Well, I would assume that any steps the devs would take to make alt checking harder would not just stop at foiling it through the website, but also remove the logon-logoff notifiers from IRC (which are done via the website anyway, right?), and generally removing any way of telling when someone is online other than being online and being their buddy/seeing them in space or them talking on a public channel that you monitor. It will still be possible to monitor 100 via IRC and keep track of when people speak, as a way to see who is on that is not exhaustive, and that will probably work reasonably well, at least for the people who talk a fair bit. Until the devs reduce the range of public chat, at which point the sampling selection becomes even slimmer.

The devs wouldn't have to do anything directly to the relay, and couldn't anyway as it is hosted by FiReMaGe, not Guild. The IRC relay would just suddenly show a mass log out when the APL was removed and then would never show a login/logout again. The only remaining (and reliable) method for the bot to use for login/logoff notifications is its buddy list, but the only reason I know of to be buddied with the bot is to get an automatic count of the players ingame when you log in (just numbers, not names), and FM would never make it do that, to my knowledge.

In all seriousness, monitoring logins and logoffs provides decently accurate results in a number of cases, but there are far more effective methods available now that will still be available when the APL is removed. Watching how people chat is one thing (consistent spelling errors that are mostly unique to one known character, for example), and another is watching how they fight.

Removing the APL won't stop alt-finders, but it won't improve any existing "tech" either.

You could remove the active user list on the website along with all info about characters and still maintain a good functional alt finder.

All you need to do it a few basic matches for each character to determine 'linkage', i.e. exclude common words and compare checksums of all the other words, phrases, sentences, not sentence structure, typo's, phrases and oddball words. Then note activity times the user is in game, the ships and loadout they are using and feed in movement of their ship and firing patterns and you have a highly effective altfinder when you open this up to a guild or a group.

Would this be more effective than pulling stats from the vo web page? yes.

Would this be possible if the website info and irc relay was pulled? yes.

Is this possible now? yes.

Has all of it been done before for around a half-dozen players? yes.

Probably more by now.

Ah, perhaps I should have been more clear. The only alt checkers I was talking about were AUTOMATED alt checkers, not human-based. I guess it would be possible to write an automated script to check certain key phrases and misspellings to see if anyone is an alt of a known entity, but that would have to be written on a per-person basis, and require a decent knowledge of someone's quirks. For things like ship movements, fighting styles, that cannot be automated, and must be done on an individual basis (multiple people can pool their knowledge still, but it's still individual time put in for each one). Most of these methods rely on the person giving their alt to you, and they are not too difficult to circumvent if you are dedicated to it.

I suppose it's also true that with a plugin that logs everyone you see, what ship they are in, the time, etc, and compiles all the data, spread across an entire guild, that kind of automation can still exist. However, active time information can only go so far, as many people are on at similar times (and as the player base grows, that pool grows as well, making it less effective). And with the removal of any sort of logon/logoff indicator, you are never sure who is on at any given time, so the certainty of such automation goes down.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that yes, even when the devs take out all the logging indicators it will still be possible to run an alt checker. However, the reliability of that checker will be much worse than what currently exists. Take heart, people with secret alts: As long as you vary your diction, syntax, fighting styles, and behavioral patterns between alts, nobody will be able to do more than guess at who is who. Which is the way it should be.

Denji

This alt finder was funny. I liked it. It thought Ecka was peytros :)

Unless Inc directly asked you to remove it i think you should continue for as long as you can. You aren't really going to find many alts and the suggestions were laughable :(

"but that would have to be written on a per-person basis, and require a decent knowledge of someone's quirks."

Not so. Given a decent amount of data, it's entirely possible to pick up on such things in an automated manner. If such techniques didn't work, you'd probably be unable to use email anymore.

Yes, these are the same kinds of things humans can pick up on, and it's defeatable if you play it well. Approaches to alt-finding that involve the active users list are equally defeatable.

If you're going to write a Bayes classifier algorithm for finding alts in VO, you have already lost.

I'll be glad when the devs fix things to where people won't be able to see who's on or offline. Alt finding is very much an invasion of privacy and kills RP. Seriously, I'm disturbed by the number of guilds out there who demand "Your alts cannot do this or that". Who the hell are they to tell you what to do about your alt? Its a different character. Should be considered as such regardless.

Yeah I know, there's the whole infiltration thing; but what use is such paranoia in this game? Its not like the guilds have much to lose or gain as it stands. Besides... ITS A GAME... For Christ's sake you'd think this were some people's entire world.

I tend to agree with you Tseng, however most major guilds these days have their own plugins and databases of trade information and such, and it's a real downer to see all that work for the guild get stolen and used in an opposing guild.

I really don't care abouts peoples alts. I treat everyone by the way they act toward me. Not who their other chars are.

But i also like seeing who's on and off line. That way i know when my enemies and friends are online. If that information goes away i think we will all have more buddies on our list.

I think that'd be a better option truthfully.

As for the works of guilds who make their plugins-- the whole idea of plugins makes me skeptical... Never seen a game like this one, and it seems a lot of people can make pluggins to hack, cheat, or exploit the game (as seems true with the alt finder). Just because something takes work doesn't mean it belongs here. A hacker might work hard to do his job-- that doesn't mean I want to have to learn extensive programming to even compete with him in this game. No game is worth that much.

can't you guys like you know spend your free time in game insted of making alt checkers or i don't know maybe go outside for once or something.

Really it should only be the person controlling the alts fault for them being exposed through sloppy rp or what not. Not because someone has some alt checker to make sure their evil enemy infiltraits their guild and steals what? 100k a day? Also if guilds have some super secret plugin they don't want anyone else to get a hand on maybe it shouldn't be in game.

I like you, your pirating ways and your PvP skills are almost legendary (like Ecka's, etc.), but I want to make something clear:

Plugins make the game easier. For example, targetless by drazed helps you pick out the pirates from non-pirates, target them, and kill them. Before that and targetls, one would have to press "u" and select the player or take the hard way and target every other player in the sector until targeting the right one.

Making plugins for VO when there is little free time and for those who don't want to play VO anymore (or can't pay for it) but want to help out the players, it's a very good part of the community and makes everyone happy.

Those plugins you say that guilds don't want enemies getting is also important in the gae for making good judgement on who is allowed to join the guild. For example, I know ITAN and TGFT require an interview to be done to make sure you don't know more than you make an alt out to know. Both guilds are protecting large databases that important int he workings of the guilds. These are getting longer and longer, and for someone trying to infiltrate an enemy guild, harder.

I do,however, agree with you about this plugin, it's pointless and alts that are discovered are the player's fault.

My adolescent input on plugins and interviews :|

Sraer I don't have a problem with targetLS I am actually a huge advocate of Toaster Crush and its great that people are making these available for all emphisis on the all. But what exactly do these super secret plugins do? I'm not really convinced a guild needs to have some huge database on other players or what not to be successful

Some of you are forgetting a very key point: The thing Calder wrote was not a plugin, it was a webpage. It was not something you can use from ingame.

For those of you who are whining about super-secret guild plugins, those are plugins allowing the guild's members access to databases of mining and trade information. Hardly useful for alt-checking. That's not to say that guilds don't have web-tools for it; I know that TGFT has one (I've seen it and messed with it a number of times, it isn't that good) and I know that ITAN does not, for example.

Btw of plugins, they don't allow you to cheat or hack as such, tho there things that can be questionable.
But for most part they just improve the interface or automate some repetitive tasks, etc.
That being said you can play VO without any problems without a single plugin or knowing programming.

As for alt finder, it wasn't actually a plugin, it only relied on active players page which is another issue.
[edit/ot] i'm late again :)

What do secret plugins do? Store ore and trade good information mostly, plus maybe guild member statistics.
Why are they not public? Two reasons,
People want to gain something from their work.
Makeing them available to everyone just about ensures that someone will spam it with fake data.
And I can tell you that not all guilds use alt checkers.