Soulseek

**dumdum** · 11-05-2003, 02:36 PM

http://slskboard.savagenews.com/inde...howtopic=10477

**Jayhawk** · 11-05-2003, 06:21 PM

they are jerks over at SS Forum

**Gutter** · 11-05-2003, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by dumdum@5 November 2003 - 14:36
http://slskboard.savagenews.com/inde...howtopic=10477

I don't think anyone here had that problem

**fr600** · 11-05-2003, 07:24 PM

I never had this problem. Whats wrong???

**Jayhawk** · 11-05-2003, 07:25 PM

Originally posted by fr600@5 November 2003 - 13:24
I never had this problem. Whats wrong???

did u read that post in the link?

**Gutter** · 11-05-2003, 07:29 PM

Originally posted by fr600@5 November 2003 - 19:24
I never had this problem. Whats wrong???

Proteus93

Well, I think it's finally time for the "official" statement that people seem to be waiting endlessly for.

As everyone has obviously figured out, there was a ban procedure introduced to the server. This change happened at about the same time as clients were being introduced, and thus caused the confusion of what was happening with these bans. At the time my previous post regarding the matter had been made, we were unaware of how exactly this had been introduced, as it was done by Francois; our system op who runs the server.

As KiloWatts has mentioned in prior posts, there was a malicious script that had been programmed to flood both chat rooms and personal messages with it's random text. Examples of this have been provided in links in this thread, and others. This was causing not only an annoyance in rooms, but it's own strain on the server, thinking it was handling more connections than it really was. The issue had to be dealt with, and that is what was done.

The result was that - as StereoDeluxe had discovered - connections of and above 5 connections would ban that specific IP, considering it a nickflood guilty of these malicious attacks on rooms and so forth. Thus, because of the way this flood protection was implemented, everyone on a network was affected.

To explain it in simple terms for those who prefer not to deal with jargon of any sort, think of it this way. My IP is 24.64.13.36, for example. That is the address that my computer broadcasts to the world as being mine. Now... because my sister would also like to connect to the internet, we network so that she can share the internet connection with me. Thus, each of us gets assigned a private IP address for our machines. However, even though we have two private IP's on our computers, the connection still goes through that one public IP... so both of our computers are now seen as being 24.64.13.36. If she is using Soulseek, then the server is detecting 2 connections coming from one IP. If I run another client for the Isle, for example, that's 3 connections. Now, consider I do some development on the client, and open another one to work on and debug... that's 4 connections. Now... say she wants to go on the Isle... bang, there's 5 connections and I am banned. Because I am on cable, my public IP is static (meaning it does not change), and thus I am screwed for connecting.

Now, to take this to a larger scale, as with the Italians, the way that their specific ISP (FastWEB) works is by providing a public IP, and then behind that address they have quite a wide range of private IP addresses. To keep it simple, what they have done is the same as what I do with my sister, but instead of only two addresses, they are doing it with many.... hundreds at a time. As soon as a couple of Italian users try to innocently connect, they are seen as the server as being a nickflood, and are thus banned from the server.

Basically, the actions of a few ruined things for many. This not only frustrates you as users, but it frustrates those of us with administration who have to deal with these issues, and think of ways to solve the problems without causing large amounts of "collateral damage", as has happened here. This issue was completely overlooked when the change to the server was made, and is definitely not something that was done on purpose (hence the initial announcement that it was not a server problem - we had not been made aware of what was done right away)

This problem affects many more than just the Italians, as many of these threads appearing have attested to. It basically affects anyone who is running a network of any sort... many schools/universities may run the same sort of platform, and certainly many businesses would do the same. Some large apartment complexes and so forth may also employ this kind of connectivity.

This all said, Nir is putting a lot of time and thought into an ideal way to solve this problem. He is a reasonable and fair man, and has certainly not performed any acts against users on purpose whatsoever. What was done was done to protect the server from malicious users who wish nothing less than to see Soulseek damaged, and the server has been acting on it's own since then. At no point have users been physically banned by means of any of the active administration (Nir, Rosalind, Francois, or myself). We do appreciate suggestions that have been made by users and they have been seen and taken into consideration. We simply have to find a method of tackling this issue in a way that it will effectively stop the flooding we have been experiencing without causing difficulties for any of the other users.

We thank you for your ongoing patience in this matter, and are quite pleased to see that users are supportive enough of Soulseek to want to hold on rather than switching to another program. Recognition goes out to KiloWatts, mikeattacks, and StereoDeluxe for their involvement prior to this announcement as being helpful in raising awareness of the issue, and a special thanks to the FastWEB administration who have gone above and beyond their terms of service to better serve their customers on this issue alone. We hope that the issue will be resolved now very soon, as it is, has been, and will continue to be rather high on the priorities. Nir has been working on the problem this evening, and hopefully this will be taken care of very shortly. Thanks for reading, and hope to see you back on the client soon. Cheers.

On behalf of Nir & Rosalind Arbel,

Sean Nelson / Proteus93 (Slsk Administration)