clantag abuse

General Stuff about Armagetron, That doesn't belong anywhere else...
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epsy
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Post by epsy »

Let's assignate the "pru" tag to the dev team and be done with it.

A clan tag is irremediably fake-able. Deal with it. Authentication authorities are slightly less fake-able, so use them.
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Post by Word »

epsy wrote:Let's assignate the "pru" tag to the dev team and be done with it.

A clan tag is irremediably fake-able. Deal with it. Authentication authorities are slightly less fake-able, so use them.
fakers don't use authentication. and some clanmembers are just to lazy to register, and everyone should understand that. It is easier to put their name on an official list once.
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Post by epsy »

Word wrote:fakers don't use authentication.
Then they cannot prove what they claim.
Word wrote:and some clanmembers are just to lazy to register, and everyone should understand that.
Everyone should understand it's their problem then.
Word wrote:It is easier to put their name on an official list once.
Yeah, like I said, let's start the list.

Code: Select all

pruepsy
pruLucifer (gnark!)
pruwrtlprnft
Word
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Post by Word »

that took some time xD

Code: Select all

pruAI
pruTags 
pruWord 
prupixie 
pruUffie 
pruWater
pruGhost 
pruYui 
pruHell-lo
pruNumber3
pruTomb 
pruUlica
pru chaos
pruSliktor
pruRage 
pruNyX
pruTERMITE
pru|therozer 
pruMako
epsy
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Post by epsy »

You didn't get it.

Anyway, the tools are there to do it properly, so there is no reason to do it in an insane way.

/part
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Post by sinewav »

@Word: You know what is ruining your clan's reputation? It's not "tag abusers"... it's this thread.
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Post by Word »

to say the idea (yes, it is only an idea yet!) "forces admins to enable something that renames players and forces players to rename" is as deep as "players who want to use this certain color code for blue are forced to type 0x000ddd" ... it is not difficult to make a list, it is not difficult to harm a clan's reputation, it is not difficult to write only replies when you know that you'll always disagree. Are you only able to see disadvantages?

I will just list up pros and cons

(+)

-clanmembers know who belongs to them and who not and can talk about clanstuff which they can't tell someone else(server passwords etc)

-the reputation of the clan (if a clan has one) won't be harmed because nobody identifies the responsible player with the clan.

-"lazy" members/players don't need to register (or as some of you would say: "they aren't forced") to register anywhere because if they see some1 who can wear the tag without being renamed, he must be a clanmember.

-it doesn't force an admin to enable it because it is (idk how because i am not a programmer) already integrated in the game, not as a additional function that can be changed.

-players who don't pretend to be part of the clan but have the tag in their nick won't get renamed when there is a system for it ( i wrote the §-example above)

edit: and you wouldn't solve the problem just for me but all other clans that like to take part and have the same problems

-nobody except the tag-fakers and the clanleaders is involved (and the developers if they would spend time to make it true).

-it is independent from authentication and its servers

-it is less confusing for every player

-help by admins isn't needed and there will be far less kickpolls

-it doesn't affect the way someone plays or behaves since it is part of the unwritten rules every player should respect (be polite, don't kill teammates if they don't kill you,..., don't be an imposter, don't fake a clan's tag) because it represents just a reaction of the server on a behaviour that nobody wants to support (does anyone here like someone who fakes his clantag?! I don't think so...)

-in another topic of me, where i asked for a ctf-type gamemode where holing is impossible in the area around the flag, some1 said i should use the score_hole command. My suggestion has the same background. If you make a command like score_hole to avoid holing (which belongs to ctf, a game type "you don't support" although you developed it), be consequent with preventig clantag-fakes.

-there's already the allow imposters command (or whatever it was like)
doesn't this force someone to rename as much as my idea does to rename? Or is it even worse because it makes a difference because Player 1 and Player 2 and by this way Player 2 thinks he is on a lower level and feels neglected and overlooked because of the "2" (while he knows that he is the real "Player 1"? :)

(-)


-The setting is new yet and I don't know if it can be done

-The developers say it is nonsense and such a setting would cause a conflict with authentication

-Authentication would be enough (although not many servers support it)

-it would have a big impact on the freedom of the players to chose their nick

-who knows how to make it?


------------------------
The "lazy" clanmembers who don't register (which our clan doesn't have ;) ) are not the problem but the players who aren't clanmembers, but can register here and feel free to use the clantag and telling everyone what great guys they are and how much everybody else is a noob.
Last edited by Word on Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:56 pm, edited 18 times in total.
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Lucifer
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Post by Lucifer »

Um, no, see, there are lots of differences.

However, nobody's saying there aren't any advantages. Let's sum up the arguments in favor:

Clan members will get enforcement of their clan tags.

Now, let's sum up the arguments against:

epsy: there's already a system to handle it, it's called armathentication.

wrtlprnft: the system would be adopted by very few server admins, so the benefit gained wouldn't be very widespread at all

Lucifer: It would cost too much. At a guess, I'd say 30-40 development hours to implement and test. That sort of development effort doesn't get used on a group of people who are the only people who'd benefit by it.

Finally, if your clan members are too lazy to register on your clan's official authentication server, why are you wasting your time asking us to solve your problem for you? Try existing methods available, and if that doesn't work, submit a patch and we'll consider it.
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wrtlprnft
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Post by wrtlprnft »

Word wrote:-clanmembers know who belongs to them and who not and can talk about clanstuff which they can't tell someone else(server passwords etc)
Don't do that. Period. Definitely not on a server that doesn't belong to your clan, and probably not on your clan's server. Ever. Ever.

Have you ever tried to make a list of more useful things to do in 30–40 development hours? It would probably rouin your keyboard to type it.
-it doesn't force an admin to enable it because it is (idk how because i am not a programmer) already integrated in the game, not as a additional function that can be changed.
So it forces the server admin to use it. That's evil. We're not a big company that “earns” its money by bundling stuff noone really wants with stuff people unfortunately need.
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Post by Word »

one could say you would force an admin then to install the program before he can start a server. if it is a part of the game as much as the start menu is, who cares? it just has to be there from the start. a little littly code or something.
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Post by compguygene »

I don't think you understand the problem. Who is going to code this? 30-40 hours of dev time, we would rather see put into something that benefits all.

Also, you really need to try to use existing systems to enforce things first!
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wrtlprnft
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Post by wrtlprnft »

This is an open source game. You can't force an admin to do anything. Making stuff non-disablable without hacking just keeps server admins from upgrading their servers, possibly leaving open security holes. We don't want that.

The ingame menu is part of the game because it's needed. You can skip it if you like (--connect), but for most casual players it's the best choice we have.

There shouldn't really be casual server admins who don't know what they're doing, so they should get all the choices we can give them with reasonable effort. Doing something to cause the server to undisablably (does that word even exist?) phone home to influence players whose name might collide with some weird mayfly clan is just not in our spirit.

Implement it as your own set of scripts anyone can use if they like (I don't think many admins will), but don't try to force any policy on server admins.

Hmm, maybe a fuzzily-detect-and-strip-all-clan-tags patch would be kinda nice for the instance where two people argue about who has the right to prefix their name with *IAI* (the I'm An Idiot clan).
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epsy
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Post by epsy »

There is no way I let something like forcing admins to do anything of this sort going in arma'd. If it was going to be so, I would fork right away. That's hopefully the opinion of other devs as well.
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Post by Z-Man »

epsy: Yep. Official policy as far as I'm concerned is that in the default configuration arma should only make network connections that are absolutely required for its core operation, that is getting people together to play. I'm on the fence whether we should enable GLOBAL_ID by default on the trunk for that reason, as outside connections are required for that; however, those connections only happen when a player triggers them, which puts them into a whole different category than what would be required for the monster in discussion here.

Word: your system would not work :) Since it doesn't use authentication, the tag fakers would just start to imposter registered clan members. Then, of course, is always the possibility to name myself pru/z-man when you registered the pru| prefix (and no, plain pru would not be registerable in any system for the flaws pointed out already). We can't unify the prefix format reasonably (cross-game standard would be TAG|PlayerName, but in arma, every clan has made up its own format). Adding extra codes to distinguish tags may technically work, but it's a can of worms I'm not willing to open, not even in the form of accepting patches.

Also, you have some misconceptions:
The current setting preventing impostering is only to disallow a player to take the name of another player while that player is still online on that server. No public list is polled for that. It's there and enabled by default because people took other players' names to confuse kick votes.
The hole score was introduced as a possibility to ENCOURAGE holing, or rather make a statement that it is not a tactic the server admin considers shunned. Of course, most of our settings are doors that can swing in both directions, but you can tell from the unusual tone of the message you get for negative hole score where the developers' thoughts are.
Lastly, colored names are not a feature, they're an abuse too.

In short, if we're going do do something, it's going to be Lucifer's approach. And since that builds on top of armathentication, you can start using that today already to identify your clan members.

About people registering here with fake clan tags: just call them out here. In fact, we discourage people from putting clan tags into their registration names altogether.
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Post by DDMJ »

After looking through my server browser page ( http://durka.ath.cx ), it shows that there were 162 server online, 112 of which were running versions that are compatible with Armathentication (only a very, very small handful have auth disabled).

This means that only 50 of the servers that were online at the time don't have auth, but over double that do!

I don't know which servers you play in, but maybe you should tell the server admins to upgrade or wait until 0.2.8.3 comes out.

Simple solution (example scenario):

.:] n00bsicle enters the game.
.:] Goody: hey d00d, you're not in our clan are you?
Player 1: yea, who's this n00b?
.:] n00bsicle: I R in ur clan lawl!!!!!!111ONE
.:] Durka: orly? if you are, please authenticate yourself
.:] n00bsicle has been logged in as DrJoeTr0n@forums
.:] Goody: i knew it!
.:] n00bsicle: mwahaha I R rox0rz at MS paint cart00nzzz!!
Remote admin command by Durka@twisted-rats.co.cc: kick n00bsicle
.:] n00bsicle has left the game.

I just don't see what's so complicated about creating an armathority for only your clan. Then, if people really do care, they can just ask the "impostor" to authenticate himself. If he can't, then he's not in the clan, end of story.

It's a nice idea, but very unnecessary.
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