Remove Sr-Mod access to view player's IP

An ex srmod already leaked IPs so it will probably happen again

 

Hi there!

I understand your concerns with IP leaking and possible abuse, but on the occasions where this has happened it was handled as it would be with any other player. Only Admins having access to IP checks and IP associations would be seriously detrimental to our punishment system - especially when it comes to catching and banning IP Ban Evaders. While encrypting the IP address and assigning that IP a specific encryption message may be a good idea in theory, it is not very practical as many IP evaders will use a flexible IP that changes by 1 digit and would thus change the encrypted message.

Also, our server has thousands of players and only 4 Admins. Admins are not always on or available. On days when there is a surge of hackers, we may have to check 100s of IPs to catch evaders. Believe it or not, Admins are responsible for a lot of things that wouldn't be handled if they have to spend all day checking IP addresses. On top of this, evaders would be able to easily keep evading without us being able to stop them if an Admin is not available.

I hope my response to this is clear, there's a lot of other factors that go into this kind of an issue. Feel free to DM me on discord if you want to talk about it more!

Have a lovely day! :)

 

I've already explained this in the past in a previous tinfoil hat post about Seniors and IP related things. Link.

We can not scramble IPs without it completely destroying the point of IP checks.

Example of a fake players IP history:
-192.168.100.20
-192.168.100.25
-192.168.99.10
-200.35.29.95
-192.168.101.55

With the above we see a clear example of either sharing accounts, using a VPN, or something doddgy happening.
We can also see potential similar IPs that they've used, as people with dynamic IPs can re-lease a new 'similar' IP by restarting their routers.

If we were to encrypt as per your suggestion above, we'd see the following.

Example of a fake players IP history with some sort of hasing/encryption:
-05cdbca9-648e-4e3b-aec0-af0de7488f2d
-bbe3c2eb-b51e-474b-a3be-08c044aa318e
-2359696d-fcc6-41c7-90a1-0e1eefa040ed
-3eede5b6-6441-4609-b5e0-53cb53a3bb2a
-a771da0a-d03e-49a8-a8b6-0f39d1737dc8

See any patterns? I don't, because its random garbage - as any encryption method and or hashing algorithm would output.

I'd honestly suggest to not make suggestions against how things work without actually knowing how seniors operate behind the scenes with IP checks.

Likewise, with any system, if we use a reversible encryption method, you could, in theory, unencrypt the data anyways, making it a pointless exercise in wasting both development and staff time.

On the topic of the time where an IP leak happened, that was a once off.
As with any system, anything is open to abuse if the wrong people gain access to the data.
Moderators have to wait an exceedingly long time to be promoted to Senior Moderator, and to date, there has been barely anyone make it that far without being caught preemptively.

The primary, if only, concern I see people having about an IP leak is "OMG I'll be DDOSED!!!" - which as per my previous response, states, that if this happens, CONTACT YOUR ISP.
DDOSing is a real life crime, and is punishable in real life.
If you have truly been DDOSed, contact your ISP, as they will most likely have some logs about it and be able to follow up on it and or forward it through to the appropriate authorities.

 

Can you please list these awful people who leaked IPs with proof? The last time an issued occurred was more than 2 years ago and happened ONCE, so I’m not sure why you decided to bring this up?

You’ve never been in this position so you do not understand how crucial IP Checking is; it’s more than just for catching plain evaders

 

honestly i just dont like the fact fajo has my ip

 

I made a thread on that not so long ago (https://mccentral.org/community/threads/ip-encryption.132119/) which had positive feedback by the vast majority of the community (players) but interestingly enough staff members did think otherwise. I do believe some senior mods may be using such information for other purposes than ipbanning evaders, and that’s why I also believe encryption should be a thing. +1 from me and I would really like this to be looked into, just simply for the fact that a huge part of the community feels unsafe with such information being provided.

And that's where you've made a big mistake. The main reason why I suggested that in my thread in the first place was because I've seen it happen. Not only the one time with jess in 2018, but recently with someone who's currently a senior and accidentally or not pasted a screenshot of a player's /iplookup message in a private discord. I don't know what the intention of that was, but just knowing that someone who ought to be trusted as you've mentioned multiple times before is saving someone's ip is quite concerning, well at least that's my opinion.

 

“Thousands of players” only like 500 people play this server

 

you get my +100 on this because I have seen this happen before and yet they did nothing about it. owners/admins are the most trustworthy and should not have any sort of info about peoples ip that should be owner/ admin permissons only.

 

Unless this becomes a problem (and you can prove its an ongoing issue), this won't be implemented. You are also worried about the wrong thing. Every single site you access and interact with now has your IP; any sketchy site you ever clicked has your IP. All other servers you played, they also have your IP.

DDOSing is a crime, as stated above, no one on the team will be noting down IPs. You mentioned that ex-mods and helpers threatened you; well they can't see IPs.

- Locked

 

There is no need to lock this as threads are suppose to be open for discussion.

Unlocked.​

 

The problem is, every single site you ever visit isn't trying to single you out. Whether there are straight up facts or not there are several cases in the community where players have gotten into it with staff and then their IP gets leaked on doxbin and next thing you know it is being spammed on MCC. Coincidence or not, I personally have been in calls when such things have been discussed and I know its going on. Every other major server has systems set in place so this cannot happen. When I beef with a staff member or a player on the server and they have my IP 5-10 minutes later, you are going to say its a coincidence? I have a personal experience 2-3 weeks ago and when I brought it up to some Sr.Mods it got swept right under the rug. I was dealing with quite a large issue on SB1 and It went in my favor and not the other players. Its weird how, I was in a server with the person who didn't get her way and she was in a call with a Sr. Mod I will leave un named in this public conversation. Less than 5 minutes laters, I am getting ddosed and when I see from where, its from her city. Everyone in this community knows that there are staff members that are corrupt. You can deny it, but it is inevitable. People are going to use their power for wrong doing and you can't deny it, its 100% true staff do in some cases. Yes, there are a lot of staff members that do keep to themselves and stick to the rules. But, I know time and time again there is shady stuff going on. There needs to be a system implemented or something. The community has had this issue going on for 2-3+ years. Its about time this gets uncovered.


If any higher up staff members would like to speak more in private feel free to message me on discord:
Joey.#1111 (dont forget the period)

 

As a former Senior Mod, I can say that checking IPs is important for us to have. Not only are they used for simple things such as IP banning people that are evading, but they can also help us with more serious or in-depth situations. Yes, it's true, there was a time where a Senior was leaking IP's and whatnot, but since then nothing of this sort has arisen. So while I understand why you may think it's bad because there is a potential downside, I'd say the upsides outweigh the small possibility of this occurring (as Ben mentioned, it happened once over 2 years ago).

It's hard to come up with a real alternative for IP checks as well as Kieren went into above. If there was a reasonable solution that didn't hinder the Senior's ability to check for ban evasions, linked IP's, etc. then I'd be completely for it. But that's not really something that's reasonably available right now, so sticking with the current system is probably the best.

 

They wouldn’t promote someone to Senior Mod if they didn’t obviously trust them. Also theres not very many admins, and it would be way harder to get confirmation on an IP ban if the Sr's didnt have access to ip's. What it is right now is fine. I don't see anything wrong with it.

 

yeah, wierd since that has happened multiple times and the fact the people have had to make mutiple fourms about this is kinda serious. They wouldn't be joking about this and Ik you just want to defend the server look at the actual problem before saying "its fine right now nothings wrong" people recently have had DDos threats and then sr mods just get there ip easily and abuses there power and goes to far some mods are very trustworthy and then get promoted and abuse there power the thing is, they don't expect it coming.

 

fr this guy ben annoys me cus he banned me but i 100% trust this guy with my ip because i know mcc wouldnt let some idiot have access to ip's and also admins r really busy so they dont have time to check for the many ban evaders and alsooo if u think a sr mod shouldnt have access to ur ip and u think theyre doing something illegal wit it staff report them

 

Seeing as nobody has been willing to staff report the seniors that you supposedly believe are leaking IPs, I feel some of these comments speak for themselves. If there genuinely were senior moderators regularly leaking IPs, I imagine it would not only lead to an immediate demotion (and quite likely a blacklist), but it would also be MUCH more known than it is.

That being said, the senior moderators in this thread have already provided further information on why encrypted IPs would be a bad idea. Moderator tag aside, I genuinely and truly do trust the current senior moderator team.

DDosing is extremely prevalent within any and all multiplayer games, it is also extremely noticeable in the sense that you would be completely incapable of logging on or connecting to the internet for several minutes if not hours. If you truly do believe someone is using your IP to ddos you, not only do I recommend you contact your ISP, I also suggest you discuss the option of using a dynamic IP. Friendly reminder, your ping going from the regular 100ms to 200ms does not equal ddosing.

As for the comments stating that this is something that regularly happens... It really really does not. I can 100% assure you that nobody on the staff team is spending month after month reaching requirements, helping the community ect ect to get promoted to senior... to have access to your IP. We have so much more to deal with, and concern ourselves with than holding grudges.

If there were some way that requires minimal time and effort from developers that works effectively to ensure the senior moderator team can effectively deal with situations such as evading, it may be more realistic. But I don't believe belittling the maturity of the sr mods helps in any way.