Whereas it has come to my attention that certain Persons of this Colony of Providence, for which the charge of caring is fallen upon me, have been Accused of the Heinous and Infamous crime of Credential Theft, and of perusing said stolen Credentials to further contrivances towards the Shedding of Tears (the success of which ultimate ends all appearances suggest having been obtained); whereas said Accusations and Events have garnered widespread attention; and whereas I have thereupon Investigated the facts of said Accusations and the Circumstances surrounding the same, and also having confirmed the Conclusions of said Investigations in Council with Jorb (the deliberations of which Council were, to say the least, concluded with ease), I have thought it fit to issue this Proclamation, hereby to inform of my Verdict for said Accusations, Events and Circumstances, which stands as follows,
viz.:
- First, that Realak, Shill and other divers persons having formed the Town of Deadwood Isle, were joined therein by Vigilance; that, after a brief period of concord, Vigilance being true to his nature, a strife of power ensued between Vigilance and the founding members of the Town; that, independently, the Tribe of Injuns also inhabiting this Colony of Providence had seen fit to raze said Town for reasons of their own and did, for such purposes, infiltrate said Town with an Agent from within their own ranks; and that, as a result of aforesaid Strife, Vigilance consequently decided to, and in fact did, betray his co-settlers and assist the Injuns in the razing of said Town.
- Secondly, that in the course of Town affairs, an Account had been created by Realak under the name of "Agamemnon" for the purpose of being shared between the members of the Town, including Vigilance; which had, for the purposes of such sharing, been furnished by its creator Realak with a Password to be known by all Town members, including Vigilance; that said Password was very similar to the password used by Realak on his own, personal, private Account; and also that Realak also shared his own, personal, private Account with other town members, although not including Vigilance.
- Thirdly, that Vigilance had, during the course of his time in said Town, come into knowledge of the Password of Realak's own, personal, private Account; that, as part of his Betrayal and Razing of the Town, Vigilance used his knowledge of said Password to log into Realak's own, personal, private Account for the duration of said Town-Razing in order to prevent the Characters on said account from taking part in the Happening; that Realak did not consent to Vigilance's use of his own, personal, private Account; and also, that Investigations shew it highly unlikely and unindicated by fact that the ***** Tribe was directly involved in such use of Realak's Account.
- Fourthly, that the exact procedure by which Vigilance came into knowledge of Realak's personal Password is unclear and not revealed by the Investigations. The Accusation by Realak et al. stands that Vigilance used his knowledge of the password for the Shared Account Agamemnon to figure out the password to Realak's personal Account by means of repeated guesses at similar passwords; while Vigilance claims in retort that he was given knowledge of Realak's own password by another member of the Town. Investigations shew that the initial Accusation does not stand up to scrutiny, seeing as how Vigilance, or for that matter anyone else (apart, incidentally, from Realak himself), never even once used a wrong password in a failed attempt to log in to Realak's personal Account.
- Fifthly, and perhaps most importantly, that Realak, by practicing such Reckless Abandon with regards to his Account Security as that having been described, has himself effectively hindered the Investigation into Sure, Technically proven Evidence of the methods, ways and circumstances surrounding the alleged Credentials Theft of which Vigilance has been Accused; which leaves your Loving Judge with no means to Prove beyond reasonable doubt any concrete wrongdoing on the part of Vigilance. It can surely be said that, with such Complete Disregard for Security as has been shewn in this matter, Vigilance could just as well claim that he thought that Realak's own account was a shared account, and there would still be no way to disprove such statement.
- Sixthly, that it is reasonable to expect of Realak and his compatriots to have known of the Character and Trustworthiness of Vigilance, and have let the same be reflected in the Security Practices; that they, given the declared intentions and ends of their common endeavor, should have also expected machinations and infiltration from the ***** Tribe; and that their failure in these aforesaid aspects of Town Government further prove their lack of Proper regard for Security.
- Finally, that Realak's own comrades, particularly Shill, have themselves shown disregard for the integrity and rights of Accounts owned by others, as Shill himself stands Accused, as a result of these Investigations, of the theft of another Account, DanneMM, whose owner is encouraged to come before this same Court if he wishes Investigations made into his own case; and also that Realak et al. complicated investigations by initially making their Security Practices appear better than in fact they were shewn to be, partly by exaggerating the dissimilarity between the Passwords on the accounts Agamemnon vs. Realak, and partly by hiding the fact that Realak's own account was shared with other members of the Town.
As the judgment of this verdict, then, I do declare that, whereas Vigilance cannot be proven as Guilty in any regard outside such that should be proper to be handled by ordinary in-game means, I will take no action against him; that, whereas the ***** Tribe does not even from basic facts appear to have been untowardly involved, I find nothing that they could be held accountable for (in this case); and finally that Realak et al. have brought whatever misfortune which has befallen them upon themselves as detailed.
It has also been brought before me that Vigilance should be held accountable, regardless of what Ways and Means were used to procure the Credentials to Realak's account, for a proposed Crime of merely using an Account without the explicit Approval of its owner,
viz. Realak; and being desirous of bringing clarity to this point, I do declare that, while there is certain merit to said Reasoning, there must have been taken
Reasonable Precautions by the owner of the Account to prevent such unauthorized misuse in order to warrant the action of this Court; and it has been shewn above that such Precautions were decidedly not taken by Realak. Let this stand as a precedent for the future.
With this, your humble Judge will retire and adjourn the Court. God Save the King.