Wait, wait, wait. Back up! There's a sims modding site with beer and hookers? Do you have a link?

Kidding!

Hey, a lot of those sites evidently bought too much beer, got drunk and couldn't afford to pay the hookers and therefore folded. XD

This is why we can't have nice things.

I knew I was doing something wrong by running a website and not drinking beer... :D

Did TwistedMexi apologize for scaring everyone into thinking all of MTS is virusville or is he pretending he didn't a wildfire that hurt this place?

I'm also suspecting that given the Sims 4 Comments Section has long been known for its unfavorable stance on that iteration of the franchise - even Sim Gurus have come there and had a hard time, back in the day. (That's putting it mildly.) - would go some way to someone so influential in the TS4 community to wrapping the whole MTS TS4 element as being problematic and not so bothered about making such alarming comments about its mod and virus security. From their point of view it's "all" bad, yet that should not excuse putting out publicly such bold, unfounded statements such as to ruin the reputation, business and livelihood of another. Just how close to breaking the law were they? And if they genuinely distrust this site that much, why do they leave their ancient, outdated mods on this site to be the very subjects of the threat they proclaim? Because they're free ads to their Patreon, maybe? Someone's trying to have their cake and eat it. But who is now choking on the crumbs?

Thanks for clearing it up, Tashiketh. It certainly needed it.

Is it only TS4 that these sites cover, or TS3 and 2 as well?

I have to ask as it's slightly related to mod security. Does anyone know if it's possible to block scripts from connecting to the internet? Do you have to block the entire Sims 4 executable from outbound connections in your firewall or is there a way to only block mods specifically? I don't want to name names, but there is an increasing number of authors with script mods out there that upload certain info about your game to the internet--and give you no say in the matter. Always made me really uncomfortable using them.

1) I misread that as mod_security.

2) Depending on how the game implements python (I've never looked into S4, I'm an S2 player) the chances are high that if you do not block the whole game, then a script running within can always connect to the internet as long as the game can. it is likely running as a subprocess of the game and therefore has the same permissions as the game itself. Although, I could be incorrect.

With that said, it is absolutely possible to block the game itself from accessing the internet and any subprocesses. In fact, I'd advise you to do so. Even if you use origin you can configure your firewall to only block the game.

Looking at the reddit post someone posted earlier, there is a screenshot of one malicious script on reddit[1]:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=ht...09c80568f7acc23

We can see here that the script is using curl (a safe and common tool, lots of web services use this for API's and other things.) to silently (-s flag, meaning it does not output any logs) fetch a malicious executable file and save it as sims4c.exe (-o flag, output) from discord.

To render this type of attack ineffective you would only need to prevent the game and any associated processes from accessing http/https traffic, it would then be unable fetch the malicious executable and you would not be infected. This is assuming you didn't already infect yourself with something else while downloading/installing the mod.

Anyhow, this is just my 2c based on a quick glance of the code. I reserve the right to be entirely inaccurate.

[1] it looks like this person saved and loaded potentially malicious software in their regular, non-sandboxed environment. They're lucky it was just a python script, you wouldn't want to do that with some more serious malware. (Ooops!)

scarlet has previously removed dskecht's dark mode UI (and other UI mods) over misunderstanding him having to write a launcher bypass because his legally purchased game actively refused to launch via steam without it as him somehow pirating the game. i can't trust her ability to understand basic cyber opsec. plus her mod listing is hosted on wordpress.com, which i can't even access anymore because i got IP blocked by their CEO for daring to criticize his insane legal battle against another wordpress provider.

Since it goes about ts4s scripts and since twistedmexi is a ts4 creator then you can make it up it's TS4 only.
Also, most drama is with TS4 now.




Bit of a weird story. But if steam marks your game as pirated, then probably that person must have the expansions not having legal. Some people have the basegame and then think they could use a pirated version next to it. Well, then you get busted.

Ok I have a question to someone who is better in understanding the technical stuff. I can't access Scarlets site anymore: https://scarletsrealm.com/the-mod-l...w-only-edition/
The list doesn't load anymore and when I click the links, I get HTTP error 403 and access denied. When using my phone with LTE the site still works. So somehow they found my IP address and block it? If this is the case this would be totally ridiculous from them. I just posted their information here, that they won't include MTS links anymore and now they block people from using their site completely? Or did their site got hacked?

If you ever visited their website previously then it is possible to block your IP address, as it would be in their logs. But to ban specifically you, they would need to be able to identify which IP belongs to who which is usually achieved via logins or other means. They could also simply be blocking VPNs, so not directly targeted at you in that case.

I just briefly looked at the list and most of the links appear to be external sources - so perhaps it's just that some of the links simply don't work? Also could be a browser bug, have you tried a different browser? For example if you use chrome, have you tried firefox or vice versa? Using ad blocking plug-ins can often cause issues like that.

It's best to look for the most logical reasoning over rushing to fear or accusations.

The list doesn't load anymore and by clicking on the links I get the HTTP error with a blank site. I've tried it from different PCs and browsers. The only thing that works is from my mobile phone with LTE. My husband has the same VPN and even on his notebook it doesn't work.

So if they are blocking VPNs what can I do about it?

If you've had a VPN active in each instance that you were unable to use the site then the VPN is most likely the cause in this instance, VPNs get banned all the time on many different websites.

Things to try:
- Disable the VPN and try accessing the site without it.
- Switch your VPN country. (this gives you a different route, which may avoid the problematic servers)
- Try a different VPN provider.

I'm sorry, I was wrong, I meant internet provider. We don't have VPN. So I understand now that it's more likely that the IP address got banned. We never had any problem with our internet provider with other sites.

Ah, that would be ISP, not VPN.

You could try restarting your router, usually most residential ISP will assign a different IP address when doing this.

Although, it is a curious case. I guess if that doesn't work, you could try google's free proxy service:
https://scarletsrealm-com.translate...&_x_tr_hl=en-US

Effectively, doing this means the website does not know your IP address, ruling out any issues of it blocking you.

It IS theoretically possible to have an IP address the site associates with a VPN or proxy without specifically having used one yourself. I had that happen when signing up for TerraLuna (a Sims 1 forum) and only found out about the issue because a mod there recognized my username from other places and alerted me via email that I might want to fix that. To this day I don't quite know what caused it (though it's probably unlikely to recur unless it was something my router was capable of doing on its own since I have a new computer now).

(Incidentally, that's a tiny part of why I don't have an account there now, because (in addition to my then-ailing computer having problems even with basic sites) the worry that somehow my IP could end up there again since I never found and resolved whatever caused it meant I avoided the site enough that my account was deleted for inactivity. )

I love MTS! Been coming here since *checks* 16th May 2005. Visit every weekend to see what's new, even if I'm not as download-crazy as I used to be. Funnily enough, I didn't even realize people were posting uploads to personal Tumblr sites until a few years ago. *blush* Their choice, of course, but if I think of something specific I'm looking for, MTS is the first place I check. Never had a problem with anything.

I'm not sure what is going on with her site or not; I don't go there, but you can get it at SimsVIP:

https://simsvip.com/2024/10/22/brok...death-ep-patch/

It's also entirely possible that the ISP themselves filter all traffic through a Proxy so that all customers get a very limited range of IPs and so they can control traffic (and security) better.

it makes me super sad when ppl do stuff like this mts is my #1 spot to go to for sims 3 (and sometimes 4) mods and i've had no problems! i think if people could take time out of their day for once to just see if something that people have said is true and not take it at face value, it could make a huge difference (ik that this is a bit idealistic but one can hope lol) mts is awesome!

I can get everyone being worried and freaking out but this kind of behavior and approach they're taking to finding this out just reinforces the notion of being scared of mods in general, and creates more division in the community.... I've used MTS for years, since I was a young child... MTS has been safe up until now. So what if a couple files were bad? You guys took care of it very quickly. I trust MTS Staff. On the contrary, I used to be scared of other sites....

He's a big modder, he probably doesn't believe he can do wrong.

I use the TM full edit CAS but I've had it since 2018-19. I'm definitely safe.