Bug... or abuse... not sure - Grepo Toolkit for Android

DeletedUser829

Guest
Because of my job, I always need to find ways around things, and then provide a solution to fix said thing. In this case the solution is simple, but need to voice my concern.


1) Find out if someone uses Android/Apple mobile app.
---Easy. Send out a Fake Mass Message to an enemy alliance asking who uses it so you can record how awesome they are. Send this from your main account so you're not in breach of rules by creating multiple accounts.
2) Spam attack everyone that uses it. by this I mean send 100-300 attacks per hour. This will cause their phone to ring so much the battery dies, they uninstall the app, or they turn phone off at work/school.
3) repeat.


Spam attacking isn't against the rules, this is just a by-product of that. Fake attacking isn't against the rules either.

So what can be done:
1) the push notification of the tool is pretty good. I get notified of an attack minutes before it shows on Grepolis. Rather than send out 1 notification for attack, group them together and push out a single notification saying "15 attacks incoming" rather than 15 notifications of 1 attack.
2) Increase the time between flagging an incoming attack and pushing the notification, mixed with #1 this will help reduce spam.
3) As the toolkit is essentially a wrapper for a browser, give the user a bit more control over the notification/vibrate/maybe add times to ignore notifications etc.


I tested this last night on myself with my alliance and I got 500 attack's incoming (canceled within 5 seconds) and 500 rings on my phone - bloody annoying. Something like this could get someone in trouble at work.

It's a great concept, love it, but a bit abusable I think. People have uninstalled this app because of this, and thus have lost cities due to that action.

Soo... yes I think it's a bug. It doesn't break rules, but it's entering a gray zone.

PLEASE do not knee jerk add a rule to fix this.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
So robotic notification of attacks is a current feature some users get in the game today? I had no idea some users had such a huge advantage over those actively playing. Please explain how to be notified of attacks via alerts pushed to your phone.
 

DeletedUser829

Guest
Yea, you can't have a script, but your phone does it for you, which is extremely OP it seems. Some have taken what I found above as a means to exploit this and teach them a lesson. Nothing like getting a message "my teacher took my phone away because ***** kept fake attacking me".

Like it's my fault he doesn't know how to turn his phone off in class.... priviledged kids don't know how to take responsibility.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
This is not a bug but an improvement to the app, which should be made in the ideas section.
 

DeletedUser829

Guest
You're drawing a fine line between feature and bug/defect.

Feature is a new thing, (new), an improvement.
Bug is something that currently exists and is not working as intended, broken, or against requirements.

This currently exists, and is broken in it's current capacity.
 
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