Deathstar:

The following is a brief report regarding Deathstar's involvement in the
hacking of Nodeka player files.

To begin, and to be perfectly clear, Deathstar is not, and has never been, a
hacker. Deathstar did not have any involvement in hacking any Nodeka player
files. Instead, Deathstar was falsely labeled as the hacker in an attempt to
draw out the true player responsible for hacking Nodeka player files.

With Deathstar's permission, we labeled him as the hacker and publicly
announced that we had found the player hacking Nodeka player files. This
announcement was made to give the true hacker a false sense of security and to
promote him or her to hack more player files. By allowing this, we suspected
the hacker would make mistakes, revealing his or her identity or by creating a
pattern in which we could use to block the hacking software he or she was using.

To this end, our tactics worked; the hacker showed us the nature of the hacking
software being used was dictionary word based with a case-insensitive algorithm.
By understanding the limitations the hacker's software, we enforced a new
password infrastructure which would demand all players have passwords which
could not be defeated by the hacker's algorithm. In addition, we coupled the
new password requirements with failed login delays. The results proved that the
hacker was unable to continue hacking Nodeka player files. While our current
password system is not perfect, it is extremely secure, so secure that no
player file hacks have occurred since its implementation.

Unfortunately, while the new system was being implemented and the hacker
continued to attempt to crack more player files, Deathstar had to remain silent
about his false conviction. The toll of our request of Deathstar has been heavy.
Finally, after months of seeing no hacking related player file activity
(although numerous attempts have been made), we have been able to reinstate
Deathstar. Moreover, we can finally make the public aware, through this
document, of our long term strategy and Deathstar's involvement in it.

The primary purpose of this document is to clear Deathstar's name.

We, the Nodekian community, owe a debt of gratitude to Deathstar. His
selflessness has allowed us to create the system we use today which is
exceptionally safer for all players. We needed the hacker to believe our
attempts to find him or her were elided and the only way to do that was to
falsely accuse a player with direction connection of a previously hacked player.
For six months, Deathstar played a vital role in helping make Nodeka secure. To
this end, we are all indebted to Deathstar. To show our appreciation to
Deathstar, he has received a substantial in-game reward.

Thank you Deathstar. We are truly grateful for your help.