Are IP Address Trackers again being used in SL?

[Sling Trebuchet]

Never mind your waving.

What about bowing down while blinded by the brilliance of my brain?

Oh, and hi

[Marcus Ansia]

I (Marcus Ansia) do permanently see the 'you are banned message evry time I have tried to tp to that sim in the past.  Even after directly changing my IP Address, I still get the same message and I am unable to tp to the sim..... every time.

If I change my IP Address and then someone else using my same IP Address first tries before I do, they are allowed to enter the sim.  If I try, and then I'm told I'm banned, the next person using my IP Address is also prevented from entering the sim, but they get a different message telling them they have no access to that region.

If I try to enter the sim, I can't.  If I then immediately change my IP Address and someone else tries from the same IP, they can and also they then immediately checked the LL Parcel Ban list and I was not on it.  This was all within a period of a few mins.

[Snugs McMasters]

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Sling Trebuchet wrote:

Never mind your waving.

What about bowing down while blinded by the brilliance of my brain?

Oh, and hi

---

Don't go there, Sling.

The second anyone bows to you, Maddy's going to throw a fit and wave her shiny foil High Priestess hat.

And because I know she won't do it, I'll say...

Welome back, how nice to see you!

How've you been?

[Marcus Ansia]

You seem to be under the assumption that my avatar has to physically be rezzed on a region before I am then detected and banned, but I'm sure this is not the case.  Moving from region to region is little different than moving a file from one hard drive to another.  Usually it happens really quickly with files, but with an avatar it takes a lot longer, but your code is being sent from the region you are leaving to the region you are attempting to enter.  If that code and the IP is then being intercepted (which it must be) prior to your avatar making a full physical appearance on that sim, then there is more than enough time for you to be blocked and prevented from entering, so you get told you can't.  Remember all this can happen in a split second for a computer processor.

[Sling Trebuchet]

I am trying to understand what *exactly* happens and what messages are seen by you and by another on the same IP.

I don't control a whole sim, so I could only run through on a mainland parcel.

 

A. Determine messages:

1. I'm in my parcel. So is an alt that I can run simultaneously (and same IP)

2. I look at her straight in the eye and do "Eject and ban".

3. She gets dumped outside the parcel - but in still in the same sim.
She gets a chat message "Second Life: Sling Trebuchet ejected and banned you from this land."
Her name appears in the parcel ban list.

4. She tries to walk into the parcel over theboundary.
She 'bumps' off the invisible parcel boundary and gets a message "Second Life: Cannot enter parcel, you have been banned."

5. She tries to TP in.
She lands outside the parcel boundary. There is no message telling her why (But she knows right well biotch!)

 

B. Check for any IP ban arising from the avatar ban

I log in a different alt. She's on the same IP as the banned one, but has no problem TPing in.

However.....
1.The parcel is her Home location
2. It is also my Home, and.................I am on the same IP

I was quite interested in seeing if I would get dumped out based on IP

This does not necessarily mean that there is not such LL (temporary) IP ban.
If there were a temporary IP ban done by LL, it might be that this is not enacted if the avatar has their home location in the parcel.
The parcel is group-owned - so "I" am not the owner. The group is, and I only own the group.
It's a mainland parcel, not a whole private sim.

 

C. Check what happens if the ejection is done by a scripted object.

1. Unban her and she gets in

2. Let a script do a  llEjectFromLand() on her key

3. She gets dumped outside the parcel and gets a message "Second Life: You have been ejected from this land."

 

Parcel ban v. Sim ban

There is another factor.
I just have a parcel on a mainland sim.
Things work differently if a complete sim is involved.

 

I got ejected/banned from a sim once - a biker sim in which a complete drama queen had access control. Awful people but it still stings   I was consoled by other people hearing about it and saying to he "Oh THAT sim "

As I remember, when I tried to TP in after the ban, I got some LL message about not having access. The TP sequence never got a chance to "get going".  This was some years ago though.

 

So what do we know now?

All messages to do with banning/ejection began with "Second Life: ...."
This applied even if a scripted object did the ban/eject.
The standard texts would be
"Second Life: Sling Trebuchet ejected and banned you from this land", for myself doing the action
"Second Life: You have been ejected and banned from this land", for a scripted object doing the action.

TP attempts work differently for parcels v sims.
Without someone banning me from a sim, I can't say what happens in that case.

Getting banned by a sim that is assured not to have any special security system would throw a lot of light on the topic.
It would also get rid of any unknowns wrt parcels v sims.

Any offers ?
Go ahead punks. Make my day!

I'll TP in, then you Eject and Ban my ass - and my co-IPed alt will either be right with you or go splat like a fly on a windscreen.
Plus I'll be able to document the precise messages seen by self and co-IP.

 

If any want to do do the test themselves, I think that the banned avatar and the co-IP should have no connection with the sim (ownership or home). Otherwise it won't necessariy be a true test of the reported issue.

 

 

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

Would it be needed to add to this "test list" Estate Bans in order to make sure all possible scenarios were covered?

(If I owned a SIM I'd help with the tests but sadly I don't.)

 

[Sling Trebuchet]

Yes.

I've never had control of a private sim, so I'm not familiar with the options.

The test(s) should cover all available options available as standard LL.

The purpose would be to see if an IP ban, as reported by the OP, exists with any standard LL option.

[Perrie Juran]

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Sling Trebuchet wrote:

Yes.

I've never had control of a private sim, so I'm not familiar with the options.

The test(s) should cover all available options available as standard LL.

The purpose would be to see if an IP ban, as reported by the OP, exists with any standard LL option.

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If IP Ban exists as a standard LL option I am going to say it is a recent addition.

Last December at one of my regular haunts we had someone come back around 10 times with different Alts over the course of about 30 minutes.  Each time had to be banned individually (A SIM Ban in this case).  He was a stubborn Fellow. 

If it's being accomplished by a Scripted Object my question would be unlesss they were using Media how are they scraping the IP?

[Innula Zenovka]

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Marcus Ansia wrote:

You seem to be under the assumption that my avatar has to physically be rezzed on a region before I am then detected and banned, but I'm sure this is not the case.  Moving from region to region is little different than moving a file from one hard drive to another.  Usually it happens really quickly with files, but with an avatar it takes a lot longer, but your code is being sent from the region you are leaving to the region you are attempting to enter.  If that code and the IP is then being intercepted (which it must be) prior to your avatar making a full physical appearance on that sim, then there is more than enough time for you to be blocked and prevented from entering, so you get told you can't.  Remember all this can happen in a split second for a computer processor.

---

As I understand it, when you try to teleport to a sim, the sim from which you are trying to teleport first checks with the target sim to see if it's online and, if is, if you're allowed to teleport there.   If you're not allowed to teleport there (or if the sim isn't online) then you never leave the sim you're on, and you get an error message telling why can't enter the target sim.

From what you've been saying, I have understood that you and your friends are seeing error messages saying (in your case) that you cannot enter the sim because you are banned or (in their cases, after you've tried to tp there) that they don't have access to the sim.  That tells me that neither you nor they are ever leaving the sim you're starting from.    

When people manage to make it as far as the target sim, they should then be seeing messages telling them  "You have been ejected from this sim" or words to that effect, and the mesages should be telling them the name of  the object that's teleported/ejected them.

What exactly are the error messages saying? 

 

[Sling Trebuchet]

We don't know if your stubborn fellow was using the same IP. He had about 3 minutes between visits.
I would have no problem changing my IP at a much higher rate than that.

Back in the day, I remember discussions about 'good' griefers changing IP as a matter of course so as to evade IP bans by LL.

 

It is not impossible that the sim owner is using a RedZone-like system.
AFAIK, such a system can only guess/determine an IP via Media.

RedZone built a list of avatars seen to share an IP. As I remember, it banned by name all avatars in the list - not just the avatar that had originally been booted
This does not seem to be the case for the OP's daughter??She can get in if she changes IP??

If it is the case that an object in the sim is detecting avatars and ejecting them, then any TP has had to progress to a stage where an object that is scanning at whatever rate can detect them.

If the detection-ejection process included determining an IP via media, then the process has to get to a stage when the avatar client has contacted the media server.
In the case of the 'same-IP' avatar, the system would have to detect the IP - then check to see if that IP is listed and then get the in-sim object to to the eject. All teh while, the avatar would be getting closer to rezzing in the sim - if not already rezzed.
That does not necessarily mean that the avatar typist has to have any awareness of being kinda-sorta-nearly in the sim.
I'm well aware , OP, that the handover process is a complex one. Back in the day, it used to be even more complex - with the boots coming last and being deposited in the ass.

It would be helpful if we had more detailed information on the TP-experience of the 'same-IP' avatar.

 

One quick test for the OP:

1. Change IP - Disable all media playing - TP in - get booted
2. Can an avatar on the same IP then get in?

(Disable voice as well - just to be paranoid)

alternatively - OP TPs in with media enabled - avatar on same IP disables all media and tries to TP
alternatively - change IP - both disable all media - OP TPs and gets booted - same IP tries.

 

 

 

[Sling Trebuchet]

"and the mesages should be telling them the name of  the object that's teleported/ejected them."

That is what I had assumed first, but my test with a scripted object doing the eject resulted in a standard system message
"Second Life: You have been....."

A message was given *only* on the eject.
When my banned alt tried to TP into the parcel, she was simply landed outside the parcel boundary. There was absolutely no message.
This was simply a mainland parcel though, not a private sim.

My vague memory of being banned from the biker sim is that when I tried to TP, I got a near-immediate notice that access was not allowed. It would have been somewhat like a 'sim is full' situation. I never got to whooshing stage - if I remember correctly.

I would be interested in knowing what exactly the OP's 'same-IP' avatar experienced.

 

 

 

[Sling Trebuchet]

"and the mesages should be telling them the name of  the object that's teleported/ejected them."

Certainly should if the object was trying to emulate the drama queen who booted me from the biker sim

It's not impoosible that such a thing would do the booting using the usual llcall (with associated system message) and then proceed to deliver a lecture. The source of the lecture would be clickable in chat.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Sling Trebuchet wrote:

We don't know if your stubborn fellow was using the same IP. He had about 3 minutes between visits.

I would have no problem changing my IP at a much higher rate than that.

Back in the day, I remember discussions about 'good' griefers changing IP as a matter of course so as to evade IP bans by LL.

 

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He was ejected for being rude, crude and lascivious.  He was asked nicely to tone it down but responded by escalating his verbal assault and raising his male flag to full mast.

If he was resetting his IP each time he sure went to a lot of trouble for almost nothing because each time he returned all he did was continue his profanity laden rant. 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thanks.   I suppose one test would be for the OP and his friends to go to a sim that's not where their home is set and try to TP from there.  If the teleport fails, and they never leave the sim,  then that should prove -- shouldn't it? -- that it's the server that's preventing them from teleporting.

If, however, they find themselves back home or just outside the target sim, that suggests they're gettiing as far as the target and then being ejected/teleported home.

[Caoilte Skytower]

I have noticed a similar issue. If I tp into a region I am banned in with an alt, I can get in without a problem.

If I try to get in in any alt, again no issue. 

As soon as I try to get in in the banned avatar, I am told I am banned. so then I try again with the alts and it is no go... I get the message about not being authorized in the region. I have to reboot my comp to get it to clear. But as long as I don;t try to get in in the banned account, I can get in all day in an alt. 

SO my logical conclusion is that something remembers you tried in a banned avatar and remembers it. It may be an issue with SL and permissions, I don't know.

I understand that to prevent an IP address from showing you have to disable voice, music and media.

[Marcus Ansia]

What you have described as having happened to you is exactly the same series of events that I have encountered.

[Marcus Ansia]

I really had tried all possible permutaions.  I disabled Music, Media and Voice before attempting to tp again (after changing my IP Address of course, but I still received the ... 'You are banned from this region' message and then subsequent attempts my my daughter from my RL home also stopped her going there, but her message simply stated she did not have access to this region.

If I then changed my IP Address and my daughter then made the first attempt to tp to the region, she got the usualy messages... 'connecting to region'... then 'arriving'... and she enters the region with no problems.

again, I must stipulate, that I really couldn't care less if I can go there or not.  What does rile me though, is the unjust accusations that have obviously been made against me and then the owner, not even bothering to make an attempt to look into it and explain why.  Therefore I have to assume he wants to hide something from being publicly found out.

I have learnt one thing in recent days though.  Someone I know, also knows the region owner, not as a friend, but has had dealing with him in the past and knows for a fact that apparently he is quite an accomplished scriptor.  Make of that what you will.......!

[Sling Trebuchet]

As I understand you:

You change IP
Your daugter gets in no problem. She gets the usual 'connecting to region'... then 'arriving'..
You try to TP in and get booted
Your daughter then can't get in.

I'm still not sure what exactly your daughter is experiencing on a failure to get in.
Can you quote in full the messages that she and you get  - rather than decribe the nature of them?

For example, by trial and error, I found a sim that does not allow me in.
When I try to TP,
- my window goes black
- I see the TP progress bar (with zero progress), and then immediately ....
- I get a pop-up message window:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teleport Failed.
Sorry, you do not have access to that teleport location
          ((Close))
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you or your daughter see that at any stage?
That purely LL system message  *could* be described as "her message simply stated she did not have access to this region". It would be very helpful if you quoted full exact message text and where it appeared (chat or message-box).
if that is what she sees, then it indicates that a standard LL process is stopping her - and not some object in the sim that detects her and picks up an IP.

For me, my surroundings have mostly derezzed, but I am exactly in the position at which I clicked Teleport. I can rezz the prims around me by clicking around the place. My SL is always laggy.

Assuming that you are not at your 'home' coordinates when you try to TP, are you and your daughter still at those precise coordinates after a failure to get into the sim?

 

If you are not on a LL system parcel/sim/estate ban list of a public sim, then you have to 'arrive' enough to be detected by an object in the sim. In addition, the 'arrival' has to get to a stage where some third-party process is able to determine an IP.

Let's assume that there is an IP detection system based on music/media/(voice?) - including media worn by a bot avatar. Let's assume that it works even if the avatar has disabled music/media/etc and that the client software still pings the server even though nothing will be downloaded from it. This is certainly not impossible - depending on what the coders have done.
A windows program like Cports - which tells you what IPs your PC is accessing - would be useful to detect this.
Something like Wireshark - which logs the traffic as well - is more work but more useful.

That security system will have network and processing delays.
The server - somewhere out in the Interwebzzzz and remote from the LL network - gets the ping. The object in the sim has to detect the avatar, record the name and send that name to a server. A process has to link the ping and the avatar name messages to pair them. Some decision is then made about that avatar. If the verdict is 'boot', a message has to be sent ( over the Interwebzzzzzz) to the object. The object then does the booting.

While that third-party networking is going on, the LL severs are gallantly trying to land the avatar into the sim as quickly as they can. Nothing in their process can be catering for the possibility of some third-party process going on.

 

If you try to TP in for the first time in X period - and get booted - then if you then immediately retry, your experience of messages should be exactly the same again. This would be if the booting was entirely carried out by an object in the sim.
If you get a different experience on the retry - for example you get a LL system message - it should mean that the process of booting you in the first attempt has added you to a LL system ban list (temporarily at least).

 

A complication for general testers:
Testing for LL sim server functions wrt IPs etc is complicatred by the fact that there are different server channels with different code.
My 'eject an avatar' object that I used in my test above was a leftover from an investigation of a sim server issue.

 

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thanks for all the info.  I'm quite an experienced scripter, too, and I just cannot think of any way that the owner of the sim from which you're banned can detect your new IP address (and thus ban your daughter, once he realises she's using that same address) without your being on the same sim as one of his scripts.    If you are on the same sim as my scripts, then I can detect your IP address reasonably easily, but not otherwise.

That's what leads me to think that LL, who do know what your IP address is, must quietly have changed something behind the scenes in how region bans work, so that banning an avatar by uuid also bans that avatar's IP address.

I don't for one minute doubt what you're telling us here.   I am just trying to work out how it's happening, and I can't see how to make it happen without some involvement by LL.   

[Marcus Ansia]

I don't get booted, I never arrive to get booted, I get a message telling me I am banned from this region.

My daughter, when she is unable to tp there gets a message saying she does not have access to this region.  She never gets a 'you are banned' message, just a 'you don't have access to this region' message.

[Marcus Ansia]

All I can relay to you is the sequence of events as they happened.  I'm no scripter, so I have no idea how its being done.  But, for a different avatar to be told they do not have access to a region, immediately after I have attempted to tp there and the other avatar is logged in from my RL address and using the same IP Address as myself... you tell me how it can possibly be happening, if my IP Address is not somehow being utilised in this equation?

[Innula Zenovka]

I am sure your IP address is being utilised.   However, it sounds to me as if LL have changed the way region bans work, to implement a ban on the IP address the avatar is using rather than that the landowner is using something like the old (now banned) RedZone.   It's the only way I can explain how things are happening in the way you describe.

LL has often been asked for this facility to landowners in the past, to help deal with griefing attacks where the griefers just keep on relogging with throwaway avatars.   

[Sling Trebuchet]

"when she is unable to tp there gets a message saying she does not have access to this region"

Can you please quote the exact text of the message that she gets?
Does this appear as a chat message or as a pop-up window message?

Without that level of information it is very difficult to help you

For example, here was my account ( as above) of what happened  when I tried to TP to a sim to which I am not allowed access:
I saw...
- my window goes black
- I see the TP progress bar (with zero progress), and then immediately ....
- I get a pop-up message window:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teleport Failed.
Sorry, you do not have access to that teleport location
          ((Close))
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Is this what your daughter sees?
If so, she is being blocked by standard SL code - and not by some scripted object in the sim.

If you are seeing the same (apart from the text being about being banned) then you are also being blocked by standard SL code.
I don't know for sure, but if you are blocked by an Estate Ban rather than a Parcel Ban, then you might not show up in the public ban list. I suspect that this is the case.

 

[Marcus Ansia]

I really don't think LL have implimented a facility to enable IP Address banning.  It makes no sense as I've already proved.  It's only a matter of rebooting your Router/Modem to obtain a new IP Address. So if you are a griefer, you simply create another avatar and change IP Addresses before using it.

[Marcus Ansia]

If it's a standard SL code and I'm on an Estate ban, then why is it my daughter gets blocked immediately after I attempt to tp there, but if I change my IP Address and she then attempts to tp there first, she can?  So her avatar name is not being blocked, it can't be?