Trion – Page 7 – MMO Fallout

Rift: Authenticator Now Available for iOS

Rift has been at the top of my security hitlist for a couple weeks now, ever since Trion announced the release of Coin Lock, a security feature that, by their own admission, did little to improve security. Rather, in my own suggestions, I have always praised the mobile authenticators, noting that although they are not foolproof, they subscribe to the most pressing issue in account security: distancing the account from the computer, and when dealing with account theft, nothing accessible through the computer should be used. This means nothing sent to emails, dynamic codes, and more.

The Rift authenticator has been available on the Android devices for a while now, with promise that the app would come to iTunes in some fashion. Today, Trion announced that the security app is now available. The Rift Authenticator goes for a whole $0.00 (USD) and works on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and requires OS 3.0 or higher to install.

The authenticator is easy to set up. Simply install it, head over to riftgame.com, log in, enter the authenticator code you are given, and voila. You are required to answer a secret question to add the authenticator, which will hopefully work to stop account theives from adding their own authenticator to an unprotected account (as was an issue with World of Warcraft).

As for the app itself, you are given a handy meter showing how much time is left before the code is no longer useful. The code changes every 30 seconds, and is 8 numbers long.

Posted from my iPad. For the sake of not-very-funny humor.

Play Rift? Have Friends Who Don't? Free Time For Them!

Hey, Rift’ers. I know you’re busy fighting back Alsbeth and the legion of undead attacking Telara at the moment, but offer me a moment of your time. Do you have a friend looking into Rift who just doesn’t want to throw $50 down on the box, but doesn’t want to miss the event? If you answered yes to both of these questions, you’re in luck! Your friend can play with you during select times, just by creating an account and applying a code.

Have your friend head over to Trion’s website, log in (or create an account), and give them the code you received in your email linked to your Trion account. It will look like this (minus the pixels on the code):

The event goes from 10am PDT April 1, 2011 through 10am PDT April 4, 2011.

Play Rift? Have Friends Who Don’t? Free Time For Them!

The event goes from 10am PDT April 1, 2011 through 10am PDT April 4, 2011.

Rift: Now Integrated With Youtube

The program FRAPS is great, but recording tends to slow down my computer. Xfire video does the job, but not all of my games are supported. I’d love to see more MMOs implement what Trion just did today: integration with Youtube. In today’s patch, Trion added in support for players to link their Trion accounts to their Youtube accounts. By hitting Ctrl + Y in-game, players can record up to three minutes of footage. When the capture is complete, the video is encoded, and once the encoding is complete, can be sent off to Youtube straight away. Note: Unfitting death metal music and terrible editing skills not included.

To show the system, I’ve included a short 30 second video I recorded today, using this system. I did have some trouble on longer videos with the video skipping, and I’m not sure what is causing that.

If you are in Rift, hopefully you’re doing better than my server in fighting back Alsbeth. More importantly, I’d like to see more MMOs incorporate their own recording system. I’m looking at you, Alganon.

Rift: Aion Clone? Major Security Hole Patched.

The coin-lock system in Rift is, as I mentioned, a substandard method of stopping account theft because it doesn’t impact what Trion has referred to as the cause of 80% of all hacked accounts: Keyloggers. With what Trion has referred to as a nonstop attack on the account databases and servers, it was only a matter of time before one of the parasites made it through, as shown just this past week when a player managed to log into another player’s account with their details.

If this were, say, Runes of Magic, the person who found the vulnerability might put thousands of accounts as hostage until the company fulfills a list of demands that could only come from a frothing-mouthed disenfranchised fanboy, but rather than setting himself up for a bunkmate, Mr. ManWitDaPlan alerted Trion to the exploit, and the team has managed to fix it.

The vulnerability existed deep in the server code, dealing with the error checking of the login validations. If this is Greek to you, just feel safe that it’s been fixed.

An important lesson to be taken from this is a reminder that bugs will always occur, and sometimes they have a much larger implication than others. In this case, I have to hand it to Trion for their fast response and willingness to work with the guy who discovered the exploit. As Trion put it:

We do block them as they are detected, but the fact that they are using distributed botnets (compromised computers from across the globe) means that this will remain something that we will continue keeping an eye on, forever.

So score one for Rift, and for Trion’s ability to recover from a setback.

Rift: How About An Authenticator?

Rift launched last month to the fervor of a substantial number of people, opening up more than thirty servers in the days after launch to deal with population. With the mechanics involved, Rift has pulled in players from World of Warcraft and similar MMOs, by presenting a similar game with a new mechanic attached: Dynamic rifts. Of course, the attraction of the large crowd could lead to the two inevitabilities: A whole lot of compromised accounts and a whole lot of real money traders to steal those accounts.

In response to growing complaints of account security, Trion has responded by implementing the Coin Lock program. Coin Lock is similar to the computer identity systems your banks may have begun using recently, where a computer is identified as the “home computer” and any attempt to log in from another computer requires additional information in order to proceed. Without that information, the characters will go into coin lock, during which the following activities will be disabled:

Accessing the Auction House.
Sending Mail (can still receive and view mail or remove items).
Selling to vendors.
Deleting Characters
Salvage, Runebreak, or destroy items.
Trade.
You can continue to play and gain coin and items, but cannot get rid of them.

Coin Lock is a nice idea, but ineffective. Take Trion’s own statement:

“80% of the hacked accounts we’ve seen are from keyloggers.”

The method to unlock a character from coin lock is via a code sent through email, so if your account is compromised via key logger, and thus your email address compromised with it, this system won’t help. At all. Yet by Trion’s own admission, their new security system is going to help, at most, 20% of compromised accounts.

Trion should be utilizing other features in addition to the white list. Why not a black list? If I know that I will only play Rift from my location, why not be able to blacklist all other areas, no exceptions? How about an authenticator that operates through a smart phone app, ala World of Warcraft? A four digit pin that must be entered with the mouse instead of the keyboard, ala Aika Online and Runescape? There are plenty of options that Trion has, and they don’t even need to manufacture security dongles.

The feature of this white list is about as effective as having two locks on your door for extra security, but allowing the same key to work with both. Then again, this is just frustrating because, by Trion’s own admission, this will not help 80% of compromised accounts. It is a start, so we’ll see how this turns out.

Thirty More Rift Servers Today

roflwq — Just enough time to watch the Lord of the Rings Extended Director's Cut Trilogy

Less than a week ago, I mentioned that Trion was opening up over twenty new servers for Rift’s head start, after population built up into fifteen hour long lines just to log in. Of course it is worth pointing out that, with any MMO launch, a few of these servers will be going the way of the Dodo a few months out when the game has settled down to its base population.

Not content with adding twenty three new servers, Trion is looking to throw even more realms onto the pile, with the announcement of another 31 servers that will be added in March 1st (today) for launch. The official list contains 19 US servers, with 12 in Europe divided into 9 EN, 2 DE, and 1 French. The resulting count leaves server figures at 58 North American servers and 41 European servers.

When the time does come to it, hopefully Trion will be able to merge servers quickly and efficiently. You can check out the full server list here, or by ordering Rift from one of the many MMO Fallout-trusted retailers, and then log in.

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