[Plugin]FreeZone Plugin

[nocturne]

I was giving everything a once over to make sure all the remnants of the chat filtering were indeed removed... and wow..

In some ways it was removed, but in only the sense that you no longer get a warning or a boot (at least to start). Instead there's the SlangUser codings (pretty clever, eh?), where you monitor everything a player says against a 'slang' list provided by a remote server, maintaining an internal array of users who trigger it (liked my suggestion, eh? -- but didn't know it'd be used for evil). Anytime a user triggers this function more than a preset number of times, their info is sent to Nadeo (without any notice to the user, nor the server operator via console output). Then when a player rejoins the server, a check is done against the nadeo server's list of banned players, and bam -- they get banned from the server without ever knowing they violated any rules.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded... This is way over the line, on so many levels. You are basically gathering info such a clandestine manner it can only be judged as 'spying'. You maintain a secret list of 'trigger' words, that when uttered brings up a red flag on a remote server that causes action without any notice to the user -- kind of like if I say 'bomb in times square' on the phone here in the US.

Edit: I went through the plugin and commented out all the clandestine code. I think I got it all, but here's a source file so you guys can take a look for yourselves: http://www.letsrock-tm.com/misc_garbage/Plugin.phps

[gouxim]

I was giving everything a once over to make sure all the remnants of the chat filtering were indeed removed... and wow..

In some ways it was removed, but in only the sense that you no longer get a warning or a boot (at least to start). Instead there's the SlangUser codings (pretty clever, eh?), where you monitor everything a player says against a 'slang' list provided by a remote server, maintaining an internal array of users who trigger it (liked my suggestion, eh? -- but didn't know it'd be used for evil). Anytime a user triggers this function more than a preset number of times, their info is sent to Nadeo (without any notice to the user, nor the server operator via console output). Then when a player rejoins the server, a check is done against the nadeo server's list of banned players, and bam -- they get banned from the server without ever knowing they violated any rules.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded... This is way over the line, on so many levels. You are basically gathering info such a clandestine manner it can only be judged as 'spying'. You maintain a secret list of 'trigger' words, that when uttered brings up a red flag on a remote server that causes action without any notice to the user -- kind of like if I say 'bomb in times square' on the phone here in the US.

Edit: I went through the plugin and commented out all the clandestine code. I think I got it all, but here's a source file so you guys can take a look for yourselves: http://www.letsrock-tm.com/misc_garbage/Plugin.phps

It is not used "for evil".

Reports

We send reports about slang list to monitor that everything is ok, and also to improve our slang list (eg. removed words that are not slang in some languages).

We left the player login because we didn't think it was a big deal. But as you pointed out, it can be mis-interpreted. We are preparing a new release of the plugin. We will still send reports, but they will be anonymous from now on (only with the Zone, or the language).

Slang words

You said "You maintain a secret list of 'trigger' word". The list is not secret, it is retrieved by ManiaLive so you can check it out by youself. You commented the line yourself:

Code: Select all

$this->slangWords = $this->wsInstance->execute('GET', '/freezone/slang/');

Ban list

As for the ban list, yes we have a ban list because it's more convient to handle it like that. But remember that we can also ban the TM account. It's been like that for years and was never an issue. Why should it be an issue now?

Don't be evil

Remember that our goal is not to be "evil" and has never been. Our goal is to create the best possible experience for players, and to deal with all the difficulties we may have while doing that (eg. Massive stoping in-game ads, leading to the creation of the Freezone).

[farfa]

I've done a new Release to put set the report abuse to anonymous.
In the same times, I improve one or 2 small things.
Same link than the previous version: http://files.manialive.com/plugins/Freezone_Plugin.zip

[nocturne]

I'm renewing my request that you change the 'ban' call in the player connect event to 'kick' (which would have the same effect) and remove the onTick event that clears the banlist, so that we will be able to still use our banlists for moderation we deem necessary.

[nocturne]

As per http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic. ... 86&p=10263 ..

Could you make the retired var public? I don't really see any reason not to, and I'm fairly certain if it's called outside the plugin class as protected it'll crash ML (more of a savant than a coder myself).

[gouxim]

We are currently working on a system to share data between plugins. It will be integrated in a future release of ManiaLive.

[reaby]

We are currently working on a system to share data between plugins. It will be integrated in a future release of ManiaLive.

great news.

[reaby]

also registerNewPluginEvent() would be something really nice to have, so we could do it native way, not by a trick

[nocturne]

We are currently working on a system to share data between plugins. It will be integrated in a future release of ManiaLive.

Huh... I figured Flo would have coded it in like with Aseco v2.x.. One of it's best features remains plugins being able to call functions and vars from other plugin classes, instead of relying on globals.

Hope you guys get it worked out -- it'll be a valuable feature once a database plugin is settled on.

[ipm666]

Can you give me advice where to get an error if the log file says:

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[PluginHandler] is loading Freezone\Freezone ...
[Attention] 'Freezone\Freezone.dbUser' is not a valid setting!
[Attention] 'Freezone\Freezone.dbPass' is not a valid setting!
[Attention] 'Freezone\Freezone.dbName' is not a valid setting!

I had to also install the package php5-sqlite, but I am using the MySql server. But to me he does not connect: (