A
Arta
Guest
About a week ago, Blizzard updated their IPBanning system. Battle.net has for many years temporarily and automatically banned people on the basis of their IP address. In the past, these bans have only lasted for 8-12 hours, and have only been effective on one server, not on a whole gateway. This has recently been changed. IPBans are now effective across an entire gateway, and are permanent.
This would be a good thing, it would stop some hackers and cheaters, except that there are a variety of reasons why a legitimate client can be banned. Network latency (lag) can cause it, for example. Also, were you to play in a game with hackers (knowingly or otherwise) they could exploit this system to make Battle.net ban you. In addition to this, doing anything like this on the basis of an IP address is pretty much unversally regarded as stupid. Many people have dynamic IP addresses. One person getting banned under a NAT would ban the entire network - there's already been a post on the OTS forums at www.battle.net about someone's whole college being banned. Anyone hacking Battle.net games will almost certainly be aware of this system and will simply change their IP address, so they'll always be able to get around it while legitimate clients are more likely to be left in the dark.
There are inumerable reasons why this new system is rediculous, and many people have been affected by it. If, when you try to connect, you are kicked directly back to the gateway selection screen, or in Warcraft III, recieve an error message about your modem and connecting to an invalid Battle.net server, it's highly likely that you have been caught, somehow, by this new system - especially if you can still connect to other gateways. For now, if you have a static IP address, there are only 2 solutions:
1) Send an email to [email protected] with your IP address, account name, the gateway you were banned from, and the approximate time it happened. They may or may not unban you.
2) Call your ISP and ask them to change your IP address. Different ISPs will have different policies regarding this.
If you have a dynamic IP address, you can just reconnect. I strongly encourage that everybody who encounters this problem send an email to [email protected], even if you can just reconnect to get round it. Don't stop until you get a response from a person. If we can show Blizzard how many legitimate players are being affected by this, maybe they'll tone it down a bit.
This would be a good thing, it would stop some hackers and cheaters, except that there are a variety of reasons why a legitimate client can be banned. Network latency (lag) can cause it, for example. Also, were you to play in a game with hackers (knowingly or otherwise) they could exploit this system to make Battle.net ban you. In addition to this, doing anything like this on the basis of an IP address is pretty much unversally regarded as stupid. Many people have dynamic IP addresses. One person getting banned under a NAT would ban the entire network - there's already been a post on the OTS forums at www.battle.net about someone's whole college being banned. Anyone hacking Battle.net games will almost certainly be aware of this system and will simply change their IP address, so they'll always be able to get around it while legitimate clients are more likely to be left in the dark.
There are inumerable reasons why this new system is rediculous, and many people have been affected by it. If, when you try to connect, you are kicked directly back to the gateway selection screen, or in Warcraft III, recieve an error message about your modem and connecting to an invalid Battle.net server, it's highly likely that you have been caught, somehow, by this new system - especially if you can still connect to other gateways. For now, if you have a static IP address, there are only 2 solutions:
1) Send an email to [email protected] with your IP address, account name, the gateway you were banned from, and the approximate time it happened. They may or may not unban you.
2) Call your ISP and ask them to change your IP address. Different ISPs will have different policies regarding this.
If you have a dynamic IP address, you can just reconnect. I strongly encourage that everybody who encounters this problem send an email to [email protected], even if you can just reconnect to get round it. Don't stop until you get a response from a person. If we can show Blizzard how many legitimate players are being affected by this, maybe they'll tone it down a bit.
Provides way too much, and way too far-ranging, control and access for hackers; as well as everything else you detailed above. Not smart, not smart at all. It looks like they may be evaluating their system (of IPBans) to find such flaws. Maybe they'll come out with a completely different system when they're done. Who knows? But I hope so.
