Minecraft Forums

Well, we had another one today. Actually, it was a repost of a previous instance of the same thing. Someone claimed to have free Minecraft codes to give away, just email him. I have a gmail account I keep for these things, so I did. Is it a surprise to anyone that the response was, in fact, that he didn't have any Minecraft codes, but if you went to a certain URL -- an affiliate link, of course -- you could get one. Really. He promises.

From the look of it, instead of the usual "spam three forums, then do all these impossible things, and we'll give you one, honest we will" sites, it's actually the equivalent of ad.fly link, where the poster gets paid some trivial amount for every download. Not wanting to put any money in the schmuck's pocket, I didn't investigate further; it's entirely possible that the download in question (if there even was one) had a nasty payload of its own, like a virus, or a trojan to co-opt one's computer into a botnet. The kind of person who would try to make a quick buck lying to children about how to get a game for free would probably be perfectly happy to get paid by some botnet operator for every new zombie computer he collected, too.

In the discussion of his lies, before the appropriate sectional mod killed the thread, I found a few comments worthy of note:

But,why not give a try?

If this is true, i am not sure if it is, but it can never hurt to try!

It can never hurt to try? Well, as long as you don't think having some kind of malware on your computer "hurts", I suppose not. As long as you don't think giving your personal information to parties unknown who are going to use it for everything from spamming the living heck out of you to flat-out identity theft "hurts", I suppose not. And, in particular ...

I'm not against him giving out free premium accounts.

...as long as you don't think that stealing from the people who created this game that we love -- not because you're going to starve to death if you don't, but because you want to have some entertainment without actually paying for it -- and knowing, for the rest of your life, that you're nothing but a thief, doesn't hurt you or anyone else, well, I suppose not.

Frankly, I don't have to steal my entertainment, and there is nothing short of starvation that would make being a thief look good by comparison. Aside from the ethical angle, I go to a great deal of effort to keep malware off my computer, and I'm not about to change that by running whatever software some known spammer and claimed hacker wants me to. I also make a point of safeguarding my personal information, and I'm not going to hand that over to some hacker, either. Why not give it a try? Because the possible upside -- being able to steal something that I don't actually need -- doesn't even approach the probable downside -- malware, identity theft, spam, and of course becoming a thief.

From the spammer/hacker/whatever who posted the "free codes" thing:

I'm C++/C# programmer and have worked in microsoft but I don't work anymore, so I made this generator, it's not illegal because I don't work in microsoft anymore. Anyway if it's illegal nobody will be able to identify me.

I'm a little unclear on what working for Microsoft would have to do with the legality of stealing software. (nor, for that matter, why someone who really worked for Microsoft would repeatedly say they worked in microsoft) And as for identifying this guy, one word: Tbilisi.

You can't imagine but there is a way to get it working, i told you that im C++/C# developer

Trying the technobabble approach. The fact that he thinks that being a "C++/C# developer" is some kind of big deal (there are only millions of them in the world, after all) and gives him some special magic to do the impossible -- creating bogus Minecraft registration codes that somehow bypass the payment/download process -- is a good warning sign. He thinks he's going to wow us with this incredibly impressive credential, utterly oblivious to the fact that, among the tens of thousands of active members on this forum, some really are professional C++/C# developers (and many of those who aren't know one), and know this for the hot air that it is. He knows C++! C#! Microsoft! And 10 other important words! He must be on the level, right, because only someone who knows how to create bogus Minecraft reg codes could possibly use those words ... right? Right?

On a related note, I'm Markus Persson. You know it's true because I just said it! When I get tired of being Notch, I take my turn as President Obama. Or Ted Cruz, if I want to switch it up a bit. You do believe me, right? I said it, so it must be true. If you disagree with me, I'll have the NSA hack your computer and turn all your icons into pictures of Hello Kitty, and spawn creepers in your bed IRL. I said it so it must be true.

And there's another one of the big danger signs: "Only 5 accounts a day" (and didn't it start as 10?) -- the time pressure thing. I talked about that a few posts up. The people who do this don't want you to take the time to think about it; they want you to react, not think; to act without thinking; not to consider what the outcome might actually be. If you think about it too long (like so many other high-pressure sales) you might decide it's really bogus. So be one of the first! Don't miss your chance! Don't think, just do!

They say you can't scam an honest person. While that's not strictly true, it is true that it's a whole lot harder. Look up the "white van speaker scam" some time. I knew a guy, years ago, who had done that. He worked for a stereo store. They'd load a bunch of crap speakers into a van, throw a blanket over them, unbox one set, and go out to some parking lot. "Psssst, wanna buy some cheap speakers?" People thinking they were buying stolen goods would pay many times what those junk speakers were worth. Once they'd gotten one sucker's money, they'd move to another parking lot and do the same thing. What's the sucker going to do, go to the cops and say "these speakers I bought because I thought they were stolen aren't as good as I thought they were?" If someone's willing to be dishonest -- launder money, pose as a dead person's relative to claim his bank account, whatever -- scammers can use that innate dishonesty to their advantage, and they will. That's what's happening here: this guy is taking advantage of the people who are willing to do something illegal -- willing to get a game without paying for it -- and cheating the people who think they're cheaters.

All else aside, there's a lot to be said for honesty as far as safety goes. It really does cut down on the chances that scammers have to get their hooks into you.

A rather interesting one of these landed today. This one was a link to a video which gave the sucker steps to follow, which were reported by other posters in the thread to deliver malware (like we expected otherwise?). The interesting part was, not long aftewards, someone posted the following (10x over) in the same thread:

holy moly! this site just gave me a Minecraft Upgrade Code and it was legit! I got it from [some site you shouldn't go to] Read more at [user's affiliate link for said site]

Now, I can't be sure they were for the same scam -- the fact that the original post was in French makes it more confusing. But there's a good chance that it was connected, because it was shortly later in the same thread. And if that's correct, it's a demonstration of how you don't actually get anything free; you get a computer full of malware that tries to spread the scam (and the viruses) even further. A particularly good demonstration, in that case.

Something to note: You keep seeing these "I got a free Minecraft code, go to www.givemeavirus.com to get yours!" but you never see, in any of the numerous threads that have cropped up about cracked versions of MC, etc., anyone saying that they did actually get Minecraft for free from one of those sites. You never see anything but the pre-formatted messages provided by the site ("post the following in three forums") telling you to go there. Nothing more. You never see anybody reporting actual success. There's a reason for this: They don't have any free Minecraft codes to give away. They don't have free $100 Wal-Mart shopping cards, either, or Applebee's gift cards, or any of the other things they offer. They couldn't stay in business if they did. You'd think if it worked, at least one person out of the many who use these forums -- one of the people who have posted the "go here and get Minecraft for free" spam in this forum -- would be telling us all about how yes, it really did work. But they don't. They never do. The ones who get a computer full of malware have other things on their minds, and the ones who just find it leads to impossible things to do are probably to embarrassed to admit they got suckered. Neither one posts about it.

Remember: If something is too good to be true, it's either not good or not true.

I found an interesting one today. It was a "free Minecraft code generator" site, rather than the usual "spam multiple forums and complete impossible offers and then we won't give it to you anyway" kind. It required registration ... I hope it enjoys spamming a Mailinator throwaway. Then it wanted me to run something in Java. Sure, I'm going to let a self-proclaimed hacker and thief run some arbitrary program on my computer. Sorry, I think poking at lions with a stick sounds safer. And for benefit of those without Java, they offered a handy download you could run. This looked interesting. So ... want a free Trojan.Ciusky.Gen.16? That's what VirusTotal found packed in that file. In fact, VirusTotal lit up like a Christmas tree.

This is a big reason not to go anywhere near these things. If, like most people, I'd had Java enabled (this sort of thing is exactly why I don't) it could have done all sorts of disturbing things behind my back. If I'd run that file, our friend the trojan would have come to visit. And this guy posted 7 copies of the thing; the odds are disturbingly high that at least one person in these forums did one or the other.

There's a question you always have to ask yourself: Cui bono? That's Latin for "Who benefits?" Who benefits from you getting Minecraft without paying for it? Aside from you (if you happen to be a thief), basically, nobody. And no random stranger on the Internet is going to spend the time and effort to build a website just to be nice to you and make it easy for you to steal things. So what are they benefiting from if it's not that? Well, the only other thing they can be getting from you is access to your computer and your personal information. And maybe not just your computer -- a somewhat clueless acquaintance of mine had something vile crawl into his computer, and it sent out copies of itself from "him" to everyone in his address book. I wonder how many people clicked on the attachment because it was from someone they knew and trusted? Except, of course, he didn't know a thing about it; his computer was now a zombie taken over by a spammer.

So cui bono? What is someone getting out of this? Who is getting something out of this? One thing's for sure: it's not you.

The fundamental truth is still the same: If something is too good to be true, either it's not good or it's not true.

I was just cleaning up some giftcode spam and noticed that there was one (you can't see it; it was deleted) attached to this thread.

Think about it for a minute: someone is posting that stuff here without ever reading the thread he's posting in. He's posting fake giftcode spam to a thread that explains why such giftcode spam is, in fact, fake. He's not even posting "Hey, this thread is all wrong because...." and then adding his pre-formatted "spam this to 3 different forums" post that they gave him. He just went off and spammed the thing without ever looking at what he was doing.

Now, think about it: what does that do to the credibility of such a post? Do you really want to believe someone who has just posted spam to an anti-spam thread?

Y'know, as sort of a hobby I've poked at a lot of those sites. They always tell you to post "I got a free giftcard from www.gimmeavirus.com!" early on in the process. At that point, you've gotten nothing. Not a gift card, not a pat on the head, nothing at all. It's usually step 3, after supplying them with your name and email address for further spamming, and boosting their various social media ratings. If they were really going to hand over such a gift card, wouldn't they want you to tell people you really got one after you really got one (that is, telling the truth) rather than before you got one (that is, lying)? Why do these people want you to lie for them? And how can you trust someone who wants you to lie? If they want you to be dishonest ("I just got this thing I didn't actually get") what makes you think that they are, contrarily, going to be honest?

It comes back, as always, to the same thing: If something is too good to be true, it's either not good or not true.

And, on a related note: Never trust an admitted liar to be honest. He's not. He just admitted that.

A minor comment about moderating and giftcode spam:

Spam posts, whether just giftcode spam or pirated movies, stolen credit cards, and whatnot, are very important, and also very straightforward -- just a quick look to say "Yep, that's spam" and a few clicks. So when I'm doing reports, I handle those ahead of reports that are also important but need time-consuming investigation, or are also quick but not as critical. I've never asked, but I assume this is the case for most moderators. So reported spam will be dealt with first thing, as soon as a moderator sees the report.

So please, report any spam you see. We want that stuff out of here, and we'll jump on it the moment we know about it. It's particularly hard for moderators to find if, like the four posts you can't see between this one and frits191's, it is posted in a legitimate thread. We'll probably spot the Indian astrologers, the pirated movie people, and that place in the UK with the kitchen cabinets, because they usually start their own threads. But giftcode spammers are a lot harder to spot, and we really depend on regular forum members to be our eyes and catch them before we do. (remember, there's only a few dozen of us, and three million of you!) Don't worry about whether someone else reported it; reports stack. Just let us know about the stuff ASAP. And know that we're very, very thankful.

Quote from trollsack

Also, even when you (try to) complete surveys you don't get what you want. One time I used Fake Name Generator to do an online survey (forgot what it was for), and the survey was literally endless. They give you offers one after another, and you fill out the forms, but it never ends! Meaning that it's impossible to complete a survey, I've tried other surveys and they were also endless. Even after 30 slides of offers I still didn't get my download.

Yep. This is why the "Spam this specific post to three forums" is one of the first things they have the victims do, rather than the last. They don't tell people to post that they got free giftcodes after they've actually gotten those free giftcodes because it'll never happen; there were never any free giftcodes in the first place. The whole idea is to collect the user's personal information (step 1), increase the spam company's social media prominence (step 2), advertise the site to other suckers (step 3), and then try to get the sucker to sign up for one or more of the endless "offers" that the spam company will collect a few cents from directing a customer to (whether quasi-legitimate or in fact another spammer). I've never had the patience to go through more than about 20 pages of those (or, rather, "Ann Nonymous", my alter-ego that I use for the purpose, hasn't) but I suspect that if one reaches the end of the list, they just start over from the beginning. The promised reward is dangled in front of the sucker but never delivered, so they keep trying again, and again, and again. By the time they finally give up in frustration, they've already given a scammer their personal information, boosted them on Facebook, etc., and spammed MCF, etc., on their behalf; anything beyond that is gravy.

The code is a lie.

Quote from Jomberman»

Well usually you should give real info to surveys. They have ways to determine wether you speak the truth.

Actually, they don't. Not these, anyway. And they in fact don't care, either.

They want you to spam on their behalf. They want you to boost their Facebook visibility. And they want to direct you to surveys that pay them a tiny amount for everyone who completes one, or signups for random junk that pay them an even tinier amount for everyone who signs up -- whether or not those completions and signups are legit. In fact, the companies collecting names/data from that stuff know this, and know 90% of what the fake giftcode people are sending them is going to be just as fake as the giftcodes are, so they pay accordingly.

So no, giving them your real information won't get you a free giftcode, either. There are no free giftcodes. And giving your personal data to liars and thieves is really, really not a good idea. (If you think it is, there's a Nigerian prince in your future) Read this whole thread for explanations of why, occasional comments from people who got suckered, comments on the various different scams, etc.

Remember: If it's too good to be true, it's either not good or not true.