The Use of VPNs

"A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, allows you to create a secure connection to another network over the Internet. VPNs can be used to access region-restricted websites, shield your browsing activity from prying eyes on public Wi-Fi, and more."

Ok, so most warz players know what a VPN is anyway.

I'm just going to jump straight into what I think about them and what they have to do with warz. There are 2 things a player will use a vpn for, and these two reasons are pretty much alone
- To alt a perm-ban from one of their accounts linked on their home IP
- To protect themselves from any form of IP-grabbing, including skype grabbing, ts grabbing and with mc server checks

I've used vpns before. One reason was to mask my ip, which I later found out had little effect with brawl.
Another reason was to alt without revealing my identity to higher staff. During this time I did not break any rules, I just wanted to have fun with some friends who did the same thing.

Anyway, people have abused their privilege to use VPNs on brawl. Since ip checks (from what I believe) can only be performed by smod+, we have no reason to be afraid of showing our real ip to brawl. I can understand not wanting to show your ip to warz practice servers or other less-populated servers, but most vpns can be turned off/on with the click of a button and the cost of about 2 seconds.

Lately, not only has ddosing decreased, but alting has increased greatly. The real issue with warz is perm-banned players who use vpns and alts to just hack whenever they wish, and they receive no real punishment because of the vpns various ip pools from hundreds of countries - they can just hop on seconds later and continue hacking. Why is this an issue? We have no clue who's doing it! Let's say a player who's already perm-banned on numerous accounts is hacking and alting: that's expected. Now, what if there is an MVP-buying player who has been alting and using vpns: we have no idea, and they could very well be hacking on their mains as well at a lesser rate. This is a separate issue that isn't too important to the thread.

So what's the solution to this reoccurring alting issue?
BAN VPNS
Use a plugin to disallow connecting to brawl on a vpn

"But what about ddosers?"
- Only smod+ has access to ip checking. In my eyes, all of those staff members are trustworthy.
- Brawl has disabled teamspeak channel descriptions, a huge issue to grabbing ips on ts
- Forums ip grabbing is unheard of

Those are all the issues with brawl solved, next question!

"What about other servers? Why should I have to turn off/on my VPN?"
- That's too bad, we need to protect brawl from these constant alting hackers before all else. They are ruining the gameplay for tons of players who quit out of frustration. Please keep in mind that a simple click of a button isn't difficult to do.
- Hop on brawl with vpn off. Get off brawl and switch vpn on. Play practice server. It really is that simple, so anything to do with ddosing is such an obsolete arguement.

Hopping servers? Not an issue. Next q!

"What if I want to privately alt with my friends for fun?"
- Simply let all the smods know. Wario was absolutely uncreative with this and just told all of his friends who alters were, especially when triple alted. Now that we have peas, perhaps we can trust him with the info beforehand.
- If you follow the steps I listed above, alting shouldn't be an issue as long as you VPN on other servers and don't hack on brawl

"What about the players who have dynamic routers anyway? This can't stop them"
- This is the main issue with this fix. Of course some dedicated alters can just change their home ip and continue alting.
- Yes, this is true, but for those alters with a static, they are out of the equation. Besides, it takes a lot more work to change your home ip than on a vpn, I know this personally. I've used both my friends.

BOTTOM LINE
- Ban VPNs to solve this alting issue. No more of this "anonymous hacker" business. Get to the bottom of this and solve it.
- There are many plugins that deny vpns on brawl
- Banning vpns should have no effect on harmless vpn users. The brawl upper staff are trustworthy and you can still vpn on other servers. If you are still afraid of teamspeak, that's an issue YOU need to fix. Don't click on links, and channel descriptions have been removed.

I'm interested to see staff reply to this. Let me know what you think. I this idea has come up before but I think the issue has not been talked about in ages, and has been left out in the conversation of alting hackers.

EDIT: I am 100% all for people's privacy, but VPN or not my privacy has been protected by brawl and not affected whatsoever. VPNs have caused a much larger issue for brawl than it has solved any. Please leave any responses you may have.

 

Would you mind explaining how and why?

 

From what I know you can ban all vpns regardless of how private they are. It's just using software to connect to another network and any mc server can detect that, there are plugins that block not only public/free ones but all of them

and if you took the time to read the thread you'd understand that I was a user of vpns and they were still utterly useless since I couldn't change my ip anyway. I used the vpn primarily to alt and have fun, I knew I couldn't escape ddos with my static but now I can change my ip.

edit: the only reason this hasn't been added was because people were complaining about using it non-maliciously, that's why I know you can block basically every vpn. I'm bringing up the idea again because it's very much needed