Ok two days in a row, people have attacked and hacked me and when I go to post an alert on them it says "you can only alert on people who have attacked or raided, hack or used an artifact in the last 24 hours, WTF ! these people have done this in the last 24 MINUTES!

it's disabling not attacking.

You have not been hacked in over a week. Can you please clarify?

Well, they set off all my traps, so I assume they hacked me, the person yesterday absoultly used an artifact on me. so this doesn't count?

as a correction, I was not hacked. my quantum firewall was the only one of the 4 not tripped, but the others were, so I assume the only way to set one off and get a message is to attack someone.

No, triggering of traps does not count.

When he triggers a trap you are unable to alert him, but you will have him on your news for 2(I think) days. So you can attack him back.

Just attack or hack him if you can. It's called payback, that's what I do. Someone hacks me I'll disable them and then hack them. If they disable me I'll do the same to them at least once maybe twice, depends on their level. I like to be fair to my opponents.

same here. I have not alerted a single other player the entire time I have played this game, I always end up taking care of them myself. And every time I do so I say: "Because you attacked/hacked me, I have disabled/hacked you. Do not take this any further."