New Anticheat Measure Going Live Today

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Originally Posted by Militaryman

Lol not tryin to be a *** but shouldn't you be working ya know at work? And neither of you own a home computer with internet or a personal phone?

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Not trying to be a feminine hygiene product? That's sure how you're coming across. If they're at work, maybe their workplace encourages them to relax with some mental stimulation. Maybe they're on their lunchbreak. Does it matter?

Maybe they log in at work because they want to attack, maybe they don't use their cell phone because their phone sucks or they work in an area where phones aren't allowed, or better yet, their phone is part of the proxied group and it's just not an option. Regardless, you're coming off as a dunce Militaryman. You make presumptions, you ignore issues, and you create side arguments. I don't believe that your comments are contributing to the conversation at hand at all.

The point is that having a flat out ban on IP sharing is a bad idea as most outright bans are.

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Originally Posted by Palar

The point is not proving identification, even if they did how are you going to prove that you will not under any circumstances log in for another player while under the whitelist to obtain those no restrictions, that they cannot prove even if you write an essay on it. We all like to believe it's easy to trust people but that itself opens up abuse from those few rotten apples.

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And here lies the problem with this net. Basically what Bishop and the devs are saying is that "Whitelisted" players were abusing the system and the system also allowed people to "legally" cheat. Similar to what some people here have said about pay to play with the sitting option you have.

So to sum everything up that Bishop and the devs are saying, whitelisted people do not make up the majority or even a big enough percentage of the base players on utopia so they will no longer allow whitelisting. In order to eliminate this form of cheating we are putting in a system that will stop whitelisted players from interacting with each other. If you were not cheating, sorry about your luck but at the end of the day the integrity of the game is more important than the 5% (based off the 337 players whitelisted in the past 30 days) of the players we may potential lose.

There isn't an argument you can use to change their minds because they aren't going to listen. The change is here to stay. They are telling everyone in utopia they are doing something about the cheating problem. It doesn't matter if they catch someone or really stop someone from cheating, this is a method they say will stop cheating so they are doing what they said they would. One of the biggest complaints a large portion of utopia players have had for years is multies using farms and intel provinces. (not that any of this was done before whitelisting) And if they catch someone in this net, all the better.

Bishop has labeled most cheaters as lazy and won't try to circumvent the system, cheaters will give up their cheating ways since they now have to work for it. Most criminals do not plan out their crimes, they simply act on a perceived weakness of their victim or are driven by desperation and act without much thought.

There is apparently some system information they have been tracking on the whitelisted players that suggests a majority of them are xlogging for their whitelisted partner. They can't reveal that information to you or me since it may implicate them in some type of monitoring device they have placed in the cookies or whatever they used to track the whitelisted players.

So to the whitelisted players that were following the rules and only playing your province, you can thank those players that weren't for these countermeasures that the devs and Bishop have implemented.

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

PS, I'm in Toka's kingdom. We potentially may lose one of our two of our best players (JK TOKA AND MOOSEY BOTH SUCK) because they log in from work and while they are nowhere near one another, their company uses the same outgoing IPs. When T/M's can't team up, they're effectively taken out of the game.

As far as banking, you don't seem to be able to understand what I'm saying. One: You're 100% wrong about how banks track IPs and relate them to logins. If I have a customer at my desk and they log into their online for the first time with me there, and they're from a state 500 miles away, they will be asked to further verify their identity. They make a point of it to restrict unusual or unknown IPs from accessing an account. In other words, they practice smart filtering by saying "Is this normal for this customer?" and then approaching it in a sensible manner. I promise you, if you were to try to log in to your online banking from a place totally foreign to you without a pretty obvious linear relationship to that destination through IP logs, you would be asked to further verify yourself.

Two: Point A has nothing to do with anything at all as the devs of the game make their money by pageviews and adclicks, thus more players playing means more revenue for them. In regards to your point regarding accessing accounts not tied to you being a federal crime, that's neither here nor there. As I said, if they were to abuse the system, they'd get either the banhammer or added to a blacklist. I'm not proposing amnesty for multis, but instead a system that filters the multis, but also allows for players who share IPs. Regarding point B, again, if you had actually read my post, you would have seen this bit.



The emphasis is mine.

Through behavioral modeling, this could effectively be eliminated or somewhat curbed. If you want to limit access to the accounts, look at what's normal, and go from there. It's THAT SIMPLE. You seem to fail at reading my posts so I'm going to say it again.

USE BEHAVIORAL MODELING TO CREATE A FILTER THROUGH REGULAR EXPRESSIONS THAT IS EASILY MAINTAINED AND REQUIRES VERY LITTLE UPKEEP.

Was that easier for you to read?

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Hmm id say not all banks, I go through several(chase,wells fargo; and a local credit union) I've logged in from africa, canada, afghanistan, iraq....and countless others to transfer money etc and I've never had a flag. Your behavior modeling sounds like a nifty idea, but highly unlikely your comparing banks(who most of which hire out web design, site sec etc to 3rdthe party companies), to a company with little to no employees and income capabilities to do such a thing...highly unreasonable request...

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

The emphasis is mine.

Through behavioral modeling, this could effectively be eliminated or somewhat curbed. If you want to limit access to the accounts, look at what's normal, and go from there. It's THAT SIMPLE. You seem to fail at reading my posts so I'm going to say it again.

USE BEHAVIORAL MODELING TO CREATE A FILTER THROUGH REGULAR EXPRESSIONS THAT IS EASILY MAINTAINED AND REQUIRES VERY LITTLE UPKEEP.

Was that easier for you to read?

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You can't though, you can't model it since it isn't something which will catch them logging in for eachother nor is it something which is constant. You can't say oh he hasn't done it for a year he's not gonna start. Even if they logged your mac address they can't prove it's you logging into your account. So if me and my bro wake up and log in first thing in the morning to check on our provinces in war we get flagged? (when we don't usually) If both our armies get home at same tick, and we both login in to attack we'll get flagged as well? Even if we're on different computers.

If we both login at same times everyday we'll get flagged cuz you can't prove if we're 1 user using 2 computers or actually 2 different users. People have to an extent made certain login times which may stay relatively constant but not set in stone. I login from multiple locations, 3 main ones and others on the fly (friends place who don't play utopia, maccas etc), it isn't set all the time either my timetable changes quite quickly as classes are finished/cancelled etc, my login behaviour will be all over the place but always restricted to my country/region. My brother when/if he goes to uni might login as much as I do, what then his activity will spike and you cannot prove that it really is him nor if he is going to uni or are you just gonna flag us then?

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

Not trying to be a feminine hygiene product? That's sure how you're coming across. If they're at work, maybe their workplace encourages them to relax with some mental stimulation. Maybe they're on their lunchbreak. Does it matter?

Maybe they log in at work because they want to attack, maybe they don't use their cell phone because their phone sucks or they work in an area where phones aren't allowed, or better yet, their phone is part of the proxied group and it's just not an option. Regardless, you're coming off as a dunce Militaryman. You make presumptions, you ignore issues, and you create side arguments. I don't believe that your comments are contributing to the conversation at hand at all.

The point is that having a flat out ban on IP sharing is a bad idea as most outright bans are.

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Actually I've stayed on topic and replied/commented on others suggestions//ideas and such... should probably take your own advice...thanks for the fem comment and the dunce comment..much appreciated.....

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Originally Posted by Militaryman

Hmm id say not all banks, I go through several(chase,wells fargo; and a local credit union) I've logged in from africa, canada, afghanistan, iraq....and countless others to transfer money etc and I've never had a flag. Your behavior modeling sounds like a nifty idea, but highly unlikely your comparing banks(who most of which hire out web design, site sec etc to 3rdthe party companies), to a company with little to no employees and income capabilities to do such a thing...highly unreasonable request...

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I tend to doubt this as I work at one of the banks you've listed. You're also talking about things that you know nothing about when you're claiming that they hire out those jobs. They'd have to be mentally incompetent to allow something that has access to account databases to be done out of house. I stated a very simple methodology for them to use (Regular Expressions is a powerful tool to format, automatically sort, and access large data sets), but you don't understand it so I'm not going to continue trying to make you. Forget it Donny, you're out of your element.

Palar

In my post I stated that it would not be automatic, but instead would flag you for review. You're not doing anything that screams multi? Probably good. You have times when you log in, as you said, from your friend's place but your brother is logged in from another place? Probably a good sign not a multi. The logins are consistently from the same place, at pretty much the same time? Unless they're verifiably different people, put them on the non-interaction list.

What I'm saying is that this allows for far more flexibility rather than an outright ban and it's a far smarter and scalable tactic to use. Keep building bigger walls and people will just keep tunneling under them. Instead, target and eliminate issues or else you'll be dealing with the same damn problems in a year. This has been done before. It just doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

DHaran, I'm more than a little confused. I too work for a bank, and as far as I know, online banking does exactly this. Generally, for online banking, you're required to provide a username, password, occasionally a PIN or a secret question, and nothing else. Through this, you can transfer funds to other customers, send out funds through bill pay, and even apply for credit cards and other lines and loans. Banks are able to prevent widespread fraud using that system and while there are of course people who do not properly use the system (due to couples sharing accounts, which is of course what we're trying to avoid) it seems plenty effective for them. Through behavior modeling, a much better system could be implemented that would intelligently block cheaters. Hell, with some regex magic, you could easily automatically organize, sort, and cleanse out the list of provinces that have shared IPs.

Here's a solution that would be pretty simple to implement. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

An account is logged in to from more than one IP in a short period of time (as in an unrealistic period of time, 5-15 minutes perhaps), or multiple accounts are activated from one IP in a short time (without being on the whitelist), then that account (or accounts) are flagged and monitored. This behavior continues, and blammo, they're put on a list in which the account cannot interact with other flagged provinces in any way. This would be devastating to farms and multis. Furthermore, this would allow the whitelist to exist for legitimate players.

As far as authentication, it's pretty freaking simple. While you cannot, and should not be expected to ID each and every person as being a legitimate player, you can have people make it obvious that they are two different people who are looking to play. It's all very simple really, people tend to have long and relatively common cyber footprints. For example, my handle "warfrogs." I've used it for quite a while. For example, (reddit.com/user/warfrogs) there is my reddit profile (can't post a link due to account age) and (reddit.com/r/Utopiagame/comments/n3bb4/proof_of_self/) there is my post establishing my identity.

Most, not all, people have long standing cyber presences that can be tied to ONE person and can be authenticated via a message like mine. Why wouldn't this be sufficient to get put onto a whitelist? Most cheaters would not be willing to create a profile, a bunch of fake friends, comments, etc. in order to multi, they'd probably just VPN. True, there would still be abuse, but it would cut down on your legwork quite a lot, allow the whitelist to continue as it truly is needed in the game, and would cut down on cheaters.

I'd love to get a real response on this, I've yet to see a good one which is more than a little disheartening. I feel like I might as well be using the White House petition site to ask about marijuana legalization. The only answer is no answer at all.

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Username and password is ID confirmation in banking, unless you provided your access info to another person, regardless it is still only accessing one account without reason to monitor same IP logins, the analogy does not apply to 2 account interaction like we are discussing here in gaming. Additionally, I review reports of suspicious login activity on online banking daily, people who fall outside of their normal login routines get contacted for confirmation of actions, this would not be plausible in gaming. Furthermore, like I previously stated, online banking and automated activity have federally regulated restrictions for ALL users to prevent fraud (google Reg D), kind of similar to how we now have a server wide restriction on same IP interaction to prevent cheating. That, if any, is the only analogy that could apply here.

As for your suggestion, it again presents a problem of heavy monitoring by support, which is not sustainable and not an efficient use of time and resources. While they spend all day trying to identify legitimate logins and interactions, cheating remains rampant and too much to handle without proactive automation. Your 'cyber footprint' just doesn't make any sense, because there is no possible distinction between one person at one location logging into 2 accounts, and 2 people at one location logging into 2 accounts.

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Originally Posted by Joker1975

And here lies the problem with this net. Basically what Bishop and the devs are saying is that "Whitelisted" players were abusing the system and the system also allowed people to "legally" cheat. Similar to what some people here have said about pay to play with the sitting option you have.

So to sum everything up that Bishop and the devs are saying, whitelisted people do not make up the majority or even a big enough percentage of the base players on utopia so they will no longer allow whitelisting. In order to eliminate this form of cheating we are putting in a system that will stop whitelisted players from interacting with each other. If you were not cheating, sorry about your luck but at the end of the day the integrity of the game is more important than the 5% (based off the 337 players whitelisted in the past 30 days) of the players we may potential lose.

There isn't an argument you can use to change their minds because they aren't going to listen. The change is here to stay. They are telling everyone in utopia they are doing something about the cheating problem. It doesn't matter if they catch someone or really stop someone from cheating, this is a method they say will stop cheating so they are doing what they said they would. One of the biggest complaints a large portion of utopia players have had for years is multies using farms and intel provinces. (not that any of this was done before whitelisting) And if they catch someone in this net, all the better.

Bishop has labeled most cheaters as lazy and won't try to circumvent the system, cheaters will give up their cheating ways since they now have to work for it. Most criminals do not plan out their crimes, they simply act on a perceived weakness of their victim or are driven by desperation and act without much thought.

There is apparently some system information they have been tracking on the whitelisted players that suggests a majority of them are xlogging for their whitelisted partner. They can't reveal that information to you or me since it may implicate them in some type of monitoring device they have placed in the cookies or whatever they used to track the whitelisted players.

So to the whitelisted players that were following the rules and only playing your province, you can thank those players that weren't for these countermeasures that the devs and Bishop have implemented.

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Joker, I've been playing since mid-2002 I think and trust me, complaints about multis have been going on since then and that was WELL before the whitelist was established. They're just reverting to a system that had just as many issues as the current one, and truth be told, the old system was unjust and thus done away with. If the devs want to repeat the mistakes that others have made, that's fine, but it's a bad idea and will lead to further hemorrhaging of their existing player base. It's pretty simple: I'd rather see 100 cheaters get away with it than 100 innocent players get hit by this foolish idea. I wish the devs would think that way too.

The ratio is nowhere close to 1:1

DHaran, I'm more than aware of Reg D. The electronic transfer of funds from non-transaction accounts has very little to do with what you're talking about. Furthermore, even the regulation you're citing has an exception that allows customers to do as they want. If an individual violates Reg D, they are not refused the transaction but instead are (generally) charged an excess activity fee, and then pursuant to Reg D if the behavior continues to occur (as in 3 times within, I believe, 6 months) the account is converted to a transaction (checking) account.

Per your argument that using regular expressions to automatically sort and flag accounts being too labor intensive, then that means the programmers are not very well versed in automation. It's a pretty simple string match and difference query that can be automated.

My point on the cyber footprint was that would be one way to access the whitelist. If there were 337 people active on it last month, and it took maybe 2 minutes to verify each person, that means roughly 11 hours required to verify all individuals. I doubt that all 337 people became active in only the last month, but instead was a slow trickle. It's really not that hard.

Further in my post, I stated that the key to the entire thing was CONSISTENCY. I have friends come over and we'll both play Team Fortress 2. However, when they go home, they still play Team Fortress 2. This creates an easily identifiable history of where they've logged in from. If they're logging into the same account from two places you have an obvious multi (which is where the cyber footprint gets involved), whereas if you have the same IP logging in over and over again on the same accounts at the same spot at the same times consistently, you have an obvious multi.

My point is that the system that is now implemented is stupid. I'm trying to offer a viable and actual scalable alternative. If you played Uto prior to the whitelist, you know that the addition of it did not change the game that much in terms of cheating. Cheaters have and will continue to find ways of bypassing systems. It's better to serve your player base than alienate them. Right now, you have nearly 600 some posts decrying the decision (I'm taking out some due to mod posts); is this really wise?

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Originally Posted by DHaran

The ratio is nowhere close to 1:1

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I'd love to know the actual ratio. A lot is being claimed but there are no solid numbers, facts, or figures (minus the 300 some number stated for whitelisters) and that makes the entire argument null. I'll make my point far more clear. I'd rather see 50 guilty parties walk free than see even 2 people punished unjustly.

They are not being punished, playing from the same IP is a privilege that never existed in the majority of Utopia's existence. At least now legitimate couples are allowed to play Utopia simultaneously, and even together if they can work around the interaction issues. Keep in mind the system is still being looked at, and it's current form is not set in stone.

Just an FYI to those wondering where this conversation went... Dharan and I are still chatting it out in IRC. I'll post the log whenever I get bored with the conversation. Come to #tactics if you're curious.

<warfrogs> is there a better channel for this? looks like a busy place, don't wanna clog the tubes
<&DHaran> you are right tho, cheaters will still be cheating, but keep in mind the heavy majority of cheaters are just plain bad at it
<&DHaran> the ones avoiding detection are doing so already
<&DHaran> nah this is as good as any
<warfrogs> alright
<&DHaran> nobody was talking anyway
<warfrogs> I dunno, I was trying to pull up my OLDEST forum post from utopiatemple and I found one in 2003... I figure I started playing in 02 or such, well before the whitelist was implemented
<warfrogs> it's the same system
<warfrogs> but instead of banning interactions, you just got b7'd
<warfrogs> it was terribly flawed
<warfrogs> out of curiosity, about what % of people ont he whitelist are abusing it?
<&DHaran> a reactive cheat system is flawed as well tho
<&DHaran> you simply cant keep up
<warfrogs> somewhat
<&DHaran> there would be no way to know that %
<&DHaran> anyone on it could be, thats the essence of a whitelist, they get free passes
<warfrogs> an automated script that crawls the whitelist, detecting the behavior patterns I'm talking about would make it FAR easier to moderate it
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<warfrogs> okay, well let's go on this
<warfrogs> a successful province will log in at least 2 times a day, probably more than that right?
<&DHaran> on average id say twice a day is normal ya
<warfrogs> okay, so if we figure that true whitelisted players are probably not going to be able to log in at the same place at the same time (in the case of adults) because of work and such
<warfrogs> and most top players are not kids (12-14)
<warfrogs> we can say that those players who are on the whitelist who consistently log in at the same time
<warfrogs> from the same location
<warfrogs> are most likely multis
<warfrogs> granted, kids and such (siblings) this might be an exception, but i'm looking big picture
<warfrogs> a reg ex that trawls login data, looking for similar logins over a longer period of time (say 3 months) and has greater than 30% of logins occuring at the same IP address at the same time is most likely a multi
<warfrogs> i'm guessing this is probably similar to the pattern that is being used now
<warfrogs> that IP would be flagged for review
<warfrogs> a cursory review of account activity should be pretty easy to spot, and as you said, most of those cheaters on the whitelist are pretty stupid
<&Wannes> "at least twice a day" -_-
<&Wannes> wtf
<&DHaran> manual review is counterproductive
<warfrogs> so they'd likely have similar logins, leader names, etc and would have far more activity from one account on social aspects than another
<&DHaran> thats exactly the problem
<warfrogs> I don't disagree
<&DHaran> the whitelist maintenance is just too much
<warfrogs> I'm trying to minimize that
<warfrogs> I'm saying whitelist most
<warfrogs> if they hit that barrier, of like i said 20% logins or whatnot, then they are added to the non-interaction list
<&DHaran> if a kd wars often their provs would have more interaction than whoring kds, thats just too broad a system to monitor provs
<warfrogs> i'm not talking about provinces though
<warfrogs> i mean an account level set up
<warfrogs> hm... trying to figure out how to diagram this in text
<warfrogs> okay... I'm going to come at it from an object oriented programming angle because that's where i have experience
<warfrogs> okay
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<warfrogs> so.... we'll say Object A is the IP, Object B is my account, Object C is your account...
<warfrogs> So... Object A is variable while B and C are fixed
<warfrogs> If item (A,B) is equivalent to (A,C) in the set, it is noted... because that means that both are identical... same IP is logging into two accounts
<warfrogs> however
<warfrogs> if A,B differs regularly from A,C, then it is most likely not a multi and thus waived
<warfrogs> so... given the first set
<warfrogs> where it is indeed a multi
<warfrogs> it then is automatically transferred to the non-interaction list
<Ella> and seksd hard
<warfrogs> lol
<warfrogs> i'm just saying that the whitelist can still exist
<warfrogs> and the methodology to get rid of cheaters that are stupid enough to try to use the whitelist is pretty simple to implement
<warfrogs> it just doesn't make sense to me to have a specific problem that evidently the devs have a method to identify cannot be solved by an exclusive non-interaction list
<&DHaran> i dunno
<&DHaran> i could easily get myself whitelisted with 3 IP accesses, work home and phone, have 2 accounts and never get touched
<warfrogs> absolutely
<&DHaran> i just dont see it being plausible to identify consistently who is loggin what
<warfrogs> but how great of a province would you be able to carry unless you were consistently driving/travelling between them all?
<warfrogs> it's not plausible to do it manually
<warfrogs> but using an automated regex to troll the list once every few weeks? easy
* arcticdem is now known as arctic|afk
<warfrogs> a few million lines in the database could be parsed within an hour or two on a ****ty system
<warfrogs> and I totally agree Dharan, cheaters will still find a way to cheat... I'm saying if we're talking about a fraction of a few hundred players, and they CAN be identified? Well, make a better mousetrap, don't just step on the cheese.
<warfrogs> Terrible metaphor, but I think it makes sense.
<&DHaran> doesnt need to be a great prov to get me intel :P
<warfrogs> haha that's true, but then you're paying for 3 AP's... and at that point, a cheater that dedicated would probably just VPN to another box
<&DHaran> I can't really comment on how it would be able to work coding wise, cuz I just don't know **** about coding
<&DHaran> the application process itself is a lot of work, probably bishop's biggest pain in the ass the last several months
<&DHaran> application to whitelist I mean
<warfrogs> I know a little bit... enough to know that it is feasible to have an exclusive whitelist in which entering the whitelist causes more monitoring (automated of course) and hell, just tell people that they have to be aware of X, Y, and Z and that they may hit the limit
<warfrogs> oh absolutely
<warfrogs> and hell
<warfrogs> I feel for that.
<warfrogs> I used to run a piracy hub in college that people had to apply to get access to
<warfrogs> hell
<warfrogs> he could make it a lot easier
<&DHaran> But if you set a limit like that, it just lets cheaters know "you can only xlog this much before you get caught" which i think is what they want to avoid
<warfrogs> you get caught multi-ing on the whitelist, permanent banhammer
<warfrogs> you don't state the amount
<warfrogs> "significant"
<&DHaran> just like the people asking for it be removed during war, well that just encourages xlogging during war lol
<warfrogs> haha that's true
<warfrogs> I think of it like anti-virus
<warfrogs> cuz really, that's what it is
<warfrogs> some stuff will still get through
<&DHaran> believe me i see both sides, the forum ppl raging think i dont, but i do
<&DHaran> ive played with couple before
<warfrogs> nah, I get it... I'm trying to figure out a viable alternative
<warfrogs> because really, I know where Bishop's coming from, it's a pain in the ass
<warfrogs> but to make it scalable, the big wall is not a solution
<&DHaran> the whitelist was a bad idea to begin with, it just opened a can of worms thats pretty difficult to manage now
<warfrogs> it wasn't when there were a ton more players than there are now, and it will continue to be problematic as it isn't hitting the focused cheaters, but instead people in these situations
<warfrogs> it was and it wasn't
<warfrogs> i think in a heavily social game like uto it's necessary
<warfrogs> but it had terrible implementation
<&DHaran> you have to also factor in the devs are planning a game around a larger player base than we have now
<warfrogs> oh no, trust me, i know... when i got involved i'd say there was easily 10k+ players
<&DHaran> right NOW the whitelist isn't very large (respectively) but down the road it could be
<&DHaran> making management that much harder
<warfrogs> and that's why i'd say the whitelist could have very strict banhammer rules
<warfrogs> like
<warfrogs> okay
<warfrogs> here's the way I figure it
<warfrogs> you can easily get on the list
<warfrogs> the problem is staying there
<warfrogs> if suspicious activity arises you can be taken off at any time
<warfrogs> if the suspicious activity is repeated, you can be banned
<warfrogs> it's pretty simple
<warfrogs> as in the same IP gets busted more than once for whitelist abuse
<warfrogs> (sidenote: this isn't a fully formulated thought, it was kind of a beginning... this is more brainstorming for me)
<&DHaran> i just cant make myself picture any way to determine normal activity and abuse, theres just a huge gray area right smack in the middle
<&DHaran> a spike in interaction and activity during a war, and they get flagged
<&DHaran> who is to say it isnt legitimate
<warfrogs> that was why i figured if more than even 60% of logins hit the criteria within a reasonable standard deviation, it can be considered multi-ing
<&DHaran> then you get complaints similar to now
<warfrogs> count the logins like uniques are counted rather than attacks (herp-derp)
<warfrogs> eliminates the war activity issue
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<warfrogs> I dunno, I'm a big fan of crowdsourcing... it tends to bring out ideas that might not otherwise be considered...
<warfrogs> that's why i figured i'd at least put forward another option

Conversation kinda petered out here. Both of us are pretty tired. NN DHaran, thanks for the chat, I'll harass Bishop sometime later.

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

Joker, I've been playing since mid-2002 I think and trust me, complaints about multis have been going on since then and that was WELL before the whitelist was established. They're just reverting to a system that had just as many issues as the current one, and truth be told, the old system was unjust and thus done away with. If the devs want to repeat the mistakes that others have made, that's fine, but it's a bad idea and will lead to further hemorrhaging of their existing player base. It's pretty simple: I'd rather see 100 cheaters get away with it than 100 innocent players get hit by this foolish idea. I wish the devs would think that way too.

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warfrogs-I have played the game since the first age. I'm thinking 1998-9ish. It has been so long I can't remember when it actually started. I quit playing a couple of years ago cause I got burnt out. I was tired of getting up at 3am to make an attack and planning my life around a game. Then a few months ago I find out that I can now play the game with my daughter from my house, all I have to do is whitelist our accounts. So I bounced around trying to find an empty KD or a decent KD that I could take over. Found one and started the process of building a KD that I figured would be regulars in the top 50. Spent some cash to get players quicker since the 7 invites you get are way to spread out and I was kicking and losing players as fast as I could recruit them. I had the KD up to 22-23 players looking for that other 2-3 that would fill the KD. Then this happened.

I'm very disappointed in the way the games devs and whoever else was involved in implementation of this new anti cheat system. The entire thing was handled very poorly from all angles. Bishop and others have said we were told this was going to happen. As the monarch of the KD I read all messages that are sent to my province. Not one message was ever sent to my box from Utopia. I read all emails sent to my home email that I used for my account and not one email concerning this change. Then the devs and planners implement a change mid age and while we were at war with another KD. There was absolutely no way for me to plan around this new system. This system took me out of the war and I was still getting hit since I was being chained. I had no province from the other KD to hit since my daughter was playing T/M. Basically I was meat.

So, I give up. I love playing the game but I'm not going to be treated with any less respect than another player because I was whitelisted. DHaran says that I didn't think about his feelings or the other mods here in these forums, well that kind of comes with customer service when your management makes a bad decision. Most of the comments from the mods in this have been polite but don't address the issue and no one has ever apologized to me or my daughter for the the lack of respect towards us.

There is no way for me to express how angry I was at the way this was handled. If you are going to make a change of this magnitude it must be done at the start of the age. The people that are going to be impacted by this new system need to be informed via email or in game message to make sure they know the program they have been playing under is no longer going to be used. Posting something in these forums is not a good way to communicate with the players in the game. I would venture to say that 70-80% of the people that play utopia don't come here except when there is a problem or beginning of the age for the changes that are going to take place.

I didn't even bother to read this whole thread. this is the most dysfunctional thing I've ever come about in utopia. Personally I'm not affected, but I'm running the wars in my kd, and suddenly, in the middle of our war that has gone for several days, some of our provs can't hit the enemy because the live in the same area, which none of us knew, and then suddenly, more and more are affected and can't hit the same kd because they live in the same neighborhood and for some reason ended up with the same proxy (whatever that is. I don't care about computers or computer stuff). fix this or this will be the end of the game for my part, cause I don't want some stupid thing like this to screw up a war we worked hard to turn in our advantage. seriously...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

Just an FYI to those wondering where this conversation went... Dharan and I are still chatting it out in IRC. I'll post the log whenever I get bored with the conversation. Come to #tactics if you're curious.

<warfrogs> is there a better channel for this? looks like a busy place, don't wanna clog the tubes
<&DHaran> you are right tho, cheaters will still be cheating, but keep in mind the heavy majority of cheaters are just plain bad at it
<&DHaran> the ones avoiding detection are doing so already
<&DHaran> nah this is as good as any
<warfrogs> alright
<&DHaran> nobody was talking anyway
<warfrogs> I dunno, I was trying to pull up my OLDEST forum post from utopiatemple and I found one in 2003... I figure I started playing in 02 or such, well before the whitelist was implemented
<warfrogs> it's the same system
<warfrogs> but instead of banning interactions, you just got b7'd
<warfrogs> it was terribly flawed
<warfrogs> out of curiosity, about what % of people ont he whitelist are abusing it?
<&DHaran> a reactive cheat system is flawed as well tho
<&DHaran> you simply cant keep up
<warfrogs> somewhat
<&DHaran> there would be no way to know that %
<&DHaran> anyone on it could be, thats the essence of a whitelist, they get free passes
<warfrogs> an automated script that crawls the whitelist, detecting the behavior patterns I'm talking about would make it FAR easier to moderate it
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<warfrogs> okay, well let's go on this
<warfrogs> a successful province will log in at least 2 times a day, probably more than that right?
<&DHaran> on average id say twice a day is normal ya
<warfrogs> okay, so if we figure that true whitelisted players are probably not going to be able to log in at the same place at the same time (in the case of adults) because of work and such
<warfrogs> and most top players are not kids (12-14)
<warfrogs> we can say that those players who are on the whitelist who consistently log in at the same time
<warfrogs> from the same location
<warfrogs> are most likely multis
<warfrogs> granted, kids and such (siblings) this might be an exception, but i'm looking big picture
<warfrogs> a reg ex that trawls login data, looking for similar logins over a longer period of time (say 3 months) and has greater than 30% of logins occuring at the same IP address at the same time is most likely a multi
<warfrogs> i'm guessing this is probably similar to the pattern that is being used now
<warfrogs> that IP would be flagged for review
<warfrogs> a cursory review of account activity should be pretty easy to spot, and as you said, most of those cheaters on the whitelist are pretty stupid
<&Wannes> "at least twice a day" -_-
<&Wannes> wtf
<&DHaran> manual review is counterproductive
<warfrogs> so they'd likely have similar logins, leader names, etc and would have far more activity from one account on social aspects than another
<&DHaran> thats exactly the problem
<warfrogs> I don't disagree
<&DHaran> the whitelist maintenance is just too much
<warfrogs> I'm trying to minimize that
<warfrogs> I'm saying whitelist most
<warfrogs> if they hit that barrier, of like i said 20% logins or whatnot, then they are added to the non-interaction list
<&DHaran> if a kd wars often their provs would have more interaction than whoring kds, thats just too broad a system to monitor provs
<warfrogs> i'm not talking about provinces though
<warfrogs> i mean an account level set up
<warfrogs> hm... trying to figure out how to diagram this in text
<warfrogs> okay... I'm going to come at it from an object oriented programming angle because that's where i have experience
<warfrogs> okay
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<warfrogs> so.... we'll say Object A is the IP, Object B is my account, Object C is your account...
<warfrogs> So... Object A is variable while B and C are fixed
<warfrogs> If item (A,B) is equivalent to (A,C) in the set, it is noted... because that means that both are identical... same IP is logging into two accounts
<warfrogs> however
<warfrogs> if A,B differs regularly from A,C, then it is most likely not a multi and thus waived
<warfrogs> so... given the first set
<warfrogs> where it is indeed a multi
<warfrogs> it then is automatically transferred to the non-interaction list
<Ella> and seksd hard
<warfrogs> lol
<warfrogs> i'm just saying that the whitelist can still exist
<warfrogs> and the methodology to get rid of cheaters that are stupid enough to try to use the whitelist is pretty simple to implement
<warfrogs> it just doesn't make sense to me to have a specific problem that evidently the devs have a method to identify cannot be solved by an exclusive non-interaction list
<&DHaran> i dunno
<&DHaran> i could easily get myself whitelisted with 3 IP accesses, work home and phone, have 2 accounts and never get touched
<warfrogs> absolutely
<&DHaran> i just dont see it being plausible to identify consistently who is loggin what
<warfrogs> but how great of a province would you be able to carry unless you were consistently driving/travelling between them all?
<warfrogs> it's not plausible to do it manually
<warfrogs> but using an automated regex to troll the list once every few weeks? easy
* arcticdem is now known as arctic|afk
<warfrogs> a few million lines in the database could be parsed within an hour or two on a ****ty system
<warfrogs> and I totally agree Dharan, cheaters will still find a way to cheat... I'm saying if we're talking about a fraction of a few hundred players, and they CAN be identified? Well, make a better mousetrap, don't just step on the cheese.
<warfrogs> Terrible metaphor, but I think it makes sense.
<&DHaran> doesnt need to be a great prov to get me intel :P
<warfrogs> haha that's true, but then you're paying for 3 AP's... and at that point, a cheater that dedicated would probably just VPN to another box
<&DHaran> I can't really comment on how it would be able to work coding wise, cuz I just don't know **** about coding
<&DHaran> the application process itself is a lot of work, probably bishop's biggest pain in the ass the last several months
<&DHaran> application to whitelist I mean
<warfrogs> I know a little bit... enough to know that it is feasible to have an exclusive whitelist in which entering the whitelist causes more monitoring (automated of course) and hell, just tell people that they have to be aware of X, Y, and Z and that they may hit the limit
<warfrogs> oh absolutely
<warfrogs> and hell
<warfrogs> I feel for that.
<warfrogs> I used to run a piracy hub in college that people had to apply to get access to
<warfrogs> hell
<warfrogs> he could make it a lot easier
<&DHaran> But if you set a limit like that, it just lets cheaters know "you can only xlog this much before you get caught" which i think is what they want to avoid
<warfrogs> you get caught multi-ing on the whitelist, permanent banhammer
<warfrogs> you don't state the amount
<warfrogs> "significant"
<&DHaran> just like the people asking for it be removed during war, well that just encourages xlogging during war lol
<warfrogs> haha that's true
<warfrogs> I think of it like anti-virus
<warfrogs> cuz really, that's what it is
<warfrogs> some stuff will still get through
<&DHaran> believe me i see both sides, the forum ppl raging think i dont, but i do
<&DHaran> ive played with couple before
<warfrogs> nah, I get it... I'm trying to figure out a viable alternative
<warfrogs> because really, I know where Bishop's coming from, it's a pain in the ass
<warfrogs> but to make it scalable, the big wall is not a solution
<&DHaran> the whitelist was a bad idea to begin with, it just opened a can of worms thats pretty difficult to manage now
<warfrogs> it wasn't when there were a ton more players than there are now, and it will continue to be problematic as it isn't hitting the focused cheaters, but instead people in these situations
<warfrogs> it was and it wasn't
<warfrogs> i think in a heavily social game like uto it's necessary
<warfrogs> but it had terrible implementation
<&DHaran> you have to also factor in the devs are planning a game around a larger player base than we have now
<warfrogs> oh no, trust me, i know... when i got involved i'd say there was easily 10k+ players
<&DHaran> right NOW the whitelist isn't very large (respectively) but down the road it could be
<&DHaran> making management that much harder
<warfrogs> and that's why i'd say the whitelist could have very strict banhammer rules
<warfrogs> like
<warfrogs> okay
<warfrogs> here's the way I figure it
<warfrogs> you can easily get on the list
<warfrogs> the problem is staying there
<warfrogs> if suspicious activity arises you can be taken off at any time
<warfrogs> if the suspicious activity is repeated, you can be banned
<warfrogs> it's pretty simple
<warfrogs> as in the same IP gets busted more than once for whitelist abuse
<warfrogs> (sidenote: this isn't a fully formulated thought, it was kind of a beginning... this is more brainstorming for me)
<&DHaran> i just cant make myself picture any way to determine normal activity and abuse, theres just a huge gray area right smack in the middle
<&DHaran> a spike in interaction and activity during a war, and they get flagged
<&DHaran> who is to say it isnt legitimate
<warfrogs> that was why i figured if more than even 60% of logins hit the criteria within a reasonable standard deviation, it can be considered multi-ing
<&DHaran> then you get complaints similar to now
<warfrogs> count the logins like uniques are counted rather than attacks (herp-derp)
<warfrogs> eliminates the war activity issue
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<warfrogs> I dunno, I'm a big fan of crowdsourcing... it tends to bring out ideas that might not otherwise be considered...
<warfrogs> that's why i figured i'd at least put forward another option

Conversation kinda petered out here. Both of us are pretty tired. NN DHaran, thanks for the chat, I'll harass Bishop sometime later.

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I hate to agree with Dharan here but he's right. A lot of people wake up and log for wave dates. Under your system every single "whitelisted" prov will be flagged if they come online for a wave date and we'll get even bigger complaints than now

In response to Joker's post 617, I can understand your anger. I am so angry over the way this change and the discussion on it has been handeled I am leaving the game over it.

During the discussion several of us brought up a topic we felt was quite releveant to the discussion. Without addressing why thats not the case a moderator just declared that subject off topic. I made the mistake of disagreeing, which granted I likely should have done by pm instead of in the thread and got a 24 hour ban. My monarch tracked down the mod who reviewed the posts and told my monarch he would reverse the ban. I take the mod at his word that he did, unfortunately something apparently didnt work, as I was still banned from the forum for the full 24 hours (yes I logged out and back in, still banned) so not only could I not participate in discussion of an issue that mattered a great deal to me, I couldn't even see how the discussion was going.

Once I could return discussion had moved on and a player brings up a topic. A moderator responds post 551 and while I am composing a response to the moderators post on that topic post 555, bishop was posting that subject also off topic, so my response is entered as post 556 although I hadn't seen the post from the mod putting that subject off topic. So now apparently that subject is off topic for me and I have been threatened with another ban if I post on it, Yet the moderator I was responding to and other players continue to go on with the same topic (see posts 567, 563, 565, 567, 592, 596, 600, 604, 607, 608).

Am I a bit miffed? You bet.

Happy to see that at least it is beginning to look like the moderators, and hopefully the developers are at least considering some modifications to the policy to minimize the damage it will do to legit players. Had they tossed us a bone in that direction a few days back likely some of us wouldn't be leaving as thats pretty much what we were asking for in the first place is a bit of consideration instead of being treated like pond scum.

I was trying to attack today and yeah, this new stupid proxy block prevented me from attacking. Currently in war and 3 day restriction on main targets. WTF, do you guys want people to quit!!!!! I am using a public proxy and still getting block. Seriously, if most people that dont cheat get hit by this system then there is something wrong with it. You want to prevent more people from playing Utopia!!!! Do you want end this game's life?????

In addition, your plan of punishment is 3 day block in attacking. WTF, cheaters are hardly getting punished at all. But what about the people wrongly get flagged. They cant play the game normally and suffer as consequence. Utopia already shrink fanbase over the years and this doesnt help at all. If this is not removed I probably quit by end of the age.

Internet Proxies and Anonymizers

You are expected to access the site from the IP addresses assigned to you normally by your Internet Service Provider.

If you access the site via a proxy server, anonymizing network or any anonymizing software, you will be considered to be in violation of the Code of Conduct.

If you have no choice but to use proxy servers made compulsory by your Internet Service Provider, country or corporation, you must provide details and supporting evidence to the operators of the game before continuing to use the game. Exceptions may be made at the sole discretion of the operators of the game, and may be revoked at any time without notice.

This still valid?

Games are meant to be fun!!!! This will affect internet usage. If you can just do that why not just start charging taxes and have policeman stay in front my house and check if no one else use my account or I dont use anyone else's account.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bishop

There are 337 accounts on the whitelist that signed in during the last 30 days.

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in how many kingdoms?

No idea dreaku

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NireofErin

I was trying to attack today and yeah, this new stupid proxy block prevented me from attacking. Currently in war and 3 day restriction on main targets. WTF, do you guys want people to quit!!!!! I am using a public proxy and still getting block. Seriously, if most people that dont cheat get hit by this system then there is something wrong with it. You want to prevent more people from playing Utopia!!!! Do you want end this game's life?????

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You shouldn't be using a proxy.

Warfrogs: What you propose has no validation of the user that is accessing the account.

Joker: there was a message on your throne room for a month.

bishop, i play utopia via ipad. there is several times i got block by the anti cheat detector when i want to make an attack and the address pop up is always the same address which is "Kulai Johor". since it happen a few times already, am i going to be deleted in the future? i can reassure u that i dont play cheat.

hmm how? im a bit worried. should i do something like report to the admin or i just ignore it? thanks bishop.

xoxo
fariz the magnificent.

Fariz, if you get blocked its because of an IP interaction - the message shows you the address you are using.

oh thank you bishop. u are so informative. +1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Joker: there was a message on your throne room for a month.

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You do know there is a thing call "Utools" that disables those messages? Why wasn't there a mass message sent?

Whatever...

That's something you should take up with Angelus

It's not even an Angelus issue, because it's an optional feature. I don't see how a mass message is better than a month-long announcement link. Just as many people would have probably ignored the message.

Joker1975

Alot of this is on yourself cause you didnt keep yourself updated on whats happening in Utopia. They didnt post it in the forums they used the blog and everyone thats interested in whats happening Utopia should visit that at times, it was probably up on your throne page as well for some time.

The forum whitelisting announcement thread was also updated stating that the whitelist would soon be removed. That was announced Oct 24.

"Soon" :))

Bishop, you are 100% correct, it would not block every single person who is attempting to multi who is on the whitelist. However, it would catch a great number of people with minimal interaction from staff. My point is that you're not going to catch high level cheaters with this, but instead low to mid-level people and are sweeping up a whole segment of legitimate players in that move. I'm trying to propose a system that will both cut out those low/mid-level cheats while still allowing regular players to play.

If you think IP filtering like this is going to block all multis and farms, you're crazy. It didn't work for Mehul when the game was much, much larger, and it won't work now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by warfrogs

Bishop, you are 100% correct, it would not block every single person who is attempting to multi who is on the whitelist. However, it would catch a great number of people with minimal interaction from staff. My point is that you're not going to catch high level cheaters with this, but instead low to mid-level people and are sweeping up a whole segment of legitimate players in that move. I'm trying to propose a system that will both cut out those low/mid-level cheats while still allowing regular players to play.

If you think IP filtering like this is going to block all multis and farms, you're crazy. It didn't work for Mehul when the game was much, much larger, and it won't work now.

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Mehul didn't have any filter like this so i dont really follow your point.

The method you propose will not have any influence on the people that logged their partners account at all. The method we introduced is impacting 3% of the player base right now - what do you think the chances are that the 3% affected are all people who were whitelisted.

95%

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Korp

Joker1975

Alot of this is on yourself cause you didnt keep yourself updated on whats happening in Utopia. They didnt post it in the forums they used the blog and everyone thats interested in whats happening Utopia should visit that at times, it was probably up on your throne page as well for some time.

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Korp, it wouldn't have mattered if I read the throne page or not. I would never expect a change of this magnitude to be implemented mid age. How many times in your experience has this game made a change this big in the middle of the age? In the years leading up to when I quit the first time, I can tell you no change like this was ever done in the middle of the age. Any change like this was done at the start of the age to get the bugs worked out before the game got to far into the age.

As for keeping updated with what is happening in utopia, I could care less beyond my kingdom. What the top ten kd's are doing and who they are waring with is boring to me. Almost all of the guys and gals that I knew from my previous time in the game are gone. Coming to these forums is a waste of my time. Saying anything against this measure is also proving to be a waste of time so it solidifies my feelings on coming to this forum.

However, I would have read a mass message sent to my account since that "might" be important. When I look at the message from utopia when it isn't blocked by utools it is 90% BS that is a waste of time for me to scroll past.

DHaran--if I'm already whitelisted what reason would I have to go back to that thread? When I signed up there wasn't any reason to go back there, I was whitelisted. Then add in the fact that you say the message said, "Soon." What is soon? Soon could be tomorrow, a week, a month or 2 months. If there is no time frame announced the message in essence is pointless because you don't give a time or date. In this case "soon" was about a month.

That's like saying "I chose Dwarf for +30% BE 10 ages ago, why would I ever check back for a change?"

soon everyone will give up whining and realise that their posts are/were in vain and to just sort their own situation out i hope

The flaming rage posts were in vain yes, the thought out intelligent and productive ones have already inspired some discussion about tweaking the system. You guys should take note of how warfrogs presents ideas, even though people didn't necessarily think they were good solutions, he approached it better than most others did in this thread and at least opened a proper discussion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joker1975

Korp, it wouldn't have mattered if I read the throne page or not. I would never expect a change of this magnitude to be implemented mid age.

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It clearly said it would be mid age.