SewageSurfin

Before I begin, I'm going to let you know that I read every word.

That said, let me go ahead and begin with the base of your argument:

"Email cracked accounts are generally safe"

I will concede that you make valid objections to the safety concerns raised in this thread, but this thread does not exactly represent the reasoning behind the ban on unregistered email trading.

I know this may sound silly to some, but behind the infamous Rule #6 is an underlying ethical code. That code is sometimes hard to put into words, but the best that I can come up with is "Cheat the system, not the players."

Among the Neopurists, our way of doing things is wrong in the first place, because by using programs, we are taking away opportunities from the legitimate players, but at the same time, those legitimate players still have an opportunity to play the game, garner their enjoyment, and profit in the virtual economy. When cheating goes from taking away the opportunity for wealth to taking the wealth directly from the players, something gets lost.

The ruling seems pretty black and white, but it's understood that we are already dealing in a gray area.

I feel like there are many things that go into the ideal and mentality that elude words, but I think I've caught about as much of it as I can, so with that note, I'll go down the road of the individual elements that are included in Rule #6.

-Scamming, fake login pages

These were some of the first scams, and they almost always targeted active accounts. This is a pretty obvious attempt to obtain ill-gotten goods, and were excluded from Codex for exactly that reason.

-Hash lists

The next evolution in account theft, these targeted users that were "foolish" enough to use the same username and password on Neopets as somewhere else. An account matching this criteria would likely also be a primary account, but may well be an inactive account. Either way, the owner of the account had put at least a nominal amount of time and/or effort into the account.

-CGing

This isn't specifically mentioned, but it is included in the heart of the rule. This again targets active accounts (ones that would actually visit a page that would contain CGing source), and because of its nature would be excluded from Codex.

-Email cracking

And now we reach the point at hand. Admittedly, many of the accounts targeted in these email raids are accounts that have been inactive long enough for the email to go invalid, so likely the account itself will also be forgotten. Regardless, these are still accounts that have an owner, whether that owner is on a long hiatus, completely moved on, or a kid that felt like making a million shells, they still took the time to create the account, and whose right is it to take that away from them?

I'm... tired of writing now, it may not even look like much, but I've been working on this for about an hour, searching for the right words to clearly explain my feelings on the matter.

Now, for you specifically, my only regret is that you were an active member for almost a year, and an active contributor on the forums, but unfortunately, when it comes to knowingly violating the rules, one must distance themselves from the social attachment and make an impartial decision.

I'm not going to ban this second account for the time being, if only so that you have an opportunity to read this and respond to this, and I honestly hope you do. Maybe we can even come to an understanding on the matter.

Hey man, thanks for replying. I agree with your premise that such activities are unethical and email cracking does fall into that category. All I wanted to point out was that this thread was, in my opinion, slightly misinformed. And I'm happy to hear that it isn't the reasoning behind the banning. Like I said before anyway, I do understand that breaking forum rules deserves punishment. It basically agrees with what I was trying to say in my first line of the last paragraph anyway.

However, first of all, even though I did participate in 'unethical activities', about 2-3 months ago the rules were not as clear for unreg email accounts as to whether they were allowed or not compared to how you've stated everything right now (Obviously Rule 6 has been changed to be pretty clear now). Because it was so popular on other sites and several trading post users here were also involved in such activity (but weren't honest enough about it) that I thought I could probably continue to do so - which I did for many months, uninterrupted. I put a disclaimer/warning and informed any buyer as to what exactly they were buying. For a looong time no mod or anyone warned or told me to stop.. And since everything I did was in the open, it's not like I was trying to hide it or anything so I assumed that it was okay since there were never any problems with it after all this time. So you can imagine how surprised it was when I got banned suddenly. Hopefully you can also understand why I'm kind of frustrated by it even though it is probably deserved.

Moreover, rule 6 should then be expanded to cover more than just accounts. Pets, UCs, high-end Items etc. etc. too.

Also: Why ban all my accounts too am I permanently banned from this place? That sucks.

This is excellent tl;dr quality material, but I highly recommend anyone interested in this topic to read and comment. Also, mods please do not delete this, I don’t think it breaks any forum rules nor does it advocate unreg emails, and I think it's a topic worth talking about in the open.

So I was banned for selling unreg email account shells. I understand that the mods wanted to make an example of me. I bulk buy shells in USD because of how available and cheap they are nowadays and then resell/use them, yes they were probably unreg accounts but so are most of the shells sold anywhere. I was kind enough to be honest about that, and refunded people who didn’t like the idea. I assumed I could continue my business since I was never warned, people understood the risks; I thought being honest would be better than those who traded obvious unreg email material without being upfront about it. So I think a warning would’ve been nice before a banning, which was quite disappointing because it seemed like an impulsive move. I understand though. I'm not posting this as a defense.

But anyway, here are my thoughts on this touchy subject: the risks of unregistered emails and unregistered emails in general. No I’m not advocating unreg email trade nor am I protesting the reasoning for my banning. I am providing an alternate view to the consensus held in this forum.


The same risks apply to unregistered email shells and normal shells. Most legit shell makers (if any still exist), I assume probably create lots and lots of shells and do not come check them regularly, for their own safety. Thus, I think the same would occur on a legit shell, as the same things would apply as you mentioned: New IP entering account after a long period of time, changing account details etc.. Not to mention the scenario which Scribble bought up and many other similar potential scenario. The frozen message does occur for unreg emails sometimes, but only when people act stupidly like changing the passwords/emails immediately on multiple accounts upon entering – it happened to one of my sales once but it was only because the person changed the profile info of 10+ accounts in one day (irrelevant note: I fully refunded). This being said, my personal accounts of 5-6 semi mains/mains + 5 shells are all built up from presumably unreg email shells (I don’t know nor care) accounts I purchased which I have used caution to build up in the beginning but are now fully functioning and “safe” even after 1+ year. I personally never cared if anything was unreg email or not, because I don't see the risks as you do (never experienced them). This is granted, a small sample size, but it gives me the full confidence to sell these accounts as the same as legit shells (a rarity nowadays) I don’t really like how you’re trying to shock/scare people with the statement of “If they have been inactive for years, switch an entirely new IP, change passwords, start playing games, basically anything, they will get iced within the month”, I don’t know maybe it happened more often when the industry was still in its infancy stages. However, such statements are untrue, due to reasons stated above and later. Obviously, if this were true, no one would buy anything unreg email related at all. Unfortunately, the unregistered email business is booming.

The next point, and more important one is that whether anyone likes it or not, unregistered emails are the new thing in Neopets Cheating. Everyday, unregistered emails & accounts are traded and open in the thousands, if not more, and shells are now sold in quantities of hundreds per deal. The fact is, due to the sheer quantity of unregistered emails, a large proportion (if not most) of trading on NP cheating sites, NOT including sale of unregistered emails and shells, are at least somewhat linked to unregistered emails: Just the increase of NP circulating, Pets, UCs, shells, mains, NC items, people are usually open about it although it’s taboo but it’s still quite obvious, it's presumed. However, I’m not saying that users always purposely obtained via unregistered email, but what I mean that so much of trading nowadays is indirectly linked, such as when you buy stuff from other people then resell it, or receive some sort of payment or pet or account or anything, I’m saying if one were to trace it all the way back its origins are probably from an unregistered email accounts because that’s how tied up it is in the Neopets system now. It’s just no longer the evil little cheating section separated from other cheating methods like it once was. If some users here are afraid of unregistered emails, they cannot be so naïve to assume that just because something isn’t labeled “unreg email” that it’s 100% legit. If TNT truly cracked down on unregistered emails, most cheaters are fucked (I’m talking general Neopets Cheating community), but this isn’t the case… so far. More importantly, due to this increase, I believe the safety has improved as well. Complaints are rare, and risks understood (based off other sites). I don’t know whether it’s because TNT can’t catch as much, aren't bothered or are pleased with the increase in activity.

My disagreement with this topic is that the principle that one does not buy unreg accounts because they are super unsafe (not true) as suggested by this topic is not the correct one that the forum should be adopting in my opinion, but rather that it can be characterized as stealing and other related issues if that is what it is against. Lastly, if Neocodex is truly anti-unreg email they should crack down much much harder, which would be hard, because of what I raised in the paragraph above. I was willing to be open about the origins of my accounts. Like I said earlier, a LOT of stuff nowadays are obtained or somehow linked to unreg emails. Are you going to let them slide just because they don’t state it? The attitude I adopted was if you can’t beat them, join them’, but unfortunately I’m the first domino to topple here (I’m not saying what I did was right, because there are forum rules duh). And for anyone worried, nothing else I did was related to unregistered emails: pets, accounts although I often bought them from others, so they could’ve been -.- that’s how ingrained unreg email accounts are in the cheating community.

-ZKK (no more posts about this sort of thing I promise)

Thoughts? Criticisms? Valid/invalid? Thanks for reading