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Today I'm pleased to present a top international-bound article reprinted with permission, written and originally published by Alexandr Sunbeliever III. His paper is a personal favorite and well-worth subscribing.
Enjoy some epic and insightful eRepublik history and a great interview: [TIA] How he won.

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Hello, dear readers from the US, Russia, and other friendly countries. I will not bore you with a long introduction. Today I give you on court interview with the man who won this game. This is the man who defeated the administration, who was higher than the programmers of the project entitled «eRepublik». When he saw that the game should be changed - he did not write the treatment to the forum. He just did everything himself. His eName was keks-n.

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Q01: How did you discover eRepublik? What encouraged you stay in the game in the first minutes?

A01: I discovered it from a post on habr.ru, written by Unclded ( note: — One of the oldest eRussian players, a president and first and largest eRussian baby boom organizer). During the first minutes I saw the players’ astonishment with the inflow of newcomers, the chaos on the job market and efforts to make it work. To sum up, it was an organized mess. Also, the kindness the older players showed to newcomers was encouraging, Karolina ( note: — Karolina Jesieniecka — later one of the few active EDEN supporters in Russia.) for example, donated me food, as a part of his large giveaway. Well, I was intrigued. Later “anonymous” users, becoming a part of eRA ( note: eRA— A party that was created as a base to push creative citizens of eRussia that opposed the ruling Free Russia Party.), creation of my own party, and it was not long before it got out of control.







Q02: When did you realize that it was time to grow from an average citizen to an administration oppositionist? What was the first step joining the dark side? When was your first exploit discovered? Did you use it?

A02: Well, actually, to start with, I never was an average citizen. The first exploit I discovered was the bug with using space in nicknames. I used it to snatch 50k of local currency from the US Treasury. (note: — This story became quite famous then, and was used several times as a base for similar ventures in other countries). It was a bit of trolling too.



Q03: Were you acquainted with any «colleagues» from other countries? Did they exist at all?

A03: No, there was no contact with any.



Q04: Public remembers well the story with grain, which was magically transformed into q5 houses. What was the essence of this exploit? How many houses did you create? Some people made quite a profit from that, having received a gift of 50 Q5 houses (at total market price of 1500 gold) from Alexusss ( note: — Alexusss, another Russian representative in eRepublik hacker community). I can only infer the real magnitude of the event.

A04: The essence was in the fact that when something was being purchased, the product type was extracted from the URL. I took the orderid of a cheap product (at first it was food, but then I realized I could take orderid from the grain market using an organization), formed a URL for buying, and bought a cheap product, which was assigned to the inventory as any chosen type. In theory, I could have made Q5 hospitals, but sasha237 ( note: — Sasha237, another Russian representative in hacker community of eRepublik.) took over the election with bots, and I had no «buttons». So I didn’t get a chance to verify that. How many did I create? Ehm… I never counted… But I had a script that created 20 at once. I remember sharing it with several people. We also organized a Q5 weapon giveaway. So we distributed a lot of “alchemically” created stuff that day. 50 houses? That’s a drop in the ocean. I cannot say that over 9000, but it was a comparable number.







Q05: What can you say about the exploit when you raised yours, Parter’s and Helsus’ health ( note: — Helsus, and yet one more Russian representative of the eRepublik hacker community). Many remember that day. They say, the moment the Russian eElite representatives left the game was the first step towards Russia’s decay. As far as I remember, that day Parter never used the exploit, but was banned. Did he know you were going to add him those HP?

A05: That was the same exploit, but I applied it to q5 tickets and created a script that made the citizen fly back and forth, buying them. In theory, we could have added even more, but I consumed all the grain in the market. Parter knew, but later had second thoughts after the moment I got banned.



Q06: That is, he did not realize he would be banned?

A06: It seems so.



Q07: What was your relationship with the moderators and administration?

A07: Ehm, it depends. I did not disturb them for a long time, and they did not disturb me. Then I got banned and got mad. Then they got tired of me and presented me with the banhammer. Then I saw what they turned the game into and decided to end the relationship. By the way, they gave me the banhammer after I hacked the tickets. Actually, the existence of CSS in those was long known (I looked into that as early as last winter). I got the information about the engine, we, I mean, the necrochat ( note: — The chat of Russian hackers in eRepublik.), found some information about it on antichat ( note: — A Russian resource popular among hackers). We couldn’t think of anything fun to do with it and forgot all about it.



Q08: I heard rumors about you creating a script automatically closing the tickets to get into the moderator top and force the administration to go bankrupt demanding t-shirts. Is that true?

A08: Ehm. Open a ticket, close it, repeat, back and forth… That resembles masturbation, don’t you think?







Q09: Many foreign players have accused you of using DDoS to win battles. Is that true?

A09: Well, I wouldn’t call that a DDoS. At least, due to the fact that DDoS is a spread attack of service denial, which assumes existence of several attacking computers. I had a simple bot-managing script. Start it through mere 50 threads and eRepublik dances around for a few minutes.



Q10: Which of the exploits you found and used were never known to the general public?

A10: It’s hard to say, it was such a long time ago. I usually used them when I thought of a way to utilize it. I discovered some of the exploits once again, when some people already used them to their advantage. I was always fascinated with how people used the “holes”. They find one in parser- and magically the wallets of fellow citizens and others go empty.



Q11: What can you say about the exploit used by some to boost their strength and skill? Do you know anything about the bug, discovery of which is often assigned to Turks, the point of which was the «endless» inventory?

A11: KasedY ( note: — KasedY, and yet another Russian representative of eRepublik hacker community) built a whole automated production facility using that thing. His bots managed to work 5 to 8 times per day. I do not know about the inventory, never experimented with that.







Q12: What can you say about the whole Russian programming community in the game, as well as their contribution to destabilizing the game? KasedY, Alexusss, Sasha237? Did you have any joint ventures? Were there other names?

A12: We had the Korean campaign with KasedY and Alexuss. Actually, my contribution to that one was sort of organizational. I ran around the chats and tried to arrange things. As a result, little by little, we gathered a considerable army of bots and a group of people for the Congress. And there’s a whole new story about us registering bots together with Shaolin ( note: — Russian TO group in North Korea).



Q13: What can you tell us about the «The Nothern Citadel» project?

A13: I can say that when I was leaving, I left all my notes on bots and «alchemy» to Sasha. Based on those he created a bot management script for V2 and a «humanitarian»-friendly interface.



Q14: How many bots did you create during the time you spent in eRepublik?

A14: Bots? Many. It is difficult to estimate, since they were being registered in thousands, but only a few reached level 6.



Q15: What can you say about the time when you published an article in the administration’s newspaper?

A15: That was a «hole» in the moderation system. And it was obvious. That was more about having the balls rather than knowledge.







Q16: How would you evaluate the work of the eRepublik programming team from a professional point of view?

A16: I had an impression that it was written by second or third year students. I mean programmers. They have good designers. However, they got a bit better and started to code normally.



Q17: What can you say about the «social» part of the game? Whom from the oldfags do you miss, and can you name those who were the driving force of eRussia? With whom do you still keep in touch? Do you keep in touch with foreign community representatives?

A17: Driving force? I can name three letters: FRP. ( note: — From the time of the first baby boom it was the greatest and biggest party in eRussia, which had absolute authority for more than year). This great party had the burden of making decisions for a long time, being a target for opposition. It encouraged political and social activity, and has been unfairly compared to Edinaya Rossiya ( note: — In present, the ruling party in Russia, led by Vladimir Putin). Actually, the top of that party worked hard for too long. There was not much contact with foreigners. All the contacts I have I got for the short time of being a president.



Q18: Would you like to pass a message to anybody? Or sum up somehow?

A18: A message? Guys, get out of there.



P.S.

«The Northern Citadel» is one of “the doomsday machine” projects, developed by the some of the Russian programmers, the aim of which was to create a program for unlimited bot creation, which would not require any professional knowledge. The creators had no political preferences and worked solely for the purpose of destroying the game. The author knows for a fact that this project has been tested several months ago (in New York region more than a thousand bots were registered in 48 hours). The present state of the project is unknown. After keks-n left, the project leader was Sasha237.

KasedY also engaged in development of his own bot management program, which helped him to hold the rule over North Korea for more than a year.

Alexusss, besides taking part in mutual projects, is suspected of hacking and “clearing” old accounts. This is also confirmed by his property giveaways prior to leaving the game.

Cl4trap is a less known Russian programmer, who is suspected in “mechanincal” TO of Norway and other states.

Total turnover of the products created by keks-n according to the most modest evaluations sums up to 200.000 gold. The total number of bots created by him is about 45 thousands.

The total number of bots created by Russian programmers and artificially created gold will never be known.

Special thanks to Kot Kot — sexiest Russian tank ever.



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Hello, eIndia!

Today is Congress election day and I encourage you all to participate in selecting the next group of citizens to stand in service to your great nation and protect your interests. You must first be Level 14 and a member of a political party in order to vote. (+2 free xp for voting, so why not?)

If you have just joined a party, are unsure of which candidate you support or have not yet received information from your party leadership, please hold your vote and join eIndia Chat or contact your party president now for further information on how your vote can best be put to use.
Vote Smart for a Stronger India!

I am contesting in Madhya Pradesh under India United and if elected, pledge to honor the responsibility of the office. Having served twelve terms in eUS Congress, seven of those as Congressional Whip and once elected as Speaker of the House, I am well-acquainted with the requirements of the position, the necessary vigilance and the mechanics and implications of eRepublik law proposals.

In addition to my experience in Congress, I am a long-time member of Seal Team 6, serving since Oct 09 and promoted to platoon Lieutenant in Dec 09. I am also a long-time business owner (currently with companies located both here in India and in the US) and understand the everyday challenges new business owners face in light of a decimated economy.

All of that aside, I am not here to attempt to americanize the system of government in India. I am here to lend my small voice in support and offer constructive feedback to discussions. I am here to assist in the development of a more substantial infrastructure and encourage greater citizen growth and education.

Thank you for your consideration.

regards,
rainy