Stag Shot

If zones don't use this as a catalyst to switch to ASSS, it's hopeless..

Thanks for the lesson, I've been around the hacking/RE/security scene for almost two decades..And I have no respect for a DDoS attack; exploit a server vulnerability or develop a trainer if you want to impress (i.e., demonstrate true talent). Obviously nobody is getting extradited over this, but when you attack any community you have to fear a response. Lastly, PB has been idle for months and the shutdown had already been planned.

To those responsible for the attack on PB's server, a little warning. The owner of the server is a corporate level IT security specialist with decades of experience. You are also interfering with business services as well, which indicates far greater damages beyond disruption of a "game server." We both have contacts in multiple federal agencies, and I have family with Federal Bar privileges. I sincerely hope this does not trace back to a domestic IP address for your sake. And by the way, if you ever logged into PB in the past, we have the full client data on your machine (which has forensic value).

Not necessarily true.. http://www.powerballzone.com/cont/

Thanks for all your help brother! Best of luck to you.

Trust me, I'm the first to lead a revolt..But until somebody replaces Cont (I dont have the time/resources), we are stuck. I've probably heard of half a dozen attempts in the past decade, but nothing has materialized. I'm at least trying to get people off SG once and for all..But it's not easy. PS - Nothing would make me happier than to be free of our dictator =P

I guess my last post wasn't quite clear, so I'll clarify. Once we get full billing on our new server, I'm going to re-enable peering for asss and SG-fixed zones. There will be no inflation, as legacy SG zones won't be included (unless they can get their fix.dll updated). As for our server environment, it will function just fine as is. Zones rarely need something requiring root access anyways. And yes I agree with numpf that Snrub was just attempting to acquire source, and has ulterior motives..

It's only because we are on a new server and haven't gotten billing access yet..Once things are back to normal, we'll enable it again for asss or SG-fixed zones. PS - Any asss zone looking for hosting is welcome on our new server, it is more powerful than you can imagine =)

Well it seems obvious prickt has no interest in updating zones/fix.dll. PB is waiting for billing approval of our new IP, and then we are inviting any asss zones to jump on our server (full shell access, some other perks =). Looks like we will have trisector, devastation, and hopefully EG on board; CZ disabled peering, so that leaves no "inflators" left..Then we can all move on from the SG handcuffs

ASSS is what you make of it. You can no longer argue about stability, it's core is stable these days. Like others mentioned, the disincentive for the remaining SG zones is that it would require WORK just to get to the point they're at now. There would be some settings changes, bot migration issues (*commands, no longer having src), and a learning curve. Then there's the question of whether they have developers capable of modifying/creating modules. This is where things become sensitive, and zone stability can become an issue. A poorly written bot will just crash it's core, poorly written modules recycle zones! And another problem is manpower, from the failed EG transition to asss, they relied on one person to port the entire zone. It's no surprise that he burnt out and bailed after a month or two. But like someone mentioned, free hosting and laziness probably keep zones on SG. For those interested, PB is moving to a new server soon, and we'd be glad to host ASSS zones (bandwidth permitting). I usually provide a shell account and do the first compile to ensure things are working, then you can do whatever you want. Numpf and I may also help here and there if you get stumped =)

If we had access to SG binaries, I might be motivated to fix counting bots too.

Answer to 1st Q is it's zone based, and since it's asss, you can modify the behavior as you like. As for the 2nd Q, yes player count (even w/o peering) has always been inaccurate. To be TRUE, SG/asss should only be counting Continuum clients. I recall hearing stories of some zones having 30+ bots logged in at a time!

You mean like peering? I bet it's good in theory but riddled with problems...=P

Yes, you have succinctly nailed it. And I'd say we not go off on the source tangent, that's not going to happen. We can't even get the guy to change a freaking DLL. As for releasing fix.c, he won't do it as it contains Cont encryption as well..

This comes down to the PB philosophy, it's what we have done for the past decade. We FIX bugs, create bot cores, add new features (to SG or asss), take risks. We were the test ground for asss; we added replays with ball support and fast-forward capability. We have a ban system more powerful than banG. We have also been lucky to have great hosts (SSCX) and talent (including Ekted up until ~5 yrs ago). But most of all, we had motivation to innovate. Where is that drive anymore? And yes people have questioned my judgement in the past. PB was once the only zone that enforced Cont 0.39pr3 when 39pr1 was the current "build." Other zone ops said I was just killing my player base and it would backfire. But I had done analysis on pr1's security and found cheating was not only possible, it was easy. It didn't take long for others to realize, and any lamer with a generic memory modifier was able to cheat. So if you think we are radical, it's probably because we have information not readily available (I did warn other zone ops). I've been fixing prickt's bugs and neglect for almost a decade, and it's tiring. Let's move on with that which we can control, which is SG/asss. If our livelihood depends on a single free server which we have no control over, we have nothing. So when that reviewer asks "why are the numbers on the main screen fucked up?", what is the real answer? Do you tell him that we have a 9 month old fix that we can't upload?