People Are Moving Caches

[Digitizer]

We may have a problem here in Pocatello (Idaho). Someone is moving caches. I was informaed today that one of my caches has been moved and all that was left behind was a film canister with a new location noted on the enclosed note. Unfortunately the cache was not found at the new location; it was a public location and the cache may have been taken from there.

 

Have others encountered this problem and has anyone successfully resolved it? Given that we publish cache locations so that other honest geocachers can enjoy the hunt, we also, by doing so, enable dishonest persons to remove the caches. This could be a real problem.

[+Stunod]

Arrgh...sounds like the work of another pirate...

[+Found on Earth 4 Now]

I ran across something about a month ago that might have something to do with this. Check here. The type of encounter you are speaking of seems to be listed here.

 

Hope that helps... And I hope they quit doing it!

 

[edited for type]

Edited March 29, 2004 by Found on Earth 4 Now

[+BadAndy]

Sounds like Trashcan04 has crawled back out of the sewer. I've had a number of mine go missing in the last month

[+Gorak]

I ran across something about a month ago that might have something to do with this. Check here. The type of encounter you are speaking of seems to be listed here.

 

Hope that helps... And I hope they quit doing it!

 

[edited for type]

The Cache Police had nothing to do with the relocated cache you speak of. Aside from the fact that the Cache Police only operate in the Vancouver, BC area, they only visit caches with the cache owners prior permission.

[+crzycrzy]

So long as caches don't start moving people...

I think we will be okay.

 

(P.S. Moving caches stinks. It makes the game no fun. ARRRGGGHHH !)

[+Renegade Knight]

Moving caches by cachers is bad enough. That however sounds like the work of the Banned TrashCan. (I had the wrong idea before)

 

The only solution is Members Only Caches. I doubt they would fork over the money to cause problems. They would most likely only cause problems while it's quick, easy and fun for them.

[CoyoteRed]

MOC solution is only for non-traditional caches. Making a traditional cache MOC is pointless.

[+Stunod]

MOC solution is only for non-traditional caches. Making a traditional cache MOC is pointless.

I don't understand what you mean...please explain.

[CoyoteRed]

I don't understand what you mean...please explain.

Because you can see MOCs in the Nearest Cache Page.

 

By adjusting the coords in the URL of the Nearest Cache Page until the distance says "Here" you can get pretty close. If you back off a little you can fine tune the lon, then the lat and pinpoint the coords.

 

Thusly, because traditionals are supposed to be at the given coords, they've just found the cache--MOC or no MOC.

 

Taken further, some multis give you plaintext clues at the starting point. Meaning, some multis instead of having the clues on the webpage have it at the starting point. Those would be useless to be MOC if you're using MOC as a way to prevent pirating.

 

Just pointing out a flaw of the MOC system.

[ju66l3r]

Easier is to go to the 3 closest caches and select "list other caches nearby" from each. This gives you the distance to the MOC (and apx. direction). You can then use these three distances as radii for circles on a map and where the 3 circles intersect is the location of the MOC trad cache's coordinates.

 

Whether it's an offset or not is entirely up to the ambitious non-member to find out/assume.

 

As for caches moving...you've got a swarthy pirate and the only way to stop that in the past is the threat of physical violence (highly illegal) or rehiding your cache, ignoring their efforts (don't post notes/logs about it or archive all of your caches), and continuing on expecting them to get bored faster than you are willing to replace the cache. It may even be worth it to replace it with a simpler log book and no items in a disposable container, such that the replacement cost is going to be obviously cheaper and send a message that you will compromise quality to maintain your cache's position in this world such that you could do this all year if you had to.

[+Stunod]

I don't understand what you mean...please explain.

Because you can see MOCs in the Nearest Cache Page.

 

By adjusting the coords in the URL of the Nearest Cache Page until the distance says "Here" you can get pretty close. If you back off a little you can fine tune the lon, then the lat and pinpoint the coords.

 

Thusly, because traditionals are supposed to be at the given coords, they've just found the cache--MOC or no MOC.

 

Taken further, some multis give you plaintext clues at the starting point. Meaning, some multis instead of having the clues on the webpage have it at the starting point. Those would be useless to be MOC if you're using MOC as a way to prevent pirating.

 

Just pointing out a flaw of the MOC system.

Ahhh...thanks for explaining.

[adampierson]

I'm a little hesitant on mentioning this, but about a month ago MOC were actually visible to non members. I noticed this when I was surfing the GC.com web page when I noticed this, and upon further investigation... I discovered you had to be NOT logged in to see them. The problem has been fixed.

 

I was completly floored.

 

I suspect that it was a glich. But it could happen again?

[+Renegade Knight]

I know what you guys are getting at, but that's a lot of work.

[ghOzt]

By adjusting the coords in the URL of the Nearest Cache Page until the distance says "Here" you can get pretty close.  If you back off a little you can fine tune the lon, then the lat and pinpoint the coords.

 

Easier is to go to the 3 closest caches and select "list other caches nearby" from each.  This gives you the distance to the MOC (and apx. direction).  You can then use these three distances as radii for circles on a map and where the 3 circles intersect is the location of the MOC trad cache's coordinates.

 

Or, the pirate could just fork over the three bucks.

[ghOzt]

People Are Moving Caches

 

I thought locationless caches were frowned upon.

[+Bloencustoms]

I had a cache last nearly a year without being muggled. After a well meaning cacher moved it because they thought the velcro I secured it with wasn't holding up, the next finder reported that the container was empty of logbook, pencil, and trades. Fortunately, I had just changed the log recently, and all but the last few entries are safe in my glove compartment.

[CoyoteRed]

Or, the pirate could just fork over the three bucks.

And leave a paper trail? I think not. Irish would shut the account down in a heartbeat and possibly turn the information over to the authorities.

 

By using AOPs (Anonymous Open Proxies) and not signing in a pirate could have access to the starting coords to the caches and there is no way to track or stop him.

 

You can't hide the MOCs because nonsubscribers wouldn't know not to put a cache within .1 miles of that spot.

 

You can't randomly offset the coords of a MOC for nonsubscribers because of the same reason.

 

Therefore you are left with a security concern if you try to make a traditional an MOC.

 

The answer is to make the MOC at least an offset. You need not have any information at the spot. Take the hunter to the coords and on the page--which a non-subscriber can not see--tell the hunter to find a large object some distance away. "From this spot look for the blue lamp post at 237°." They start from there. Problem solved.

 

There are measures, counter-measures, and then counter-counter-measures.

[+bons]

Just to clairify, when subigo went over the edge there were a number of offers on his website from people who were already paying members to give him a list of Members Only caches.

 

There are plenty of seriously disgruntled members who paid for yearly memberships already. The thought that one of them may decide to run a simple PQ is not unreasonable.

 

As far as a paper trail, WHAT paper trail? How is anyone going to figure out which PQ that picked up the MOCs is the evil one. All the other legitimate users are running the same dang PQ: "Give me the closest 500 caches to my home area".

[+wildearth2001]

People Are Moving Caches

 

I thought locationless caches were frowned upon.

[+wildearth2001]

Just to clairify, when subigo went over the edge there were a number of offers on his website from people who were already paying members to give him a list of Members Only caches.

 

There are plenty of seriously disgruntled members who paid for yearly memberships already. The thought that one of them may decide to run a simple PQ is not unreasonable.

 

As far as a paper trail, WHAT paper trail? How is anyone going to figure out which PQ that picked up the MOCs is the evil one. All the other legitimate users are running the same dang PQ: "Give me the closest 500 caches to my home area".

if somone just forwarded the PQ itself, it could be fairly easily traced back to the person who took it, but if it was just the info sent, it would be hard to trace back

 

IP address could also be used, but manually that is a pain, and I have no idea what is out there right now to automate that but I imagine that Jeremy isnt a fool about this

[CoyoteRed]

As far as a paper trail, WHAT paper trail?

Point taken.

 

I was looking at the Nearest Cache List angle. MOCs have audit trails detailing who has looked at that page. Certainly, using a PQ would sanitize the list. As a person trying to stop it, you'd only have the a timeline to work with. That's not much to go on.

 

However, just signing up and subscribing is more of a rigamarole than trianglating the coords if you're only going to go after traditional MOCs.

 

By staying anonymous and never signing up leaves you completely out any loop versus a disgruntled subscriber who is going after MOCs.

 

This activity is very open to dirty deeds.

[CoyoteRed]

if somone just forwarded the PQ itself, it could be fairly easily traced back to the person who took it, but if it was just the info sent, it would be hard to trace back

It would be nothing to sanitize a list via GPXspinner.

 

Even if you hid <!--Comments--> they could be filtered.