ip address

[Rick]

Is there any embedded information in an ip address that is useful to sort of tell where the person is or what their provider is? I seem to remember that there is.

[Niosop]

No, nothing embedded. You could use a product like GeoIP or similar to get an idea of location and a simple Whois would give you some information about who owns that IP block.

[Rick]

I was just thinking a nice feature of an MMO would be that it gets some kind of information about location from IP, or maybe even hardware information and stores it locally. Then when it detects the information is different it could send an email or text message to the original person on the account. Could maybe help fight getting hacked.

[Niosop]

You could check the IP and get reasonably accurate info about location, but IPs shuffle around a little so it's not 100%. But it could work as a layer of protection for people. I'd make sure there was an option to turn it off in case people got annoyed by it, but it's a good idea.

[Rick]

Yeah, in the email/text message there would be a way to cancel the option.

 

Just trying to think of user friendly ways to help with this. I got hacked once and it really sucked.

[carlb]

not ip but all lan card have mac address that never changes

you can get the machine mac address and if diffrent you not on the first machine. and by the way no two machine can have mac address unless someone has programed it in them self

 

but as most people can not get thge tools for that you safe

 

hope that helps

[Rick]

That's interesting. I assume those mac addresses are somewhat traceable then also?

[VicToMeyeZR]

What a lot of them do is create a GUID based off the MAC address. This is then stored with the account info. Just use an encryption key with the MAC.

 

Or you could try this

 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gethostbyname&sektion=3&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.0-stable

[VicToMeyeZR]

There is also this that can be coded into the client.

 

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/i-n/network/networkinformation/article.php/c5451/

 

Server sends remote command to pull the NIC MAC - or Adapter MAC, and send it back to the server, then convert it to an integer or hex code.

 

That would be a unique identifier

[Rick]

Cool. This could come in handy.

[Laurens]

Do keep in mind that it is fairly easy to change one's MAC address and these tools are either built into your OS (Windows XP for sure) or are easy to get your hands on.

 

Additionally, because there are only 3 bytes interface specific, and there only being a handful of large scale vendors (Intel, Realtek (the other 3 bytes in a MAC address)) makes the GUID susceptible to brute forcing if not coupled with some other piece of information.

[carlb]

only some board it easy to change (nivida)

most board it done when the firmware is installed and can not be changed unless you reinstall the firmware

 

and the os only show mac you find it can not changed

 

you find most network stuff have mac address that includes firewire as well.

[VicToMeyeZR]

the plan is the MAC address of the Network interface to convert into a GUID..

[Laurens]

For Linux there is GNU MAC Changer (http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger/). If my memory is serving me incorrectly about Windows there is still SMAC to change the MAC address (http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/) or simply go into the registry and make the appropriate modifications.

 

There is no need to modify the firmware at all and this works for all devices.

[Laurens]

the plan is the MAC address of the Network interface to convert into a GUID..

 

I understand, but if you do so you need to be aware of the fact that MAC addresses can easily be forged.

[carlb]

yes i know of the linux one and it does not work on most of the board i work with

as i said a lot of the mac is inbeded into the firmware when it installed int he factury

 

NOW you do know a lot of boards have GUID but that can be changed, but there a lot of board that did not have this set in the factury

 

now most games do not know or care about the mac address

so it not a worry and you can alway check other id on the machine with mac to say yes or no

[Rick]

Yeah. The idea was to make a way to tell when the user has logged on and the guid's don't match what they were using before. It won't disable anything, but just send a email or text message letting them know that we have a new guid here. Basically it means someone from different hardware has logged on using their uername and pw and could mean they are getting hacked. So the odds are the hackers aren't going to know that persons mac address to spoof it so the email or text doesn't go out.

[Rick]

We can group this with a recent password change or email change and just hold the original email address before it was changed. These things grouped together could help make stopping hackers or catching them early and being able to restore things faster and more automated. This is for an MMO btw. Not sure if I mentioned that.

[VicToMeyeZR]

Nothing is hack proof or fool proof. Just trying to make it so Admin's and account owners are aware of things..