To: shade@tkn.org Subject: 
                        Recent Developments In The Cheating Escapade [Editorial] 
                        Hello. I am using a fake email and an alias to send this 
                        message. My reason? Because if I used my real nick/email 
                        I would be accused of cheating on every server I went 
                        to and probably shunned from the tf community. The anti-cheat 
                        activists who will be spoken of include The Hal (of planetfortress.com), 
                        Scatterblak (of scatterblak.com), DevilM (member of clan 
                        defiance), Sgt.Coolguy (of planetfortress.com), and other 
                        members of the tf community (specifically of clan d3f 
                        and clan AM). This message is being sent to various tf 
                        news sites, editorial sites, and those whom I am speaking 
                        of. Do not expect anyone to read the replies sent back 
                        to this email address as it will be canceled once this 
                        message is sent. With that said the following is my take 
                        on the events that have taken place during the past few 
                        days. I believe it all started with a post on planetfortress.com’s 
                        main page by The Hal. After stating some names of people 
                        who run cheat sites he wrote, “I don't have the knowledge 
                        to get after these guys and exterminate their vile existence 
                        from our community, but I have informed those who do have 
                        the talent and knowledge.” This post was quickly followed 
                        up by one on scatterblak.com encouraging people to spam 
                        the message board of a known tf cheats site. Though quite 
                        a few people (in d3f mainly) participated in this, the 
                        main culprit was DevilM. A program was set up which posted 
                        a message with random topics a few times every minute. 
                        Scatterblak wrote this on his page after the bombs, “I'd 
                        like to thank everyone who participated in bombing the 
                        TFCheats Message Board. Though the site is still up, the 
                        message board has now been password protected. I hope 
                        some of you ingenious people can either crack the password, 
                        or email the pussy, er, um, sysadmin and get access.” 
                        He also then suggests hacking into the site to shut it 
                        down. The next day on his site was another post from him 
                        with the following content, "...Thx to Srg CoolGuy for 
                        suggesting a way to circumvent security on certain sites 
                        on the internet. For instance, some sites might be retarded 
                        enough to allow you to ftp in anonymously. If you run 
                        across one of these sites, theoretically you could get 
                        in by trying the following: FTP to the site (cheat.site.written.here.com, 
                        for example).” He then gave instructions on how to hack 
                        the site. Despite a some fancy wording this is obviously 
                        a clear message with detailed instructions to the tf community 
                        that the site should be hacked. The site was hacked repeated 
                        times by numerous people and scatterblak and several others 
                        claimed victory. Several hours later the cheating site 
                        was back up with everything back to normal. These actions 
                        by ‘respected’ members of the tf community are absolutely 
                        appalling. Not only are they hypocritical in their message 
                        but they promote illegal activities in the process. So 
                        you want to end cheating in quake? Fine, that’s your prerogative. 
                        But telling people to go out and engage themselves in 
                        illegal activities is not the way to do it. Hacking is 
                        illegal. Spamming messages boards is considered denial 
                        of service which is also illegal. Granted, scatterblak 
                        did most of the encouragement but planetfortress was just 
                        as bad with its direction to blak’s site and one of its 
                        writers coming up with hack itself. The Hal and others 
                        contest that cheating is wrong. It is bad, unethical, 
                        and it must be stopped. But is hacking cheating sites 
                        really the way to do it? Are malicious and illegal actions 
                        not bad, if not much worse, as well? The old adage goes, 
                        ‘eye for an eye and we’ll all be blind’. Perhaps certain 
                        people need to take heed to this. Now that I have gotten 
                        that issue off my chest, I would like to talk about cheating 
                        itself. Steadfast anti-cheaters such as The Hal, Scatterblak, 
                        and Cheat_H8r (appropriate nick) have long stated that 
                        cheating ruins games such as quake, giving players unfair 
                        advantages. Well I’ve got news for you – the world ain’t 
                        fair. Never has been, never will be. Is someone with a 
                        30 ping compared to someone with a 280 ping not unfair 
                        as well? The only difference between someone using a hacked 
                        map and someone who has a low ping is the fact that being 
                        a lpb costs them money. You don’t hear people like The 
                        Hal making posts about lpbs who should have their isps 
                        remove their account because they have low pings. Yet 
                        they still have an advantage; one much greater than having 
                        transparent walls. Shouldn’t those who have fast computers 
                        be shunned and hacked as well? They have an advantage 
                        don’t they? Granted there are certain malicious cheats 
                        (such as the pak eraser, which btw was not released by 
                        qwhaxor for that very reason) but again how much more 
                        malicious is that compared to encouraging people to hack 
                        a website? Games will never be fair. There will always 
                        be cheaters, there will always be those with better and 
                        faster computers. Denial of service and hacking are not 
                        actions that responsible people would encourage or pursue. 
                        But lets take the hypothetical situation that all tf cheating 
                        sites have been eliminated. By whatever means, people 
                        such as The Hal, DevilM, and Scatterblak have succeeded. 
                        What happens now? Those who made the cheats and distributed 
                        them continue to make them but are no longer able to make 
                        them widely available. So instead of many people having 
                        and knowing about them, only a few select individuals, 
                        who are close to those that find/make them, know about 
                        them. What you end up with are small groups of people 
                        who posses incredibly powerful cheats and no one knows 
                        that they have them. You see, when tf cheats sites distribute 
                        cheats, sooner or later they end up being fixed. Remember 
                        that invisible medic cheat? The conc cure? If sites such 
                        as the one that got hacked had not distributed this information 
                        they would have never been fixed. Why do you think *nix 
                        operating systems are so much more secure than windows? 
                        Because thousands of people everyday look for bugs in 
                        the operating systems and distribute them through means 
                        such as bugtraq. The point is, these sites are not as 
                        detrimental as many believe them to be. Then again, people 
                        such as The Hal are not morons. Remember that no one is 
                        going to read a site if there is no controversy involved 
                        (a la media in the OJ Simpson case). ‘Everything is fine’ 
                        is not a very news-worthy story. Now I’m not saying this 
                        is the case with in this situation, but it is always a 
                        possibility. In closing I would like to echo my disgust 
                        with the recent actions that have taken place. Those who 
                        instigated these actions are no better, and in my opinion 
                        much worse, than the cheaters themselves. Also keep in 
                        mind that those who are the most cynical towards cheaters 
                        are often the ones who cheat themselves (just like homophobics). 
                        Those in glass houses are in no position to throw stones. 
                        Signed, no-one. 
                    

 To: mwhahaha@planetfortress.com 
                        Subject: Well damnit ill mail you and give you my two 
                        cents You know pisses me off...everyone thinks pyro is 
                        nothing but a spaming class...Why do us pyros get discriminated 
                        agianst, just because we have the ability to spam(napalm 
                        grens) doesnt mean that we spam all the time. Many other 
                        classes have this same ability; soldiers with nail grens, 
                        and how many times have you seen a demo piping the respawn? 
                        But no, people always critize the pyro as a skilless clan 
                        that only spams. Why is it my class gets the brunt end 
                        of the stick....well damnit i wont have it...its time 
                        for all us pyros to stand up for our rights and rise up 
                        agianst there oppressors. As much as people may think..a 
                        good pyro has to have skill, because a good pyro generally 
                        doesnt use his/her napalms to excess..sure youll spam 
                        a sentry but who wouldnt. But when i comes down to it 
                        pyros dont use there napalm grens to kill but their enemys 
                        but their rockets or regular grens. Gopher_Gawds ramblings....um 
                        a no.. i mean Two Cents
                    

To: <HME@widomaker.com>
Subject: Suggestions

Get Laughing Boy (aka Mwhahaha :) to put up an artwork page.. those images you do are great! They should be put on a seperate page in addition to the news so as to reflect on their greatness :)

- >V<SailorScout

To: <HME@widomaker.com>
Subject: [Tr!cky]

I've run into that asshole too, a few times. Kept killing people by spamming napalms, and then would boast "now what's my name?" Eventually I typed "llama". Then he proceeded to call me a llama for being an LPB sniper, saying that LPB means you need no skill to kill everyone coming across the bridge... ...now I realize that low ping helps, but dammit, it doesn't mean you are god. I do a decent job and get kills as sniper, but I miss a lot, too. And I've been in some challenging sniper wars with HPB snipers... ...Interesting, too, that this [Tr!cky] doesn't snipe or play soldier, but yet seems to know so much about those classes...

- [DD]Firestorm

To: <HME@widomaker.com>
Subject: The spam rule

Well, the definition of spam I'm thinking of would be more along the lines of text, since many times, grenade spamming is fought back as being a form of defense. So, text spamming (like quotes or the macros in MM1) are spam. Also any excessive unessecary grenade spam (ie 4 napalms, 15+ caltrops) would be spam. The only way to get caught with that, though, would be through a picture, so most of the time they would get away with it. Oh well, maybe the rule will deter them from even trying.

- Xtreme

To: <mwhahaha@planetfortress.com>
Subject: Someone's Stance on inflatable sheep

Where did you find that advertizement? It was going to be on the back of Chex cereal - unfortunately the CEO of the company didn't like the idea, he said it was unsuitable not only for children, but everyone.

What kind of crap is that? Am I wrong to think that everyone needs sheep lovin? Everyone needs it, it calls us from generations ago, but with all these cities who can afford to keep a couple sheep? How many shepherds do you know? How many of these shepherds pimp their sheep anymore?

None, absolutely none.

I'm doing a favor to mankind and you should never buy Chex because they're stuckup doofs!

- >V< Someone

i udn about you utt i dont put wiup wh GAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dont ene theink that ou ccan say ti stuff if the lad cas my mom WILL GET MADA!!!!

p.s. yrou are gay!!!!!!~~~~!~!@!@@!

- >V< Someone

 

I ph33r his mom...well not really ;P
PS: this was a joke but an actuall email ;P