As per these ingame surrender terms, players must go to an offsite forum and post their surrender. I suspect that the purpose of this is to record players' IP addresses in order to chase them across new nations.

Is this allowed? It looks like it is seriously crossing the line between the game and the real world. Players have the right to keep their IP private and play the game.

I'd like for everyone to discuss this, if possible, and for moderation to investigate the situation.

Personally I am against it but there is nothing moderation can do (terms can just be posted offsite) to stop it short of banning players found to be partaking in that activity.

During the NADC vs Bleu war, Bleu had NADC members surrender on the Bleu bloc forum (Bleunity main forum). The surrenders were recognized ingame, so the way I take it, it's OK. The forum linked to is the Coalition main forum (Their Bloc forum).

But recently clause 2 of the ToS have changed. I am not sure whether or not this is against the rules. You could say that this is against the rules, because players have to give out their RL possession (their IP address) in order for their nation to get attacked. But then again, that might be a stretch of the rules.

It is not against the rules. It is also not against any rules for a player to use a proxy to connect to a site that is not an official game site so players do have the ability to keep their IP private.

I do agree and come to think about it, I surrendered to Bleu on the Bleunity bloc forum
and ever since that war, I have been repeatedly attacked by everybody and their mother
no matter how many times I re-roll (I am stuck in full time peace mode as a result).

That's stretching it very far. IP address is not your possession, neither is your address in real life. Nothing is taken away from you.

Not all players know about this or are even aware that their IPs are being phished.

Emperor Tiberius, you seem to be thinking of this as some sort of political front I am putting on. I am not a BLEU-supporter IC and neither is Vox, necessarily. Viceroys were allowed too until recently.

Rules change. There's something wrong with what is happening here, in my opinion, and just because it wasn't against the rules before doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered.

No one is saying that this pertains at all to the recent change in ruling regarding personal possessions.

However, phishing for IP addresses to pursue players over multiple accounts is pretty sketchy even if it has nothing to do with extortion.

I am aware of that however there is nothing in the ToS that makes this against the rules even if it is being done for the expressed purpose of obtaining IPs. As saber said your IP address is not property and therefore does not fall under section 2 of the ToS.

As to whether it should be against the rules honestly as much as I would like to say yes I think it is going too far with the rules.

No one said it fell under section 2 of the ToS.


Too far? How so?

In order to enforce it you have to prove intent which is a very difficult thing to do. There are many circumstances where people are asked to sign up on off site forums for perfectly legitimate and innocent reasons and it would open the door for people to try and use the rule as a weapon against them.

theone22 brought up that it might

I trust that those who would be enforcing these rules would have adequate judgment capabilities to deduce whether or not offline forums are used as a means of acquiring players' information and I have no doubt people won't hesitate to bring it to the mods' attention if they suspect that it is happening.

I hardly see how the rule can be abused when moderation had the final call.

Because as I said intent is impossible to prove and the only way to enforce this rule is to make a determination about the accused person's intent.

IP addressing is Jurisdiction of the FCC (And no I don't mean the alliance lol). By harvesting
IP's your stepping into Federal territory. Selling or distributing IP addresses is a federal offense.
The _ONLY_ way to legally distribute IP's is to get a Federal Wiretap warrant and I don't see any
CN alliance being able to do that. It should for all intents and purposes be against TOS because it is Illegal. Since Perma-ZI depends on distributing of IP addresses, It is Illegal by design. (I brought that up because in some cases, Surrenderees are subject to Perma-ZI, I was).

I find it odd that it is being done differently now than it was in the past. I see no reason why players should be forced to sign up on an offsite forum where other players can access your IP address. Surrenders should remain on the CN forums like they have for most of the time the game has been running.

Whether or not it is illegal is a matter not for us players to decide, but law enforcement, so I don't think we should all be commenting on that end of it. I do know, however, that it makes me extremely uncomfortable passing my IP freely over to my enemies in game, especially knowing what has happened with hackings and such with CN, both the game and on alliance off-sites. Not that I'm saying anyone still playing would do anything like that, you just can't really know for sure.

Factual statement.


Assumption and accusation based on an assumption.

TORN recently instituted the policy of having individual surrenders post on our forums (for 3 wars, not this one), and the purpose was to have a central record of legitimate POWs, and to have their own subforum to track their POW status and ask questions in a central location. It worked really well, and had nothing to do with IPs. I believe the Coalition is instituting the same policy because without a central tracking location of legitimate surrenders, the POW list would become extremely difficult to manage.

What happens on offsites is beyond Moderation's control. If you have a problem with the terms, you will need to take it up with the people who issue them.

Giving out a copy of semi-public information (IP address) is not the same as giving out one-of-a-kind private property (such as forums).

I haven't read Admin's official opinion of this. but in my opinion, the line has been crossed when you give out IP's with the intent of stalking players (Perma-ZI across re-rolls). People should always have a second chance unless they screw up again. Auto-attacking based on actions in a previous incarnate is just wrong. When does it become our right to do Admin's job and decide who can and cannot play CN? Repeat offenders should be dealt with by Admin and only by Admin.
Just because you happen to be in the largest alliance/bloc/conglomerate does not make you CN's
resident Police officers. I view Perma-ZI like many view Reaving. it is nothing more than a power play. Admin and only Admin (or people designated by Admin) should decide who does and does not play CN. There is 2 reasons people go rogue or "Run their mouth" 1. Boredom and 2. Frustration.

I brought up the Perma ZI issue because in many cases, PoW's that surrender offsite are stalked and PZI'd across re-rolls.

Would you like to supply evidence for these 'many cases?'

Fact is, they wouldn't accept a surrender if they intended to PZI someone. They'd just PZI that person.

If you're really freaked out about it, use a CGI Proxy to access the surrender site. There is nothing the mods can do, it is out of their scope of operations.

If you want my honest opinion, this thread is wholly unnecessary, and is merely an attempt to discredit IC enemies with OOC complaints.

What's next? Will you try to ban alliances from forcing their own members to have an off-site forum account in order to retain their membership? That would effectively protect ghosts from any reprecusions. You can't force them to sign up on a forum so they aren't really ghosts right? I don't know of any major alliance that allows their members to not have a forum account.

This is dead on correct, it is not a moderation issue.