by BeatlesFan » Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:47 am
>>It appears that many of you know, so I might as well explain the whole "Big Name Player" mystery.
>>I will be redundant for those that already know part or all of the story.
>>Recently there was a new troll account that was aimed at attacking Highlander. The forum (and somewhat in the game too) player made a poll about HL. Then the troll started posting on multiple threads. The postings were all designed to flame and bait. It also included profanity and was off-topic. There were about 15 postings. This troll was still in the process of spamming threads when I logged in. I considered just banning the account, but the postings as a whole were NOT acceptable for 13 year olds, so I had to deal with some of them individually.
>>I decided in the end to just delete all of the posts one-by-one since there were only about 15. Then I banned the account.
>>The player then just created another similar named account, but I was online when it happened, so I just immediately banned it too.
>>The first bad news is that this system is not set up well for moderators. I am able to check a number of things, including IP addresses, but it is not easy. I went through each of the 15 postings prior to deletion and noted the ips as well as the ip of the two accounts.
>>I went on a hunt. I had to manually go through suspect players based on past activity and hunches and compared ips. You guys don't always log in the same way, so your ips are often different even for the same player. After checking all of the likely suspects I came up empty.
>>Then the 3rd account by this player came on. I like a mystery involving some detective work, so I sorted the membership list by the top posters and went through one-by-one of those I would not suspect and I found my match. Well, not exactly. Your ip addresses are all different, even for you, you likely have many. I found an ip that was so close it was almost a twin of the other. If these two accounts are not the same player, they are at least sharing the same connection.
>>So I banned the main "big name player" forum account for 30 days along with a message asking for an explanation. I then posted on the forum "outing" the player. Whether it was exactly this player or whoever is sharing his connection, he certainly is the violator or knows who it is.
>>I quickly rethought this and removed the post and the ban.
>>So, why would someone share the same connection and be innocent? Well, a number of reasons. Perhaps he has a clan with his friends at school and they all log in from the school internet. It might not be who I think it is, but rather someone in his school that also plays Vortex Wars.
>>So I messaged a few players including Highlander, Fangfallen and the Big Name suspect.
>>Based upon my history with the Big Name I absolutely did not suspect him at all and was surprised to see a match (or close enough anyway). HL was also surprised. He had no negative interaction with this guy and they both are friendly to each other.
>>So what happened?
>>In the end what happened is this: I was able to independently track down his ISP and that of the offending player from the forum information available to moderators. The Big Name and I exchanged a number of PMs and he revealed to me how his internet is set up and the name of the provider. It all matched. It turns out that he has a rare situation. This ISP has a limited number of IP addresses and shares them with up to 1,024 different people. They might not even be in the same location. I have never come across this, but that is how his internet carrier operates.
>>So, I believe it is not the Big Name Player Fluppa. He is innocent as far as I can tell. He just happens to share an unusual internet provider with another guy that is a troll.
In Vortex Wars: 50% of the game is luck. 50% is skill. The other 50% is math.
