Logging every connection session?

[jlnunez89]

Hi,

As I continue to make progress on my C# remake of the 7.7 cip engine, I wanted to run by the community the following to see the perception and general sentiment:

I'm planning to log each connection session (all bytes sent/received) and store them for a couple of days at least, for all players. This would enable to investigate bot/cheats where simple counters are not easily identifiable (like rune hit/miss ratio, spell spam counters etc), and should also provide further data points as to what to log/alert on against bots.

The idea is to log each packet sent/received into a "session" (I.e. From when a player logs in to when they log out) and then make those recorded sessions available to community managers as easy as "logging in" to a separate login server and search for the log in the "character list". Then the connection would pretty much autopilot with a couple of text commands to fast forward or rewind, etc. pretty much like tibicam worked in the old days.

Also I think when any player reports another as bot/cheat, increment the logs shelf time for a week/month depending on a reputation system to prevent abuse of the reporting itself.

Maybe even open up the log library a few days after to the public, where players can monitor other player's past activity.

In short, everything is recorded, transparent, and fair for everyone.

Thoughts?

 

[Ezzz]

There is no point in doing so, it's better to just log whenever an invalid packet is received, and when invalid data is read when parsing a command.
Another thing to do is log every packet and their respective structures as they are read, say:

PlayerSay, TalkTypeSay, Hello sons of your mothers
PlayerSay, TalkTypeSay, Hello sons of your mothers, ChannelHelp
PlayerUseItem, Position, SpriteId, etc ...

 

[jlnunez89]

There is no point in doing so, it's better to just log whenever an invalid packet is received, and when invalid data is read when parsing a command.
Another thing to do is log every packet and their respective structures as they are read, say:

PlayerSay, TalkTypeSay, Hello sons of your mothers
PlayerSay, TalkTypeSay, Hello sons of your mothers, ChannelHelp
PlayerUseItem, Position, SpriteId, etc ...

Thanks for the suggestion on the implementation, I'll consider it, but I mostly want the visual replay since you essentially empower anyone with access to review it to become an enforcer.

Since space is not a problem for an Azure hosted server (disk space is the cheapest to scale on), I would much rather log the whole thing rather than waste processing power rebuilding every packet and sending to the viewers.

Anyhow, the ask is more about the general sentiment of candidate players on a server that does this, and how they would feel about "being watched" or "being able to investigate" other players on their own.

 

[whitevo]

things what do not benefit catching botters should not be recorded.
do not record messages unless it triggers npc.

 

[jlnunez89]

things what do not benefit catching botters should not be recorded.
do not record messages unless it triggers npc.

Interesting... why not record messages?

Not showing them on public recordings to protect any personal info / strategy makes more sense but to not record them altogether is a big loss. Messages are a huge indication when botting/account sharing/hacking is happening.