The Gang of Five
Howdy, everyone!

As you know, the forum has been fighting spammers and bots for years. We have seen our fair share of "Custom Kitchens UK", scammy Internet hosting companies, and bots trying to send us to a business's homepage. But after fighting the tidal wave of spam for so many years, the admins had a persistent thought: what if the spammers are right? Not in terms of posting nonsense links and trying to scam our users, but in trying to make money through our unique platform?

Well, thanks to the helpful counsel of Taunt, we have finally decided to move the forum in a new direction. Please see his important post on the matter in this topic

It's a Constant Battle

landbeforetimelover · 3 · 1377
« previous next »
Pages: 1

landbeforetimelover

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 8495
  • Littlefoot
    • View Profile
    • http://www.thelandbeforetime.org
on: November 14, 2009, 03:13:18 AM
Comcast, being the wonderful corporation that it is just created a new system that will "throttle down" the speeds of it's users if they use more than 70% of their upload or download speed for more than 15 minutes at a time.  This is a HUGE hit to the LBT Server.  Just a few minutes ago I was getting speeds comparable to dial-up at around 35kps through my entire network.  It's no secret that running a server is against Comcast's terms and conditions, but I've always been able to get around it......until now.  Now I've gotta come up with something else to get by this new wonderful roadblock they've created.

The only thing I can think of is to write a new algorithm into the LBT Server software itself.  This is no small matter let me tell you.  This algorithm would have to be EXTREMELY complex.  It would have to register the maximum speed of all users connected to the server and calculate exactly how long to permit downloads.  I already have an algorithm that will get you a "Server Too Busy" message if I have more than 500 simultaneous downloads for more than 2 minutes time, but this algorithm would be waaaaaaaaaay more complex.  

I could do it quite easily if I could just bump users off.....but I imagine that wouldn't make them too happy. :p It'd suck to be downloading a 200mb file for 10 minutes then have it just die on you and get a "Server Too Busy" message.  But I don't think I even have enough math skills to write an algorithm as complex as this.  All the crap you never thought you'd need to know in school such as factoring polynomials really comes in handy with this stuff......but I really don't think I can do it.  There are so many variables I can't even begin to count them.  Maybe someone's already written something like this and I can integrate it into the server software somehow?  I dunno.  All I know is that if I can't find a solution to this, the LBT Server might have to come down.  There's no reason to have a server that can only upload at 8kps. :p It's not 1988 anymore.

Darn.  I really wanted to do some fun stuff this weekend.  I guess I'll never get any time off. :(

Mumbling

  • Administrator
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 9076
    • View Profile
Reply #1 on: November 14, 2009, 04:34:16 AM
You can't get another connection than comcast? Man that sucks, hopefully you'll find something to get everything work alright again.

landbeforetimelover

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 8495
  • Littlefoot
    • View Profile
    • http://www.thelandbeforetime.org
Reply #2 on: November 14, 2009, 04:30:37 PM
Oh I can get Quest, but they're IDENTICAL companies!  I wouldn't be surprised if they were run by the same guy.  What they're doing should NOT be legal, especially when we pay them HUNDREDS of dollars per MONTH!  I'm not paying $190 a month for a shit connection.  Sorry. :anger

Pages: 1