Chat function disabled due to "hack" on Oasis last week

[Scottdalfonso]

Due to some kids sending some inappropriate messages to everyone on board Oasis last week, I am seeing reports of the message option being disabled on this weeks cruises. Anyone on board and can confirm...especially curious if it's all ships or just Oasis. 

[MouseGirl]

It is not available on Odyssey this week

[topnole]

36 minutes ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Due to some kids sending some inappropriate messages to everyone on board Oasis last week, I am seeing reports of the message option being disabled on this weeks cruises. Anyone on board and can confirm...especially curious if it's all ships or just Oasis. 

Curious how you know of, or heard about , this alleged hack.  Was this reported somewhere?

[gumshoe958]

Why does it not surprise me that Royal’s IT can be hacked by a 12-year-old?

[Scottdalfonso]

8 minutes ago, topnole said:

Curious how you know of, or heard about , this alleged hack.  Was this reported somewhere?

Well the person who told me about it informed me that was the reason told to them on the ship, BUT a review is actually posted on this board, and they mentioned the hack and included some screen shots of it from a few days ago.... scroll to the bottom of the page

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Scottdalfonso

[billslowsky]

19 minutes ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Well the person who told me about it informed me that was the reason told to them on the ship, BUT a review is actually posted on this board, and they mentioned the hack and included some screen shots of it from a few days ago.... scroll to the bottom of the page

 

That just says someone not on the cruise (they referred to "your cruise" blamed it on kids.  If I were going to hack something I would go out of my way to deflect blame as well.  People believe what they want to hear.

 

If you want to believe that a kid hacked it, go right ahead.  And then be a lot more concerned about hacks you didn't know about.

[Scottdalfonso]

39 minutes ago, billslowsky said:

That just says someone not on the cruise (they referred to "your cruise" blamed it on kids.  If I were going to hack something I would go out of my way to deflect blame as well.  People believe what they want to hear.

 

If you want to believe that a kid hacked it, go right ahead.  And then be a lot more concerned about hacks you didn't know about.

I wasn't really blaming  anyone... I'm just guessing it was some dopes on the ship that figured out a way to send messages to everyone and exploited it. I don't really consider it a hack, which is why I kept putting the word "hack" in quotes

[smokeybandit]

Hilarious. Not really a hack, just an exploit around the fact you can send a message to anyone, not just those linked to your reservation.

[lovesthebeach2]

48 minutes ago, Scottdalfonso said:

I wasn't really blaming  anyone... I'm just guessing it was some dopes on the ship that figured out a way to send messages to everyone and exploited it. I don't really consider it a hack, which is why I kept putting the word "hack" in quotes

maybe I’m optimistic but I think that if they can figure out how to do that, they’re not dopes.

[topnole]

51 minutes ago, Scottdalfonso said:

I wasn't really blaming  anyone... I'm just guessing it was some dopes on the ship that figured out a way to send messages to everyone and exploited it. I don't really consider it a hack, which is why I kept putting the word "hack" in quotes

Well you did say due to some kids in your first post. So you are blaming kids? I guess the person in the other thread used that term, but seemingly had no idea about the situation.  Mind you, most 50 and older call young adults kids.  
 

Of course, now someone in this thread says they aren’t surprised a 12 year could hack Royals IT.  And this is how the ball gets rolling without a shred of evidence.  Was it a hack?  No one has a clue who did what or their age.   But let’s just assume some minors hacked Royal.  Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to post on social media.  And many will yet follow along and add to the rumor mill.  Other will call it out and be criticized

for it or be removed from the thread for being honest.  One of several reasons why our society is doomed.  Maybe it is best not to assume and blame, but instead wait to see what really happened?

Edited April 24, 2023 by topnole

[Scottdalfonso]

24 minutes ago, topnole said:

Well you did say due to some kids in your first post. So you are blaming kids? I guess the person in the other thread used that term, but seemingly had no idea about the situation.  Mind you, most 50 and older call young adults kids.  
 

Of course, now someone in this thread says they aren’t surprised a 12 year could hack Royals IT.  And this is how the ball gets rolling without a shred of evidence.  Was it a hack?  No one has a clue who did what or their age.   But let’s just assume some minors hacked Royal.  Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to post on social media.  And many will yet follow along and add to the rumor mill.  Other will call it out and be criticized

for it or be removed from the thread for being honest.  One of several reasons why our society is doomed.  Maybe it is best not to assume and blame, but instead wait to see what really happened?

I think you are looking a little too much into it. The people were called kids because the messages looked like kids wrote them. It could be 18 year olds, could be 60 year olds... it was just a generalization. Either way, SOMEONE found a way to send messages to the passengers on the ship and suddenly the chat option is no longer available. It's a fair guess that the two have something to do with each other. 

[billslowsky]

1 hour ago, topnole said:

Well you did say due to some kids in your first post. So you are blaming kids? I guess the person in the other thread used that term, but seemingly had no idea about the situation.  Mind you, most 50 and older call young adults kids.  

"Kids" smart enough to disrupt the system but not smart enough to realize that "their parents" on the cruise would see the same names on their own screens...  Someone who wants to hack or be disruptive generally takes the time to cover their tracks at least a little bit.  I have no idea who would have done this, someone bored I assume. But people love to demonize an easy target.

 

Blame goes to Royal for not testing adequately. 

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, Scottdalfonso said:

SOMEONE found a way to send messages to the passengers on the ship and suddenly the chat option is no longer available.

Probably someone found it accidentally. It was likely not a "hack" but a flaw in Chat function. Probably a passenger misaddressed a chat and got a reply and a lightbulb went off. They could cause mischef. 

[crzndeb]

We lost the chat feature on the Ovation TP a few days ago. I think it might be hard to send lots of people messages. You have to invite them, with their names as they appear on manifest, and that may be difficult to know. 

[smokeybandit]

If there's no verification that the addressee is one of your invited contacts, then it'd be quite easy to send to multiple people.

I'm curious though how a message could be sent to random people (if messages were sent to random people) without knowing names.

Edited April 24, 2023 by smokeybandit

[JupiterTwo]

It disappeared from my app on the Allure sometime around Friday.

[jean87510]

4 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

I wasn't really blaming  anyone... I'm just guessing it was some dopes on the ship that figured out a way to send messages to everyone and exploited it. I don't really consider it a hack, which is why I kept putting the word "hack" in quotes

I wouldn't call them dopes.  POS maybe.  

[smokeybandit]

33 minutes ago, jean87510 said:

I wouldn't call them dopes.  POS maybe.  

Actually it's a great thing they did it. Now RC can lock it down more before some more deviant use of the exploit is used.

[PIC33]

Just off Mariner today. On Friday we suddenly got over 70 chats from people we did not know or invite. There was a big line of people at guest services trying to get rid of the unwanted chats. Some of the texts were saying some pretty unpleasant things I was told. The Chat feature was disabled a few hours later, and did not return the rest of the cruise.

Edited April 24, 2023 by PIC33

[JsMom2]

23 hours ago, PIC33 said:

Just off Mariner today. On Friday we suddenly got over 70 chats from people we did not know or invite. There was a big line of people at guest services trying to get rid of the unwanted chats. Some of the texts were saying some pretty unpleasant things I was told. The Chat feature was disabled a few hours later, and did not return the rest of the cruise.

You are lucky if you only got 70!  Mine was in the hundreds!  Didn't help when passengers kept going on and saying "this is guest services, type unsubscribe to be removed"  which would then result in multiple people typing "unsubscribe" to add to the fun. 

[JsMom2]

On 4/24/2023 at 9:29 AM, Scottdalfonso said:

I think you are looking a little too much into it. The people were called kids because the messages looked like kids wrote them. It could be 18 year olds, could be 60 year olds... it was just a generalization. Either way, SOMEONE found a way to send messages to the passengers on the ship and suddenly the chat option is no longer available. It's a fair guess that the two have something to do with each other. 

On Mariner it was just some poor guy trying to meet up with the rest of his party at the Windjammer.  And the message went shipwide.  Maybe there were kids that started the thread, but I don't think they meant it to go out to the whole ship.  But the full names of the folks on the original thread are shown in the app.  So if was on purpose, they'd know who did it.  But from speaking to guest services, it was an internal problem with the system.  No one to blame, but Royal's IT department!

[Russ Lomas]

On 4/24/2023 at 8:01 AM, gumshoe958 said:

Why does it not surprise me that Royal’s IT can be hacked by a 12-year-old?

That is what happens when a company outsources its IT to a foreign country who employs a bunch of 10-year-olds.  Those 12-year-olds are much more savvy. 😉

[crzndeb]

And it’s still not back on the Ovation.

[topnole]

14 minutes ago, Russ Lomas said:

That is what happens when a company outsources its IT to a foreign country who employs a bunch of 10-year-olds.  Those 12-year-olds are much more savvy. 😉

Not really.  They only know

how to play with the tech, not design or program it.   It was different when tech was hard to use and not so user friendly. 

[Ourusualbeach]

1 hour ago, JsMom2 said:

But from speaking to guest services, it was an internal problem with the system.  No one to blame, but Royal's IT department!

This makes a whole lot more sense than a bunch of 12 yo"s hacking the system.