Certa

ID's are weak and IP's do change. The best solution I can come up with is based on ID's and must be integrated into the games from start. It's based on public/private key pair verification. The game package comes with a code that equals a 64 or 128 bit randomized GUID. One central server kept by the publisher or developer is needed. When setting up the game for online game play (registering), the GUID is verified against the database of generated ID's kept by the server. This only has to happen once. The server will send back a private key signed copy of the same serial number that will work as the final ID against game servers. The game server can then authenticate that the ID was signed by the publisher/developer private key using the public key built in to the game server. Now, a public/private key system can have different encryption strength. The encryption has to be strong enough so that it's not likely it will be cracked during the expected life time of the game. In theory, this isn't so hard, just add enough bits to the key system and even CIA will have problems. Something for OFP2?

In what game can you aim, shoot and..miss a guys head at 2000 meters? Unfortunately most games uses BSP trees for high detail close quarter combat. Call of Duty, sniping is limited to 200 meters!? :-/ OFP is pretty unique with the space.

I understand your concern. There are billions of IP addresses and let's say there are a hundred addresses in the blacklist. Just for the sake of it, assume one large popular ISP got ten thousand IP's. The odds are still not that high of accidents. However, more likely some cheater is behind a NAT router at a student home or internet café. He gets the public IP of that router banned perhaps locking out 1000 potential players. But this is already the case for games like Quake3 (or anything based on that engine) where ban is based on IP. In my draft I consider a maximum blacklist time of one month so that faulty IP's are flushed out. It's better to free than to convict. Added to that, a method of contacting the administrator could also help resolving accidents.

The approach of IP is simple because it's generic for almost all multiplayer games. I'm not planning to write an OFP specific tool. I have a dynamic IP myself but I cannot change it at will. Even efter an IP release and IP renew I get the same IP back and I think thats the case for most people. My IP is bond to my cable modem or NIC's MAC address. The default behaviour of most DHCP servers are to return the same IP to the same MAC address if possible. I do know some people can change IP at will. However, all people with the right tools can for some games change ID at will. The notorious cheaters and hackers are the people most likely to posses these tools. Some games doesn't even have ID's. It's not a complete solution because there are not complete solutions at this date, unless we talk about massive online multiplayer games where people have to authenticate at a central server. However, 25% or 50% is better than nothing. Draft of an IP block filter and IP blacklist network

Viper: In, my oppinion, 98% of the world is picking a side and a choice they think is right or wrong. 2% picks something else, and it doesn't fit into the model. Karrillion is one of them.

Draft of an IP blacklist network Text is under construction, sorry for bad english

Well, making a ban network would take quite some tweaking. Of course anyone should not be able to add IP's at will. It would rather be a trust value based system where admins can verify eachothers bans, making it harder to scam. Still figuring on how it could be done in the safest possible way.

Denoir, nice debating with you. Taking on a debate is not about converting the opponent or get the last word, it's about making an impression and I hope I did on at least some readers. I feel generous and I'm gonna let you have the last word in this liberal/individualism debate. My point is that individualism/liberalism, as one of several philosophies like humanism and even marxism, though I disagree with it, are built on logic and morale values. They are not dishes composed after will relative from time and place. You find logic and moral values in the UN human rights too. I'm for public education, tax paid healthcare, everything you say makes a society great. I agree on a lot of bad things about the USA, it's socialism, nationalism, protectionism, conservatism forcing values on people or its lack of respect for foreign individuals. If you want to I can defend your standpoints (not all of it but most of it). I do argue against the foundation, or lack of foundation in your standpoint. My point is that you don't know why you believe what you do, your view is very subjective. You dismiss the liberal philosophy as the vital component in your socialliberalism. Instead you take these values for granted. That is what a well written constitution is supposed to protect, the values you take for granted. I doubt Iraq had any well written individual freedoms or even a neutral justice system to execute them. And yes, Europeans are isolated in their nations. You are living in Europe, yet you do not relate to people in other European countries. You claim you have been living in a region that had peace for 200 years. The occupation of the brother land Norway doesn't count, nor did the death camps in Yugoslavia during the 90's. You talk about Sweden, not Europe. Do you feel true solidarity to the people of Europe or are you a swede seeing EU as a tool to compare to america in national or continent pride? Have a nice remaining weekend! Certa

Then give me the truth. Or did I just step on national pride? And it didn't that make you question the fundamental values of being a human? How can you take your freedoms for granted? I think we agree. This is my point and it will partly answer brgnorway too: Believing in the philosophy of liberalism does not mean you are an anarchist. It's a basic philosophy from where any liberal must start, social-liberal, liberal-conservative, libertarian, liberal-democrat or even plain humanist. Then you understand the philosophy of individualism (liberty) you may compromise its rules to create a society with welfare, public education and social services but the atom is still the individual and the default fallback. If you dont get it right, if the founding philosophy isn't there, majority rule, fraud or force can bring you into dictatorship where you will loose all your freedoms (lacking constitution/grundlag) without a single law being rewritten. As you might see, I'm talking about the foundation, not the actual society on top of it. Here comes an example that's not about the taxes: UN created a set of laws called the human rights, they are based upon the philosophy of humanism, related and similar to individualism. Sweden did however not fully adapt these rules since they might conflict with reform socialism. Many important lines were cut out before entering the swedish laws. Therefore it's legal to discriminate me because I was born a man: I can get rejected from jobs, education or social services just because of my sex. This is a result of the collective feminism movement of the governing parties, demanding my sacrifice for a greater cause. Don't get me wrong, I fight for individual equality, but not collective equality where individuals are expendable. I leave that for war tactics. In Canada I have the lawful right to sue the shit out of them if they try something like that. In Sweden I have no rights and I'm limited to the awareness and will of the majority. Still the canadian laws are lacking, in my opinion. How bad do you think USA could get with people like Bush or worse if there wasn't a constitution protecting people? Bush is probably not too happy about the constitution.

No I'm talking of the complete freedom, the same you refer to but without cutbacks. The full right to own your own life, the freedom to take drugs, have sex with whomever, free religion, free speech and the right to the product of your own labour. Money is just a currency of the product of your labour. They are all one entity and the same freedom. Removing the right to the product of your own labour is a cutback in the total freedom. I'm anti-conservative and anti-socialist at the same time. I'm for individualism and against collectivism, socialists and conservatives are both collectivists, not an opposite to eachother (see my triangle). An animated Introduction to the Philosophy of Liberty Watch out for unnecessary anti-americanism Canada is very different from Europe or Sweden. You probably heard Canadians are similar, Canadians too think they are similar to Europeans until they visit Sweden. Suddenly they become proud of being individualists and they all agree Europe is way off too far left. In Canada individualism is a fundamental belief, maybe thanks to the influence of USA, not just a freedom given by the government witch is more of the european way. And you call yourself a European? No there is no European community, there are only European nations trying to protect their national interests in the so called European Union. That is why EU never will compare to USA and why EU never will be more than a trade agreement. Most Europeans never traveled outside their tiny nations. They have no clue of whats going on in Italy, Germany, Poland or Portugal. 59 years ago german troops were at the Swedish border already taking away liberties from the fellow people in Norway and Denmark. Finland did a smart thing to ally with the germans to keep the russians out, a lot of swedes went to help the finns fight the russians, quite a few russians villages got to pay being burnt down. Millions of people died in camps just a few hours away from the Swedish borders. This was less than 60 years ago. Hundreds of million of people were trapped behind the iron curtain up to 20 years ago, without the freedom of speech, freedom to practice religion or any right to their own life, only as a part of a collective for a so called greater cause. 15 years ago the concentrations camps were up and running again. Men, women and children where lined up, separated, some shot at the spot, others taken to death camps or rape camps. This happened in Europe in the former Yugoslavia, apparently too far away from the real Europe for anyone to bother. Carl Bildt did an excellent job for the EU but with only diplomatic backing he couldn't end the war. USA went in, killed some more people and the war was finally over. You should talk to both Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, thousands of them lives in Sweden today due to the war and they have horrible stories to tell. Don't take your liberties for granted.

I heard this in the news last week and can not find anything verifying it. Does anyone know anything or is this false news? If true, I figure developing it was a tremendous undertaking and since the high-tech Russians became good guys the project lost its meaning.

The political scale is still very relevant, this is my own made map of politics: Political Triangle and here is another common 2D map used by liberals: The Political Compass You are right, you are a leftie and in the very american meaning of the word liberal. Since you say it's ok for people to become rich (it's not ok in Sweden in general) you are not a socialist but more of a social liberal. You do believe in individualism somewhere back there (the compromise of a social liberal) but you do take the individualism for granted. I see individualism as a philosophy and THE fundamental right of a human being. Most people on this planet do not have this right, some doesn't even know what it is. You don't start from individualism as any liberal should, you take this for grated and start in the middle talking about rights. You are born with certain privileges and you turned these privileges into rights to demand sacrifice from other individuals. In order for certain rights to be given to you, they have to be given by or taken from someone. Perhaps even by force. Your intensions are good but this is the behaviour that removes THE fundamental individual freedoms away from people. Sure, I'm a kind of social liberal too, and in that way I have to accept some individual freedoms to be taken away from people, but I'm aware of the compromise in it and I want to point it out to you or anyone reading this (important). You also argue that now when the bow and arrow almost is invented, one person can do the hunting and the others can relax. It didn't work that way and it never will. Thanks to that it didn't, we are typing this on computers and not using smoke signals. When the energy problems are solved, people will move on working on other problems of the world making life easier and economy better in the never ending growth and development of mankind. There is no finish line in sight and there shouldn't be. Beside this, you would love Canada. Canadians have the basic social security you talk about and the individual freedom of America. They have a private and a public healthcare system (for a lot less tax than Sweden). You may choose in any case if you want to visit a private or public doctor. The visit is paid for via the federal heath insurance (part of taxes), you don't need to pay a $30 fee for the visit like in Sweden. Any other medical costs you may write off in the tax return (swedish: deklarationen). Most canadians just like americans are aware of that their freedoms and so called rights are not to be taken for granted. Europeans seems to forget, even after as little as 59 years. Ever heard of the 3 political standpoints in sweden?: sosse red, sosse classic, sosse light

Denoir, what is your ideal society, in ideological terms that is?

Sweden allows partnership between gay couples from 1995, the equal rights of marriage but not the actual marriage. That is still being debated in Sweden right now, Got the facts right now? Personally, I dont think the government got a jack shit to do about marriage but that's just my libertarian view. Reservations, I could be wrong....

If you read what I wrote earlier; modern politics is pulling away from individual freedom. I'm talking about individual rights for Guatanamo bay prisoners and every living individual. In some controversial cases (San Fransisco) USA already allow gay marriages, Canada do allow gay marriages, Sweden and most of Europe does not allow gay marriages, what is your point? I know it's about to happen on some parts of Europe but why so late? Take way my freedoms and give me a few rights, is that a good trade? Logical error: Who gave you life and the right to demand from other life? If the education is there accept it, do not demand it because other individuals paid for it.

I live in Norway which very well could be likened to Sweden. Yet, I do all the things you mention. What will happen if you do not want to pay for what the Norwegian government wants to provide to you (for so called free)? Let's say you employ your neighbour and your neighbour employs you. Are you sure your government don't want a piece of the cake? And your government will not use force to take this piece from you? I can tell you they will, whats their right to do that? This is the fundamental question you should ask yourself. Then, you may pay tax from your own free will. Because of people not believing in individual rights he ended up dead but because of the constitution, because of individual rights, he won in the end. Extreme conservatives and socialists are a problem in the states but it's even worse all over Europe. Being a Jew or an Arab in Germany, Norway or Sweden, Netherlands is not very pleasant. They are far better off in New York or some accepting place in America or Canada where the individual counts.

OFP netcode works like peer to peer model instead of a pure client/server model. That is the main disadvantage of OFP. The result is that in OFP a lagged player is hard to kill. In a client/server game like Quake, a lagged player is an easy target  Not to mention what this does for the possibilities of cheating. I really hope this is sorted out in OFP2.

I'm thinking of writing a ban-proxy. It would not just work for OFP but any server based network game using UDP/IP as the main protocol. It would be installed on the game machine as a proxyserver, redirecting the network traffic to the real server. The player would not notice any difference but the admin would be in control of the connections to his/her server without installing an advanced firewall. It could monitor the connection packages and detect nicknames for common games (OFP included of course). The admin would then be able to see a list of IP's (perhaps even nick names if the game is supported) connected to the server and place a ban on a specific IP or even subnet, permanent or for a period of time. What do you think? Unless I make it GPL, I could make a server system for it banning well known cheaters/teamkillers from several servers or games. For instance: a person being banned on multiple OFP servers will get a ban on all CoD servers using the system too.

Going back to this quote, individualism and original liberalism (libertarianism). Just have a few statements after a few beers Being a libertarian or any kind of individualist for that matter, is not about living in a farm, being self-governing, afraid to cooperate with your neighbours and having the right to blow the head of any trespassers. Thats a common cliché picture. Being a libertarian is about living in the modern world, large cities, small towns, have the right to form, join or leave collectives, take care of eachother if that is what one wants to do. It's also about not being forced into fake solidarity or being forces into so called grater causes for the nation, for the god, for the ideologi or for the nation. It's about having the choice and the ownership of your own life and your own future. Tell me who got the right to take that away from a person? (tactical question, no answer needed) The american constitution is unique in the world in the sense that it will guarantee individual freedoms and individual rights no matter what, I call that an asset, not a limitation. Whenever a semi-collectivist like G.W. Bush or a socialist starts claiming a higher cause for your life, demanding your sacrifice, you got the lawful protection in the constitution (swedish: grundlag). You can take the case to court and protect yourself and others. This goes for every tax or every social or religious control any government want to enforce on you. All forms of liberalism, from anarco capitalism to so called left wing social liberalism or liberal conservatism are based on the principle of the individual freedom, more or less compromising these rules but the basics remain the same. Very few countries got a fundamental protection for the individual like got USA with its constitution. I would not say it's outdated, it's just forgotten. By the way, humanism, is based upon liberalism and people haven't forgotten humanism even though humanism is not as extensive in it's protection of the individual. Today, more or less all politics is pulling away from this into either socialism or social conservatism (democrats and republicans). Both parties wants to increase state control and remove the individual freedoms in one way or another. Cheers! Canadian Molson (5.5% alc/vol ) is nice, not american alco-water.

Will get back to this currency confusion when I'm straight with the facts. In 2002 I moved from Sweden to Canada and improved my life in terms of wealth and living standard and I'm not even rich. Now going to western Europe in the summer is like traveling 10-15 years back in time. Going to Afghanistan is (I imagine) like traveling 150 years back in time. Going to USA from Canada is like traveling a few years into the future. I'm not comparing rich or slum, just the averages. You are talking about the income tax only. I talk about the tax pressure for the low income worker, from income to spendings. The worker will not during his or her lifetime ever get these money back in subsidiaries or public services. That might be the case for some Canadians, Americans or other European countries but the average low income working swede is not getting value for the tax money, not by far. -Perhaps the ones that choose a life on wellfare. The income tax itself varies from 25 to over 50% but on top of that you have a 35% employers share, part of the salary cost. The swede pays 25% sales tax on everything bought except groceries (food to live) where it's only 12%. The swede then pays 100% tax on electricity and perhaps 500% tax on gasoline and numerous taxes like property tax, house tax and even wealth tax if that's the case (not counted for in this example since I talk about poor people). If I spend 10000 kronor monthly paying someone to take care of something, 5500 kronor will end up as taxes before the end of the month.

Being a right-wing liberal (individualist) is nothing more than realizing that the only person in this world that knows what is best for you is yourself. You may live for others, for the state, for the leader, for the revolution, for the oppressor or for a master but the only one who got the moral right to your life is yourself. If you want to live for a greater cause, fine, don't force others to it because they own their own life. There will always be someone claiming to have a higher cause of your life but they will always be wrong. Back to the subject Sweden, a good example for my point. Sweden was unique in most of Europe with a liberal era under the late 1800 and early 1900. During this period, the poor got their rights and equality, everyone got their right to vote, all the great Swedish companies we know of today were founded. Sweden went from one of the poorest farmer countries in Europe to a promising economy. Then in the 1930's democratic reform socialists took over. After WW2, Sweden wasn't bombed to oblivion and could build an incredible wealth on export to all of the bombed Europe. At the late 1960's Sweden peaked, 30 years after WW2 and the Swedish model was the envy of the world. In my opinion, with the position Sweden had after WW2 any market oriented economy would flourish and of course you can create a fantastic Swedish model (welfare, healthcare, socialism, market economy) if you have that kind of a well. But from there on economy decayed and it still is, no socialism will ever change that. During the 1970's the heavy reform socialism was introduced. Taxes doubled in a couple of years and so did unemployment. In the 80's reality caught up and it all fell apart. Not as hard as on the other side of the iron wall but it still fell pretty hard. Most swedes still don't understand what happened. Today, if Sweden would be a state in USA, it would be the poorest of them all. The average Swedish low income worker pays 55% of his salary cost in taxes. That includes employers share, income tax, goods and service and other taxes. The average low income worker pays more in tax during his lifetime than he ever gets back from the government (welfare, unemployment, healthcare, education, etc). In Sweden, the country with the highest taxes in the world, the government is now charging extra for healthcare and the swede can not even write it off in the tax return. Where in this is the superiority in this system in comparison to the old liberalism? Personally I would prefer a form of light social liberalism. Small government, a public insurance system for those who doesn't want to take care of it themselves, a basic welfare for the unlucky and a public education system. Not an extreme liberalism nor the extreme Swedish reform socialism. For Americans: In Europe liberal means individualist, as in the American constitution and not socialist or red social-liberal which is the American meaning of the word today.

The basics of all liberalism/libertarianism is a small government with one main purpose: To protect individuals from violence, theft and fraud, domestic or international. This was stated by the father of the original liberalism John Locke (1632-1704). This does not include enforcing utilitarianis or feed people. That is up to people themselves to handle individually or voluntary together.

Played with CGI programming and implemented an OFP Web Watch. Feel free to link OFP Web Watch from your site  using the syntax: Since the server is running from my personal cable uplink I might take this service down if it's taking too much bandwidth or is abused. I'm considering this a test period. I've added flood protection so refreshing the page is not going to query the server any more than once every 10 seconds.

OFP Watch 1.02 and 1.03 Version 1.03 2004-Jan-15 Added automatic detection of the 1.95 executable. Jan-16: since many of the Auto-Addon supporting servers upgraded to 1.95 I made OFP Watch 1.03 the minimum version. 1.02 still works just as well as long as one specifically specify the executable file. Version 1.02 2004-Jan-13 Improved automatic detection of executable files. OFP Watch (with Auto-Addon enabled) will identify 1.91, 1.92, 1.93 and 1.94 executable by file size and checksum. For a 1.92+ server the latest version is chosen automatically. A button named @@ was added to the Add/Edit setup window. it It will add all the mod folders suggested by Auto-Addon (What would be automatically selected if you have automatic mod folder selection enabled). A new button named Copy from added to the Add/Edit window. With it you may copy address and settings from another setup. The download progress window was improved with better average speed measurement, time elapsed, time left, percentage done and more counters. In conjunction with Auto-Addon Server 1.26 the administrator now got the chance deactivate certain addons, great for avoiding known addon conflicts and to prevent server crashes. OFP Watch 1.02 and Auto-Addon Server 1.26 This section is only interesting for game server admins Latest addon server can be downloaded here: OFP Watch home DEACTIVATE script command for servers autoaddon.ini.. Unlike the quick deactivate hack I did for auto-addon.txt this command will force certain addons to be deactivated every time (for OFP Watch users) as part of the addon server info block. Perfect to force off some old incompatible addons. It's better some people can't load the mission than that they bring the entire server down with them mid game. Syntax: DEACTIVATE <file or path> <size bytes> <crc32> Slash or backslash doesn't matter. Example from autoaddon.ini: deactivate LSR_gru.pbo 5863364 ea54ee6f deactivate palma.pbo 4329254 d7363149 deactivate readme/readme.html 32551 469e2fa5 To deactivate any addon.pbo just specify the filename. If you want to deactivate a file outside an addons folder you must specify a path but you don't need to specify a specific mod folder. OFP Watch will look for the file following the path from the root of any activated mod folders. It will also search the addons folders of the loaded mods as well as RES and ADDONS from the root. In the example above, readme.html will be deactivated in â€C:\Program Files\OperationFlashpoint\readme\readme.html†as well as â€C:\Program Files\OperationFlashpoint\MYMOD\readme\readme.html†as long as name, size and crc32 match. LSR_gru.pbo and palma.pbo will be deactivated in any loaded addons folders. An easy way to get exact file size and checksum is to add the file to a zip and open with winzip. In Winzip->Options->Configuration->View make sure CRC is checked. Just make sure you specify the original size, not the packed size. After you have added any DEACTIVATE statements to autoaddon.ini you must rebuild the information block. You don't need to download any of the packages though. Select (N)o or n(O)all to the download question and the process takes a few seconds at most.

I have been looking at 7zip or RAR for quite some time. 7zip got the coolest compression known and even RAR outperforms ZIP plus that it's a well know standard. Sooner or later depending on time, I'll add it. No promises about switches but definitely more and better ones and in the configuration file. It is a damn Win32 console hack from the start I'll try to make it more of a generic command shell standard application. Preferably a proper Win32 and Linux server process. If you find .ZIP files in your addon server folder. Please delete them (not the UDP or .TMP). They are reamins of the 1.25 server bug where it failed to delete downloaded packages. Added with 1.26, but I guess you've already seen that.