THE TRUE FACE OF TSR: The dangers of visiting thesimsresource.com

May 30, 2012

URGENT WARNING: NEWSEA HACKED – 3,322 usernames, emails and passwords leaked online.

NEWSEA, a rival site to TSR has been hacked and the data of 3,322 of its users has been posted online.

CHANGE ALL OF YOUR PASSWORDS NOW.

Unlike the last information leak, where 614 people had their names email address shared on the grapevine, this new leak is far more dangerous, the online list not only contains usernames and emails, but your PASSWORDS and your country of origin and and some full names.

I understand there are rumors already in the community, and in some cases these rumors are not being believed, I can confirm that I have seen the full list online and I can not stress how urgent it is that you take action to change your passwords. The information is listed in this format: id - username - email – password - firstname - lastname - country

On May the 10th, a few members of staff were approached, and on May 11th were given subscriber passes to Newsea. The idea was to download and share Newsea subscriber only files through torrent sites in an attempt to damage the Newsea business and limit their monetary income. I was under the impression that TSR had bought the subscriptions. Shortly after, I heard that Newsea was willing to sell the site to TSR and return as FA. Talks broke down apparently when Tom accused Newsea of being greedy and wanting far too much for the site, I have no idea what Newsea asked for or what he was offered, but whatever it was, Tom said it was too much but he was certain Newsea would be back with ‘his tail between his legs’. Yesterday I was told that every member of Newsea has had their username, email name and password leaked online. Shortly before this news went public, TSR posted a cryptic and confusing message on their front page.

“TSR members are being targeted in the community by people trying to cause trouble. Please remember that nobody from TSR will ever ask for your password for the site. If anyone approaches you on Facebook, Forums or Chat, claiming to be from TSR and asking you for your login details, do not give them out!”

You may wonder what is so cryptic and confusing about this message? For a start the first paragraph is the focus of events that have never happened, there have been no reports of anyone being approached on facebook, forums or chat by anyone asking for login details. This part of the statement is clearly just an opener and just an excuse to make an announcement so that they can get to the second paragraph..

Passwords stored at TSR are encrypted. ( No they are not. ) Staff, Admins and Mods do not have access to your passwords used, ( some staff and all admins do. )

“but not all sites work that way.”  Now we are getting to the point of this announcement .. Sites like Newsea?  How perceptive of TSR to know that a rival site was about to have it’s entire unencrypted data leaked online. How thoughtful of TSR to let us know how *cough* secure their site is and how unsecure rival sites may be.  We could have done without the demonstration.

This has not just been a hack, it has started with blackmail. With this being posted on or around April 27th

Followed by attempts from TSR to damage the business through sharing.

When Newsea refused to sell and rejoin TSR for what was probably a very low offer, the information gathered from the site was released to the public. ( ..after the careful removal of TSR FA accounts! ) You do not need me to explain what this means to the 3,322 people who have had their emails and passwords displayed for all to see, or the damage to the reputation of Newseas site.

 

Still not convinced that TSR are liars? TSR have even gone as far as writing words in Newsea’s TSR blog, that were not written by Newsea and replying to messages that were not replied to by Newsea -In fact Newsea have NO access to their own TSR blog. What kind of respectable site would impersonate an artist through blog posts and messages while locking them out of their own account. That in itself is illegal.

Newsea says: “Please do not give the newsea of TSR site message! because the account has been modified by the TSR, we do not have the permissions of that account, all speak of the newsea of TSR site not what we say!”

 

Hacking. Blackmail. Impersonation. This is how low TSR will go to destroy the competition. For those who have very little sympathy for a paysite like Newsea, remember that paysites are not the only rival to TSR.

 

 

May 22, 2012

TSR, EA and YOU!

  You may think that reporting problems such as this to EA has never been of any benefit, that perhaps it is a waste of your time and that EA have done nothing. Think again. Since TSR adopted a ‘Mafia’ attitude and EA have been hearing about it in many corners, a whole lot has changed already. You would have to be blind not to notice that the glowing support EA once had for TSR has dwindled to nothing. When was the last time TSR had an exclusive on a new exp or stuff pack? ( Not counting the Medieval ‘exclusive’ Steve had to scan from PC Format magazine! ) Hell, EA did not even trust them to preview KP sweet treats! When were they last interviewed by EA? When was the last time someone… anyone? from EA appeared in their forums …..A long time ago.

  At the end of the day EA are a business, and yes it makes great business sense to keep on good terms with ‘the largest site in the sims community’. EA may be slow on the uptake, but even they can see now that TSR is only the ‘largest’ because they have been open for 12 years. ( not the longest, as TSR claim, but certainly a long time .) A vast percentage of all their members did not join TSR as it is today, they joined the free community site that it was in 1999, before it was sold off as a money spinning business to the Isakssons. None of the members amassed throughout the years can delete their own accounts or uploads. So that is 12 years of joining with 0 people allowed to leave, you do the math. If they were a regular cult they would need their own country by now. TSR masks itself as a happy place, no negative comments are allowed and until recently candy sweet good comments were rewarded with free subscription days. ( Kudos) Good artists appeared to be dumping their own sites just for the pleasure of working for the popular TSR, and the padded download stats look great. No wonder EA believed the hype. It was only after the dirty dealings and lies came to light that EA have finally distanced themselves from the monster they created. Many of these incidents only came to light because you, the community decided to tell them.

  What EA thought was a good business move in ‘turning a blind eye’ to the EULA ( for what seemed like the good of the community at the time ) ended up crushing a large proportion of the true fan community. The free pass that TSR thinks they have has gone right to their heads. Appearing as the largest sims site is not good enough anymore, they want to be the only sims site. This, thankfully, will never happen but while a money crazed madman believes this is possible, many fan sites are still closing due to the hackings, false file or site TOU reports, virus infections or buy outs. Yes, the community has survived and it will continue to, but think how much bigger and better the community would have been now if TSR had not attacked/targeted so many ‘rival’ websites, and continue to do so. This has a direct effect on EA/The Sims franchise. How many of these sites that TSR forced to close, the people TSR has hunted and harassed, the creators forced to quit and the children they exposed to goatse porn just for the shock value have given up on the game completely? CC and the community play a big part in the enjoyment of the game for many, and how many times do you read someone saying that the community is not the same and not fun anymore, reasons usually cited is because their friends have left, favorite sites/forums are gone, their own sites have been attacked or they are being bullied or dictated to. TSR are mentioned directly in 99% of these comments and not in a good way.

  The problem is that we, the community are fully aware of all this, mostly everyone has either been on the receiving end or knows someone who has. EA are only aware of what we tell them. How else can they find out? Most forums who speak about this do it in the members only sections for fear of TSR reprisals, Websites are afraid of becoming targets for hackings so they say nothing, those that do usually get the content removed via TOU reports/hacks. Not many post in the EA forums for fear of being ridiculed by TSR trolls. Websites are bullied for providing links to information sources such as this blog, the phorum or PMBD. TSR FA’s ever so sweetly join popular forums, this discourages any negative TSR posts from appearing. ( TSR refers to them as TSR ambassadors. ) With so much dust being swept under the carpet, you can see why EA may find it difficult to understand why TSR are so bad for the community, especially when TSR tell them again and again that anyone speaking against TSR are ‘pirates’ who pirate EA content, that anyone speaking against TSR are also against EA.

  This is where You can help. If you are one of the many unlucky people attacked by TSR, whether it is through hacking, TOU/TOS reports, take down notices, nasty messages/emails, demands for links or removal of links, lost money on a subscription, leaked private details or any instance where TSR have directly ruined or spoiled your enjoyment of the game and the community you need to tell EA about it. Be sure to show them screencaps of messages, forward emails of demands and threats, forward take down reports. Let them know how this affects you and your enjoyment of the game you paid for. ( Yes this will take a little of your time, but I am sure rebuilding your website, finding new hosts or begging Mediafire to reinstate your own content took longer. ) If you are too afraid, downhearted or TSR has made it impossible for you to make or continue with your Sims fansite, LET EA KNOW! This not only effects you, it effects EA and the exposure of their product.

 Do not expect direct action or even a good response from EA, your goal is to simply make them aware of the effect TSR is having on you and the community. EA already know enough to sever links with TSR, now they need to see the full extent of the damage TSR is doing. It is doubtful they will ever take legal action against TSR, they are probably still under the impression they would upset a lot of TSR’s fictional fans and ‘members’ but at the very least they should clarify the legality of a site that exists only to make money by manipulating EA made content. TSR are not fans of the game or the community, in any shape or form. You can not even truly describe them as a ‘business’ as they disregard any controls that would make a business legitimate. TSR are simply opportunists and leeches. EA’s reluctance to commit to their own EULA and say that such ‘business’ practices are wrong have created a monster and they need to stuff it back in it’s box.

 What TSR fail to compute is that the EULA still stands and EA can at any time pull the plug on TSR simply by clarifying that The Sims franchise is owned by EA and it was never designed to be exploited by 3rd party sites as a business venture, it was designed for the enjoyment of paying EA customers and should not be the subject of turf wars and the fallout associated with the criminal activities they use to maintain their cashflow.

Contact EA:

https://help.ea.com/contact-us

https://help.ea.com/contact-us?product=the-sims-3

 https://help.ea.com/en/the-sims/the-sims-2

support@ea.com

Electronic Arts Inc.
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065

 

May 21, 2012

April 9, 2012

Hacked, TOS’d and victim of a cruel ‘April Fool’ UPDATED

 Most people celebrate Easter by eating chocolate or going to church, Tom celebrates it by sacrificing a member of the free community, I guess he was all out of goats.

 TSR Thomas has yet again destroyed the work of a talented creator and freesite owner. This time not only did he file blatant false TOS reports, hack him and then release some personal information, he also made his victim the subject of a cruel ” Late April Fools” joke and has spent most of the day laughing at him.

  Some of you may know ZVEKI from sites such as LivingSims or TheBlackPearl and also his Tumblr website. On his site he had some Sims 3 downloads that were converted from TS2 meshes, a few of these meshes were originally made by TSR artists. TSR demanded he remove these downloads from his site, Which he immediately did, although he was doing nothing illegal or unethical in hosting these – in fact by TSR’s own standards this practise is totally acceptable, such as when TSR take a mesh from a TS2 base game, stuff pack, or expansion  and convert them, they claim the rights to the converted mesh belongs to them and therefore  is theirs to sell, so by these standards the rights to the converted meshes now belong to ZVEKI. Even so, Zveki was kind enough to take them down from his site and they were instead hosted at sunsetsims. All the downloads that remained belonged to Zveki and had nothing to do with TSR.

 Tom, unwilling to let this rest then decided to report EVERY download left on the site, he filed a false report to Mediafire stating that these remaining downloads were the property of TSR and were stolen by Zveki, as a result all his downloads on his site and on other sites were deleted by Mediafire. 

 On the same day Zveki’s  YouTube channel was hacked  and all his videos , all the files he was working on and over 1000 subscribers were lost, his account name was changed to ‘I STEAL FROM BIGGER AND BETTER ARTISTS’ and his telephone number was displayed on the page.

 It gets sicker.. Tom has been laughing about it all day. What Tom has found really funny is that he spoke to Zveki  and has somehow convinced him to go after someone called  LaChandra, saying that she took down Zvekis downloads because she is working for ‘pirates’. The part of the ‘joke’ that Tom did not share with Zveki  is that LaChandra is part of the Anti piracy team at Mediafire, and although she may have technically been the one to remove the downloads, she did it because of a direct report ( A LIE ) from Thomas himself. Tom is calling Zveki a “late April Fool” and he cannot wait to see him publically accuse a member of the Mediafire team of being a ‘pirate’ and a hacker.

 Tom says he did this because of Zvekis association with Sunsetsims, although this is just a pathetic excuse because he was targeting him before he hosted some of his files there.

 Although gleefully joking about his false TOU report, Tom has not openly claimed responsibility for the YouTube hack, (..he has not denied it either ) However the fact that the hack was done on very the same day as his false report and also how he referred to the hack before it was publicised raises no doubts in my mind that this was another TSR hack to add to his collection.

 To put a cherry on the cake, Tom has also banned Zveki from TSR for life, although this is not a bad thing, at least he cannot steal any more updated passwords/personal info from his account. Sadly, as a result of TSR’s harassment, Zveki has announced that he is no longer creating for the Sims. I wish he would reconsider and not make this too easy for that smug little b’stard.

 Word of warning to Tom, while reading the TOU on your many visits to Mediafire did you read right to the end?  No? Better up the subs at TSR, you may have a bill coming…

 

Update

Another site falls victim to TSR, Dreamsims ( TS3stuffs ) http://ts3stuffs.blogspot.com/

February 3, 2012

Newsea

  I have often been asked what happened between Newsea and TSR, I have been asked again today, and this has prompted me to write a few lines on what I know and what I have heard.

  For those that do not know, Newsea are a duo of hair designers who are now former FA’s at TSR.

Story #1

  The initial story from TSR was that Newsea got ideas well above their station, with diva-like demands. Apart from a raise, they demanded their own personal subscription section on TSR and wanted 100% of the profit for those additional subscriptions – otherwise they would leave TSR and open a rival paysite. Tom had no choice but to let them go as TSR were unable to afford to pay them any extra on their already massive wage of $500 per set also they did not want to have a separate subscription set up for just Newsea. Upon leaving Newsea demanded payment for the next 3 months in advance, Tom refused and Newsea was banned from the site after posting bad things about TSR on their TSR blog.

Source: Thomas@TSR

Story #2

  The other story is that when Newsea were asked to join TSR they were offered an initial £300 per set starting pay and told that after they got established their wage would go up to $400-$500 per set depending on demand. Later in the year TSR would offer an additional subscription service for Newsea hair, where Newsea would get a minimum of 30%. This sounded like a good deal and Newsea signed up. However the raise and the subscription deal never materialised and when Newsea asked about the raise Tom turned nasty. Newsea decided to leave as Tom had gone back on his promise and they wished to open a new site. When they advertised their new site on their TSR blog, they were banned from the blog and Tom withheld payment for all their last completed sets uploaded that month. Newsea opened their own site.

Source: A friend of Newsea

  Although it seems unclear on the surface which story is true, I believe the second to be much nearer the mark:

  •     It would not be the first time Tom has gone back on a promise, in fact he will promise anything to get a creator to upload at TSR. The worst possible outcome to him is that they eventually leave TSR when they realise they have been conned, however by then they have closed their own site/left MTS and uploaded everything to TSR, which he then keeps, labels as his own property and no longer has to pay the artist. Kind of a win/win for him. The situation with Newsea sounds all too familiar.
  •     This is not the first time I have heard the extra subscription idea, for Premium Artists ( PA’s ) Tom has been talking about this a lot as a way to get well known artists into TSR, so it is totally believable that Newsea was offered this as a sweetener.
  •     I have yet to speak to anyone who saw the ‘bad things’ Newsea allegedly posted on their blog, I am inclined to go with the second story where posting a site link got them locked out of their site.  I also think the current cheery message on their TSR mini site may not have been written by them, it looks to me like the standard editing done by Tom after an FA gets kicked.

  It is evident to me that Newsea was well and truly screwed over by TSR.

  Now you know what I know, but the only one who really  knows the truth is Newsea. If Newsea would like to put their story forward, I would be happy to publish it and set the record straight.

January 27, 2012

New FA policy set to cause a stir – UPDATED!

Filed under: The Sims Resource, Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — coconut @ 01:09

   TSR FA Murfeel has posted her new policy on her minisite at TSR. In short, it says:

 “There is no need to ask my permission to use my meshes for your creations. Why? Because you can take it alll~!!!! XD It’s all free for you to use, any object meshes I upload I don’t need any credit…though the warm fuzziness inside when it’s given is always a nice feeling”   “Also, I have no problem with people re-uploading my work on other sites and forums (especially the foreign ones)–just as long as you don’t say it’s YOURS”

Kudos to Murfeel on a very fair and open policy.

Even though Murfeel has set all but one of her uploads to free, This unselfish and ungreedy approach will not go down too well with Tom. Even unpaid SA’s have been banned from uploading their free items to their own sites, with some artists being hacked for less.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of this. Hopefully, after her recent hacking,  Murfeel now uses a different password outside TSR to the one stored on the TSR DB.

  Still, Tom has more pressing issues on his mind - A long term FA has been diagnosed with something very serious and she has taken some time off. Tom called a meeting to discuss this. Was it to organise a big bunch of flowers and a hope you get well soon card? No, it was to discuss striking her from the FA pool. Nice. She has only been away since December.

UPDATE

 

January 21, 2012

Leavings, Hackings and Fightings.

All is not well at TSR. We have leavings, hackings and fightings.

If you are Toms prized FA, it is not a good idea to let the cat out of the bag that you are getting itchy feet, this results in Tom getting itchy fingers and you losing a great deal of your digital life. It also appears that Toms not-so-prized FA’s are no safer. He has been a busy little gnome this week.

To top it all off we have a Moron-O with a god complex making waves ( and many enemies ) MMM… not sure if he thinks he is psychically channelling Atwa or if she has her hand up his ass. Again.  Neither of them seem to be capable of doing the tasks they were assigned to do but are only too willing bark orders and act like they own the place. Atwa’s ‘low profile’ status means she has to keep her mouth publically shut so The Moron is working overtime spouting enough Verbal Diarrhea for the both of them.

We must have missed the memo that put him in charge, well those of us that still have Emails that is..

I smell another mutiny on the horizon.



January 14, 2012

The mystery of ‘Trance’

Filed under: The Sims Resource — Tags: , , , , , , , — coconut @ 11:59

Happy new year Simmers!!

  Goodbye to 2011, raise a glass to 2012! 

  One of my biggest regrets of last year was my inability to prove a link between the hackers new chosen name of ’Trance’ and Thomas. As I’ve reported here previously, the hacker has, on occasions, used emails containing the name ‘Trance’ and has also created accounts in that name.  I knew this linked to Tom and I said at the time:

  “It is a little known fact that Tom has had dummy accounts at TSR in the names thomastrance and Thomas_trance, he also used that name on an online game and has used it for Skype. None of this is widely known and was a long time ago.”  

  However, proving it was another story, I never pushed the fact beyond my inital comment because it is far too easy to say “Yeah Tom used that name before” From a readers point of view, I could have simply just made that up. Oh well, unless Tom actually comes out of the closet as ‘Trance’ in public, this mystery will never be solved. Shame.

 

  Let us move on to TSR, they have been busy celebrating raking in your money for another year.

 http://www.thesimsresource.com/

  

Ahh..The toast movie - later than scheduled.

 http://www.thesimsresource.com/news/view-post/post/22804

 

  The great speech from Tom, which incidentally earned him an interesting ( and perhaps inappropriate ) nick name among some of the staff. Strange really, because he isn’t German. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_180901&src_vid=tYdfxFs8isY&feature=iv&v=XfsqU2hoaFs

 

Scrolling down reading the comments.. One from anime…webmarji…evi…ThomasTrance.. Wait. What? Really?

 

So Tom has a YouTube account in his ThomasTrance name, He has had this account since March 2006, and yet it has been hardly used in the last 6 years.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasTrance

 I find it odd that Tom would accidently log in and comment on their publicity stunt Christmas Toast movie with an account he has hardly used in the last 6 years. Was this really an accident or is this a taunt to round off his year of fun?

 Either way, ‘Trance’ is out of the closet.

 

September 6, 2011

TSR FA Pralinesims caught stealing! UPDATED – WTF Moment!

Another day, another theft. Welcome to TSR.

  TSR are back to their usual habit of stealing from free creators and selling the stolen goods to their subscibers. This time it is Pralinesims making a tidy profit off of the back of a talented free creator, LemonLeaf  http://blog.sina.com.cn

  Pralinesims claims to create and hand paint their ‘creations’ but as the following screencaps prove, They did little more than simply steal them.

  The following images and quotes below are taken from Lemonleafs blog and translated from Chinese to English. ( Please allow for bad Google translation! ) http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_63e832e00102dsde.html

 Some stolen content is on Pralinesims blog, some is being sold at TSR.

 Lemonleaf is quoted in blue text. ( click ‘more’ to read full story )

(more…)

July 11, 2011

15 Year old hacked and subjected to ‘Goatse’ porn: Is Thomas Isaksson a paedophile?…UPDATED

Filed under: The Sims Resource, Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — coconut @ 11:05

The full story.

  Yesterday, I published a partial article on the website hacking and exposure of extreme male porn to a 15 year old boy, since then he has been hacked again, this time his twitter and box accounts were  also hacked, he has once again been subjected to the same porn and his sexuality and vegetarianism were mocked. I am now able to give a better account of what happened thanks to this brave boy coming forward with his experiences, so my last article has been replaced with this one.

  On July 9th popular creator and P.M.B.D member Levini was hacked. I have viewed his site, but I have decided to describe events rather than use a screencap, due to the extreme distasteful nature of what the hacker, thesimsresource.com  ( TSR ) owner, Thomas. O. Isaksson left behind.

  Only four months after TSR attacked the site of a 16 year old girl and left behind gross content, 15 year old Levini’s Dreamwidth site was attacked – hacked and defiled with extreme porn images. It also contains a heading encouraging the reader to perform a vile sex act, as well as a gay slur in the side bar. What makes this already terrible attack even more horrible is the fact that Levini is gay, and for someone so young to have their sexuality mocked in such a sick and depraved manner is beyond hideous. Homophobia alone is a despicable and hateful crime, but if you add pedophilia into the mix and you have one hell of a sick individual. Any parents among will understand how horrible it would feel to have your child subjected to such, Levini’s parents also witnessed this and were understandably as extremely upset  as  their young son was.  I am disgusted and outraged that yet again a minor has been subjected to this level of depravity, the only kind of person I can see doing this to minors would be a pedophile. Levini was made aware of the hacking after receiving an email from Dreamwidth as screen capped below.  Take note of the IP, Yet again it is the same IP as previously used by Thomas and his other hackings.

  The day after this, Levini’s twitter account and box account were also hacked. He lost everything in his box account, but has thankfully since recovered his files. The twitter contained the ‘goatse’ porn picture, Levini’s real name was added, and his vegetarianism was cruelly mocked, along with another statement that could be constituted as a gay slur. Here is a screen cap. I have edited the pictures, his contacts and his name.

  • Tom has hacked the community countless times.
  • Sent porn to minors at least twice, not counting the thousands of children subjected to his on site porn ads that ran last year.
  • Targeted the gay community including The Gay Sims Club.
  • Now he has targeted vegetarians.

  These are the actions of a Hacker, a Pedophile, a homophobe and a bigot. There is no place in the community, or anywhere else for that matter, for such behavior. Tom needs to seek therapy. Fast.

 

 

 

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