Town of Salem has a chat within each room in the game where you can interact with other players and comment on the strategies being deployed at any given moment. On the other hand, each character in this city can count on their own menu bar where there are different actions available depending on their true intentions. ”Town of Salem is a browser-based game that challenges players on their ability to convincingly lie as well as detect when other players are lying. The game ranges from 7 to 15 players. These players are randomly divided into alignments - Town, Mafia, and Neutrals. Town of Salem is a browser-based multiplayer game developed by BlankMediaGames (BMG). Described as “a game of murder, deception, lying and mob hysteria,” the game is an online version of classic social deduction games like Mafia and Werewolf.
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Town of Salem is a free to play browser-based mystery-solving MMO, which focuses on the residents of a small town caught in an intricate web of lies, deception, and murder.A group of from 7 to 15 players are randomly assigned alignment-like roles – Town residents, Mafia, Serial Killers, Assassins, and Neutrals – and the Town residents must correctly track down and identify the villains.
Town of Salem began as a simple kickstarter and has gone on to become an online phenomenon. Based on several in-person party games I was quickly hooked. I had played a similar game once at a party, and was introduced to this title based on my interest in the concept. What started as playing a few games here and there eventually turned into one of my longest running online gaming addictions. There’s a reason I’ve poured hundreds of hours into this title; it’s well designed, dynamic, and a load of fun. Today I’m here to tell you why it’s so darn engrossing and addictive, and perhaps talk you into playing the game yourself.
Starting out is simple. You log in (or sign up for free), join a game, choose a nickname, and are assigned a role (each has their own abilities to assist the team). The basic premise is that you and fourteen other players must play a game of whodunit over the course of several in-game days (and nights) which last around a minute apiece. By day the town members gather and you and the other players can discuss your findings, make accusations, etc. Each day you’re given the opportunity to vote to lynch players, and when a specific number of votes are met (which changes depending on how many players are in the game) you can lynch them thus sending the person to the graveyard and out of play. Dead players can still chat with each other however, and if you stay in the game and your team comes out on top you still win.
This here wheel is what determines your role. |
You have two basic factions; town and mafia as well as a third group of neutral roles that each has their own wacky objectives. Roles are specific to each group, and offer a variety of effects which I will go into detail about later. Town and mafia are at odds throughout the game with both groups trying to eliminate the other (mafia kills one player a night, and town outnumbers mafia and so can vote up and lynch players more easily) in order to win. While town is the biggest faction mafia has its own advantages (you can see who the other mafia members are, and chat privately at night to strategize) while town scrambles to figure out which side each player is on. Neutral roles are a different beast entirely with a variety of different objectives, but for the most part each player in this faction plays independently from everyone else. Mafia and town are pretty evenly matched, but neutral roles could use a little more balancing due to the overwhelming odds against most of them.
This brings us to the roles which are the bread and butter of the experience. The game offers 32 different roles each of which feature unique abilities in the game to assist in overcoming the enemy faction. Town has the most of the three groups with fifteen separate ‘jobs’ if you will, while there are nine roles for both mafia and neutral groups. Because a large part of the game is focused around finding out which players belong to the mafia town features a number of different investigative roles. These include one jailor per game (who can jail, interrogate, and execute one other player during each night), investigators (who determine one of three roles any one player could be each night), Sheriffs (who investigate a player at night to determine if they’re a mafia member), Spies (these can listen in on whispers, mafia chat, and see who the mafia visited), Lookouts (who look out on a specific player to see if anyone else visits them at night) etc. Additionally you have the town support roles with a variety of other abilities. These include mediums (can speak with the dead players at night), escorts (distracts one player at night preventing them from using their ability), retributionists (can revive one dead player per game), transporters (switch two players thus re-directing any potential attacks on them), and the mayor (gets three votes instead of one in town lynchings). This leads me to the most fun town roles; town killing. These roles allow a player to wreak havoc on others, and include the vigilante (can shoot one player a night, but commits suicide if they kill a town member), and veteran (can go on alert at night and kill any of their visitors).
Mafia is set up a little differently however. Every game features a godfather (who has final say on the target player to kill every night) and mafioso (can vote on who to kill, but automatically kills the godfather’s target. The third (or sometimes fourth) mafia roles in each game are chosen at random from a pool of team specific jobs. These include the blackmailer (can prevent a player from participating in chat for one day, and read everyone’s whispers), consigliere (finds out the exact role of one player each night), consort (the mafia version of the escort with identical abilities), disguiser (disguises as another player when they are killed), forger (can edit the last will of one player per night), framer (makes one player look like a member of the mafia to anyone investigating them for one night) and the janitor (deletes the role and will of a player killed). These are fairly dynamic roles with some unique abilities, but I’ve always preferred playing as town to be honest because it’s more fun to investigate rather than kill indiscriminately. This is the only weak part of the game in my opinion; the developers should really make playing mafia more interesting because it’s just not as captivating.
A typical day in the life in Town of Salem. |
The neutral faction is all over the place. Well, ‘faction’ isn’t exactly the correct term because the neutral roles are independent from one another, and are generally one man teams trying to get by amidst the town’s investigations and mafia’s murders. You have roles focused around killing everyone that isn’t them which include serial killer, arsonist, and werewolf. From here things get weird. You have vampires which can convert another player to their coven every other night, witches that control another person, survivors which just need to make it to the end without being killed, jesters that win by getting themselves lynched, executioners that win when their target player (chosen at random) is lynched by the town, and the amnesiac that can become one of the roles of someone that has perished in the game. The neutrals are really what keeps the game interesting and keep players on their toes the most. The differing abilities and goals add a lot of interesting dynamics to the experience.
So what makes Town of Salem so fun? The answer is simple; the dynamic range of experiences. Sure you’ll find some of the other players to be racist or otherwise offensive (there’s a handy Report button in-game for these cases) but you’ll get a different experience every time you play. The long list of roles (and the random element of it) keeps the game exceptionally fresh. What’s more is that it’s just plain fun. Coming up with strategies based around the different abilities of each role is a rewarding and entertaining experience and others’ reactions can be a real riot. Lying and scheming your way out of getting lynched (or executed by the jailor) when playing evil roles makes for some of the most harrowing and nerve wracking moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game. The social real life interaction ensures that there’s never a dull moment. The learning curve is pretty steep to be honest, but once you start to get the hang of it I’m sure you’ll have just as tough a time as I do when it comes to putting it down. You don’t have much to lose either way; it’s free to play in your browser and only costs $5 when purchased via Steam (and you get a few bonuses such as no ads and automatic in-game currency via this method). For this wary of any title with in-game currency have no fear; Town of Salem can be fully enjoyed without ever bothering with it.
Town of Salem is one of the most fun and addictive social games I've played. You need to play it even if it's just the free version.
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Town of Salem is a browser-based multiplayer game developed by BlankMediaGames (BMG). Described as “a game of murder, deception, lying and mob hysteria,” the game is an online version of classic social deduction games like Mafia and Werewolf.
Find out what happened during the Town of Salem breach that occurred in 2018.
![Salem Salem](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126680190/214365933.png)
What is Town of Salem?
Town of Salem is a video game that is played by over 8 million gamers. The game involves 7-15 players randomly divided into groups or alignments – Town, Mafia, Serial Killers, Arsonists, and Neutrals.
The mafia, serial killers, and arsonists are all evil roles, while the town alignment is the only good role. All alignments have their specific roles and win conditions.
For instance, the job of members of the mafia is to kill everyone that does not submit to them. The town group has to lynch members of the mafia as well as other villains. Arsonists must kill everyone in the game except a select few by dousing houses and setting them on fire in the night.
The Town of Salem Data Breach
On December 28, 2018, cybersecurity firm DeHashed received an anonymous email that disclosed the breach. Evidence of a break-in into the server and the player database were included in the email.
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According to DeHashed, the database in the email had a total row count of 8,388,894 including about 7,633,234 unique email addresses. The data leaked included usernames, emails, passwords, IP addresses as well as game and forum activity. The firm also claimed that the billing and credit card information of those that paid for certain features were also leaked. However, BlankMediaGames disputed this claim.
Five days later, on January 2, 2019, BlankMediaGames confirmed the breach via an announcement on the official Town of Salem game forum. A spokesperson with the username ‘Achilles’ stated that the breach had indeed occurred but the only important compromised data were usernames, passwords, IP, and email addresses.
The claim that the billing information of some users was also released was denied. Achilles stated that all payments were handled by third-party payment processors and BMG does not even see any credit card information at all.
How the Breach Happened
Players of Town of Salem have access to a WordPress site, which was the point of attack for the hackers. The administrator of the site had reused passwords on multiple sites, making it easy for the hacker to gain access to the account. While the admin quickly detected the hack and changed the password, the damage had already been done.
The hacker already put in a ‘backdoor’ that allowed reentry without any authentication request. From there, the hacker uploaded a file that resulted in an RFI (Remote File Intrusion). This file enabled them to download the entire database of the server and get the information they needed.
The fault of the hack lies with the developers of the game and the administrator of the WordPress site. The developers made use of a scripting software (phpBB) that gave anyone with the correct username and password access to extract the user database. There is common misinformation in the media about how the passwords were encrypted with a mixture of MD5 and PHPass. This is false as the encryption was entirely PHPass. MD5 is easy to hack while PHPass is more complex to decrypt.
The Aftermath
Town Of Salem - The Coven On Steam
After Town of Salem confirmed the breach, a lot of users complained about how the situation was handled.
Firstly, it took them three weeks to acknowledge that they had been hacked. After the breach occurred, it seemed like there was going to be no foul play. So, the company didn’t say anything about it.
Secondly, DeHashed sent emails over the Christmas and new year holiday to BMG about the hack. But they didn’t get any response from the team. BMG claimed that the emails DeHashed sent to them were all redirected to the spam folder. So they didn’t get them.
At first, the leaked data were only available for sale on dark web forums at the cost of $500 per file. After a while, it became available on Google to anyone that searched for it. Although credit card information and other sensitive data were not leaked, the leaked information is phishing material.
Town Of Salem Investigator
To prevent scams or blackmail, BMG sent mass emails to their users asking them to change their passwords.
The Fallout
Although the breach was quite an unfortunate incident, it assisted the police in making an important arrest.
20-year old Timothy Dalton Vaughn was sending fake bomb threats to thousands of schools while trying to frame gamers as the culprit. The police went through the leaked data and found the same username. He used to chat with a friend about the threats on Twitter on the list.
The leaked data showed that in 2018, someone had registered the username ‘hdgzero’, which was the username Vaughn used on Twitter. The username was registered with an email address and IP address. And the police were able to trace the culprit of the act.
Town Of Salem Investigator Results
Lessons Learnt
Town Of Salem Download
The hackers of the Town of Salem were never caught. This incident shows that companies, no matter the size, must not take cybersecurity lightly.
Town Of Salem Nh
Making use of safe scripting software is a good step in the right path. Also, admins should not be negligent when handling their passwords.
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The data leak issue also raised important ethical questions. For example, in the case of a data breach where there is no immediate leak of the stolen data, should the users be made aware that the servers have been breached? Also, how soon should the public be made aware of such a breach? Should it be immediately or after a complete analysis?