Pro's/Con's of Alliances Operating Primarily on Netgamers IRC?

[KoRnNut]

Times have not really changed in Planetarion. DOS attacks and various hacking/cracking assaults on "the enemies" WebTools(Arbiter, Attack Planner, Defense Planner, and Private Forums, often all hosted on the same server making life easier for the geeky little infidels) and more commonly, "the enemies" Private IRC Server have been around since the very beginning pretty much. It does seem as if these later rounds, R9 inparticular, it has become an out of control situation.

Since several alliances this round (whom will remain nameless) seem to be fortified against attacks on their toys, perhaps they can share their infinite wisdom on how other alliances can better secure themselves from these pathetic, semen drinking, christ-humping, cnut-kickers whom feel the need to hack/crack/attack other alliances' equipment simply because they can't ever get roids, can't get laid, can't get a job even though they have some sorta fancy college degree in Computer Science, ect...losers.

Some HC's from these nameless alliances have stated on these forums time and time again that they are just as angry about this poor game play as everyone else, and would love to see it stop. Well put yer money where your mouth is or stfu

Any alliance whom wishes to avoid these brutal attacks in R10 will need to consider 2 options in particular. Either nap'ping/Ally'ing with the unnamed alliances, for temporary protection from these attacks(?).

Or using Netgamers IRC primarily.

Besides your alliance members online activity being somewhat easily exposed(though there are ways to avoid this as well), what are the other major vulnerabilities of a major alliance using Netgamers Irc? The advantages are certainly worth considering imho.

Tonight for example, 50-80 million fleet score worth of attackers being sent at 9-10 mil score NoS planets was apparently insufficient, so the IRC server was *possibly* sabatoged. Unconfirmed with a NoS techie, but the server rarely if ever goes down unless there is a significant Military situtation occuring. Almost every major alliance this round has had it's fair share of sob stories from these attacks as well.

Everyone has chitter-chattered for years about PA IRC Server Operators being able to read things in your PM Window, and read your channel if you have Pbot or P in it, ect ect ect. Some facts and fiction have been debated forever now from a few actual IRC bigwigs themselves from past and present, but I can't find anyone agreeing on anything.

Anyone know the answer to this riddle?

[Gerbie]

1. try to get multiple servers;
2. have backup channels on netgamers;
3. get a good techie (I'm a noob at computers).

[WebAngel]

Originally posted by Gerbie
1. try to get multiple servers;
2. have backup channels on netgamers;
3. get a good techie (I'm a noob at computers).

Are you still talking about a game?

[Mit]

i can't say for PBOT, as far as i know it doesn't spy. but its IMPOSSIBLE for P to spy on your channels. Ask the coders, P runs in mode +d (i.e. Deaf, it doesn't see ANY channel messages)

As for whats going on with the servers, yes its annoying, i know this having had the official tools server dos'd numerous times. I now save logs of who is attacking, and have a few measures in place to stop it going down for too long, and will help any 'techies' if they need it.

Its Chilidish Behaviour on the part of the attackers. GROW UP!

[Lord_Olrik]

using netgamers isnt an option any of the HCs of the main alliances would even consider mainly coz of the lack of having oper access urself and coz of of too many ppl u dont know having it.

also lil things like chan registration are alot easier and faster if u just have to type a line.

[xtothez]

Originally posted by KoRnNut
Everyone has chitter-chattered for years about PA IRC Server Operators being able to read things in your PM Window, and read your channel if you have Pbot or P in it, ect ect ect. Some facts and fiction have been debated forever now from a few actual IRC bigwigs themselves from past and present, but I can't find anyone agreeing on anything.

Anyone know the answer to this riddle?

Being able to read other peoples PMs on an IRC server is not possible without a significant change to the irc server code itself (note: significant in the sense of massively increasing bandwidth, not complexity). I find it hard to believe that a network the size of NG would feel the need to implement such a feature, especially considering the cost.
The same idea would apply to network bots, they have enough load already without having to parse 100's of PRIVMSGs a second.

The only possible risk I can see in this situation would be the possibilty of a leaked password or spy caused by user error. The main advantage of a private server is the fact that those in charge can log everything important, IP addresses, failed logins, etc. By using customised IRC software, alliance command are in a better position to track illegal entry to their channels.

[Lord_Olrik]

Originally posted by KoRnNut

Everyone has chitter-chattered for years about PA IRC Server Operators being able to read things in your PM Window, and read your channel if you have Pbot or P in it, ect ect ect. Some facts and fiction have been debated forever now from a few actual IRC bigwigs themselves from past and present, but I can't find anyone agreeing on anything.

technically its no problem to log both pms and chans (no matter what modes P runs)

[Ahriman]

Please learn to use the word 'whom.'

[Gerbie]

Put a cigarette in gasoline, light it and whom.

Plz all learn to speak Dutch. Would make things a lot easier.

[KoRnNut]

Originally posted by Mit
and will help any 'techies' if they need it.

I'll cheers to that notion. I think Planetarion Admins need to consider forming a special team of volunteers maybe who can helpout individual players or alliances with tips and information on how to boost security cheaply and effectively. This team needs to be very easy to contact. It's a very sad state of affairs that a team like this is needed but lost revenue from hacker frustration is something very serious.

Something for Spinner/Ect to think about for R10 and beyond is the fact that Planetarion has 2 main character types of people that quit playing. 2 dangerous types that stand tall amongst all others anyways....

The type of player that is simply bored stiff from playing this game f o r a v e r y l o n g t i m e now. All in all they've enjoyed their experience in PA. They have tolerated the "bull****" over the years as far as dealing with a Universe jam-packed with multi's, bot users, account sharers, poor Management, unstable game support , and last but not least...Kiwi's(heh).

This type of player will possibly recommend the game to new friends/aquaintences, allies, enemies, ect..that he comes across in other(and often strikingly similar) areas of the Online Gaming World. This is a good thing for Planetarion.

The "other type" (/me shivers in fear) gets enraged with anger that Monday he was attacked by Planet X AND Planet X's 4 co-workers. On Tuesday his alliance's Top 5 galaxies get attacks launched on them and the Private IRC server goes down simultaneously. On Wednesday he gets scanned successfully by a 200k score planet, after wasting millions of Crystal to give himself a 25:1 Jammer:Roids ratio.

This player quits game by Friday, won't let his other online friends play it if at all possible. Boycotts the damn game and curses at his 6 weeks of hard work being ruined by lesser men. This player curses the name Planetarion forever more every time he hears it.

Attacking someone with support planets, ect..is bad enough. Blasting their private IRC server as well is just adding insult to injury.

:/

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Mit
i can't say for PBOT, as far as i know it doesn't spy. but its IMPOSSIBLE for P to spy on your channels. Ask the coders, P runs in mode +d (i.e. Deaf, it doesn't see ANY channel messages)

As for whats going on with the servers, yes its annoying, i know this having had the official tools server dos'd numerous times. I now save logs of who is attacking, and have a few measures in place to stop it going down for too long, and will help any 'techies' if they need it.

Its Chilidish Behaviour on the part of the attackers. GROW UP!

The whole IRC ops spying thing is based on the belief that because Fury had several within our ranks in the early rounds we must have used these to spy on other alliances. It was usually newbies answer to the massive intelligence advantage Fury had early on because no one could ever be spying for us. Unfortunately people still believe this crap.

Alliance servers going down are rarely because of DOS attacks it's more to do with crap tech and then uninformed members rushing to the forums to post "EVL XYZ HAS LAUNCHED ATTACKS TONIGHT AND OUR SERVER HAS GONE DOWN, COINCIDENCE ? NEVER ! WE MUST HAVE BEEN DOSED !".

[hydridia]

hicks i remeber in r7 many fury coming into UV private rooms on netgamers servers with the help of irc ops im sure some one has the logs around. heh
Glad we had private server as well then.


Priv servers rock! Netgamers is like the park meet greet then take them back to your priv server to more formal proceedings hehe

[KoRnNut]

Originally posted by Hicks
The whole IRC ops spying thing is based on the belief that because Fury had several within our ranks in the early rounds we must have used these to spy on other alliances. It was usually newbies answer to the massive intelligence advantage Fury had early on because no one could ever be spying for us. Unfortunately people still believe this crap.

I wouldn't necessarily doubt you on that. Though the few counter-arguments I've seen over the years, from a few allianceless IRC ops, them and their high-tech slang words and jargon..heh..haven't quite cast away all doubts and speculation.

Originally posted by Hicks
Alliance servers going down are rarely because of DOS attacks it's more to do with crap tech and then uninformed members rushing to the forums to post "EVL XYZ HAS LAUNCHED ATTACKS TONIGHT AND OUR SERVER HAS GONE DOWN, COINCIDENCE ? NEVER ! WE MUST HAVE BEEN DOSED !".

*lol*...no way buddy boy. 99% Persistent stability during the R8 Blackout on several IRC servers destroys that hypothesis. IRC servers don't go down by coincidence when massive/surgical strikes are launched.

Furynet used to get DOS'ed alot back in the day, didn't it?

[Mit]

As i said, I will help any techs if they need it - find me in #planetarion, #tools, #netgamers and one of many other channels.

As for accusations of spying, as i've already stated, P runs in +d mode, deaf, it does not see channel messages at all. And from working with the opers (I'm a "network helper") i can say they don't do anything like that at all.

And one little bit about the DoS'ing, it don't take much, as i've found out from my toolkit server, one person on a modem can successfully take down a server if they know what they are doing - depending on attack type etc. I despise of people who stoop so low in a GAME, its only a GAME ffs.

Anyway, before i start a real rant, the offer is there for the techies if they need it, and i'll have a word with spinner see if we can do anything

[Zeus]

I have to say that in my complete and honest opinion, since the creation of Planetarion IRC now knwon as Netgamers, P was never able to spy on any channels it resided in and no "other" features,bots or anything would of been able OR allowed to do so. Think about it, why would Planetarion allow such a thing? Also think about, Why would an oper who gives his hardware & bandwidth to the IRC network, who aims are mainly to help create the best irc network around, risk spying on their users? It would just to stupid and against the aims of the game and opers.

Sure, because 2-3 of planetarion irc opers did join Fury..rumours started that its a fury run network and they able to spy on everyone else etc.... but that was just a rumour, that people gullibly beleived.

From someone now looking inside from the outside, having your own irc network is asking imho to making yourself a target. If u think they are secure, think again, its guarenteed due to human error, they will be hacked, acessed by someone not meant to, etc...etc... Indeed a sad state off affairs the internet is in nowadays. Look at Jolt getting hammers with fraud, to see how some memebers of our community behave.

It also quit similar to your alliance websites. ITS a target. I certainly dont like those people who would go so low as to attack anyones irc server or website, but to ask Planetarion to do something about it is like asking your president to make people stop killing eachother. Planetarion does its best by providng secure irc network AND providing a secure allaince website ingame. I really dont see anything else they could do to stop people from attacking your irc netowrk or website

[KoRnNut]

Originally posted by Zeus

Sure, because 2-3 of planetarion irc opers did join Fury..rumours started that its a fury run network and they able to spy on everyone else etc.... but that was just a rumour, that people gullibly beleived.

I've never really bought into those theories too much myself. I'd sooner believe Fury (at the time) having "traditional spies" placed in high ranked locations in various alliance(virtually all other alliances) was historically one of their most notorious activities.

Originally posted by Zeus

to ask Planetarion to do something about it is like asking your president to make people stop killing eachother.

Asking Planetarion to pour great amounts of time/energy/funding into the problem would of course be rediculous. However the lost revenue/dying player base can be partially (whether it be small or large) attributed to foul/illegal game play tactics such as these mentioned.

A very easily accessible source of free tips and information from "the experts" would be fantastic for Planetarion Players and for the game's business success as well. Planetarion Staff and their 1337 network of friends/volunteers have enough helpful tips among them to possibly change things slightly for the better. Eliminating the problem is never going to happen ofc...

The tips/advice Mit has offered sounds fantastic and it would be nice to see it as a more organized part of Planetarion someday. A "How to Protect Yourself While Playing This Game" page would be fantastic. In the past Planetarion has addressed many issues on one-by-one basis. Usually a thread in "Announcements" on these forums, with a link to it in the Message of The Day Field in the "OverView" screen would be a temporary Advice Page to an often not-so-temporary problem.

If you we're to do a "Planetarion Hacks/Cracks: This is Your Life!!!" episode, or a webpage rather, that summarizes all the problems of the past that still occur today(people foolishly clicking on url's on IRC, giving away their login info????), ect...and all the modern day problems with constant updates towards solutions as they become available, it would be quite useful.

Like..erm, I guess one of my points is "Only people who read my thread today know what channels Mit hangs out in and the fact that he is willing to help them with free advice". There's gottah be a better way to keep everyone well informed of where to go if they have PA problems. I don't think #helpdesk necessarily works all the time.

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Zeus
Sure, because 2-3 of planetarion irc opers did join Fury..rumours started that its a fury run network and they able to spy on everyone else etc.... but that was just a rumour, that people gullibly beleived.

Pfft I bet you believed it You believed us and the super friends in Legion were destroying your game round after round.

[Smokeh]

Just as a general point to the discussion from the point of view of an alliance that IS based around netgamers IRC, IPC have always found that this was the best solution in the interests of IPC.

I can't speak on the behalf of the bigger alliances, who I'm sure DO need the extra features that can be used with their own IRC server and register possibly hundreds of channels, but in IPC this has never been required and so we decided upon never using it.

At one point we did experiment using a private server with our recruitment wing, CV, a move which was mainly influenced by my own intruige to seeing just how well we could get it to work, and it was ok. It gave our new members some good experience of using IRC (CV was created mainly for players who were new to the game and/or IRC) and yet it still seemed to work well.

However, through all this we found it was still much easier to do things on NetGamers IRC with a private channel or channels. To be frank, the security on NetGamers IRC servers is probably a lot higher than we could ever have acheived on a private server.

It's true that the same situation with DDoSing applies to alliance websites, but not necessarily as much. I've never had any problem with the new IPC website being DDoSed since it was put live in December, although perhaps it's a little naive to think that this isn't because we're not really a target.

IPC has always been for those players in PA who want to have fun, for the new players who want to learn and for the veterans who want to help build this wonderful community we have. It is in our best interests to stay on NetGamers IRC for the convenience of the members, and we have no intention to change this until it becomes necessary - which will not be any time in the near future with IPC's current policies

Smokeh

[hydridia]

Dosing = bad (some one just cleared it up for me that it was illegal) cheers for the info mate


never understood how dosing works though? any one care to explain?

[xtothez]

Originally posted by hydridia
isnt dosing a server like attacking a strategic building?

allies did it to sadam isnt it the same here just another tool in a war?

Spot the difference.

(DoS attacks are also illegal)

[Fifth_teletubbie]

I've always throught 'private' IRC servers were a major annoyance championed primarily by 'security' obsessed kids who want to become Men in Black when they grow up.

But that's just me.

[Mit]

Yes u get the power abusing HCs who like to play Oper over all the peons, that and the fact they can control everything (or so they think) that goes on on the servers, possibly monitor stuff too. But in all reality, NetGamers is far more secure and a better place for alliances if channels are set up correctly with access etc. or there could be another alternative still using netgamers (/me goes off thinking about that one)

as for how DoS'ing works, there are many attacks from simple overloading of the server to more targeted attacks at flaws in the TCP stack (SYN floods). I've had to fidn out about both of these, as these were the 2 types of attack used on teh official tools server.

[Cochese]

Cownet is the most stable irc server I have ever used...I think it went down once during the round, for a day or some hours.

Having a private irc server IS about control, yes...but it's also about convenience. Alliances demand control, something that Netgamers cannot provide; many also have their irc and websites integrated in one way or another, something that can't be done with Netgamers since registration requires a visit to their website, and channel registration is a royal pain in the ass.

I wouldn't use Netgamers as the base for an alliance, due to control issues...it's nothing to do with power-tripping, it's to do with security. I know who is on the network, who has access, and where...and unwelcome guests don't stay long. If somone wants a channel for members that play other online games, *bam* they have it, with access, in a few seconds...as compared to the time it takes to register/support/accept a channel on Netgamers. Though I have run a little alliance on Netgamers in my newbie days, and it certainly can be done--but once you reach a certain point, it simply doesn't cut it anymore.

So you get convenience, control, and customization...but these things do require resources in the form of a strong, secure server and competant tech crew. Problems will inevetably come up, but the better prepared you are, the less of a problem it will be.

[Jester]

Originally posted by Lord_Olrik
technically its no problem to log both pms and chans (no matter what modes P runs)

I love it when ****ing morons open their mouths about **** they don't know **** about. Have you read the ****ing source? You realize that the server they run is pretty much the exact same code I ran on EclNet for about a month? Yes, the people who run the servers can use extra software to capture packets, and thus read PMs. There are ways to work around this though. If you confine all your members to one server, then no other server may 'listen in' on these communications. Do you realize that you're extending that exact same level of trust to the person who runs the hosting service your alliance' ircd runs on? Do you realize that you're also trusting him to make sure none of his other customers run that software?

As for the control demanded by alliances, this is generally slightly overrated. HC who want powertrips generally. Yes, it's possible to spam people on netgamers, but #feds is usually able to assist in this regard.

I was working on a set of alliance tools when I was still in Eclipse, and I probably would've released them (had they ever gotten to the point where they were worthwhile) along with the patched ircu to the general public. I've also played with the thought of making alliance related tech even now when I don't have an alliance to run it for (anyone interested in such a project is free to PM me ).

As for opers abusing power. Let's examine what powers they do have: ircu is very restrictive on what powers an oper has. They can't even see +s channels on /list or /whois. There is no umode +I (oper invisibility) coded into it.

The main reason I see to run a seperate ircd is that it allows for more specialization. It allows you to run custom services (such as Ely and WP do/did), it allows you to set up custom hosts (though +x has allieviated much of this need) and it allows you to set up custom rules for host allowances (though it is possible to petition csc for this, so it's basically a hassle thing). The main factor is imo that you can kill floodprotection. This means that scans will paste faster.

Most of these issues can be addressed with a normal bot.

Also, note that the oper most renowned for her powerabuse (wolfbabe) is no longer part of the network. Fact is that even without such policies, the staff take reports of such abuse very seriously ([email protected] iirc).

And Zeus: wolfbabe did use her oper powers to join private alliance channels. Anyone here who was in nos towards the end of round 3 that can 'confirm' this with a log?

As for the 'hacking' and 'security' issues. I take these very seriously. I was seriously considering setting up the Eclipse ircu to use ssl connections (that's encrypted) though I quickly realized that the weakest link is still spies and not script kiddies. Note that I consider password harvesting to be a valid tactic, and thus enforced rather harsh requirements on oper passwords or similar I could influence. If you want to keep your alliance safe, change your password every 2-4 weeks, keep strong passwords and don't use the same passwords on 'unsafe' areas. And make sure your alliance techies do a lot of logging so that in the event of a breach you can trace it and hopefully alert other alliances of the user's activities.

Jester

[edit]How did you know I wanted to be a Man in Black, Daevyll?[/edit]

[Torz]

The whole stability thing was the only reason I'd not consider having private channels on PAnet.

Thats improved these days

[Jester]

Originally posted by hydridia
Dosing = bad (some one just cleared it up for me that it was illegal) cheers for the info mate


never understood how dosing works though? any one care to explain?

A DoS attack is a denial of service attack. An attack designed to deny normal users of the service provided. The most common form of this (as it requires least intelligence) is a distributed denial of service attack (aka DDoS). A DDoS is usually perpetrated by a person collecting a 'botnet' using trojans (you can learn more about these by asking your local oper). The trojans are commonly distributed over IRC, luring people to download software by for example advertising it as 'porn password cracker' or something similarly enticing. Ever noticed one of those bots spamming you on join? That could very well have been someone (usually involuntarily) trying you download a trojan. If you suspect you have either one of these issues, you should probably try talking to the people in #virusfix.

The trojans later 'phone home', usually by loading onto an IRC server (for quick control). They look like 'normal' users with random nicks. They're then issued commands (such as a fictitious '.attack 123.456.78.9') which the trojans then do. With a significant amount of trojans it's possible to send a lot of information to a certain target. Consider your max upload speed and multiply it by 50-400 (to pull a number out of a hat). When the packets use up the targets bandwidth (and there is a physical limit to how much bandwidth a line can use at any given time) normal users can't get their network traffic through (think cars and traffic jams, just replace 99% of the cars with dummy vehicles that aren't actually going to do anything useful). Thus denying the normal users the service. This is just a specific example, and one I think is the most prevailent among packet kiddies who think taking down alliance servers gives them a big dick.

The other form is to exploit a weakness in the software being run to take it down. For example, I recently discovered a DoS in the ircd for DeusNet (yes, that still runs). By giving the server a slightly malformed command it was possible to crash it. The server is set to automatically restart every 10 minutes if it's not already running, but this 'attack' (which would be perpetrated by connecting to DeusNet then running the command) would deny an alliance using DeusNet of service for up to 10 minutes. It'd also be possible to immediately reconnect and run the command again, taking it down for a new 10 minutes.

Hope that was informative

Jester

[Jester]

Originally posted by Torz
The whole stability thing was the only reason I'd not consider having private channels on PAnet.

Thats improved these days

This is avoided almost completely by having most or all of your alliance connecting to the same server. Earlier it was also a risk that a user would use a netsplit to gain access to channels without a proper invite or key, but that's been fixed rather well in the later versions of ircu.

Jester

[Fifth_teletubbie]

Originally posted by Jester


Jester

[edit]How did you know I wanted to be a Man in Black, Daevyll?[/edit]

I snooped out your diary with a script some kiddie wrote for me.

You really shouldnt keep it in ph34rbot you know.

[Zeus]

Originally posted by Hicks
Pfft I bet you believed it You believed us and the super friends in Legion were destroying your game round after round.

Hicks prove me wrong then... Intead of says im wrong, please prove it, othwise its rumours and hearsay.

The coding of P is openly availble and widely used on other networks and to my knowledge there is no way to monitor what people say in channels etc.

The opers, like ever other volunteer, helper,assistant have rules and guidlines to adhear too. To my knowledge no oper has ever been accused of using his oper powers to spy on alliances etc.. If u cant prove otherwise its hearsay.

LOL, you could also saying me saying this is also hearsay and for me to prove it, but I cant. I can only tell you Im being honest and that after 3years of the IRC network being around, dont u think IF this was not the case it would be widespread knowledge by now, with reports of oper abuse, P spying etc.. etc...

But hey, beleive what you wish, as long as it makes you feel good

Jester: And Zeus: wolfbabe did use her oper powers to join private alliance channels. Anyone here who was in nos towards the end of round 3 that can 'confirm' this with a log?

This I cant confirm as so long ago but as you know is totaly against the rules and Im sure action by me or the opers themselves back then. Opers can join a keyed channel (alliance channel) but they cant do it secretly, you can see them do it and see them in the channel. This authority is granted to them incase of channel takovers to name but one reason and is common practise in ALL irc networks. You obviously know P source and I hope confirmed a lot about the "spy" mode etc that just isnt possible in P, but it IS availble in other ircu's. Why do people doubt what they dont understand

[Jester]

Originally posted by Zeus
The coding of P is openly availble and widely used on other networks and to my knowledge there is no way to monitor what people say in channels etc.

You obviously know P source and I hope confirmed a lot about the "spy" mode etc that just isnt possible in P, but it IS availble in other ircu's. Why do people doubt what they dont understand

Actually it isn't. The gnuworld code is freely available, but P runs on a modified version of gnuworld that has not been made available (check the netgamers.org webby if you doubt this, this information is also on the forum there if you care to search it). The modified version of ircu is available (though there is of course no guarantee that this is the actual version running, of course it'd require something of a conspiracy to run a modded version, but that's an entirely other matter).

I do happen to know the person who codes P (and to a certain extent the ng ircu variant), he doesn't play Planetarion anymore (hasn't for 4-5 rounds) and really has no political interest in doing anything other than the Right Thing with P. He's also incredibly critical of ircds that do allow oper power abuse.

Note that all this is information relating to P. PBOT is an entirely different matter. The fact that it's hosted by ********** and not directly by Planetarion doesn't exactly increase my trust in it.

Why an alliance would want PBOT in their channels is beyond me though.

Jester

[MAdnRisKy]

PBOT contains the same cod from evilroider that was used for "spying". Now as far as I remember from talking to Raging Retard, whilst in evilroid it was switched on, PBOT wasn't doing it. It just had the potential to.

But most of this is over my head, so I'm not going to say any more. To my knowledge Evilroid did relay, and was removed, PBOT doesn't.

[Mit]

thinking about it, PBOT DOES have the ability to relay (it used to do Creators Hour relaying) but i know it is not used at all for anything naughty.

[ComradeRob]

Originally posted by Mit
thinking about it, PBOT DOES have the ability to relay (it used to do Creators Hour relaying) but i know it is not used at all for anything naughty.

How do you know?

Originally posted by hydridia
hicks i remeber in r7 many fury coming into UV private rooms on netgamers servers with the help of irc ops im sure some one has the logs around. heh
Glad we had private server as well then.

Wrong

We had a spy and he gave us his pnick login/password

so each of us logged in and invited

retard

[Jester]

Originally posted by Dreadnought!
Wrong

We had a spy and he gave us his pnick login/password

so each of us logged in and invited

retard

Here's a quick way to keep an eye on opers abusing their power:

Make sure all your members are added with autovoice, this way they'll be voiced by P when they enter the channel. An oper doesn't get their power through P, and thus would have to use uworld to gain +v. This is clearly visible.

There's also a discussion on adding more verbose behavior to P so you can see who last executed commands on a channel you own, and I'll suggest making sure that CSC admin actions are also visible here. Thus making power abuse easily traceable.

Jester

[Hicks]

Originally posted by hydridia
hicks i remeber in r7 many fury coming into UV private rooms on netgamers servers with the help of irc ops im sure some one has the logs around. heh
Glad we had private server as well then.


Priv servers rock! Netgamers is like the park meet greet then take them back to your priv server to more formal proceedings hehe

Your private server was barely used, guess how I know this ? I had Officer access to UV, there was no IRC ops helping us we were simply adding our members to P and inviting them to the channel as we thought it was amusing. Round 7 was rather boring

[Mit]

Originally posted by ComradeRob
How do you know?

I'm a network helper, and have to work with the person who wrote and runs PBOT for a start.

[ComradeRob]

Originally posted by Mit
I'm a network helper, and have to work with the person who wrote and runs PBOT for a start.

Hmm.

Correct me if I am wrong (I might well be, I'm not really part of the NetGamers 'clique'), but PBOT was coded by snow back around the dawn of time. Anyone who says that PBOT was not abused around this time must be taking copious amounts of mind-altering drugs, as everyone with any sense knows that it was. I can think of examples of channel keys being stolen using PBOT in r3, on one occasion this was used by Denial (a PBOT admin/helper) to gain access to my alliance's private channel.

Now, afaik snow has no involvement in PBOT any more, and PBOT is hosted by **********.net (again, correct me if I am wrong). I still fail to see why, if it was abused in the past, it cannot be abused now. Think very carefully before dismissing this possibility out of hand. Are there really no possibilities that someone could be abusing PBOT? I am quite sure that, if they were doing so, they would not be very likely to tell you about it

[MrL_JaKiri]

The PBOT issue aside, alliances aren't going to move back to netgamers if the game remains as it is.

Security is a big thing, and placing themselves in a situation where they have no control is not a choice that many HC's will make.

It's much easier/safer to get your own server, so you can concentrate on the intellegence issues you can deal with.

[Jester]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
Security is a big thing, and placing themselves in a situation where they have no control is not a choice that many HC's will make.

It's much easier/safer to get your own server, so you can concentrate on the intellegence issues you can deal with.

How is it safer? You realize that alliances actually gain benefits from using NetGamers? Fact is that activity generally drops by 5-10% or more when one moves to a private network.

Jester

[A2]

Originally posted by ComradeRob
Now, afaik snow has no involvement in PBOT any more, and PBOT is hosted by **********.net (again, correct me if I am wrong). I still fail to see why, if it was abused in the past, it cannot be abused now. Think very carefully before dismissing this possibility out of hand. Are there really no possibilities that someone could be abusing PBOT? I am quite sure that, if they were doing so, they would not be very likely to tell you about it

PBOT is still owned, coded and admined by snow.
I beleive it's gone through several code rewrites in recent rounds to add features and make it into one of the more powerful tools out there if you know how to use the advanced features properly.

The hosting is because (iirc) it requires a Windows server to run on at the moment which is what <insert clone name here> runs on. The bit that you see is the condition on which the server was offered for free and the hosting will probably be changing again for next round.

If you don't trust PBOT then don't have it in your private channel on NetGamers IRC and find something else that does the same job to use instead.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by KoRnNut
I wouldn't necessarily doubt you on that. Though the few counter-arguments I've seen over the years, from a few allianceless IRC ops, them and their high-tech slang words and jargon..heh..haven't quite cast away all doubts and speculation.




*lol*...no way buddy boy. 99% Persistent stability during the R8 Blackout on several IRC servers destroys that hypothesis. IRC servers don't go down by coincidence when massive/surgical strikes are launched.

Furynet used to get DOS'ed alot back in the day, didn't it?

wolfbabe told me at one point that furynet had only ever been dosed once, she told me that just after round 7.

[Bashar]

PBOT may have been abused by admins at some point, snow would never abuse it though, for 2 reasons:

1. He wouldn't stoop so low
2. He doesn't have any interest what so ever in playing the game, who wins, who loses etc.

Also, snow is the only person with sufficient access to pbot to be able to actually do anything with it other than daft things like RAW.

Also, I believe that in the last rewrite (he did it just before round 9 to c# - hence why it needs a windows box to run on), I believe that things like the relay were taken out as they were no longer needed (or more likely left out as it was a waste of time to put them in).

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Rumad
I like snow, but it canbe and has been abused. I know specific instances where it has been.

Noo ne is blaming snow, just stating that it can be and has been used illegitimately for alliance or indivdual gain.

In the past it may have been, but not anymore, there is nobody who has access enough to do so, except snow who doesn't care anyway. Also, most the stuff which could have been abused for such purposes has been removed.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Rumad
what a load fo rubbish.

Anyone remember when it was down for a week round 5?

heh

I seem to remmeber if my mind isnt failing me Fury having to use legions server.

So, whenever an alliance server goes down, it is obviously because it has been DOS'd, congrats on jumping on the bandwagon Rumad, I trust you are enjoying the ride?

Also, I will bow to your superior knowledge, obviously, a fury techie who would lose out most by having her own servers DOS'd, would under-exaggerate the number of times she had been wronged by stupid script kiddies.

Nice one Rumad

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Rumad
Yep true it may not have been a dos attack, but if thats teh case why wasn't the back up server used?

I believe it was down because of a dos yes.

If so, that must have been the one time she was referring to, but as I said, she said it had only ever been DOS'd once. I don't know the details of it.

[Bashar]

Also, I personally believe that the DOSing is not half as bad as people suggest - the number of times people scream "DOS ATTAK11!!!!!!!111", and then you hear no more about it, I suspect it is just unstabel servers, or techies screwing up and trying to cover their ass. Also, when heavy incomming is experienced, that is when servers suffer the biggest beating from the members etc. - so an unstable server would, in my view, be more likely to go down during heavy incomming than any other time.

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Rumad
Yep true it may not have been a dos attack, but if thats teh case why wasn't the back up server used?

I believe it was down because of a dos yes.

We didn't have a back up server until Round 7.

I believe the Round 5 was due to tech problems.

[Zh|l]

Originally posted by Hicks
We didn't have a back up server until Round 7.

I believe the Round 5 was due to tech problems.

I can't remember, the only case I can remember for a known and true DoS attack was r4 where it all began.

[Torz]

NoS were the DoS'rs!!!




(in round4 atleast)