Server Help :: View topic - Faking population?

Server Help

ASSS Questions - Faking population?

Maverick - Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:26 am
Post subject: Faking population?

Is it possible for an As3 zone (or maybe even for a subgame zone) to fake population? I'm asking because recently a zone called '1337' has screwed up some statistics.

If an as3 zone can, that would really be stupid because then I need to build something to remove abusive zones

Bak - Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:49 am
Post subject:

yes it can.

With asss you can also track the per-arena statistics, as well as how many people are playing vs sitting in spec.

Mine GO BOOM - Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:34 am
Post subject:

The directory server protocol is know, you could write an application to send fake data in a couple of minutes.

Maverick - Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:05 am
Post subject:

Too bad people abuse it then.
It means I have to add functionality to stats.trenchwars.org to ban zones for abusing the population number. Heh, I should first make it possible to delete zones through the admin panel

L.C. - Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:22 am
Post subject:

That zone wasn't using AS3 according to the statistics pages. That was subgame I think (stats said it was version 134).

Doc Flabby - Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:34 am
Post subject:

spawning 100x merv bots or something i suppose could fake population too

Bak - Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:48 am
Post subject:

I think all zones say they're version 134, which probably cooresponds to VIE Subspace 1.34?

Maverick - Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:49 am
Post subject:

L.C. wrote:

That zone wasn't using AS3 according to the statistics pages. That was subgame I think (stats said it was version 134).

It seems that the as3 servers identify themselves as that version number (thus the same as subgame). This is done by the directory server since that stats never query the server itself.
EDIT: As bak said ^^

It must have been as3 since I have tried doing that with mervbot and a local server: it could only handle about 50 bots. He upped the population by almost a thousand - that's impossible with bots.

Smong - Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:47 am
Post subject:

I think some of the dirservs only accept 134 for server version so asss has to use it too. Even if it used another version it could still be spoofed by recompiling the relevant module.

Doc Flabby - Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:57 am
Post subject:

However the only two public directory servers that work accept any version number i think....

I doubt the people abusing the population are trying to mess up the stats. More likly they are doing it in the vain hope it will attract people to their zone. However this is kinda pointless....as anyone connecting will find out it is empty...

Maverick - Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:58 pm
Post subject:

Indeed, not to mention only people that are downloading a zone list will see the zone with high population.

Bak - Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:32 pm
Post subject:

you can fake the zone population you get from pinging just as easily.