How would you catch this? (attn: xontas)

[Jester]

Originally Posted by xontas

if you want to talk about MH tactics, you need a new tread

this one is about the settings people!!!!!!!!

I would've replied in the other thread, but apparantly it would have been off-topic.

Say I would like to cheat.

I would like to multi. And I would like to account share.

The first thing I do is register an extra P account. I then establish an inner circle of trustees. These are the people who will have access to my accounts. I only give access to the people I trust not to be shit (ie not recall my fleets, abuse my fleets and to recall fleets they've used when they're no longer needed etc). With the help of my inner circle I vouch my extra persona into my alliance.

I then establish a remote machine running ssh. This machine and my local machine (which also runs ssh) both have reasonably stable IP addresses, are always active and have services such as no-ip to keep them available to the inner circle.

I then use ssh to access each machine as a dynamic proxy. Whenever anyone accesses either of my accounts, they do so via the dynamic proxies. I even set up a simple webpage that reports my current account details (username/password), and maybe even some rudimentary status details, but only to people connecting from the right IP (that is, the dynamic proxies). Dynamic proxies are (afaik) 'untracable'. And ssh is a completely valid service to have running (I've got it running at home without ever having used it for any nefarious purpose), just like vnc.

My accounts won't have matching activity periods - I'm active enough that one will probably lull when the other has something to do. In addition, the account sharing means this will be further muddled.

So, I put it to you xontas: How would the new exception system improve upon your ability to tackle this hypothetical situation? And would you be able to catch someone using this or a similar setup?

[ChubbyChecker]

I thought this was going to be a thread about syphillis.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

I thought this was going to be a thread about syphillis.

I hear it used to be very cool to have syphillis. Unortunately we have penicillin to make it uncool now

[bwtmc]

I wonder who's going to influence the round more, me and a housemate i'd like to convince to play a game with me for a couple months, the guy i'd probably like to defend a few times a week. The kind of player that depends on support from friends (the playerbase is predominately 18-25 year olds, commonly playing on public networks) before he finds himself a suitable alliance. & with no past experience, that'll take some time and a test of time on his part, whether he wants to play with friends, that, he can't play with.

Or veteran'ed players who consistently cheat and fully intend to abuse the game within the wide boundaries of safety in order to pursue their goals immorally as explained above.

It's almost like the focus of attention here is completely misplaced.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by bwtmc

The focus of attention here is completely misplaced.

Fixed that one for you.

[bwtmc]

Heh, I'll leave the sarcasm at the door next time.

[Desse]

I think we should all do as jester suggested.

Benefits:

Huge increase in numbers of planets in the universe.
More income for Jolt.
Everyone on an even footing with the already playing cheaters.
Less work for the Multihunters, since they don´t have to investigate as many cases.

[Ramihyn]

What exactly is your motivation with this thread?

Did Xontas claim anywhere that the rules mentioned in the exeption thread make multiing or account sharing impossible?

Your scheme is unnecessarily complicated anyway.

Originally Posted by Jester

So, I put it to you xontas: How would the new exception system improve upon your ability to tackle this hypothetical situation? And would you be able to catch someone using this or a similar setup?

Seriously whats the point of this - do you expect MH's to give you approval about your publicly described cheating scheme now?

Would be fair enough if a mod took you seriously and erased the thread and send your article to xontas (as you obviously just didnt know how to send a board message)

[bwtmc]

The point is that the focus, more than anything of those running the game, should be balancing an element of Fair Play by restriction and making the game fun enough that people are still encouraged to play.

If that can't be achieved, then those restrictions have to change for the community to develop over time, and hopefully for it to bring in new players and retain old ones.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

What exactly is your motivation with this thread?

It would have been a simple reply to the other thread, but xontas specifically asked that he didn't want further discussion on anything but the 5 presented options there. I wanted to know what the multihunters were doing to stop harmful cheaters, as opposed to reasonably harmless cheaters.

Did Xontas claim anywhere that the rules mentioned in the exeption thread make multiing or account sharing impossible?

No. Which is exactly my point.

Your scheme is unnecessarily complicated anyway.

It's a hypothetical, in practice I'm sure it can be simplified. However, I have no experience with cheating so I figured I'd err on the side of safety.

Seriously whats the point of this - do you expect MH's to give you approval about your publicly described cheating scheme now?

No. I expect them to realize that their pitiful little exception system is outdated, useless and harmful.

Would be fair enough if a mod took you seriously and erased the thread and send your article to xontas (as you obviously just didnt know how to send a board message)

Yes, because mods are all about censorship.

Part of the problem with MH is that it's a 'secretive' practice where information needs to be 'withheld' except when talking to the person in question. The best way to get information on how MHs identify cheaters appears to be to cheat, or behave in a fashion that can be construed as cheating*. Unfortunately, this means that the exact people they're trying to hide information from (cheaters) are the ones who are best informed.

I presented a complete hypothetical scenario not to gain approval from xontas, but as a part of a proof by counter-example.

* For example, interacting with someone on the same IP.

[derry]

So, I put it to you xontas: How would the new exception system improve upon your ability to tackle this hypothetical situation? And would you be able to catch someone using this or a similar setup?

it won't thats the fun part, the only thing the new system does it limiting family members to play together

catching (or atleast trying 2 catch real cheaters) won't be done by IP checking, its useless seeing cheaters who know what they are doing won't be on the same ip with their accounts

[Phil^]

what the built-in exception system is, is just an extention of the policy for last round.
Last round people on the same ip were not allowed to interact together at all. If they were investigated and found to be interacting they got closed
this round there is a system in place to enforce the amount of interaction, and its been softened up to allow some but not too much

(deliberately) Trying to confuse it with some magical anti-cheat system is silly

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Trying to confuse it with some magical anti-cheat system is silly

No see, we think it's a magical anti-average player system...

[Phil^]

Btw - theres a reason the personal details of people, and other details about why they are closed arent given out to all and sundry, instead kept until the person involved contacts pateam.

Im sure you can work out why it is.

Its not really that hard...

[cypher]

no offence but people don't get closed really (unless they are non important rank 1500 players....)

no matter how much proof is given... it just doesn't happen... after 13 rounds of pa EVERY player knows that.... so you might aswell allow it atleast we'll have high number of planets then

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Btw - theres a reason the personal details of people, and other details about why they are closed arent given out to all and sundry, instead kept until the person involved contacts pateam.

Im sure you can work out why it is.

Its not really that hard...

Oh I understand why they're not given out on a case-by-case basis. What I don't understand is why all the other relevant information is kept 'secret'.

[Phil^]

partly because of the nda, partly because others 'dont need to know', and partly because thats the way it was while spinner was here

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Phil^

partly because of the nda, partly because others 'dont need to know', and partly because thats the way it was while spinner was here

Unfortunately none of these are good reasons.

[Phil^]

to yourself perhaps not. To pateam and jolt, they appear to be perfectly valid reasons not to give out details of people to others

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Phil^

to yourself perhaps not. To pateam and jolt, they appear to be perfectly valid reasons not to give out details of people to others

Good thing neither of these parties play the game.

Seriously, though, I'm not saying that any private information should be divulged. Perhaps you should go back and reread what I've posted.

[god113]

Originally Posted by Jester

pitiful little exception system is outdated, useless and harmful.

I don't understand why you blame the exception system for not being able to deal with your little scenario. From what I understand, the exception system is to clarify policy on how much accounts from the same IP can interact. There has to be some policy, and there's no reason (that I can think of) to not make it hardcoded into the game.

Surely this isn't the only way they plan to catch cheaters, so I don't see how the exception system makes your scenario any more or less likely to get caught. It's for a different reason, to make sure they have a solid fair system dealing with IP sharing. I dont' see what it has to do with other cheating cases.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by god113

I don't understand why you blame the exception system for not being able to deal with your little scenario.

I don't. I don't think I ever said that I did. However, I think the scenario is somewhat representative for the kind of cheating that is far more damaging to the game than some guy with an extra account to get defense every now and then.

From what I understand, the exception system is to clarify policy on how much accounts from the same IP can interact. There has to be some policy, and there's no reason (that I can think of) to not make it hardcoded into the game.

I agree. I just think the policy is shit.

Surely this isn't the only way they plan to catch cheaters, so I don't see how the exception system makes your scenario any more or less likely to get caught. It's for a different reason, to make sure they have a solid fair system dealing with IP sharing. I dont' see what it has to do with other cheating cases.

The apparant focus of the cheating rules seem to be casual cheaters. Generally I assume this is people who are in alliance where they can't rely on scanners, where defense isn't that common, etc, so they reg an extra planet to handle that. These people are indistinguishable from many legitimate players who know interact in real life, and thus might at some point share IPs online.

So while they're hiding what they're doing about other forms of cheating (which may or may not be 'nothing at all'), they're focusing on making it difficult for legitimate players. The exception system is harmful to PA as a community game. This is bad.

Not having any policy on more advanced cheating techniques is bad as well.

[xontas]

Originally Posted by Jester

I would've replied in the other thread, but apparantly it would have been off-topic.

Say I would like to cheat.

I would like to multi. And I would like to account share.

The first thing I do is register an extra P account. I then establish an inner circle of trustees. These are the people who will have access to my accounts. I only give access to the people I trust not to be shit (ie not recall my fleets, abuse my fleets and to recall fleets they've used when they're no longer needed etc). With the help of my inner circle I vouch my extra persona into my alliance.

I then establish a remote machine running ssh. This machine and my local machine (which also runs ssh) both have reasonably stable IP addresses, are always active and have services such as no-ip to keep them available to the inner circle.

I then use ssh to access each machine as a dynamic proxy. Whenever anyone accesses either of my accounts, they do so via the dynamic proxies. I even set up a simple webpage that reports my current account details (username/password), and maybe even some rudimentary status details, but only to people connecting from the right IP (that is, the dynamic proxies). Dynamic proxies are (afaik) 'untracable'. And ssh is a completely valid service to have running (I've got it running at home without ever having used it for any nefarious purpose), just like vnc.

My accounts won't have matching activity periods - I'm active enough that one will probably lull when the other has something to do. In addition, the account sharing means this will be further muddled.

So, I put it to you xontas: How would the new exception system improve upon your ability to tackle this hypothetical situation? And would you be able to catch someone using this or a similar setup?

sorry for the late responce
missed it

basicly you are asking, :"how do you hunt multi's"
well, we have some tactics
and i am not sharing those tactics with you

the senario you are adressing is a hard one to find and we did improve our tools to find people that do just that

giving you insight on the MH systems, hunt tactics and other MH related stuff would be giving a advantage to cheats
and your post will create more cheats (yes people do read stuff like this to learn how to do it )

[bwtmc]

it's cool don't worry, you've improved your tools to deal with any out-of-date cheaters that attempt anything like that right

[xontas]

Originally Posted by cypher

no offence but people don't get closed really (unless they are non important rank 1500 players....)

no matter how much proof is given... it just doesn't happen... after 13 rounds of pa EVERY player knows that.... so you might aswell allow it atleast we'll have high number of planets then

400 did get closed and where deleted
so, thats not true

[xontas]

Originally Posted by bwtmc

it's cool don't worry, you've improved your tools to deal with any out-of-date cheaters that attempt anything like that right

yeah
lets put words in my mouth

i did say we improved our tools
basicly you have 2 complaints
1) you cant play with your housemate on the same IP and do as you wish
2) we dont act harsh enough against cheats

you do realise both look the same from where i am sitting do you?

[Nitros]

cheating is bad

[JC]

What you seem to be describing is a perfect cheat with no way of being traced and no pattern that can be recognised to link his planets. I doubt any game no matter what kind of multi-hunting tools would catch that kind of 'pro', so it seems to me that this is a fairly pointless discussion. If someone is dedicated and willing enough to cheat at any cost they will find a way around whatever system PA team introduce.

[xontas]

ok, what do we do on the focus department
we look for cheats in 3 general ways

1) things that just stand out ( the obvious cheats and multi's) they get investigated and acted upon
this is about 45% of the work
2) we look at the people with the most to gain, top 100 planets, top 5(or more) alliances, and top 10(or more) gals , we run suspect moves and check some attacks randomly, some other tactics get used to flush out cheating.
this is again 45% of the work
3) we follow up on intell from players and other Pateam crew roumers get checked (like exili last round)
this makes up the final 10 %

this means that ofc all obvious things get found
then the people with the gain gets targeted (the hardcore cheats) this is focused by gain (the more you gain the more you come into our focus to look @ you)
if your clean you have nothing to fear

ofc not every multi gets found
that would make my team superman (and only assassin claims that title )
we do however find most of them (i am sure of that) and are aiming to make it more

if you guys want to make me realy happy
get me out of a job by stopping to cheat all toghether, then i can pick up playing again

[bwtmc]

I don't expect you to fix the unfixable xontas, i'm only playing around.

The point of this and the farming thread somewhere else in this Forum is that focus and attention seems to be misplaced, that there's an excess degree of unneccesary limitation on people who share connections. One that limits fun in a very real way, while not really catching the harmful cheats within the game.

Btw. after appeals, i don't actually know of any players last round who got closed indefinitely without cheating. Yet 400 Cheaters did get closed.

When these hoards of cheating flatmates and connection sharers do exercise their foul play.. and get restricted, and not closed. Won't they still be in the game, abusing it within the limits, which will be too generous if genuine connection sharers want to play together at all.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by xontas

yeah
lets put words in my mouth

i did say we improved our tools
basicly you have 2 complaints
1) you cant play with your housemate on the same IP and do as you wish
2) we dont act harsh enough against cheats

you do realise both look the same from where i am sitting do you?

One would assume you would read carefully. The basic complaints are more that

a) the policy is more harmful to PA than it does good because the cheaters you catch with this system are just "minor" cheats, i.e. ones which do not really have any impact by their very own cheating.
b) you do not act harsh enough against organized cheating which has a lot more impact on the game and cannot be prevented by your policy.

Actually the only improvement your tools would have needed is a good analyzing tool to trace back certain activities, with IP being less primarily focussed on. Cheating patterns repeat and are generally traceable by activities.

[xontas]

Originally Posted by Heartless

One would assume you would read carefully. The basic complaints are more that

a) the policy is more harmful to PA than it does good because the cheaters you catch with this system are just "minor" cheats, i.e. ones which do not really have any impact by their very own cheating. <--- proves you dont get why we have this system
its NOT catching ANY cheat's
its just hardcoding the limits that do exsist so that you cant cheat by accident!
basicly protection from getting closed for doing somthing you didnt intend

b) you do not act harsh enough against organized cheating which has a lot more impact on the game and cannot be prevented by your policy. <-- when we give people the option of using the system to be save, the ones that dont chose to ignore the warnings. so if we see cheating and there is no exeption we close and keep closed
also we do target the big cheats

Actually the only improvement your tools would have needed is a good analyzing tool to trace back certain activities, with IP being less primarily focussed on. Cheating patterns repeat and are generally traceable by activities.

we have a great tool (thanks for coding phil) that does just that(for the last 3 rounds now), but also we do analize by hand sometimes, depends on what we are looking for

[Heartless]

A few questions xontas:

a) How can you cheat by accident?

b) Is it only me or are you constantly saying: "The system is to spot cheats, not to stop cheats"?

[xontas]

its a system that hardcodes the limits of interaction between people that dont wanne cheat but do play from the same ip
if you interact more from the same ip you get closed
these people dont want to be closed
so the aply
and cant interact more by accident

how do you interact by accident
basicly you should not have access to someone elses account
so you dont know !!! when you interact!!
but we do see you do it and close you down!!
and there will be no way to defend yourself
because you DID interact from the same ip

now , a lot of people have complaint that there should be something to stop innocent people that have the above happen to them closed (multi's claim the same thing)
so we made the system like we are setting up!

so its not to stop cheats, its not to spot cheats , its to help honest people prove they are no multi and play normaly!

is it clear enough now,(i dont know how else to explain it to you if not)

[Phil^]

a) you cant.
b) its possibly just you. I dont see that in what hes saying but bear in mind english isnt his first language so you could be mis-interpreting what he meant

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by xontas

[...]
and cant interact more by accident

how do you interact by accident[...]

That was not my question, Xontas. I asked "how can you cheat by accident" and I think we both agree that interaction is not equivalent to cheating, so I am still awaiting your answer before I start to completely tear apart your argumentation for the system.

[Phil^]

Btw some ( but not all ) of the things the analysis tool i coded can do is track launches + incomings + roid inits etc back to the last login used to access the account, analyse the times and compaire with other planets in the analysis.
It will generate statistics on when a planet is online, by ip class-b subnet and overall, and also generate graphs on the statistics of launches and incomings, and there are more graphs and statistics in the pipeline for analytical functions which are in the process of being coded.

Pretty much all the information available to the tool on the multi admin page is analysed in one form or another, and often in depth.
And if in the future they add MORE information to the page, im sure i will be asked to utilise the new information available and tie it in with other functions in the tool.

the information available is substantially better then from when you were a multihunter during the mrbrick era heartless.

patterns are easier to spot now, whereas before it required insight in reading the raw logs and knowing what meant what

Now i dont know if i can go into detail on exactly what gets analysed since it would a) help people avoid it , and b) possibly run me foul of the nda i signed with jolt, despite me being the coder of the thing so i wont go into explicit details

[xontas]

Originally Posted by Heartless

That was not my question, Xontas. I asked "how can you cheat by accident" and I think we both agree that interaction is not equivalent to cheating, so I am still awaiting your answer before I start to completely tear apart your argumentation for the system.

well, interaction from the same ip will be seen as cheating (even if you are 2 people)
you can interact with out know it
so you can show cheating behavour without being aware of it

it happend a couple of times last round that someone got closed because he and his gf attacked the same planets.
now, those people broke the rules without being aware of it
this system guards against it

[Hicks]

Anyone with half a brain who wants to cheat will always get round you. The only thing that this and similar systems do is alienate casual players who happen to play from the same connection.

[derry]

hicks i want your babies, you just said in 2 lines what i almost made a 20 line post over which was horrible to read and understand (hence i didn't post it )

[xontas]

well, the 400 accounts we closed last round disagree with you!

those where proven cheats that we did catch, and not all by ip

[Edge]

cheater

[god113]

Originally Posted by Edge

cheater

My dad could beat up your dad.

[Chika]

pa team do catch cheaters, they just fail to catch the ones that matter, like, the cheaters in the top 20. :|
the new system is still garbage. the inet has evolved way beyond text based game play. there are ways around it. And very much simpler than jester expressed. sadly enabling cheating will only magnify the problem cypher.

[Judge]

From what I can see, the "Real Cheats" wont bother applying for an exception they will find work rounds like IP masking etc as said above.

The only people punished are those that declare that they happen thorugh circumstance to be on the same connection and consequently have a set of limits placed on their planet.

Crippleware anyone ?

[relik]

There are a number of inherent flaws in the new "interaction limits," as well as in the fact that the rules against interaction exist at all. As countless others have already pointed out, they fail to hinder true cheaters at all, while instead threatening honest players.

How does Planetarion attract new players? It's certainly not through PA's massive advertising budget -- it's almost always through word of mouth. And what's the best way to interest a new player in the game? Help him out. Defend him, launch a few attacks together, try to have him recruited into your alliance. But these methods off stimulating new interest in the game are largely prevented. Aside from the obvious fact that family members accessing PA from the same IP could never employ any of those tactics, it has already been stated that the majority of the playerbase is between the ages of 18 and 25. Within this age bracket, a large number attends a university where they likely live with and interact with many other members of this same age bracket on a daily basis. Therefore, these college students likely know countless individuals who would enjoy a game of this nature. Fantastic, except for the fact that a current player is prohibited from interacting with any person he persuades to sign up for Planetarion in this way.

[xontas]

i dont know where this conclusion comes from
we had over 400 cases of multi's last round
people that realy cheated!! and where on the same ip

this doesnt mean we dont look for the people that use other systems to cheat
it just means we dont focus 100% on those

the exception system is NOT designed to stop cheating, its there for people that want to play honest
the limits i proposed are based on a 50 planets randomly selected being compaired to eachother
from that we worked out the general interaction a normal planet does

we are not stopping anything that woudnt have got you closed last round!

[MAdnRisKy]

Right this shitness stops now.

I am about to make a post in defence of xontas, and so help me god, I already want to tear out my eye balls for it

Last round, it wasn't allowed to interact in any way with someone from the same IP. This was done because it was the most obvious way someone would cheat. Now the discussion about how relevent such an approach to multi hunting is, is a fair one. perhaps we just shouldn't care, and i for one would support jester in that. HOWEVER, that said, I prefere this new system to last rounds system.

I'll try to help Xontas with some of the language barriers if i can by giving an example.
You're married (so I just alienated 95% of the PA playing community from this example, way to go MAd) you play, and your wife plays. You'd like to play together, but last round, you were scared to do anything, incase you were accused of "cheating". That is to say in case you were accused of being only one person and multiing. That is what this system is designed to prevent. people who "cheat" ie look like a cheat but are infact legitimate, being deleted and or punished. It makes it impossible. IT DOES NOTHING ELSE. It is not designed to cut down on people who actually are trying to multi, it is not designed to help catch people who are multiing.

it is simply trying (successfully) to eliminate a few false positives.

I feel dirty now.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Heartless

a) the policy is more harmful to PA than it does good because the cheaters you catch with this system are just "minor" cheats, i.e. ones which do not really have any impact by their very own cheating.

I would have thought that the new exception system isnt designed to save planetarion from 'small time' cheats - but rather protect those individuals who play from the same location from themselves. In the past, Brother and Sister would have been closed for cheating - with the exception system, Brother and Sister can still attack eachother to settle internal disputed, but not to the extent that it gets them deleted. thus, those people play longer, have more fun, and potentially return next round. Or Brother realises now that letting Sister play wont result in Brother getting closed for cheating - thus Sister can play too - a new player that wouldnt have otherwise played is suddenly able to.

The point is perspective. Without having read Xontas's threads or his posts (i find them depressing), that is the role i see the Exception system fulfilling - saving players from themselves. It has nothing to do with the overall wellbeing of the PA community or game etc.

Ideally, it should also free up some MH time to hunt down the proper cheats - regardless of how elaborate their methods of cheating are.

[noah02]

Originally Posted by MAdnRisKy

You're married (so I just alienated 95% of the PA playing community from this example, way to go MAd) you play, and your wife plays. You'd like to play together, but last round, you were scared to do anything, incase you were accused of "cheating".
I feel dirty now.

I introduced my Gfd(Nutkins) last round (everyone thinks we are married so I am just going over ur example) to planetarion because I knew she would be good at PA coz 1) I would help her learn 2) She is excellent with numbers and such.

So she does play and asks me a million questions a day i get her in SiN. Now this being my worst idea I was suddenly restricted targets coz we both couldnt attack the same place at the same time or i couldnt JGP whomever shes attacking. But at least as soon as she is not attacking that galaxy then I can do what I want on that galaxy aka scan, attack, cov op etc... but under the new system I am not allowed to attack them or scan them a certain amount of times at all or at least restricted for a week.

Maybe I have read all this wrong and I can attack as much as I want after nutkins has left that gal etc... i can attack 7-14 gals a week and the gals go upto 14.9 this round (17.10 last round) and not everyone is gonna be a good target. Tell me I am wrong but am I now going to be limping through the round coz i got my gfd to play and also paid for her? Or should I never pay for her again and tell her to quit just so I can be a contender coz I may aswell give up trying for number 1 spot now.

Edit:If I am wrong I am sorry for wasting ur time reading this I just want things to be very clear.