globally unique identifier& antilamer ideas

[razor-wind]

tjw has been working on some GUID stuff to make banning more effective as for people like me even a ban wouldn't be effective. 10min and i could log back in. so it is important that we find a way to quickly implement a method of blocking these irritaing people. :evil:
he has some stuff underway which if he wants to share i will leave him to decide on say exactly what.

so far the ideas i have seen an liked are:
a kick/ban that lasts a minimum of 5min or so
the team messages of base alteration making it harder to pretend you didnt do it.
and of course boaring them into leaving

[Timbo]

GUIDs don't really work as a means of identifying rogue players, as said players can ALWAYS can lie about who or what they are. Open source games have their drawbacks.

GUIDs ARE useful for proving (semi-robustly) to a server that you are a specific person, i.e. in order to grant access to admin functions.

In other words the proof works one way, but not the other.

[tjw]

The only time a GUID is any use for banning someone is if you pay money to get one.

Like Timbo said, I'm adding GUID for granting user rights.  A good old fashioned IP (or IP block) ban is the only way to reliably ban troublemakers.  The good news is that with the addition of GUI, managing  these IP bans is going to be a great deal easier for server administrators and their regular players.

Evenbalance (punkbuster) has something called a Hardware Ban that tries to ban users by finding unique identifiers in a players's computer hardware.  Such things are MAC address on network interfaces and serial numbers on hard disks.  Unfortuantely these type of ID's are fairly easily circumvented and are doubly so for open source projects.  It would be a waste of time to try to add something like that.

[nisse]

well ones guid can be valuable once trem is older, implement guid age, so you can setup a server that only allows 2 day old guids or whatever the admin wants, could be done via a guid server that keeps track of age i guess, this way if someone is baned they can't just del the guid and change ip.

Besides if you feel openness is hindering the anti lame movement, make a pice of closed source code, as long as it is somewhat separate from the gpl code there is no problem, like a plugin or something thats installed with the main part of the game.

[Silverius]

But how would that system deal with midly smart undesirables who generate GUID's though an anonymizer server?

And consider undesirables who pick on a lot of games, they could probably create a GUID, wait a while to get into servers, play Trem for a few days until they're banned, wait a while, create a GUID, ad infinitum. Sure, you might be able to ban those, but you'd have to ban them by IP, which kinda makes the GUID useless.

A good old central authentication server which bans certain IP's and which a set of trusted people (not just server admins but also key players) could add bans to seems to me to be the most effective "easy" deterrent. With a large number of trusted people working on it the strain on individual server admins becomes less and the effectiveness of the system becomes greater.

Another (or additional) idea might be the use of some form of karma, I've been playing thought games about that for the last few days. The idea behind karma is that you have to earn the priviledge to play on the good-only servers and that that priviledge can be taken away from you quite easily. Team base killers and the likes would probably get a GUID-permanent kick from all participating servers (not just good-only but also good-and-neutral-only) within a single game. I'm guessing even the most determined undesirable would very quickly get tired of that.

[nisse]

"they could probably create a GUID, wait a while to get into servers, play Trem for a few days until they're banned, wait a while,"

this is not foolproof nor is it a solution nor is it a solution for all of trem becouse that would not work, it is however a tool for a server admin who only wants players that have played a few days and have probably learnt how to point a gun

ofcourse you should ban by ip, but that does not always work thanks to proxies and dynamic ips, this is so that a person can't just re enter a game as quickly if once removed

what do you think would be most fun for a lamer? enter server, get removed, rejoin quickly, lame some more or having to wait 2 days before you can torment that server again

[Silverius]

I certainly agree with the idea, I doubt however that the method will work. What you're measuring is the time between registration of the GUID and entering of the server. That time does not need to bear any resemblance to actual playing time. For example a user could load tremulous to see what it's like, play a little, then not play for a few days (too busy with work or something) and still get considered at least somewhat experienced by the system.

A somewhat more accurate system could be a system where you have to have participated in at least X games without having been kicked.

[Sandy]

Ok, you have a GUID Authority server that assigns encrypted GUID's to clients (client sends game server encrypted guid, game server passes this off to the Authority server to be confirmed before accepting the client connection).

Obviously you need DoS protection at both the game server and the authority server. The authority server could be programmed to only accept 1-2 new GUID requests a week from a particular ip address.

Wont work for people on dynamic IP though, more verboseness in game about team/base killing is required, plus an easier way to vote ban a guid other than using the console. Should be a 5-10 second task and not a 5-10 minute task.

[Howitzer]

Can't people screw this over with proxies?
And in Belgium, they have a method to change IP's very easily..
They just pull out the powercord of their modem for 10minutes or so so they get a new IP assigned..

(I'm not trying to break this suggestion, i can't suggest anything better , just naming the problems of this method)

[Sandy]

10 minutes of the offenders time vs 10 seconds of yours. And if proxies are banned, this means they cannot use that proxy any more.

I seriously doubt Tim would bother doing any of this, an easier way to kick people probably, but anything more complicated can be circumvented.