Smurf tag.

[Darkcity]

1 hour ago, Sevda said:

Problem: local ratings is just a number, sometimes it may be biased or anomalous. I would look closer at micro, eco and general playstyle instead of catching people out based on a single number. In addition, many players do not use local ratings nor would they have enough data for accurate ratings.

Hmm. As long as its calculations are in right direction (+ve and -ve) then it should be fine. There are 2 cases for smurfs.

1. They play with Pros/ Pro TGs
2. They play with beginner

The second is major issue compared to first, becasue they ruin the experience for new/recent players. In this case if they are coming up with baised high +ve then thats fine. Atleast, player should know that this person high level smurf compared to other low level smurf who plays pro TGs only. Besides, even if we are about to come up with new logic, it will also have some flaws, so, let's use what is existing. 

Here decision lies with host so. Besides final decision will be on moderator, so, should be fine. 

====================================================================================

On separate note, another param can be used is, win rate. Most of these smurfs has 100% win rate with few about <15 games played. But again we will need account creation date for that to validate. 

Account creation date will be key to finding smurf or any other detection mechanism. 

[G.O.A.T]

So many good ideas, but no real results yet?  banana world... no money involved = years to come to get bananas (fruits)

Maybe we need some lottery winners to get moving...

Best solution would be 0ad lobby server based... adding smurf tag to client @rossenburg is nice feature but still lacks the rest things around - at least make report smurf and sent it to somewhere on lobby server for further action... just waiting and believing moderators will inspect it and do something will not work, if they have also bad habbits...

- can we get date of registration NOW? or WHEN? or not "available"? from communication above it is totally unclear
- win ration is useless if smurf does not play rated games
 

Scroll back there was great ideas already spoken, but execution is not here...

 

[Dunedan]

To clarify some assumptions about what information we store server-side and can make available to 0ad clients:

0ad only sends game reports for rated 1vs1 games to the lobby bots (see https://github.com/0ad/0ad/blob/3faa301ee914b82b1bfd89f2e89bc6392e244997/binaries/data/mods/public/gui/session/lobby/LobbyRatingReporter.js#L55-L56). Therefore we have no record of unrated or multiplayer games with more than two players in our database. That's because the bots were built for two purposes: enabling multiplayer functionality and keeping track of ratings. For both of that keeping track of unrated or non 1vs1 games wasn't necessary. Detecting smurfs wasn't a requirement back then. I'd be open to store reports of unrated and non 1vs1 multiplayer games as well, to be able to provide more information like aggregated values of play rated and unrated games to 0ad clients, if the consensus is that this would be useful. Doing so would not only require changes to 0ad, but to the lobby bots as well.

Regarding the account creation date: We do store the date when players create an account, but that's not accessible to the lobby bots right now. Here is the database structure EcheLon, the bot responsible for handling rating related stuff, uses: https://github.com/0ad/lobby-bots/blob/8549e62dd40fd582412b4c8fc829fc672e8ddd17/xpartamupp/lobby_ranking.py. From that you can see that players have no date associated with them. You might also notice that we don't store the date for when a game happened. My proposal here is to change that so that EcheLOn stores the date whenever he gets the first request for returning player information (which happens immediately after player registration) and to store the date a game finished, based on the time its reports get submitted to EcheLOn, as well. I believe storing the dates is a no-brainer and something we should do in any case. After implementing that, we could return the registration for all players created after the change to 0ad clients. Independently from smurf detection that's probably something which would be interesting to display in the player profile.

Last but not least there is some point I'm wondering about, which hasn't been addressed yet (unless I've missed it). In this thread there seems to be the assumption that the logic for smurf detection will be integrated into the 0ad client. I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to do that server side, as that'd allow adjustments of the "smurf detection algorithm" between 0ad releases and would allow incorporation information into the algorithm which might not be suitable to return to 0ad clients (e.g. for privacy reasons). When doing the detection server-side only some kind of "smurf likelihood score" would need to be made available for 0ad clients. What are your thoughts on that?

[Yekaterina]

25 minutes ago, Dunedan said:

I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to do that server side, as that'd allow adjustments of the "smurf detection algorithm" between 0ad releases and would allow incorporation information into the algorithm which might not be suitable to return to 0ad clients (e.g. for privacy reasons). When doing the detection server-side only some kind of "smurf likelihood score" would need to be made available for 0ad clients. What are your thoughts on that?

Thank you for your detailed explanation. I think a smurf detection algorithm integrated into the server is a good idea and the server certainly should be able to know the creation date of accounts. My recommendation would be to improve the bots so that they send data about unrated multiplayer games as well, for a more complete player profile. 

There is one thing which I didn't understand: how can a smurf detection algorithm work on the server side? Smurfs are discovered by players who see a new account playing like experts and talking with 0AD jargons. I'm not sure how the server can tell these details. Furthermore, even if you do install such an algorithm, I would recommend only allowing it to flare up smurf suspects to the moderators instead of pre-emptively taking actions themselves. AIs are quite likely wrong and the lobby would be a mess if it bans a moderator or WFGbot.

 

[Dunedan]

19 hours ago, Sevda said:

There is one thing which I didn't understand: how can a smurf detection algorithm work on the server side? Smurfs are discovered by players who see a new account playing like experts and talking with 0AD jargons. I'm not sure how the server can tell these details.

If you as a player see somebody you consider a smurf, why do you need any codified algorithm at all? Wouldn't just not playing with this player be sufficient? I believe this thread is more about automated detection, which helps detecting non-obvious smurfs.

19 hours ago, Sevda said:

Furthermore, even if you do install such an algorithm, I would recommend only allowing it to flare up smurf suspects to the moderators instead of pre-emptively taking actions themselves. AIs are quite likely wrong and the lobby would be a mess if it bans a moderator or WFGbot.

I'd suggest not taking any preemptive action on server-side anyway, but instead leaving it up to players if they want to get likely smurfs tagged in the UI or even excluded from their games. That'd then have to implemented client-side.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Dunedan
Fixed wrong negation

[smiley]

2 hours ago, Dunedan said:

We do store the date when players create an account, but that's not accessible to the lobby bots right now

An alternative but slightly unattractive solution in terms of maintenance and dependency on ejabberd is writing up a module to handle some type of age query IQ.

[Dunedan]

38 minutes ago, smiley said:

An alternative but slightly unattractive solution in terms of maintenance and dependency on ejabberd is writing up a module to handle some type of age query IQ.

Yes, that would work as well, but I'd like to avoid that for the reasons you mentioned.

[Stan`]

I suppose the smurf score of an account could be based on IP address and player reports.

Two brothers playing on the same connection would show up as smurf/dupe account but as long as no preemptive measures are taken I think it's fine.

Would be nice to rate 2v2. Lag is a bit too much for 4v4

[Yekaterina]

8 hours ago, Dunedan said:

why don't you need any codified algorithm at all?

I observe their gameplay and compare their macro and micro to known good players and what I would do in that situation. For example, booming can give away a smurf: a new account who reaches 170 population and 10:00 sharp without any extras is obviously a very experienced player behind. Or, if they go straight into abusing certain OP units (as you wouldn't expect new players to know so well which units are OP let alone spam masses of them). Anyone who dances has definitely played A23 - can't be new. Furthermore, they may resemble someone we already know but isn't active at the moment - that person becomes a suspect. However, these are small gameplay features that humans can detect by watching games but quite difficult for bots to know. 

8 hours ago, Dunedan said:

detecting non-obvious smurfs.

I think non-obvious smurfs are not harmful anyways, could be someone who lost their account. In that case, playing with a smurf is identical as playing with someone who is usually not very active. 

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Stan&#x60; said:

Would be nice to rate 2v2. Lag is a bit too much for 4v4

However, most games in the lobby are either 1v1 or 4v4 or sometimes 3v3. 2v2s are quite rare. 

I think 4v4 should be given the option to be rated. If it crashes or DDOS then the host may terminate the game. 

[Yekaterina]

Someone used my account and Aslan banned me, the real one...

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Sevda said:

Someone used my account and Aslan banned me, the real one...

Now you know how it feels to have your password leaked hahahaha

 

Hot_Chocolate(1408) and Sevda(1629) are all run by imposters now

[thephilosopher]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Hot_Chocolate(1408) and Sevda(1629) are all run by imposters now

Are the imposters good players? Is this finally my chance to "defeat" a 1600 rated player?

[Darkcity]

7 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Hot_Chocolate(1408)

He has highest number of smurf accounts. I think one of the punishment for smurf should be banning their original account. :p

[Alar1k]

On 18/07/2022 at 5:57 PM, alre said:

I don't think there's any problem here, have you been accused of anything? 

making more info avaiable is only good. also rated team games would be wonderful.

Well my personal problem was more in regards to being ether called a noob or a smurf and therefore "bad for balance" when I wanted to play TG's - not as in hard accusation but more like "let's just take somebody we can balance the game better" since nobody (myself included) likes TG that's way off in balance.

And I do really like proposition @Darkcity made since it seems it would solve most of the problems that were raised here.

 

All in all old accounts/players should have a differentiation from new players, and also - maybe show how many TG games won/lost player has separately. Idk when I have time to play I prefer to play TG, maybe it's just me but I don't really enjoy 1v1 games all that much so my rank is not going anywhere for long periods of time. And I think that alone makes it difficult to balance when only info you have about the account is ranked games win/lose.

I do hope I get to play some TG when I get back, but gotta fix my internet first...

[G.O.A.T]

This is funny, shared accounts leaked on this thread still not banned - hallowed by WFG team ()

I'm just curious if sooner or later any mod scripter  will share mod to have easy one-click access to shared accounts, as there are totally untouchable. 

 

I updated by "about me" page.  

Did you know every time i release a list of new smurf - new wave of even more will arise? It means my effort has some fruits....

 

[rossenburg]

2 hours ago, G.O.A.T said:

This is funny, shared accounts leaked on this thread still not banned - hallowed by WFG team ()

I'm just curious if sooner or later any mod scripter  will share mod to have easy one-click access to shared accounts, as there are totally untouchable. 

 

I believe, banning "Pwned" accounts isn't the best way around such issue. If @ValihrAnt get pwned we need to ban his account together with his ratings?, probably 

should do the magic when it's finally integrated.

[Norse_Harold]

6 hours ago, rossenburg said:

I believe, banning "Pwned" accounts isn't the best way around such issue. If @ValihrAnt get pwned we need to ban his account together with his ratings?, probably 

You're right, banning leaked or "pwned" accounts is not the best way to solve the problem. However, it's the only way to maintain security and an effective reputation-based justice system until email addresses are collected, unless WFG wants to start using password reset questions and answers, but that has its own pitfalls such as easily guessed answers.

It's impossible to ensure that the original account holder resets the password if the only requirement for resetting the password is the leaked password.

Seems like another "legitimate interest" in collecting an email address, for GDPR compliance purposes, specifically for password reset capability. If Linux-loving libertarians think that collection of email addresses is so onerous, then consider making it optional and give incentives such as access to matches that are restricted to "verified" accounts only.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Norse_Harold

[Guest]

I will very concerned if 0AD promotes this kind of denunciation page.

https://wildfiregames.com/forum/profile/36868-goat/?tab=field_core_pfield_17

Without diving into data collection, without consent, without any true game justification and without any release as @G.O.A.T is doing...

https://gdpr-info.eu/

Edited September 11, 2022 by rm -rf

[Lion.Kanzen]

14 minutes ago, rm -rf said:

I will very concerned if 0AD promotes this kind of denunciation page.

https://wildfiregames.com/forum/profile/36868-goat/?tab=field_core_pfield_17

Without diving into data collection, without consent, without any true game justification and without any release as @G.O.A.T is doing...

https://gdpr-info.eu/

the european union is a fascist state.

 

[Gurken Khan]

34 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

the european union is a fascist state.

[G.O.A.T]

1 hour ago, rm -rf said:

I will very concerned if 0AD promotes this kind of denunciation page.

https://wildfiregames.com/forum/profile/36868-goat/?tab=field_core_pfield_17

Without diving into data collection, without consent, without any true game justification and without any release as @G.O.A.T is doing...

https://gdpr-info.eu/

You are really funny guy or girl.  My tab with names does not contain any private data. Do you consider your nickname in game to be private data? Sorry even GDPR does not care about you being borg or cyborg or smurf 

I simply see only reaction to the fact someone uncover your player identities. Like small baby when you take away its toy  

Are there any private data leaked without your consent?

Maybe you really need spend some time to read:

Terms of Service 
Terms of Usage 
Privacy Policy

 

Feel free to answer with strong arguments .-) otherwise shut up baby

 

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by G.O.A.T

[Guest]

1 hour ago, G.O.A.T said:

You are really funny guy or girl.  My tab with names does not contain any private data. Do you consider your nickname in game to be private data? Sorry even GDPR does not care about you being borg or cyborg or smurf 

I simply see only reaction to the fact someone uncover your player identities. Like small baby when you take away its toy  

Are there any private data leaked without your consent?

Maybe you really need spend some time to read:

Terms of Service 
Terms of Usage 
Privacy Policy

 

Feel free to answer with strong arguments .-) otherwise shut up baby

 

 

 

 

@G.O.A.T

No need to offense. You must be in trouble here to disrespect like this.

Please don't mix and match my sentences - Your main page is simply about delation. yes nothing less.

Snooping IP and saving them is the crucial point ! And nobody signed an agreement with you right?

Are u referring to legal basis for the processing in Privacy_Policy.txt ?

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/gui/prelobby/common/terms/Privacy_Policy.txt

It's an agreement between me and Wildfire Games - nothing between me and Sanafur / AlocAloc / G.O.A.T.

As well mentioned by Wilfire Games https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/gui/prelobby/common/terms/Privacy_Policy.txt, see GDPR 13.1.a, GDPR 13.1.b.

Then I ask, by right, the erasure of my personal data on your computer Sanafur / G.O.A.T

I don't have to detail order between laws and an agreement which doesn't exist with sanafur / G.O.A.T, right ?

Edited September 11, 2022 by rm -rf

[Dakara]

This guy is very crazy  but very 

[G.O.A.T]

@rm -rfMy computer does not store any your personal data. anyway to be sure it stores them kindly provide me your personal details to match them like your real name, address, your provider details, your IP address.

Regarding the game, my best guess is if players joining the lobby the all accept agreements  to be able to join each other or the way game is designed. 

If you are accusing me of some wrongdoing and misusing your personal data, kindly proceed by laws you mentioning.  I'm not aware of any, and provided smurfs list is only best effort guesstimate and reporting from other observers, as far as I know there is no any privacy concerns. 

I claim I don't know your identity, your real name, your address
As I don't expose my players name I can admit I could be able join your hosted game and my computer possibly needed some networking details to perform that. It this breaking of GDPR? Anyway to confirm this please provide me your player nickname to review it,

In my mind are these players accounts I joined in non-specific time. Are those you?
011235813 1600 gawky iaintborg- n.n. rotfl timidsmurf vieuxreac wxyz yazney_k