That comes down to figuring out how the other banlists work and integrating it...or figuring out how source bans works and editing it to pick up our own ban list that we control.
I quite like the idea of multiple banlists for difference grades of bans, this has a rough parallel to something most linux sysadmins (so myself) use to flag up potential spam email. A piece of software called "spamassassin" can connect to multiple email verification servers and check off aspect of the message against the database. For example one verification server may deal solely with phishing link and if found will add a "weight" of say 4 to the current email. If another server find that the email's "From" address is confirmed, again a weight of 3. If you have your spam a software to reject emails over a score of 5, then in this case this email would fail. I'd kinda like to see a system like this in a ban list. Where when a person joins, depending on there "score" e.g: greifing (2 incidences, same server) = 2 (i.e 1 point for each) racism (1 count) = 2 (2 points for one incident) This would give a 4 count score, so the server admin may wish to configure the plugin to give a 14 day temp ban for scores >3, for example. If you had a metric "multi server greifing" then perhaps: M.S. greifing (3 incidences, different servers) = 4.5 (i.e 1.5 point for each, weighted higher) ... so in this case mildy persistent greifing alone over may earn you the same 14 day ban. (That was kinda of a brain-fart, but you should get a rough idea of a "weighting" system that serves hundreds of thousand of linux email servers very well) On the subject of MySQL and the underlying tech. Again speaking from a sysadmin security stand-point i'm a little uncomfortable to say the least with database directly brokering with other, essentially untrusted db's. I'd like to see (and i think it was lightly mentioned in this thread) the communication abstracted a little away from the database to something like XML-RPC, SOAP etc. As much a I like MySQL, i think not having to burden any banlist plugin with being built against any particular version of the mysql client libraries is a good thing. This would also mean that you could inherently have good cross-platform support for this idea. Additionally an XML-RPC thing might be a good idea if one where to also provide addition services like web front end (for the empires league and 3rd party sites), and allow people to independently develop software on top of what would be a banlist protocol. (Aside thought: an RSS feed of "douchebags of the day"?, got my vote!) As far as who can actually connect to the banlist service i'd suggest we used a system of registration, very much like the Dystopia stats project (waaaay back in the day) and Google use to submit there IP address to a central server, a hash (salt + IP?) is spat back out at them which in each XML-RPC call. This is obviously used so prevent query-flooding of the server hosting the banlists. (ok brain is kinda dry now, give got a ton of question, suggestions on the basic protocol of this but i'll leave it like this for now)
I am agaisnt this idea in general. When I get banned on steamfriends for 9 mining the CV on top of the spawn in SoF, it doesn't mean I'm going to do the same thing on the noob training server. Note: I'm talking specifically about me.
Building the plugin yourself means you'll have total understanding and control over it. In the case of empires you can add empires specific stuff quite easy if you build your own software.. Also they might not like the structure of sourcebans. just a few reasons....
No i think that's a very good idea etho. if servers could choose to ban people that have recieved a ban point in the last 24 hours (might stop a persistant offender in his tracks before he starts) or give a permaneant ban for people with a greater if you want to get really complicated you might have ban points that "decay" even. summary: servers could have the ability to ban people for having greater than X ban points (X is chosen by server) having earned greater than A ban points in the last B hour time period, resulting in a C hour ban (A B C chosen by server) custom might be X = 2, A = 1, B = 24, C = 24
Trying to dole out temp bans based on points is going to make the plugin overly complex. A point based system where the admin simply sets the threshhold they do not want to ban for seems more realistic.
i suggest that this ban list would be for everyone, so if a guy joins a server and has been banned from other servers, (if there were a system of x# of offenses =kick, x# of offenses = ban) so the guy auto gets infractions and is close to gettin kicked. other posible suggestion: if a guy gets banned on one server, he is auto banned on any other server he joins thru this list file. say its an auto update list so any bans are added. and since every1 has it , if the admin isnt thr it still works. or is this file on the server?
Imposing a ban list on everyones server is a bad ideas as everyone has different views/opinions which was discussed earlier in the thread about having multiple lists or point based systems etc. Admins should always have the option of what they want to do with their own server.
of course they can not have this list. the admin has the option of putting the list on his server. but it seems a good idea so multiple offenders dont bother anybody, on any server, if we had a universal list.
To see how the system I am talking about would work, look at AASA - http://www.aaserveradmins.com/index.php That system uses PunkBuster, which we do not use, but the concept is what I care about. AASA is highly revered for its impartiality and ability to discern stuff such as TS Overlay/Vent overlay from wallhacks etc. Allowing a single server admin to add someone to the entire list goes against the grain of what I am proposing here.
@ evan, oh he is? good thats kinds what i meant. when one guy is added to the code, everyone knows him right? so they know he has done stuff? @rampant, AASA doesnt really have much info on their site, but sayin that they are like punkbuster defines it well. just windering, which kind of PB? A? B? G? someother version?
It sounds like we are talking about different things here now? VAC is like Punkbuster in the fact it has a list of known hacks and so therefore is accurate. You are talking about a manual list not an automatic hack detection plugin...
