[durangod]

If there was a national registry for sourcebans!

1. Would you use it?

2. Would you subscribe to it (pay every month) if it was affordable for the masses?
($50 a year maybe)

3. Would you want access or would you be happy with letting us process the requests?
Remember hackers will go to great lengths to keep doing what they are doing. So no access from site admins to the main Database files would be so much more secure. That also means that you will need to wait for requests to be processed as well. Its give and take folks ...

4. Would you trust it?

5. Would you be willing to be a part of a volunteer board to recommend changes, make changes, offer resouces at your disposal (personal and physical), and faciliate the worldwide database?

We would need system engineers, programmers, system admins, web designers, customer service people, tech support people, lawyers, corp management people, sales people, and a host of others to run this successfully.

Your thoughts please?

[sneaK]

1. No.

2. No.

4. No.

There's so little information to this. Why would anyone be interested in having a synced bans system besides cheaters? The closest thing to this is SMACBans, and that's for anticheat bans.

Why would anyone be interested in having synced bans for breaking rules that some servers have, and others don't?

[durangod]

I was thinking along the lines of the same principle as fairplay concept for battlefield. I believe Dice and EA not only share the data but also it effects other games as well. A "cheat 1 cheat all" way of thinking to punish hackers.

So potentially if you cheat in BF1 and its serious enough you could have your whole EA account locked and lose all your games and the money you spent on them. So right there is a huge incentive to stop hackers from even doing so in the first place.

I was just brain storming today on tackling this problem on a larger scale is all. When you have sourceban installs around the world but they don't talk to each other then maybe they should, it would keep hackers from getting banned on on server with sourcebans and just running over to another server to play again.

Just a thought

UPDATE: yeah i guess SMACBans concept is what i was thinking of exactly but for sourcebans. I might just install that and see how it goes.

Thanks

[Chdata]

Hiya, here around TF2Data we randomly ban kids with squeaky voices and people we arbitrarily don't like!

Mind if I join in on this system ;P




(No we don't really do that).

[ddhoward]

SMACBans only allows a particular subset of servers running their plugin to actually WRITE bans to the database, because of the potential of abuse. Even in this scenario, everyone who runs the plugin must blindly trust the judgement and integrity of the admins of every server with write permissions.

The biggest issue with shared banlists is fraudulent bans, or bans that other servers simply don't agree with.

For example, a community I once helped out with would routinely ban people for firing non-melee weapons in the boxing arena. Even in the spectator stands. We would ban any user who was known to be under the age of 18. Etc.

[durangod]

@ddhoward thats good info thanks for sharing. The easy solution to that is have different levels of bans.

Such as:

Level 1 bans - anything personal that the server admin is picky about. This includes local rules that are violations ie behavior, but not exactly hacking or cheating but are done on a server by server basis, these type of bans are NOT REPORTED TO DB

Level 2 bans - bans that are serious and deserve world wide attention, ie hacking and so on. These bans ARE REPORTED TO DB

So the only thing you have in the world registry is just the level 2 bans. We could even go level 3 and say that these bans are like defcon 1 status where it is 100% verified by primary admin and a permanent type ban.

There would also be rules of the service that admins need to take verification seriously - some of these young banmins have too heavy a hand and let their emotions control their actions too much of the time. There would need to be rules of engagement that required a penalty fee charged for changing a level 3 ban to something lower. This would cause the admins to take it more seriously so they just dont toss level 3's at us left and right and then change them the next morning when they cool down.

I would like to start a DB, i would need to take a look at the data stream via sourcebans or even VAC if there is an API for that, and come up with an initial DB data layout first.

[DarkDeviL]

Originally Posted by blackhawk74 Why would anyone be interested in having synced bans for breaking rules that some servers have, and others don't?

&&

Originally Posted by ddhoward SMACBans only allows a particular subset of servers running their plugin to actually WRITE bans to the database, because of the potential of abuse. Even in this scenario, everyone who runs the plugin must blindly trust the judgement and integrity of the admins of every server with write permissions. The biggest issue with shared banlists is fraudulent bans, or bans that other servers simply don't agree with.

These two one pretty much explains everything -

Even with SMACbans, having a limited number of servers/communities with "write" permissions, thee is no guarantee that there isn't a corrupt admin somewhere in the chain.

After all, you can easily do things that would make it seem like a real SMAC ban and cause a "worldwide" ban on the national registry "SMACbans"...

Originally Posted by durangod @ddhoward thats good info thanks for sharing. The easy solution to that is have different levels of bans. Such as: Level 1 bans - anything personal that the server admin is picky about. This includes local rules that are violations ie behavior, but not exactly hacking or cheating but are done on a server by server basis, these type of bans are NOT REPORTED TO DB Level 2 bans - bans that are serious and deserve world wide attention, ie hacking and so on. These bans ARE REPORTED TO DB

Easy solution? Is it a solution at all?

- What will prevent me from adjusting the plugin on my community to report Level 1 bans as Level 2 bans?

- Even with a "trusted commnuity"-model, what would prevent me from manipulating your / our / this / [...] "national registry" into trusting my community, and then after the "national registry" trusts my community, I'll start going rogue and make sure that everyone I don't like (for whatever reason) is being banned on all community servers?

Originally Posted by durangod There would also be rules of the service that admins need to take verification seriously - some of these young banmins have too heavy a hand and let their emotions control their actions too much of the time. There would need to be rules of engagement that required a penalty fee charged for changing a level 3 ban to something lower. This would cause the admins to take it more seriously so they just dont toss level 3's at us left and right and then change them the next morning when they cool down.

I'm afraid that this one wouldn't work.

A lot of communities would just stop using the service, rather than paying a such penalty fee.


Requiring a valid demo (from the game, and NOT just a random youtube video!) might provide some evidence, however with different languages you would need quite a bit of staff members if you should turn it into a success.

It should also be possible to protest bans, and if there are no 100% conclusive and valid evidence; all records of the bans should be completely deleted (not just unbanned), but simply so there is no history of this "false positive".

Originally Posted by durangod I would like to start a DB, i would need to take a look at the data stream via sourcebans or even VAC if there is an API for that, and come up with an initial DB data layout first.

You can easily access the Steam API for VAC statuses (as well as steam community bans, trade bans, .. etc).

In regards to SourceBans, you shouldn't do that or anywhere near it. Rename it using your own name rather than throwing multiple - very distinct - things into one single names, tat would do nothing except serve confusion to users.

What if all Windows systems were named the same? Or all Linux distributions with the same name? What if all browsers (Firefox, Chrome, IE, etc) were just named "Browser"?

How would you ever talk about such things without getting confused, because A talks the one, and B about the another one? Make your own name.

[durangod]

Thanks arne1288 for the wonderful feedback and challenges, good stuff. This will give me alot to think about going forward...

You know from a user perspective i agree with you about the browsers. But from a programming view i wish there was only 1 browser so we would not have to code independently for 3 lol...

Meanwhile if you or anyone else has more challenges or insights, its all good stuff..

[friagram]

Just be like bliazzard entertainment and ban for any minor infraction, like killing someone during warmup and calling out "owned noob"

[durangod]

The best way to look at this is from 30,000 feet not from 5ft. Meaning that every system in the world, obamacare, SSI, world relations, bank loans, voting, and even the good ol library card (if it still exists) has pitfalls.

They all have people that dont fit into the square box, they all have people that say its unfair. And they all have processes that could be better. But it works for the majority and thats all we can ever do even with a national registry is to cause a positive effect on the majority of players, and a unpositive experience for the majority of hackers.

So that is how i am looking at this. Is it going to be a positive experience for the majority, and it think it would. With the right mindset, the right support people, the right setup, and the right goal in mind, i think it could and would be a great asset to many.

The people after us, those folks that take over when we are all gone and spend their days playing the source games they grew up with, they are the ones that would truley benefit from this. And then maybe our efforts now could be a great gift to them to make their days better than ours.

I think its a postive thing...

UPDATE: i picked up the domain name today.