items being STOLEN/DISAPEARING from inventories and vaults

ok nobody has my password or account info and i go to log on today and play my warrior i have

15k Ascalon (hammer sup vig sup abs)
15k Dragon (unruned)
15k Gladiator (axe sup vig sup abs)
15k Platemail (sword sup vig sup abs)

i check my inventory to look for my Platemail because i want to use swords today i check my inventory and the other 3 characters on this same account and i find that the Platemail is missing is there a way that Anet tracks what items a Player has had because i have had the 15k Plate for almost 2 months now and i just want to know if they actually do help people who lose items/get hacked and robbed

Well if your missing stuff, it sounds like your wrong about nobody having your password and/or account info. Only three things could have happened.

1) for some reason, be it restoring a backup, corrupted player file, etc ANet tweaked your character (unlikely IMO)
2) your character file became corrupted in some fashion and stuff was lost (see 1 for likelyhood)
3) someone aquired your information through various means and looted your character (most likely IMO)

AFAIK ANet will not help you with equipment loss such as this. My suggestion, make sure you have no keyloggers installed (possibly by formating and reinstalling windows, guildwars, etc), change your password and/or email for your character, login with new email/password and start rebuilding.

ive always swept my computer before logging in it takes like 2-3 minutes and yesterday July 27, 2005 i did not log in at all but the day before July 26, 2005 my Plate armor was there

There are a lot of keylogger programs out there. Several of them have been posted on this site, as I'm sure they're posted all over gaming sites across the 'Net. If you clicked on one, thinking that you would be taken to some kind of download or 'funny pictures' or something like that, you may have inadvertently become infested with a keylogger. You might try Spy Sweeper (free 30 trial) or Spyware Doctor (which has a specific piece to look for keyloggers).

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say your account has been hijacked. Hope you've sent something to ANet's customer technical support team.

i dunno if i hacked/keylogged to get annother persons acct i would strip it completely its kinda odd hes only missing the platemail

if its a bug can they fix it? ive had other items disapear before gold weapons/good upgrades its never ALL my items its pieces and up to date ive lost only 5 things ( the plate mail set i count as 1)

I also had some stuff missing this last week along with my hubby and a fellow guildie. This is of course on 3 Seperate accounts and computers so I dont think it has anything to do with someone hacking the account cause of a keylogger.
For one i havent downloaded anything I have a virus scanner and well it wouldnt be like wed all downloaded it now would it.
I logged on to my monk and her gold holy rod was missing but nothing else. It was her equipped weapon. My husband lost his sowrd and shield that was equipped and our guildie lost a salvage kit hed just bougght and used one before logging off. Now we all had plenty of money and other items so if someone would have hacked why wouldnt they take it all?

You seemed to hint that you had taken the armor off and kept it in your inventory. Perhaps you sold at the merchants by mistake?

If you truly believe that it's a bug, and not unconscious human error (sorry, not implying anything), please report it at http://support.guildwars.com, and let them know the details (include time missing, what exactly was missing, character name, etc). Unfortunately, I don't think they restore items, but if it is a bug and not a keylogger, etc, then it might prevent such losses in the future.

Why would someone steal customized armor???

My guildmate lost his new character & the 20k on it as well as had one of his characters become level 1.

I think it might've been a very rare server error.

Exactly. Customised armor is only useful for the character wearing it. Can 15k armor be sold, though? I'm not sure. (Haven't gotten it for myself yet.) Can it be salvaged for parts and runes? Yes, though you won't get much out of it. Either common materials, rare materials, or runes, but no combination of any two or all three.

Doesn't make sense to me. Sorry to say this, but either you've been hijacked by someone who's playing mind games with you (why didn't they steal other stuff?), or it was your own error. IMHO, I'd say it was an error.

Sorry for your bad luck, tho. Sucks.

Let's say someone did have access to someones account. Perhaps if they did and instead of raiding everything he has all at once, they just pick and choose from time to time instead of losing their cookie jar. I know, probably not likely but very possible. My advice is to change your password and email asap. I would even recommend doing this on a regular basis.

Edit: Perhaps if someone did grab armor it was for the rune, as we all know Superior Vigors can fetch a good price and especially those Absorptions.

Oh no, not much, just a Superior Vigor and a Superior Absorb rune.

I think what you did, as was suggested prior to my own post, is you sold it to a merchant thinking it might have been an armor drop from a mob, and haven't realized it yet.

No one would steal customized items except to be mean, and that's pretty frickin pointless so I cannot fathom it happening. If they logged in and TRASHED your inventory on purpose, that makes sense. Ask yourself who else is using your machine.

I also wonder at the whole thing being reality, by virtue of the fact that for every suggested response you get, you have "already done this" or "I do that each time".

Obviously not, or you are not paying attention and clicking sell on items in your bag really fast.

cant use anyone elses armor its static'd to the character that originally bought it...
i know this doesnt help but for the idiots that stole it; its almost worthless unless they exp salvage runes from it...

I'll agree with SOT on this one, I think one of two things happened.

Either you just weren't paying attention and you sold yer stuff off to the merchant, OR someone does have your password, and they went and salvaged any runes from the armor and took off, while not entirely trashing your account so they'd be able to do it again. I suggest you change your password (or start changing it every few weeks actually) and see if it happens again over the next few weeks.

Here's a thought. If you did have something stolen, you'd have to have had it traded to a mediator, in order to get it back to the original thief's account.

A quick chatlog check by Anet would verify any trades.

I don't know what happened, but if I was the OP I'd change my password right this fricking minute. And I'd make sure to use a password that wasn't easily guessed even by people who knew me.

That sort of behavior would directly point at hacking.
If hackers just steal 1 item here, 1 item there, it looks like the players fault.

What happens if you forget your password?
Can you have it resent to your eMail account?
If so, it's probably plain-text and readable for everybody who traces the network.

1. change password, it is always best to make a password that follows these guidelines

guidelines-
1. password is at least 10 characters long and has at least 2 capital letters, 2 lowercase letters, 4 numbers, and 2 special characters

example (don't use)
HH03ei27(#
clearly this is a harder password to just blatently guess

if you can't remember such a password, and you don't want to get keylogged, go into a word program and create 30+ fake passwords, and put yours in a random spot, after that just copy it from there to the login, and you don't have to worry about getting keylogged cause all they will see is ctrl + c, i also suggest you encrypt/hide the file in a place only you will know, that is if you are on a shared computer,

for compu-geeks like me and my friends, well lets just say a hacker will have a hard time guessing my 150 character long password when it's written nowhere except my head ^_^

Ashley twig said it for me.

If i was a thief, i would take little bits so not to draw attention to myself...the odd thing is, why the platemail which is likely to be a highly prized inventory item.

Hack bots stealing random items?

One thing I remember from the good old Diablo II: whenever you get some really good stuff, be quiet or some hackers might want to steal it from your account, and if they're any good at hacking, they will succeed.

For this reason, I would stop telling everybody that there are another 2 sup vig and 2 sup abs to steal from your account. I might be paranoid, but I just wouldn't do it.

nostra

Hackers would most likely go to the sell forum and try to crack the accounts of those people selling 800K fellblades.

is all of this really necessary for protecting your home computer? I've seen less strict guidelines for NASA missile control...


btw...if you're guessing someones password...you aren't a hacker.

1. i think it's neccessary, and many companies and organizations require this for their employee's passwords.

2. if a hacker/cracker or anyone else steals/strips/disables your account because your password was "cookiemonster" or "Fudgepop" or any other rediculus password then i'll just point my finger at you and say "i told you so" or "haha"

btw anyone trying to gain access to your account/personal info/data that does not belong there, is same as a burglar breaking into your house;


another BTW, all government computer, yes that includes "nasa mission control", as you put it, requires the same kind of password i mentioned,

passwords are something that you should be keen on being the only one knowing, i made my passwords incredibly hard (150+ character) after several incidents involving several games, i'll mention that below

Diablo2X- i had full acc all with lvl 70's-80's, a couple 90's
i'm one of the gamers who doesn't pay for items in the game with real money,
so i EARN all my items

i had each set for every class, but my ik wouldn't glow

i had the best uniq items for every class

i had 50+ rare runes

all of the chars i had were basically mules to hold everything, then one day it got hacked, lost it all and quit the game forever

outwar.com - again, i'm one of the gamers who doesn't pay for ingame items with real money

first account, had the best items you could get without paying for them, then it gets hacked

second account, i started over and starting making points(the stuff you buy for $) by selling ingame items to noob players who just buy points, gets hacked after third account

third account, my friend from my previous 2 accounts gave me one of his extras, i changed all the info of course, then i do the same as the second acc, and get hacked by sum dickhead who i even know his screenname/and i.p. address, i reported him on my second account, and guess what the staff told me? "i am sorry but we need your credit card to validate" that this was your account, when they tell you when you sign up to fill in your address and info, they can't use that can they? noooo, they need your credit card, thus a huge downside to anyone who doesn't pay for a supposedly free game.

but thats ok, i made a 4th and 5th account which with a long and tuff password have yet to be hacked/items stolen/wierd things happen w/ account

i quit and gave them to my friend on the game

lesson? don't play a F2P game that really is a P2P game and it's full of bull**** like 100 points = 5$ when the good stuff costs like 2500 points which = 125$ for an ingame item which you will probably get hacked for

hehe i kinda changed subject halfway thru but still my point is that your password should not be easily guessed, otherwise you deserve whatever happens to your account, which is basically advertising, come get my stuff, its a clearance sale, all items cost 0$ and you can walk off with them!

the equivalent of my password -> account is = to me locking my x-box up with a 100 foot long chain then tossing it in a 10 feet thick titanium vault then lowering the vault 100 stories below the ground, then moving horizontally into a second vault surrounded by 50 feet thick steel plating with 1 foot of compress titanium every 10 feet

1. it was a simple joke.

2. no personal computer needs to be locked up tighter than watergate

3. no government password is ever stored in a file on the network for which the password is valid.

4. he doesn't need to go to these extremes to secure his home computer....he's running windows and anyone with a brain isn't going to bother with passwords when they break into his machine.

5. most good keyloggers log clipboard pastes/copies/cuts.

6. NASA computers don't have passwords...they have keycard logins.

7. what world are you living in that any application allows 150+ characters?

Quick question--how do you have multiple runes on your armor? I thought you can only have one rune per piece of armor.

actually they require them both, but most of the time they use the keycards, however that makes it a HUGE amount easier for someone to gain illegal access, just steal the card, and thats like taking their password.....

150 character long? If you are compu-geek, you know it is unnecessarily too long

and also not possible....i've never in my life ever heard of an application that allowed 150+ character passwords.

A brute force cracker making 200 attempts a second would take almost a millenia to check every possible 16 character password...I believe this is long enough. A good password is only useful against crackers...hackers don't give a damn what your password is..they'll never have to enter it.

a password can never be too long it could be an entire book or novel if i wanted, but that would make logging in a very long and tedious process

1. hackers aren't malicious they are only interested in free knowledge for everyone
2. crackers are the malicious ones that you have to worry about

it depends on the processing power they have the brute force running, also i like it when games make it so that if you fail the password 3 times, 15 minute game disable, fail 3 times more after, 30 minutes... etc. etc.

if it take a millenia for a 16 character password, then by the time they figure my password by bruting, that crackers whole generation of family will be dead

this is the first time you've used a computer isn't it?

yes it is possible for some games, but you won't be seeing what you are typing, so if you make a mistake it just sux 4 u

no, i'm not a newb to computers, my dad was an IT instructor and i learned everything from him, plus i have anti-hacker protection ^_^

actuallya my anti-hacker stuff is pretty funny, a siren on my computer goes off and i hear, intruder detected intruder detected, my computer then traces the intruder to their real location no matter how much server hopping they may be doing, and gives the location to the local authorities/police

the last person to do this got arrested

I don't want to drag this out any longer....as the mods will shut down this thread for flaming...and the OP has a legitimate question..

but seriously...wtf is anti-hacker protection?

several programs that detect external intruders trying to gain access to the computer, and block them from doing so

several other programs for when a hacker/cracker gets INTO your computer, you initiate the program, or set it to auto initiate and it sends a virus back to the hacker/cracker and completely destroys their computer

i like option 2, because generally its more fun to see a hacker get hacked for trying to hack into a comp, wow what a mouthful, lol

Clearly not what he thinks it is or as great as he makes it sound. If things like that were possible, you wouldn't hear about large businesses spending millions on security and skill getting hacked.

-Diomedes

edit:

Awesome, so now you've admitted to an illegal activity. You do know that someone hacking your computer does not give you the right to destroy their property. Do you know you're legally responsible for that? I highly doubt your story.

-Diomedes

Much of that kind of hacking is 'soft' hacking, though - for instance calling everyone in a company you can find the phone number of, claiming to be "computer support" investigating a problem, and asking them for their password. A surprising number of people will give their password if simply asked.

Use several passwords. Have one junk password for all sites which do not matter (e.g. download sites which require registering), one decent password for ONLY trusted and reasonably important sites (e.g. email and guildwars), and one EACH for critical sites, like your bank.

A good password should be long. It should contain mixed case, letters, spaces, and if the program allows it why not special characters like @£$€.
Random passwords are hopeless to remember, so make one by following some easy rule in abbreviating a sentence you know by heart, e.g. take the three first letters out of each entry in your name, adress + post number. That's actually quite secure.

if what he's claiming to have on his computer actually existed....I'd be out of a job

Numa Pompilius: the art that you described as soft hacking was made popular in the late 80's early 90's by Kevin Mitnick...it's called Social Engineering. Walk the walk and talk the talk and people will believe what you tell them. You are correct, it's surprising how often this technique works. Generally the technique is now used to gain information that will lead you to the knowledge required to break into a system...and not simply asking for a password.

every password I have for everything is completely chosen at random. and then memorized...i.e. my guild wars password(prior to this post ofcourse ) was jy56gt1hg.

A great technique for remembering passwords is the dreaded "leetspeak". Take a word or look around your computer room for something lying around. a password as simple as h4rdd121v3 is easy enough for you to remember as it's simply "harddrive" in "leetspeak"...however, cracking this password would be nearly impossible by any conventional means.