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Just a question, is this time when community will take down assist and their anti cheat? I don't want to threat anyone but it is more than a tos, tos is nothing compared to spying on others, there are people here that really could be punished but hopefully everything can come to peace.

Don't really get what you mean, but the problem is serious. Spying is oviously there, your PC desktop is snapshotted.

I had also my whole directory removed, but that was long time ago, so maybe this particular functionality is not there, but who knows.

Btw most users don't know about it, they accept without reading it and it's sad that this will spread, sad that people will leave but this activity should be stopped.

Correct. People _never_ read such texts. They are simply not aware.

If you just told every player, what can happen with his desktop picture, he would delete assist immediately.

Well if they are using an illegal copy without having the "go" word of the creators then they are violating a law.

I have personally talked with developers and higher up people. They have stated on more than one occasion that yes, we don't have permission but there's nothing damaging being done. There's no negative for them, no reason for them to go after us. We are simply keeping THEIR game alive. Their values, their ideas, their work. We aren't taking credit for the work. Sure, some of it had to be decompiled and we have added our own code but the majority of the game is unchanged and I believe as long as it stays that way, they have no reason to pursue us. However, if tomorrow they do decide to give us a cease and desist, we'll comply. We're not trying to fight the system or go against anyone, we simply wanted to keep this game alive. They benefit, the users benefit and we get something fun to do. Win-win-win.

I'll close this statement with a direct quote from one of the people I've talked to;

To be frank about it, I feel honored that you guys work as hard as you do - I'd love to see stronghold recreated in assist [identifyable information removed]. I think we owe you guys a great deal, and it's a shame that legally we can't come out and formally support what you're doing.

I've gotten enough of a feel for what your group's philosophical approach to the effort is - I have full confidence in what you're doing, so I don't think there's any real danger of crossing lines. Until there's nude models and swastikas and zombie dogz, I don't think we'll have any problem with where you're taking assist...so do what you think is best - you're putting in the work, after all.

I am serious on this.

They are earning money through Vortexservers, this website is registrered to Paulo Sergio who has ties to vortexservers.com

We all have ties to Vortex Servers. We don't earn money though. Nick, one of the owners, bought out our previous hoster, James (low ping servers). Vortex Servers hosts our website, AAO25.com and hosts several game servers with Assist. The only thing we give him in return are banners on our website, out of respect (he didn't even ask for them). He doesn't pay us, we don't pay him. Any money he's making from selling servers is purely to compensate for the bandwidth/disk space/support that they are using up.

And Spanky = Natenkiki2004 (http://natescomp.com/ Free advertising for you there:P) also linked to Assist and moderator on this forum.

Oh no, you cracked my identity!


In all seriousness, let's discuss this like adults rather than subtly threatening people and scaring others. There's nothing to hide and nothing to broadcast. It's all been outlined in the TOS, nobody should be outraged. Whether the TOS is legal or not, that doesn't matter. The whole point of it is to outline what Assist is and what it does. If you don't agree with it, you can uninstall. It's that simple. If people don't read it, they can't be mad at us, we tried to tell them. It comes up as a big box when you install and every time we update. It's not like we're hiding it. I personally spent a lot of time trimming the TOS down to essentials and to cover everything that happens.

I can't think of a website or other example where real personal information would be exposed. Even e-mails, you just see a list of topics, it's not like it's interactive and you can go digging. Same for financial websites, they don't supply you with information that can be used to compromise your identity. They only give you partial information like the last couple of numbers (if that) and don't give any personal information away. Any critical websites that deal with financial or personal information also don't show you passwords, they come up as little dots. As remote as the possibility is, I don't see anything to be gained. Besides, if our goal was to steal information and identities, we would have already done it.

So, we're not bad guys and maybe you agree. Then let's talk about the data. It is stored on the auth server, somewhere (I don't even know the exact location, IP or whatever). It is not publicly accessible. There's no web interface that can be hacked, nothing vulnerable. The data is only linked to users via BTID. We can only say, this screenshot belongs to this account. As you can imagine this is valuable from the standpoint of anti-cheat. It's very easy to see if there is a hack or exploit program running. We have banned users on this information when no other proof was available.

This feature is a far cry from what happened before. That had to do with being able to pull files off the computer. This is taking a screenshot. Most users will never have this happen to them. It is something that is only done when there is significant suspicion or partial evidence. It's not like a screenshot is being taken every 5 seconds on everybody's computer.

With all that said, if the community feels better with that feature removed and understands that our ability to keep the game clean will likely lessen, we can remove it.

my last question about all that:
why are you still on this forum - you will loose all your data now... so go away and leave us alone.
thank you so much.

Well i am glad a door has opened and youse might have seen the light that it was not a good idea to add such a feature.

Endy, what I can see about you, only as a server admin, is just great. this is today, the internet.
you are from the Netherlands,
Vriezenveen (NL) and your provider is
Ziggo
what else. most of the duchies do have this provider
you are using a asustek network card .... should I go further ?

this is the real world, wake up!
so think twice while playing or joining any internet address. hoooah

btw: without any screenshots, or something else. just the internet it is giving me this information. and much more if I would like .. hope you can sleep well 

The feature that allows screenshots to be taken has been removed from Assist v8.15. The update is scheduled to happen in the next several hours.

Eliz, I have to admit I need to change my opinion of you. After all, you still have some brains.

Its great that you have TOS. Nice! However you are using an illegal copy of AA to run servers (illegally) and sharing the game online (illegally, and yes it makes no difference if the game is free or not - the copyright is not yours), you are seriously violating users privacy when you are making screenshots of their PCs. Those are serious crimes and those TOS sentences you can shove up your a**. But lets keep it on the low...

THEN UNINSTALL THE FUCKEN GAME