Outsourced Comcast Tech Goes Vigilante On Xbox Cheaters

By p858snake
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

p858snake

Posted
Posted

Outsourced Comcast Tech Goes Vigilante On Xbox Cheaters

A Convergsys support technician outsourced by Comcast may have gone a little overboard in a quest for righteous videogame vengeance. After getting packet flooded (a networking trick that essentially DDoS's a user's Xbox) by some fellow gamers on Microsoft's Xbox Live! service, the rep claims he used Comcast support systems to wage war on the perpetrator, a Comcast customer.

"I work for Comcast as a tier 2.5 support agent, which essentially means im one of the top 1% elitest agents," brags the tech in a post to the Halo3 forums. According to "Sir Lagzalot," he used Comcast systems while at work to track down the cheater using said elite skills:

I proceeded to input his ip address into a program we have called SERVICE VISIBILITY PORTAL -- SVP for short -- and it brought up his account, address phone number, daddy's credit card info -- the whole nine yards...I decided that since this kid was indeed involved in illegal activity I'd give his daddy a call.

If his melodramatic post is to be believed (which we have no way to confirm), his call to the father resulted in the Xbox live cheater getting a beating and his Xbox getting smashed with a hammer:

well the father was furious, not at me however he assured me he would take care of the problem... the father began to yell at his son, i then heard a loud smack, and then sobbing, and then cracking noise as if something was breaking..it then occured to me that the father had just beat the sh.t out of his kid, and the cracking noise was the sound of a hammer on an xbox , i decided that being the self indulgent ****** i am, i wanted more...the father put the son on the phone, still sobbing i might add..and i said to him.."do you know who this is??" he answered "no"..i said "remember that guy u cheated some 20-30 minutes ago and i said u would pay??, well guess what son...u just did."

To support his story, the tech in question posted these two screenshots (1)(2) of the internal Comcast tools he supposedly used to enact his revenge. The support rep then brags about being able to terminate user accounts at any time:

i basically added these two pics for the non believers...and YES I can powercycle "shut off your modem" and lag you out of matchmaking as well...let this stupid little boy be a lesson to u all, dont flood my ip, or anyone elses...because if you plan on doing so i will cancel your service and you WILL have to find an new isp which can mean up to 500$ in installation charges, and for many of you comcast is the ONLY isp in your area...so let me rephrase this..IS IT WORTH IT????

With this power didn't come the wisdom to avoid using a real name before publicly bragging about abusing Comcast support systems for personal reasons. As a result, here's the Myspace page (first made private, then deleted since our report was first published -Ed.) and some photos of one twenty-year-old Mark Ribeiro of Canada. Ironically, he's a third year Criminology major.

While nobody likes a cheater, nobody likes having their personal ISP information accessed for vendettas by outsourced Canadian labor, either. Or at least you'd think so. Not one post in the ten-page original thread so much as suggested it might have been a dumb idea. Several called Ribeiro a hero. In other posts (3) by Ribeiro on the Halo 3 Forums website, he jokes about giving up user credit card numbers.

I can get anyones creditcard number by your ip address if u have comcast and are in my party :p I know your home address zipcode, email accounts as well...oh ya, and best part is i can restart your modem with a push of a button...so dont **** me off :p

Assuming his claims of privacy abuse, illegal dissemination of customer information and general anarchy are true, we know he's truly wandered off the Comcast reservation when he starts advocating BitTorrent use:

torrents torrents torrents..start off by going to ww.utorrent.com installing that program, then go to mininova.org and download anything u want from there. utorrent is the program u use to DL.

Comcast, for one, isn't laughing.

"We have identified the person who created this inappropriate post as an employee of Convergys, a third-party vendor who provides technical customer support for Comcast customers," Comcast spokesperson Jenni Moyer tells us. Moyer calls the tech's behavior "completely unacceptable," given he ignored proper protocols for reporting network abuse. If his story is true, he potentially ran afoul of several laws as well.

"We've contacted Convergys to demand that he be immediately removed from performing any work for Comcast and that they conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate disciplinary action," Moyer says.

Links:

Source: Broad Band Reports

1. Screenshot #1

2. Screenshot #2

3. Forum Post: Secrets of your job and workplace. (Halo3 Forum)

Contributor

ruterger

Posted
Posted

If any of the Admins at my work did anything like this using our elevated security clearances they would be in court faster than they could say "KICK THE HACK."

Jeez man, it's Xbox Live. You kinda gotta think that this dumb kid was waiting for a reason to abuse his power for a while, otherwise this is totally a fakepost. I believe the fact that the dumbass is a Criminology major though, those kids are some of the roughest characters at my state college. From my experience they are either kids who were bullied too much and want power so they can flex their muscles (the kid in the OP seems to fall under this) or they are guys with criminal backgrounds just trying to refine their methods and "get inside the system" as a way to get around it.

But what the hell does it matter what I think! :D The kid in the OP should never be given power ever again. And he should also have all his achievements locked on Xbox Live.

Veteran

Ash

Posted
Posted
I work for Comcast as a tier 2.5 support agent, which essentially means im one of the top 1% elitest agents," brags the tech in a post to the Halo3 forums.

Guess he isn't THAT elite, bragging about crimes using on sites that contain he personal information... duh.

Imagine if these tech support guys put in that amount of effort into helping out the customers...

  • 1 month later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Microsoft will soon allow some users to block Copilot from analyzing their Office files

      By Geezy · Posted

      This seems backwards. You should have to explicitly authorize files for outside use. It shouldn't be the default.
    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it

      By Steven P. · Posted

      Wow you are right, I never even noticed this until you said it! (870E Aorus Master) Before testing this card I had a TP-Link tx401 10GbE PCIe card in that slot (now using XikeStor 310 Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter).
    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it

      By DrWankel · Posted

      Lack of 5.1 makes this a no sale. What I really wish creative would make would be a USB version that supports 5.1 analog audio for speakers, can switch to headphone mode, and matches the specs of their top tier cards. The current X870E AMD motherboards dont have a great option for adding a PCIE x1 card without cutting down pcie lanes to the graphics card.
    • The Microsoft Office feature that time forgot

      By Usama Jawad96 · Posted

      The Microsoft Office feature that time forgot by Usama Jawad I have been actively using Microsoft Word for the past couple of decades in academic, professional, and personal capacities. Although I used it through the perpetual version of Office apps at the start, I have been an active subscriber of Microsoft 365 Family subscription for over five years now. This means that my Word installation is regularly updated with new features, some of which I don't really like, but that's beside the point. As new features get continuously added, old ones that used to be a staple of Word have started to take a backseat. While I was reminiscing over my Windows experiences from my childhood today, I suddenly remember one such capability that I heavily used in my younger years but have not really touched in over a decade, and haven't seen in documents created by others either. That feature is WordArt. Just to clarify, WordArt is not a Microsoft product specific to Word, and is included in other Office apps like PowerPoint and Excel too. However, Microsoft Word is the app that I used Word Art in heavily, while making assignments or other deliverables for school. If you're unaware, WordArt offers a collection of styling techniques for text, introducing 3D effects like shadows and reflections in the text. It used to be one of the coolest things ever when I was at school and me and my classmates would often compete to ensure that our assignment's title in WordArt was truly the best and stood out above the rest. See some examples of WordArt, still present in the latest versions of Word below: Although WordArt is undeniably cool, it has taken a bit of a backseat, and has been relegated from the Home tab to the Insert toolbar, along with a bunch of other utilities, making it very easy to miss. This isn't exactly surprising because WordArt doesn't really have a place in academic and professional documents anymore, and while I have seen some creatives using it while developing promo material, even that sector has gravitated more towards dedicated graphic designing tools in the past years. For the vast majority of us, WordArt doesn't really exist, and that's alright. At least, it's still an option that can allow us to reminisce our childhood or even make some quick text stylization, if we really need it. Perhaps its usage has waned over time or the novelty has worn off, but I haven't even seen children use it in their academic assignments anymore. In fact, many don't even know that it exists. Maybe that's the fate of every beloved feature. What once felt cutting edge eventually becomes a relic, quietly tucked away as tastes, trends, and technology move on. WordArt may no longer dominate school assignments or decorate the covers of classroom projects, but for those of us who grew up with it, it remains a colorful reminder of a time when making text glow, bend, and cast giant shadows felt like the height of creativity. Hidden behind a few clicks in modern Word, it still survives not as a productivity tool, but as a small piece of computing nostalgia that refuses to disappear.
    • Politically funny images of the World

      By snowy owl · Posted

      😂🤣😂

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      DrWankel earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      DrWankel earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      158
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      88
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      70
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!