Infinity Clan, Cyberspace (Dec 17th, 2009) – The Infinity Clan, also known as the InfinityMW clan, has engaged in successful talks with gaming developer Zynga after nearly a week of turmoil and boycott. The talks included several top executives from Zynga in addition to developers, customer service, security, and operations managers; representing the MafiaWars community were several Infinity clan officers, an alliances liason, and Vinnie Vici (Godfather of Infinity). Effective immediately, the boycott of Zynga and in particular that of MafiaWars has been called off. The effects of the boycott were profound not only on Zynga but also on the addicted customer base who participated. It goes without saying that the boycott was formed as a result of issues that needed adequately addressed. Technical issues which affect an inordinate amount of players, such as half-loading frames (“white screen of death”), were just one aspect of the bigger picture; Zynga’s commitment to correcting technical errors and poor coding practices in general has been reinforced both by our conversation and the voice of the MafiaWars community as a whole.

Perhaps the most pressing issue of concern was Zynga’s use of a tool called iesnare/mpsnare. Iesnare, a trademark of Iovation, is designed primarily to assist with payment authentication and backend fraud protection through the use of Device Reputation Authority (DRA). This technology links your computer (well, your NIC card’s MAC addy) to your account, which was believed by many in the MafiaWars community to be a privacy invasion. Further conversation with lead developers and Zynga’s head of security have clarified this situation on a technical level that appeases the concerns to a degree; none of the information collected can be used to identify you personally, and stored data is aggregate data; even more pleasing though is that Zynga has decided to develop an in-house replacement to Iesnare (albeit this may take a little while to implement). This is much better than the old solution of simply changing the name due to the word “snare” in it. Users of the MafiaWars application should note that the technical conversation revealed that the current circumvention technique of using the local loopback address (127.0.0.1) only serves to subject the end user to increased risk and as such Infinity recommends that users cease utilizing that method (other methods employed by users remain viable). The bottom line is, iesnare is only used for payment processing and not to detect the use of bots, scripts, or alternate accounts.

Among other improvements and solutions the MafiaWars community can look forward to:

* iFraming is out (no need anymore for the Jailbreak tool in the InfinityMW Toolbar); this should alleviate many sufferers of the White Screen of Death (WSOD)

* Payment processing concerns: in particular, an exploit that could be performed using Firefox and TamperData has been immediately resolved (and personally verified as resolved); Zynga’s payment processing, in terms of security (not stability), is PCI compliant and secure. Stability & errors, they are working on.

* Robbing is coming back! While the previous iteration by Zynga was that it may not be plausible, the current position was a quite clear (verbatim) “We will be bringing it [robbing] back”

* Zynga will be working on providing clan leaders with a Zynga-employed liason that provides direct interaction with the leaders and developers at Zynga; this would likely be restricted to established GFs/GMs, so go join a good clan (might I suggest Infinity)

* Code testing prior to production launch will be more rigorous; equality in the sense of the “same game for everyone” will be improved, but offering “first time” purchasers a discount on GF points is standard fare.

* Fighting algorithms, game stability & proper load balancing, and general customer service will be improved; rollout dates for Bangkok were adjusted to accommodate the concerns.

* Zynga maintains that censorship on their boards was related to cross-linking / promoting of non-Zynga sites; I cannot find evidence that any person was given infraction or banning for postings that did not have external links, and such links are indeed prohibited by Zynga’s terms of service (TOS) for their forum.

* Zynga will be working as diligently as possible to fix individual concerns; users with customer service complaints should please try to provide their UID to Zynga when filing a ticket (without it, Zynga can’t really do anything to help you!)

* Zynga and Infinity will continue to hold talks every few weeks; next talks will be the first week of Jan… updates will of course be provided!

* Zynga will be providing for the reallocating of skill points, to individuals that meet the requirements, in the near future. The purpose is (and always has been) to do so for players who got used to the “old system” (circa July – August)…. so if you have a new(er) account, do not be too expectant.

* Wishlist issues should be fixed in the very near future (as in could be already when you read this)… clan links / hitlists should be running properly again as well!

* Tools: Zynga is going to be working more with us rather than against us… full-on autoplayers are of course still forbidden; most clans already police autoplayer users to begin with (what’s the point if you aren’t going to play?)

* Zynga has been made adequately aware of our concerns regarding loot drops and energy packs in particular; they will be addressing them soon, there are a few more pressing technical concerns which take precedent.

Infinity, as well as a large chunk of users, looks forward to resuming game play and awaits the materialization of the mentioned solutions. A large thanks to everyone who pitched in.

Written By: Rachel G. Kaufman:

Triad (pinyin: S?nhéhuì; literally “Triad Society”) is a term that describes many branches of Chinese underground society and/or organizations based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, Malaysia and Mainland China, and also in Western countries and cities with significant Chinese populations such as New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Their activities include car theft, contract killing, drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, gambling, prostitution, and other forms of racketeering. A major source of the triad’s income today comes from the counterfeiting of copyrighted and trademarked goods such as clothing, coin counterfeiting, computer software, counterfeit money, handbags, music, CDs, watches and movie VCDs/DVDs. They also trade in endangered species as well as bootleg tobacco and alcohol products.

Yakuza, also known as gokud?, are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan

Created in 1915, the Yamaguchi-gumi is the biggest yakuza family, 45% of all yakuza in Japan, with more than 45,000 members divided into 750 clans. Despite more than one decade of police repression, the Yamaguchi-gumi has continued to grow. From its headquarters in Kobe, it directs criminal activities throughout Japan. It is also involved in operations in Asia and the United States. Shinobu Tsukasa, also known as Kenichi Shinoda, is the Yamaguchi-gumi’s current oyabun. He follows an expansionist policy, and has increased operations in Tokyo (which has not traditionally been the territory of the Yamaguchi-gumi.)

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991.

Gorbachev’s attempts at reform as well as summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War, ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.

The Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse, and enormous political and social problems. By the time he left office, Yeltsin had an approval rating of two percent by some estimates.

Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev was twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state), from May 7, 1960 to July 15, 1964. He also served from June 16, 1977 to his death on November 10, 1982. He served the second longest in that position.

Brezhnev was the one who ordered the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, in order to halt Alexander Dub?ek’s Prague Spring political liberalization reforms.

Kruschev

Nikita Khrushchev served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964.

Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the world’s early space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev’s party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev.

Putin

Vladimir Putin was the second President of Russia and is the current Prime Minister of Russia as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus.

Due to constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive Presidential term. After the victory of his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in the 2008 presidential elections, he was then nominated by the latter to be Russia’s Prime Minister; Putin took the post on 8 May 2008.

Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenin’s death in 1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union.

During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purge (also known as the “Great Terror”), a campaign to purge the Communist Party of people accused of sabotage, terrorism, or treachery; he extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed, imprisoned in Gulag labor camps or exiled. In the years following, millions of ethnic minorities were also deported.

Lenin

Vladimir Lenin was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union.

His contribution to political science, Leninism, is his development and interpretation of urban Marxist theory, fitted to the agrarian Russian Empire of 1917, reversing the economics–politics Marxist prescription in allowing for a dynamic revolution led by a professional vanguard party.

Written By: Rachel G. Kaufman:

Thief in law (Russian: “vor v zakone”; plural thieves in law “vory v zakone”) is an authoritative individual within the Russian criminal world. Thieves in law are the elite of the Russian world of organized crime.

Before 1917 armed gangs proliferated until they were a very significant factor in society. This became known as the vorovskoy mir or “thieves’ world”.

As the Soviet Union was brought back to order in the years after the 1917 revolution, the NKVD nearly destroyed the criminal underworld in the Soviet Union. However, it was in the prison camps (or Gulag) of Stalin that a new system arose, the vory v zakone, or “thieves in law.”, aka the Mafiya.

Unlike the Cosa Nostra, the Vory has “less rules, but more severe rules.” Members must have no ties to the government, meaning they cannot serve in the army or cooperate with officials while in prison. They must also have served several jail sentences before they can claim the distinction. They should not marry.

This intimacy with imprisonment has spawned a pop culture particular to Russia, in which the Vory and other criminal elements have taken center stage. They were portrayed in the Canadian film “Eastern Promises.” (2008)

Russia’s interior minister, said las year that fewer than 100 remained active on Russian territory, but this is just funny and does not correspond to reality. As it happens in La Cosa Nostra in Sicily, no one knows how many there are, not even the Mafiya.

Who would like to iterview some of the high level Mafuya´s Bosses, could do that. Surely, he will request from you anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his work. The authorities monitor the activities of the Mafiya using a website, VorVZakone.ru