German IP ban

[Tanika]

I have decided to cancel my Saturday Night Fever DE Tourney as long as the German IP ban is in place. Players that play in my tourney are playing for TPR points and as long as I keep them out, I give their opps a unfair advantage. Some of our most regular players (in ALL tourneys ) are German players, Sorrytigger, Perfect _Cell, Cirruswolke, LuckyDice, Cigale and many , many more. Some of these guys fight hard in every tourney to keep their ranking on TPR or the yearly Bago ladder. As soon as the ban is lifted , Saturday Night Fever will be back as normal!

[socksey]

The German ban was put in place apparently because someone there was abusing the Fibs server.  Patti has no other means of defense, so I guess we have to live with the German ban.  Sad, but that's the way it is. 

socksey



"Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong." - Harriet Beecher Stowe

[Leudwulf]

I'm no techie, but there's got to be a better way of dealing with the problem.

[sorrytigger]

The German ban was put in place apparently because someone there was abusing the Fibs server.  Patti has no other means of defense, so I guess we have to live with the German ban. 

Can anyone tell me, WHAT sort of abuse it is/was?
I don't care for answers like "bad", "ugly", "serious", and so on. I am yearning for FACTS.

Andreas

[Tanika]

Tigger ask inim, I'm sure he will be able to give you the history. He's been there long enough and think he will be able to explain it to you best.

[sorrytigger]

Yes - inim has been on my server, already. I think he was impressed. He told Patti (I think). Her response was to raise the number of concurrently logged in users. My first big thing

Well, what could he tell me? Why doesn't Patti tell us, what gaissenpeter did? What can any one single user do to a server, that justifies a measure like that she has taken?

No - I won't ask inim.

Andreas

[PersianLord]

I don't think all the Germans should be banned.

PL

[diane]

All the Germans arent banned..they are banned from playing each other on FIBs.

This is ridiculous, it was ridiculous when all Italians were banned from playing each other, and it is the same now.

I am not a techie though, and have no suggestions on how to fix this.

It would be useful if this thread could stick to trying to understand the actual problem and finding potential technical solutions, rather than saying the situation is rubbish. That is not in any dispute by anyone, Patti included from the shouts I have seen.

Does anyone know where geissenpeter lives 

[Patti]

To the best of my knowledge, no Germans are banned from FIBS.

Some (but not all) German ISPs are banned from playing each other, and from playing the bots.

I always put in place the narrowest possible ban that I can in order to do what I need to in order to maintain FIBS.  Sometimes the only tool that I have is a very broad ban.  I hate using that sort of tactic, and only resort to it when I don't have any other options available to me.  I *might* have figured out a way to do something narrower, but it will take me several hours of coding and I don't think I have that much spare time before I leave for vacation.

For those who are speculating, inim had and has absolutely nothing to do with this.  He does not control or affect FIBS policy in any way.  Also, I am not going to document the mechanics of abuse, as I'd rather not lay out a cookbook for other people to try the same things.

[Patti]

I think I may have managed to narrow down this ban.  People from many German ISPs will no longer be able to play the bots (but they can resume existing games), but they should be able to play each other.  I didn't test this change extensively, though, so it's entirely possible that I created a new set of problems.  (I hope not!)

[diane]

Ok, that sounds promising. Thanks for looking at this so quickly, and lets hope that it means tourneys can resume as normal. Bot playing can come later 

[socksey]

Does anyone know where geissenpeter lives 

Maybe we could enlist some of our Italian friends to put a hit out on him!?  Problem solved!   

socksey



"There isn't a single human being who hasn't plenty to cry over, and the trick is to make the laughs outweigh the tears."  - by American social activist Dorothea Dix born in 1802

[sixty_something]

great job, Patti .. i know there are a lot of tournament players who will be relieved to hear the news too

[socksey]

Thanks for your efforts, Patti!  We'll all cross our fingers that the fix is a good fix!      

socksey



"I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us."  - by American social activist Dorothea Dix born in 1802

[Tanika]

Thank you, Patti. It was never my intention to let this threat become a field for blaming, but purely to let my Geman players know that my Tourney won't run as usual. I hope the new measures work and I'm sure all TD's sigh of relieve.

[jean]

Maybe we could enlist some of our Italian friends to put a hit out on him!?  Problem solved!   

socksey

Anyway the CIA is kidnapping innocent peoples in the streets of Milano and other european cities.
It wouldn't be a big deal to send some CIA-thugs to Gaißenpeter's cottage.

[Tanika]

Thank you Patti for resolving the problem so fast. Although German players can't play the bots at the moment, they CAN play each other. So Saturday Night Fever DE Tourney and  BagOlympics are back on track as usual! I hope to see the same turn-out (or better ),  as last weekend when we had 16 players in the Saturday Night Fever ! The tourney attract more players every weekend and I believe it will grow to be one that can stand it's ground with big ones like Bago and Bloody Mary. Thank you to the regular players that join in every weekend and especially to Perfect_Celle and LuckyDice for their help and all the brilliant plans they come up with in case of emergencies! I believe that being the only DE Tourney on FIBS at the moment the players enjoy something a bit different from the normal. If the Tourney keep growing the way it do now, I'm considering doing the same as what Lucky does with Bago at the moment, keeping score and declare a overall winner at the end of a year's play... With one difference... The winner will receive a crystal trophy !  I wish you all good games and blessed dice!