Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Louella Dougans on 21 Sep 2012, 09:28
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Would the eve API ever be usable IC, or is it always only OOC ?
I'm looking at a thread where someone said they received a mail from someone, and the other party denies sending it.
The eve API would, as far as I know, clear that up, and show that x message was infact sent/received, but is that IC information ? or would that be OOC, or metagame, or what ?
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CSPA? Admittedly you can turn the charge to 0, but the fact that it's there in the first place suggests that Concord are monitoring your mail ^_^
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I'd say it's IC information, personally. Realistically speaking, they'd have an electronic log of the mail being sent and would easily be able to prove it was sent by that party, even if that party denies it.
I've always referred to the API in character as the Authenticated Personnel Identification.
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Yeah, it seems plenty in character to me.
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IC I always treat digital correspondence between capsuleers as only being as reliable as much as you trust the person making the statement.
Someone can show me a 'mail' all day long claiming x, y, and z, but if I don't trust the person I'll just call it a forgery, etc. This applies to IC chatlogs as well.
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IC I always treat digital correspondence between capsuleers as only being as reliable as much as you trust the person making the statement.
Someone can show me a 'mail' all day long claiming x, y, and z, but if I don't trust the person I'll just call it a forgery, etc. This applies to IC chatlogs as well.
Bingo.
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IC I always treat digital correspondence between capsuleers as only being as reliable as much as you trust the person making the statement.
Someone can show me a 'mail' all day long claiming x, y, and z, but if I don't trust the person I'll just call it a forgery, etc. This applies to IC chatlogs as well.
I see, however, the API is objective. Is that objectivity metagamey though ?
like API verified killmails, they say X killed Y, objectively. Can that still be denied IC ?
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How do you prove it though? Provide open API access?
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IC I always treat digital correspondence between capsuleers as only being as reliable as much as you trust the person making the statement.
Someone can show me a 'mail' all day long claiming x, y, and z, but if I don't trust the person I'll just call it a forgery, etc. This applies to IC chatlogs as well.
I see, however, the API is objective. Is that objectivity metagamey though ?
like API verified killmails, they say X killed Y, objectively. Can that still be denied IC ?
Sure it can still be denied IC. Just it wont be believed. :)
Its an important part of the game. In EM we called the API the "background check". EVE-mail traffic would be the actual comms logs. Not sure why it wouldnt be used in RP?
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API and the information it can pull are totally IC, in my opinion. Especially mails (unless they're obviously OOC either by marking or by content) assets and kill reports. Chat logs can be forged, yes, but it's not easy to do properly, especially in bulk, and logs aren't hard to verify either.
As we can't generate (read: forge) kill reports ingame (yet), I'd argue that simply producing one of those ingame is the simplest way to call BS on someone claiming a kill/loss never happened.
In general, though, it goes back to a lesson all of us should know already: don't say or do things around people you wouldn't trust with that information. You don't have any control of it once you hit the Enter key to send the message, so once you do, be prepared to suck it up and deal with the consequences.
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Might be splitting hairs but I distinguish between 'verifiable' IC things like ship kills and 'easily forged' things like evemails and comms logs.
You can post an evemail to the IGS with Rodj Blake expressing his desire to overthrow the Empress and no one will believe you, even it it actually happened.
However, I can IC ridicule a pilot for losing an expensive faction ship to a frigate and capsuleers will independently verify the information.
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Might be splitting hairs but I distinguish between 'verifiable' IC things like ship kills and 'easily forged' things like evemails and comms logs.
You can post an evemail to the IGS with Rodj Blake expressing his desire to overthrow the Empress and no one will believe you, even it it actually happened.
However, I can IC ridicule a pilot for losing an expensive faction ship to a frigate and capsuleers will independently verify the information.
unless you do something like publically verify that the conversation happened by providing a link to a 'public' API
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You can pull evemails via the API with the right flags set. That makes them pretty damn verifiable.
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Yes, but,
Regardless of weather its true or not, correspondence will still be down to 'he said she said' in the court of public opinion, which is the only court that matters.... whereas the perception IC is that kills are less so.
This is super interesting though. As I'm sure many of you do, I've reams and reams of rather incriminating conversations with all sorts of people being one sort of loyalty/persuasion in public and very different when talking to Silas privately....
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conversations are "he said she said" if it's a chat log.
evemail exchanges are a bit different.
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conversations are "he said she said" if it's a chat log.
evemail exchanges are a bit different.
How so?
From: The Empress
To: Jo'Mamma
9/19/2012
I'm a little teapot short and stout
Sincerely
Jamyl Sarum
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In SYNE we've always treated it as the CONCORD issued ID code keyed to each capsuleer's implanted neocom and :scienceplotholedevice:
Adjustable APIs made it more interesting and that much more plausible, after all its only a matter of time before someone cracks a system and capsuleers may have alot to hide. Its not inconceivable that criminals can tinker with it.
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I see, however, the API is objective. Is that objectivity metagamey though ?
like API verified killmails, they say X killed Y, objectively. Can that still be denied IC ?
The objectivity of the API is OOC. You should be able to deny it IC, but because the OOC objectivity trickles down into IC, you realistically can't without making a fool of yourself.
Is there any reason why I couldn't disconnect that feed from my ship to Concord when I'm away in some faraway wormhole system. Is there a Concord computer/transponder aboard each vessel that is untamperable (in the sense of datacores from the Gap series) and if you remove it, you'll be denied all capsuleer rights, such as docking and using stargates?
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Silas, Evemail is entirely different from chatlogs thanks to the API now having access to our mailboxes. If you give me an API key that gives access to pull evemails (via the MailBodies (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/EVE_API_Character_Mail_Bodies) and MailMessages (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/EVE_API_Character_Mail_Messages) flags in the key generator), I can pull the actual contents of the evemails in your inbox from CCP's servers.
I won't pull what you said you were sent, I'll see what you actually received, in its original entirety. I'll see if you did any snipping or editing before forwarding the mail to me or anyone else. I'll even see if you deleted the email to erase evidence of the original, if there even was one.
Chatlogs are different. The only way to verify them completely is to get raw logs from CCP, which won't happen. You can check multiple logs of the same time period from different people, but :conspiracytheories:. That said, forging chat logs can be a pretty daunting task on an almost exponential scale. Not only is there an upward climb with the more material you have to doctor, but the more you fake, the more people you have to get in on it, and the easier it is to prove false.
Evemails are not the same way, and if you think they are, you're grossly incorrect in that belief.
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conversations are "he said she said" if it's a chat log.
evemail exchanges are a bit different.
How so?
as far as I know, logs of conversations are player side, and the server side logs (if they exist, which I don't know would be the case for private conversations?), are inaccessible to the players.
Thus, the conversation logs are editable/falsifiable, and are "he said she said". If someone says "Prove it!", the proof can be argued about without anyone looking foolish.
Evemails have the API, which provide a form of verification that something happened between players, which can be accessed by others. If someone says "Prove it!", and the API is used, then... whatever happens IC, someone is going to look foolish OOC.
Which was something I was thinking about, regarding the API being usable IC. It feels a bit meta.
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Right perhaps I wasn't being clear.
I personally will never use ooc API in anything relating to mails, chats, or other correspondence. I think it's more fun that way and seems much more to 'make sense' that such things could easily be forged IC between wealthy and powerful people.
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We refer to API in TS-F as the Capsuleer API Database Access Key. API = Automatic Personnel Inquiry, or something along those lines.
The API itself is IC, but specific parts of it may or may not be. Things like billing, owner name, etcetra we liberally ignore if its provided to us IC. Skills, skill points, and training is what we use most of the time ICly.
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It's too much 'peeking behind the curtain' for my tastes IC, but I might be in the minority.
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It's too much 'peeking behind the curtain' for my tastes IC, but I might be in the minority.
I'm with you on this one Silas. Seems a bit fourth wall-ish, and too easy, after all, if our current email systems (in real world) have some level of protection, we can only imagine that a similar system far in the future would have a much higher level security presence that most people would not be able to hack, lending a bit of credence to both the use of the API and the non-use of it.
For instance, a character could claim they were hacked and an email was removed, or sent from their account, and how would you prove that it wasn't the truth, how would you prove it was? :bash:
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But API data does have protection - you choose to share it, or not. The fact that a related individual with API data that gives away some evidence of your activities (dying/killing, specific market trades etc) is a problem with the individual leaking the information wittingly or not through the provision of their own API.
I staunchly oppose hand-waved denialism in EVE in general, both as a bane of RP and taking responsibility for your actions, so the API is an excellent tool when you have to sift through the filth to get a juicy bit of evidence/intel. That being said, if you're 'careful with ytour partners' you won't 'catch anything'. Friends don't share API when they have compromising data regarding their other friends!
Without recourse to some solid, provable evidence in an IC context, sleuthing and intelligence work has no value - and I hardly think that is something to miss out on in a dark, backstab-filled world such as ours.
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Correct me if I'm wrong:
You can not API verify certainl EVEmails, it's all or nothing. While I do think that the possibility of *neutral* (in an IC sense, something like CONCORD) confirmation on a he said she said situation, the clunkiness of the API key in question kind of voids that possibility. I don't want to get into a situation where I would have to count as a liar ( unwilling to provide doubtless proof ) because I don't want to share all my evemails.
As such, a screenshot would have to do, even if that's not entirely foolproof, too. But in the end - isn't that kind of the spirit you'd want for subterfuge, intrigue and the like?
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API... Well, consider it as a way to access your personal board computer (or even to your brain snapshot). Be careful to not open it too much, or some baseliner hackers might infect your brain with some very nasty virus! :lol:
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I'll consider API "private" information IC if there is a proper arrangement between the person being "hacked" and the alleged hacker... say:
I have never transfered money to XXX party
Antagonist indicates he has had access to said transaction logs from station terminals where it happened
i cry "you can't prove it"
antagonist then shows me a valid transaction log (only obtained because i agreed to provide a one time use limited api key of some kind to follow the plot)
As long as it is not a RL STOLEN key, i have no problem with it, and both parties should consider it a viable tool to continue the RPing
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Come on people. The secure nature of the API is OOC.
If I want to tamper with the API, I could, but not without committing an OOC crime (bu hacking CCP, or hacking popular killboards, or hacking another player's computer). I cannot tamper with it IC even if I could/wanted to.
That's not right. For me that falls under the same category as using downtime to prove someone couldn't have done something.
I also find it highly odd IC that Concord has perfect and instantaneous records for these kind of things.
While the information held by the API is completely IC, the security and way of accessing the source is completely OOC. I would be ok with it if people would routinely doubt the veracity of the API. But they don't....
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I also find it highly odd IC that Concord has perfect and instantaneous records for these kind of things.
How?
It's established PF that our ships are filled with CONCORD monitoring devices to ridiculous degrees. It's how their rapid-response systems work, with fluid routers handling the "instantaneous" part.
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I also find it highly odd IC that Concord has perfect and instantaneous records for these kind of things.
How?
It's established PF that our ships are filled with CONCORD monitoring devices to ridiculous degrees. It's how their rapid-response systems work, with fluid routers handling the "instantaneous" part.
But we can't go too far down the CONCORD rabbit-hole as it gets quite silly. No hegemonic empires are signing up to be under the thumb of an omni-present overseer who can tell them what to do. At least willingly.
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Depends. It's only for capsuleers after all.
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Depends. It's only for capsuleers after all.
Well, better drop the 'capsuleers-as-gods' line then, if they merely close-monitored Concord puppets. It is either or. Either Concord is everpresent, superinvasivee and records everything is we do, carry an know, and decides for us where we can go and what we can lock and shoot, even while away in wormholes or so-called sovereign nullsec empires and we nothing but puppets on strings.
Or
We are free-roaming entities with a wealth of possibilities open to us, immortal, powerful and akin to Gods, with nobody lording over us.
Doesn't matter what you pick, but I have difficulty with people switching back and forth between both extremes. I like for things to be internally consistent. And if you rule that the API is some infallible everypresent hardwired unhackable Concord-controlled device, then you should carry that argument to its logical conclusion.
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Depends. It's only for capsuleers after all.
Well, better drop the 'capsuleers-as-gods' line then, if they merely close-monitored Concord puppets. It is either or. Either Concord is everpresent, superinvasivee and records everything is we do, carry an know, and decides for us where we can go and what we can lock and shoot, even while away in wormholes or so-called sovereign nullsec empires and we nothing but puppets on strings.
Or
We are free-roaming entities with a wealth of possibilities open to us, immortal, powerful and akin to Gods, with nobody lording over us.
Doesn't matter what you pick, but I have difficulty with people switching back and forth between both extremes. I like for things to be internally consistent. And if you rule that the API is some infallible everypresent hardwired unhackable Concord-controlled device, then you should carry that argument to its logical conclusion.
^This
Having too much CONCORD in our lives requires quite a bit of hand-waving to not break immersion.
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I don't see the clash, but it's possible that I simply assume the boundless demi-god thing is recruitment PR spin.
We can do many things, and it's our choice which of those things we do. We do those things in ships and with comms accesses that come with certain inbuilt constraints. We are always monitored.
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I don't see the clash, but it's possible that I simply assume the boundless demi-god thing is recruitment PR spin.
That is a perfectly sensible position of course. It is just that I would prefer to imagine capsuleer-EVE not like a Brave New World governed by our dark and allmighty Concord lords who see all, know all and cannot be escaped, and for unknown reasons allows capsuleers the freedom they do.
I honestly see next to no one playing EVE like the vision above. While it would make a lot of sense to do so, I think most people realize that it is an unintentional byproduct of game mechanisms. I think the absolute confidence in the API is also an unintentional byproduct of game mechanics, not because CCP actually intended for Concord to monitor you everywhere at any time.
We can do many things, and it's our choice which of those things we do. We do those things in ships and with comms accesses that come with certain inbuilt constraints. We are always monitored.
Have you ever heard of Concord leaking any of your secrets? Secrets apparently are perfectly monitoring and recording. Is Concord a-political? What is the logical conclusion of what an organization with the power, resources and information that Concord has would do?
The API is an extension of game mechanics that have no direct RP equivalent, just as downtime is.
What is downtime to your character btw?
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Have you ever heard of Concord leaking any of your secrets? Secrets apparently are perfectly monitoring and recording. Is Concord a-political? What is the logical conclusion of what an organization with the power, resources and information that Concord has would do?
That's the sort of thing that comes up in the novels a bit.
I do wonder if my expectations about what counts as a logical conclusion are coloured by being in a RL state with a remarkably low corruption rating (although occasional face-palm-worthy incompetence).
CONCORD records and reports kills and losses, and pays bounties, extremely smoothly and reliably. The director access it gives tells me where my corpmates are at any given time, when they've last connected to and left comms, and what ships they're in when they're in space. Yes, I assume they record everything. I use what they record often in my work.
What is downtime to your character btw?
Comms downtime: it's when the fluid routers get rebooted. You have to be able to talk about it IC when planning operations. Patches and upgrades are patches and upgrades to CONCORD's fluid router software. CONCORD's programmers and sysadmins seem to have many of the problems that RL ones do.
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Depends. It's only for capsuleers after all.
Well, better drop the 'capsuleers-as-gods' line then, if they merely close-monitored Concord puppets. It is either or. Either Concord is everpresent, superinvasivee and records everything is we do, carry an know, and decides for us where we can go and what we can lock and shoot, even while away in wormholes or so-called sovereign nullsec empires and we nothing but puppets on strings.
Or
We are free-roaming entities with a wealth of possibilities open to us, immortal, powerful and akin to Gods, with nobody lording over us.
Doesn't matter what you pick, but I have difficulty with people switching back and forth between both extremes. I like for things to be internally consistent. And if you rule that the API is some infallible everypresent hardwired unhackable Concord-controlled device, then you should carry that argument to its logical conclusion.
There is no logical conclusion in both cases. It will always be possible to find inconsistencies whatever you choose.
Have you ever heard of Concord leaking any of your secrets? Secrets apparently are perfectly monitoring and recording. Is Concord a-political? What is the logical conclusion of what an organization with the power, resources and information that Concord has would do?
That's the sort of thing that comes up in the novels a bit.
I do wonder if my expectations about what counts as a logical conclusion are coloured by being in a RL state with a remarkably low corruption rating (although occasional face-palm-worthy incompetence).
CONCORD records and reports kills and losses, and pays bounties, extremely smoothly and reliably. The director access it gives tells me where my corpmates are at any given time, when they've last connected to and left comms, and what ships they're in when they're in space. Yes, I assume they record everything. I use what they record often in my work.
What is downtime to your character btw?
Comms downtime: it's when the fluid routers get rebooted. You have to be able to talk about it IC when planning operations. Patches and upgrades are patches and upgrades to CONCORD's fluid router software. CONCORD's programmers and sysadmins seem to have many of the problems that RL ones do.
This.
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teh recent event seems to indicate evemail messages are monitored, and may be intercepted.
I don't know. /o\
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I used to run missions against DED/CONCORD ships during my stay in Curse.
If they can tamper with anything regarding our ships, why not just concordokken you when you warp into their mission or lock you down or do anything to help their units on the field?
Concord obviously has little to no power once you leave highsec. I think their monitoring equipment acts the same way.