Posted by hughesjr on 4/28/2013 2:14:00 PM (view original):
Posted by colonels19 on 4/28/2013 1:23:00 PM (view original):
gillispie1 said....
"im actually really hoping, and banking on their laziness, that they wont write a script (i dont have other teams in violation, but others do). but if you have a DB of customers (how can you not? but who knows, maybe they manage to find a way), its absolutely trivial to do a lookup on fields. IP isnt the best, but billing address and name would be a good start."
colonels19 says...
I just want to go on record as saying that I almost never give WIS the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like this...I feel they're kind of "seat of the pants" about a lot of stuff.
billy_g,
Your script would have to take into account that 1 public IP address is used by many businesses who have private networks behind their firewall.
The US Navy has several thousand machines behind two small external IP ranges on opposite coasts of the US (or they did a couple of years ago). It would be quite easy for 2 people in that environment from different states to have the same IP address that connected to the site within a couple of minutes of each other.
Most colleges do this as well. A very small range (maybe even one) external IP address(es) and a whole bunch of 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x or 172.16-31.x.x on their private networks.
Many businesses do this as well ... my previous employer had several branch offices of up to 100 people all use one external IP address at each office to connect to the Internet.
Many apartment complexes do this as well ... Even most houses now have more than one device connected to a router with multiple private IP addresses on the inside and one external IP. I routinely have 5 people using 8 or 9 devices inside my house capable of browsing the Internet. In this case, I am the only one who plays WIS games .. but many users might connect from their parents house, etc.
You can fairly easily come up with a list of usernames that connect from the same IP address, but then how long would it take to validate that list ... and other than asking the user and having them tell you (and if they are cheating, then they will lie), how do you know that userid1 and userid2 are the same person?
not sure if you saw the part of the post where i said, IP isnt the best, but billing address and name would be a good start. the reason i said it wasnt the best is partly what you describe, but also because its so easy to spoof IPs, or even to use multiple IPs on the same computer, one for some applications, and the other, for others. more than those issues, is that IP is not usually stored in a DB table, and if it is, its most recent, which presents a whole host of issues with multiple devices being used (a phone and a computer, for example). but usually to scan IP of connections, you get down into web logs, its much messier. i would be looking for the quick & ditry, a simple query against a database table, where name and address are usually pretty common. there are problems there, too, but with people concerned about intentional abuse of 2 teams, having 2 people in the same home is *just* as easy to intentionally abuse, so why wouldnt the same restrictions hold?
im definitely not arguing family members shouldnt be allowed to play in the same world or same conference, i just dont see a difference, if you are trying to restrict intentional cheating, between 2 people in a house with 2 IDs, or 1 person with 2 IDs. if unintentional cheating is the issue we are trying to prevent, which i can get behind (i cant at all get behind the arguments in any of these threads pertaining to intentional cheating, because you only stop those trying to be transparent, not anyone with half a brain intentionally abusing) - then i would think no restrictions would be needed for different people in the same house, while lesser restrictions than those in place today would need to be placed on individuals with 2 teams.