Ok. I did it. Now what?

Have you considered being apart of the kardashian's entourage? With all that ass-kissery, she'd love you.
You CAN ban an account via MAC address. It takes much more work but in the end; The user will NEVER be able to log back in. Why? Because a MAC address is registered to the computer, whereas the IP address is not. They could use some sort of Scrambler to use a decoy MAC address but in most cases; They don't work effectively. "If you don't like it, go make your own" is a terrible excuse. If you truly wanted Dennis' favour, you wouldn't allow him to think that his site is perfect(If that's what he thinks). It'd save him criticism like this and would make his job in the future a lot easier.

And by winning his "favor" what would I accomplish? Absolutely nothing. I have nothing to prove to any of you guys, you can troll me all you want but it really doesn't bother me. I stand where I stood before. You guys are making a really big deal out of something so INCREDIBLY insignificant. You can call it ass kissing or whatever the hell you want to call it. This guy pays money out of his own pocket to keep this place going and I don't mind showing appreciation where I can. Its courtesy. It's common sense. Also sorry for being ignorant as to how forum banning works. I'm just a forum user.

have you ever been to deviantart? you sound exactly like "them".

Thats like 5 or 6 fantastic posts in a row Corvette19, you all could learn a lot by reading and taking time to think about what this man is trying to explain to you.

it explains how impossible he's being. if all humans had his mindset we would all be destroyed; he is unquestionably accepting a broken system because it's free. systems can always be improved, and dennis has adamantly defied logic and has allowed this site to sink down and become the butt of most forum jokes, frequented at facepunch. how many new members do we get that actually show an interest in modding? worst of all is the handling; many times has infringement been an issue, most recently with jackrabbit and the h4 HUD. dennis, rather than address the issue, lets the infringing continue because legally there is nothing wrong. ethically, there is plenty wrong with everything that goes on in this website and dennis has shown an absolute lack of concern to any of it. would he even care if something happened to us, as long as it didn't hurt his precious website? what would his clients think should they see the constant and persistent issues that have appeared time and time again only to be ignored for no reason? it's not hard to try; it's hard to acknowledge failure and do nothing about it.

it's okay to have supporters, but if all I had was people telling me "it's fine" or "it's cool" then I would have gotten nowhere near where I am today. I have been criticized and have only gained from criticism. I make reflection maps, 3d models, textures, and still I improve where improvement is needed. I not only benefit from this, but people come to me asking the same questions that I now have answers to. I can help people because I was helped; what would dennis do when someone asks him? simply say "let it be, nothing illegal is happening"?
Edited by master noob on May 12, 2013 at 11:36 PM

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

edit: i am not religious in any way
Edited by Maniac1000 on May 12, 2013 at 11:52 PM

all things change. nothing can be gained from ignorance.

Not over a wide area network. ARP - (Address Resolution Protocol) is not propagated across the internet so the MAC address of the originating IP is not available. ARP only runs across a local area network.

Except the fact that the website is fine. Logic that works in one scenario doesn't mean it will work in another. Stop making such a big deal about all this.

not I, corvette. not I.

That's where you're wrong. I have seen and issued plenty of MAC address bans. The process is rather long but fruitful if you've dealt with the guy on multiple occasions. Technically speaking, Ip scrambling doesn't change your IP. It's a stem. The same goes for a proxy. Mac-banning is essentially targetting any IP related to the IP in question and using it to determine the true IP or the "root". After finding the root, you can locate the MAC. PSN is an example of this. That's why cfw users have access to a decoy MAC address that allows them to create an unlimited amount of accounts without getting banned. The problem isn't what's possible but what's ethical. The sony hacktivist network feels it's unfair for a greedy business to ban someone who paid 200-600 for their product. This is why console hacking is rampant. You're not bound by the same level of ethics as you never charged us for a product. Given some real knowledge of C++ and understanding of how CF processes administrative commands, you can reroute the user to an error page. Any idiot can use a proxy. Not everyone can mask a MAC address. I could walk you through one if you'd like.
Edited by AllySuzumiya on May 13, 2013 at 12:07 PM

RFC 826 tends to prove otherwise. ARP is only translated through a bridge but not a router because a router is a Network level device and does not propagate Ethernet broadcasts. Only if the router is running an ARP proxy you can retrieve ARP requests to the next network level device.

What you mean, is they work incredibly effectively, and take no effort to use. Any unix based OS takes seconds to do, and most linux network managers allow you to associate whatever mac address you want with each network connection so you dont even have to think of doing it everytime. Since it takes no effort, my mac address is actually different on every WIFI network I connect to.

You mean, PSN uses a console ID, because it isnt a generic web service, so they can include infinite amounts additional information in their packets. This console ID is stored in the PS3s flash. By getting another valid console ID, banned people are able to reconnect.


Anyways, so what your saying, is that "suggestions for site" is that dennis no longer hosts the forum as a website, but rather an application, so that the app can send information such as their mac address with requests, to insure that they are a valid user?.... Because your mac address ideas are foolish. The closest the packets will hold is the last router it went through, so ISP or country wide gateways are gonna get closed off instantly the moment someone in that area is banned. Really wish you where more educated on the subject before going off about it.

Actually when I was talking about Psn, I was referring to the Psp but you're right regardless. I actually had a post a while back that proposed the creation of a Halomaps application set to run on computers and mobile devices with that in mind so you're spot on with that accusation.

As for the whole process of banning a MAC address, I never factored in the possibility of a country-wide ban. Forgive me for speaking on the subject without being refreshed on the subject matter completely. It's been a while since I've really discussed this subject matter. Once again, forgive me. Although the same apology is extended to you, Dennis, my point still stands regarding my opinion of the site and your moderation of the site as a whole. Though I feel this way, I'll keep my skepticism to myself.

You are entitled to your own opinion, however, not to your own facts.

You have no idea how much I wish I could ban the person instead of the just the IP or user account however I am restricted to the limits of the technology which was specifically not designed or conceived for personal identification.

A micro-payment system would reveal personal information since you would have to have a CC or Paypal account but since that is not the mission of the forum it is an option I have long since rejected.

Then make everyone pay five dollars a year to keep the forum troll free
i don't want to say this because of all the haters but still if they want there to be no trolls

lol, pay five bucks to view the 'nice and troll-less' side of halomaps? :o


And if you don't pay, you see the troll threads and posts that are not under any rule. Now that sounds like a business.

Then the trolls will troll harder and troll the people who paid by paying themselves.

There are numerous other reasons legal and otherwise which is why I didn't do it in the first place.

Yeah Microsoft probable wouldn't want you profiting off their IP

I think you should add a functionnality to mute some people on the forum ecause they make useless posts. That would prevent us from sighting with useless posts that a lot of people does in the forum.
Like Jaz, Dumb AI, Lodex, banshee64, and masterz 1337.

I think I could go for that, and a PM blocker might go down a treat as well.

While I'm here, though: being constructive in your criticism is one thing. Treating Dennis like crap is another entirely. Take a wild guess as to where a lot of people stand on that line?

Sure, some improvements to the site can be made. Won't argue that at all, I even made a few suggestions myself. But presenting your case to Dennis as though he's some moral obligation to do everything you ask and give you a footrub at the end of it is plain ridiculous. When an idea is shot down, usually Dennis provides a good enough reason as to why that reason might have been dismissed (MAC address blocking, for example).

Try to be a little more courteous, mm? You might see things happening.

Just a few suggestions, but before that...

I understand how hard it is to grant random users permission to the administrative tools of this site due to mistrust, because any sane person would not do so for the same reasons. You can't trust any person to not somehow abuse these tools and cause serious damage to the site. Also, I do understand that Dennis has real life issues to tackle, and that this site isn't his only job. Basically, he's the guy who kept this forum online for us (not to mention the community, but that's a story for another time), and managing a site with many users isn't exactly easy.


That said, I have a few suggestions (they are imperfect, but then again when was antivirus perfect?) that would help to improve the security of this forum and (hopefully) reduce the amount of troll and spam content of the forum.

1. As previous users have suggested, a reputation system to let the community play a part in stopping trolls and spam.

2. Limited privilege use for the administrative tools of the site (ie. at most "Delete this topic" and "Delete this post") for selected moderators. These moderators have to apply for the position, and meet certain criteria before even being considered. For example,
- Having consistent post and forum activity, such as at least 1 non-spam post every 2 weeks with no record of spam/trolling/malicious activity.
- Having shown reasonable maturity in posts and forum activity, such as using proper grammar and spelling where appropriate.
- And other considerations.
The moderator should be approved by Dennis himself, and (in the future, should there be a community of moderators) supported by at least 2 other moderators. The moderator's permissions can also be revoked at any time by Dennis.

3. Captcha (I recommend Google's ReCAPTCHA as doing so also helps with translating books into OCR format for digital storage, so its two birds with one stone there) for every activity on the forum, such as posting and creating new topics, possibly at logins as well to prevent bots and detect account brute-forcing.

4. Scheduled "fuzzing" (ie. penetration testing) and logging of activity of the site to reduce the amount of security loopholes that people can exploit and as a result abuse the site.

If any one has issues about these suggestions, feel free to point them out and suggest better options.

That is not a reputation thing.
Reputation points wont stop spammers or trolls. Ignoring them is the only way.

I'm almost 100 percent sure that if this one gets made, I'd have a terrible reputation rank.

Oh come on your not THAT bad.

Also, it's not such a good idea because trolls would have another way to troll people by rating someone as bad.
Edited by P3 on May 14, 2013 at 05:45 PM

I'd love to see a bit of a rank system.

How the hell did maniac get that -helpful poster- thing? :O

It was just there one day,it does not get me free beer or women though.


Edited by Maniac1000 on May 15, 2013 at 12:03 AM

I'd like something to inform people that a thread has an updated post. That'd probably cut down on people using two posts to update someone on something or tell them that they've solved the problem and help encourage users to shy away from doing that in general.

Maybe allow only older users to rate, and allow one vote per account per day? Limits the amount of damage from abuse. Is there a way to improve this?



And yes, this is the only guaranteed way to deter trolling and spamming. Its impossible to stop trolls and spammers completely but at least damage control is possible and more effective with the suggested measures in place, and in combination with Maniac1000's suggestion would be a very effective deterrent.

Speaking of which, I got some of my ideas from here:
http://www.cracked.com/article_16765_5-ways-to-stop-trolls-from-killing-internet.html
Yes, its a comedy site, but it makes some valid points there. 1 and 2 are a little extreme though, and even I would personally oppose those.

Edited by sargejohnson on May 15, 2013 at 10:51 AM

You just blew my mind. I literally didn't see that on the panel until like just now. You know what? Take my SOS - Master Sleuth armband and my North High uniform. You're the new SOS brigade leader.
Edited by AllySuzumiya on May 16, 2013 at 08:19 PM

Why is it that when we edit a post, like around a third page (anything that has multiple pages) the browser takes us back to the first page? It's always annoyed me how when I edit a post in a 40th page, it always sends me back to the first.

And when you click on "Last page" of a thread with tons of pages, it takes you to a non-existent page.