Just to go on record here, since my reply in Zwift Racers was deleted with the rest of the thread…
First, let me say this: I think Luciano could have handled this better by reaching out to Zwift with the issue, perhaps even telling them he would take it public on X date even if it wasn’t fixed because he was concerned that it’s actively being used by cheaters. Then if Zwift didn’t respond, he would have a stronger case for publicly posting the hack.
So I’d say he jumped the gun a bit. Which is hard to fault him for, when he had multiple people telling him Zwift already knew about the exploit, and race teams knew about it too. That’s hard information for a rabid Zwift racer to just sit on.
Since Luciano went against Zwift’s ToS, Zwift has the “legal” standing to shadowban him or do whatever they’d like with his account. They’re within their rights to do so. But that doesn’t make it the BEST decision on their part, and I’ve tried to communicate this to ZHQ this via private channels in no uncertain terms.
I would have loved to see Zwift take this approach with Luciano’s Wordpress post:
"Hi Luciano,
We just saw your post about the Companion exploit. While we don’t like seeing Zwift exploits shared publicly, we know by the content of your post that you did it in order to clearly demonstrate the hack to us and get our attention so it would be fixed. It worked!
Since your post demonstrates how to cheat in Zwift races, we’ve taken what we hope is a temporary disciplinary measure and shadowbanned your account, which is our standard practice in these cases. We request that you take the post down immediately so more Zwifters don’t learn about the exploit. Once you do so, we will reinstate your account.
On our side, this exploit has been moved near the top of the list of bug fixes. We anticipate at least a temporary fix rolling out in the month of March.
Ride On"
Some of you are bugging me to do a Zwift Insider post about this topic. I’m still not sure what that’s going to look like, but I’ve been in near-constant contact with Luciano during all of this. We’ve joked about how many parts this series of posts is going to have, as the saga continues way past what Luciano foresaw. All that to say, I’m sure this will be talked about on ZI… I just can’t promise exactly when and how.
In the end I, like many of you, wish Zwift had handled this differently - in a way that showed they value Luciano as a person. He may have jumped the gun, but Zwift could have easily taken the high road and come out of this sparkling clean. Now it’s just sort of… ugly all around. And that bums me out. Heck, I got my Zwift Insider kit in game finally this week, and I haven’t even ridden with it yet because I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth for two days.
I’m not leaving Zwift like some of you. I’m just annoyed to see this script playing out again. I hope Zwift learns from this and does better next time.
Whew… that was cathartic.
Ride on, my friends.
