New Anticheat Measure Going Live Today

[FinalFantasyWorld]

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.

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

[watchman]

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.

[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?????

[NireofErin]

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.

[Scavenger]

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?

[NireofErin]

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.

[dreaku]

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

in how many kingdoms?

[Bishop]

No idea dreaku

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?????

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.

[fariz]

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.

[Bishop]

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

[fariz]

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

[Joker1975]

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

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

Whatever...

[Palem]

That's something you should take up with Angelus

[DHaran]

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.

[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.