring because you didn't weed them out with an API key
[ 2017.01.12 22:14:48 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I can detect if players biomassed characters on a full account API
[ 2017.01.12 22:14:52 ] Longinius Spear > What scenario do you see happening.. from this point forward.. stop doing it. what would happen.
[ 2017.01.12 22:15:13 ] Longinius Spear > Detect biomassed characters. please explain that
[ 2017.01.12 22:15:48 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > An API key gives you total playtime on the account
[ 2017.01.12 22:16:15 ] Longinius Spear > O i know what it does.. one of the many reasons why i stopped giving it out
[ 2017.01.12 22:16:45 ] Longinius Spear > I want to know what you would find if you looked at it and what you would prevent from happeing if you had one
[ 2017.01.12 22:16:46 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > So, I look at your total skill points, I look at your playtime, and it can give me a rough
[ 2017.01.12 22:17:00 ] Longinius Spear > Right, both of those can be found on EVE character sheets
[ 2017.01.12 22:17:10 ] Longinius Spear > so cross those off
[ 2017.01.12 22:17:25 ] Longinius Spear > Next
[ 2017.01.12 22:17:43 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Eve-board tell your total play time, account wide?
[ 2017.01.12 22:17:50 ] Longinius Spear > For that character
[ 2017.01.12 22:18:07 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > But that's not what I want to know
[ 2017.01.12 22:18:16 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Hold on; let me show
[ 2017.01.12 22:19:13 ] Longinius Spear > What you 'want to know" and what I'm willing to tell you or show you are two totally different things. The name of the difference between those things is called privacy.
[ 2017.01.12 22:19:35 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Right
[ 2017.01.12 22:19:55 ] Longinius Spear > So you're saying that if someone joined you, they would be required to no privacy based on your determining factors
[ 2017.01.12 22:20:28 ] Longinius Spear > do you think thats a 50/50 fair way of addressing other players?
[ 2017.01.12 22:21:00 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > In that sense, no.
[ 2017.01.12 22:21:07 ] Longinius Spear > Clearly you have a reason for this, in your head there is some scenario that could be uncovered by you finding out total account play time.
[ 2017.01.12 22:21:24 ] Longinius Spear > I'm asking you.. whats that scenaio?
[ 2017.01.12 22:21:43 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Right, lets exclude your character, lets exclude my character for a bit
[ 2017.01.12 22:22:22 ] Longinius Spear > whats your nightmare scenario that would be overted had you known my total account play time?
[ 2017.01.12 22:22:58 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > If Random Joe would come to me, in a one month old character, with perfect knowledge on how to fit ships
[ 2017.01.12 22:23:09 ] Longinius Spear > k
[ 2017.01.12 22:23:24 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > He'd say he's in game for a single month
[ 2017.01.12 22:23:38 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > But then I'd see this;
[ 2017.01.12 22:23:43 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > http://puu.sh/tkdXv/1360840231.png
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:13 ] Longinius Spear > what am I looking at. a month and 24 days?
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:23 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Aye.
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:28 ] Longinius Spear > so what
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:39 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Random Joe said he's been in game for just a month
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:44 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > One character on his APi
[ 2017.01.12 22:24:50 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > But has a total playtime of two months
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:12 ] Longinius Spear > and that means what? what devlish thing could he do with the extra 24 days of play time?
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:13 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Random Joe is lying
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:15 ] Longinius Spear > So what
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:31 ] Longinius Spear > how does this effect you?
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:44 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Why would he lie about his total play time ?
[ 2017.01.12 22:25:56 ] Longinius Spear > why should you care?
[ 2017.01.12 22:26:06 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I'll show you again
[ 2017.01.12 22:26:18 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > (Gimme a minute to find this one)
[ 2017.01.12 22:26:28 ] Longinius Spear > no.. lets just stay on this one for a minute
[ 2017.01.12 22:26:46 ] Longinius Spear > why do you give two poops why he lied about his play time?
[ 2017.01.12 22:26:50 ] Longinius Spear > why does that matter?
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:13 ] Longinius Spear > My names Frank in real life
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:23 ] Longinius Spear > wait a second.. its Steve..
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:30 ] Longinius Spear > You find out.. its actually Tom
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:33 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Two months ago we had a character who lied about his total play time
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:40 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > 4 months actually
[ 2017.01.12 22:27:59 ] Longinius Spear > well, you got him.. and did he shoot spaceships differently
[ 2017.01.12 22:28:00 ] Longinius Spear > ?
[ 2017.01.12 22:28:22 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Two weeks later his main was shooting our citadel
[ 2017.01.12 22:28:50 ] Longinius Spear > Do you think his main would be shooting your citadel anyway?
[ 2017.01.12 22:29:29 ] Longinius Spear > Did your citadel shoot back?
[ 2017.01.12 22:29:35 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Citadel shot back
[ 2017.01.12 22:29:39 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Not to much effect
[ 2017.01.12 22:29:44 ] Longinius Spear > win win i guess?
[ 2017.01.12 22:29:59 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Win for them, our alliance boss ended up paying them off
[ 2017.01.12 22:30:24 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Not the proudest day in my short eve career
[ 2017.01.12 22:30:36 ] Longinius Spear > I think I'm piecing this together a little
[ 2017.01.12 22:31:27 ] Longinius Spear > you think having continued access to the mails, comings and goings of characters beyond simply asking them as human beings.. you can overt/subvert threats both current and future?
[ 2017.01.12 22:31:27 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > My stance of APIs is a bit complicated, personally I'm not fully black/white, you have to give an API
[ 2017.01.12 22:31:52 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I personally don't care for the continued access
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:03 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Any good spy would be smart enough not to use mails on his spy alt
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:05 ] Longinius Spear > i get that, but others have that requirement
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:09 ] Longinius Spear > no shit
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:11 ] Longinius Spear > lol
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:23 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Hence, 90% of people who check APi's dont know what to look for
[ 2017.01.12 22:32:57 ] Longinius Spear > Well, the other 10 don't seem to know what the final outcome could possibly be if they simply didn't ask for them in the first place
[ 2017.01.12 22:33:05 ] Longinius Spear > they seem to be a tool for paranoia
[ 2017.01.12 22:33:24 ] Longinius Spear > the thing about surveillance is.. it doesn't give you the full picture
[ 2017.01.12 22:33:44 ] Longinius Spear > the scenario you played out was only possible if you ASKED them a question and figured out they where 'lying'.
[ 2017.01.12 22:34:16 ] Longinius Spear > the thing is, getting a spie caught in a lie isn't check mate for most of them. it doesn't stop them from doing what they are doing
[ 2017.01.12 22:35:02 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Oh, that's for sure, and there's no 100% foolproof way to stop them
[ 2017.01.12 22:35:10 ] Longinius Spear > so why try?
[ 2017.01.12 22:35:45 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > At least try to mitigate the risk to some extent
[ 2017.01.12 22:35:59 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > (And you hate that sentence)
[ 2017.01.12 22:36:09 ] Longinius Spear > ahh.. risk... you haven't shown me at all in the above situation there was real risk in the first place
[ 2017.01.12 22:36:44 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > ((I do hope this is actually a fun conversation for you , and me not just getting you fed up btw))
[ 2017.01.12 22:37:16 ] Longinius Spear > You're helping me formulate a better blog post and for that I thank you
[ 2017.01.12 22:37:37 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Now I very much wonder if I'm gonna be on the bad side of things
[ 2017.01.12 22:38:13 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Personally for me though; as I said, API's arent a catch all, hence I don't agree with the black/white yes/no regulation the alliance has
[ 2017.01.12 22:38:40 ] Longinius Spear > The damage of loose API's in Wspace along with how EVE skunk far out weighs any reasons for their continued requirement as a intell gathering tool.
[ 2017.01.12 22:38:55 ] Longinius Spear > Do you know what I can do with your full API?
[ 2017.01.12 22:39:03 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Do share
[ 2017.01.12 22:39:30 ] Longinius Spear > I can enter it into a wormhole mapping software program and essentially map your commings and goings into wspace and the ships your in
[ 2017.01.12 22:39:38 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Hah
[ 2017.01.12 22:39:45 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I was listening to that podcast today
[ 2017.01.12 22:41:08 ] Longinius Spear > yea, shits real boss man. I don't give it out anymore. and to those peeps who think I should give them a full one so they can review it when ever they want to seek out spie activitiy.. NOPE
[ 2017.01.12 22:41:24 ] Longinius Spear > Not only that buts an invasion of privacy
[ 2017.01.12 22:41:45 ] Longinius Spear > If you think privacy is unimportant for you because you have nothing to hide, you might as well say free speech is unimportant for you because you have nothing useful to say.
[ 2017.01.12 22:43:22 ] Longinius Spear > whats worse is, all it takes is someone liek yourself to send a full API of your own to some one else.. who is also exposed.. for a 3rd or even 4th party to have access to all our mails and API's sent via EVE mails
[ 2017.01.12 22:44:12 ] Longinius Spear > You could have apped to one of these alliances.. or persons who had a full api out there.. then they simply review our mails forever. our own comings and goings in wspace
[ 2017.01.12 22:44:33 ] Longinius Spear > Do you see the danger of having them and willy nilly sharing them ?
[ 2017.01.12 22:44:49 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Yes I do
[ 2017.01.12 22:45:12 ] Longinius Spear > The interesting thing is, you'll still keep asking for it, even after today
[ 2017.01.12 22:45:36 ] Longinius Spear > because of 'reasons' that have yet to be fleshed out.. to catch liars?
[ 2017.01.12 22:45:59 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > But, I think you're also simplyfying it a tad
[ 2017.01.12 22:46:11 ] Longinius Spear > perhaps, but its how my mind works..
[ 2017.01.12 22:46:24 ] Longinius Spear > i chop threw bull shit and get to the point that i want
[ 2017.01.12 22:46:25 ] Longinius Spear > :)
[ 2017.01.12 22:46:43 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > For example; I wouldn't even need a full always accessible API
[ 2017.01.12 22:46:47 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I wouldn't even want that
[ 2017.01.12 22:47:07 ] Longinius Spear > you shouldn't want ANY of your characters in your corp to have them around at all
[ 2017.01.12 22:47:29 ] Longinius Spear > the fact that there is a button that lets your API NEVER expire.. is the entire reason EVE skunk is a website
[ 2017.01.12 22:47:38 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > ^
[ 2017.01.12 22:47:47 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Delete the damn thing when you're done using it
[ 2017.01.12 22:48:12 ] Longinius Spear > yep, and never ask for it unless you can visualize a scenario where having it would matter
[ 2017.01.12 22:48:59 ] Longinius Spear > because small amounts of unexplained behavior both good or bad.. can bring doubt in a person who is totally innocent
[ 2017.01.12 22:49:01 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Unfortunately, not being top dog I don't always get to make every decision
[ 2017.01.12 22:49:13 ] Longinius Spear > you should be top dog
[ 2017.01.12 22:49:41 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > :)
[ 2017.01.12 22:49:46 ] Longinius Spear > I was told early on in my EVE carreer.. "Players don't need corps, its the other way around"
[ 2017.01.12 22:50:25 ] Longinius Spear > Going to say good day to you, thank you for the chat, I'll do my best to not villify you in my post :)
[ 2017.01.12 22:50:38 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Before you do os
[ 2017.01.12 22:50:41 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > so*
[ 2017.01.12 22:51:26 ] Longinius Spear > ?
[ 2017.01.12 22:51:30 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > You already have a new home, don't you?
[ 2017.01.12 22:51:35 ] Longinius Spear > yep
[ 2017.01.12 22:51:48 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Well, shit.
[ 2017.01.12 22:51:49 ] Longinius Spear > figured that out without an API didn't ya
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:16 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > Lots of things can be found out without an API key
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:20 ] Longinius Spear > it was a joke
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:24 ] Longinius Spear > :P
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:25 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I know :P
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:30 ] Longinius Spear > thank you again for the offer and good luck
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:40 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > API keys in that sense are something terrible
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:41 ] Longinius Spear > may we shoot spaceship guns at each other one day
[ 2017.01.12 22:52:57 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > I'd hope we'd shoot them together at someone :)
[ 2017.01.12 22:53:02 ] Longinius Spear > o7
[ 2017.01.12 22:53:05 ] Kypischovic Malifozik > o7






 

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I posted in Reddit Jobs that I'm looking for a WH corp


 Hi potential recruiter, names Spear and I'm looking for some new friends who play EVE with.
Now I'm sure you might be wondering why I said "No API will be given". Let me explain. I don't believe in the the value of giving them.

If you don't recruit without one, and that's a required part of your process, well good for you, I disagree. In the immortal words of Aristotle - dude, that don't make no damn sense

"But Spear, how could we possibly know more about you without digging through your emails and assets."

I don't care. I feel that a pilots reputation, how they answer questions, past actions and outlook speak for themselves. I have yet to see any real value that an API check could bring to the table that simply couldn't be found with the following sites.

EVE Who, EVE Hunt, Kill boards, EVE board or just plain old google.

I've recruited, flown with and trained some of the best wormhole pvp pilots/now FC's in the game. You might find it shocking, but I never got a single API from any of them. If you think you can prevent a double cross by simply digging through some emails and contacts, well you're giving yourself a false sense of security and I'm not interested in you because of it.

If you're still reading this and haven't totally written me off as an egotistical shit, good, there's hope for you yet.
This is what you'll get from me.
  • A blogger and podcaster who will share all your inner workings with all 4 people who read and listen to my blogs/podcasts (hi mom).
  • A pilot with access to multiple characters, lots of isk and the desire to throw spaceships at people just because they're there.
  • Years of wormhole experience in wormhole hunting and wormhole scouting.
Here are my credentials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8

Here is my blog.
http://invadingyourhole.blogspot.com/

Here is my podcast
http://downthepipe-wh.com/

Here are my characters.
http://eveboard.com/pilot/Longinius_Spear
http://eveboard.com/pilot/Sir_Lomax
http://eveboard.com/pilot/STIHL -PW chainsaw no clue why it has a pw.. can't figure out how to change that one.

If you can't figure out who I am, what I'm about, what I do from all those links, without an API still, well, you're and idiot and I don't want to fly with you anyway.
-- Spear