On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 12:17:23PM +0000, Matthew Stringer wrote:
I run a free online game service in the UK it's open to anyone to play.
However it's constantly being leached to a ridiculous extent (always at my concurrent limit in Apache) by people who just want the files, if I check their IP's they're never coming from the UK.
I don't have unlimited bandwidth so have to restrict it. But the problem there is that the UK based people who are playing the game can't access the webserver as all the slots are constantly used.
My view is that if you're not playing my game servers you shouldn't be downloading my game files.
Surely then, it would be a better policy to restrict downloads to those who are actually playing the game? E.g. use some kind of "port knocking" style scheme where only IPs that are connected to the game server can get to the webserver? Restricting it to UK-only does seem overly punishing. For example, if I wanted to play your game at work (I wouldn't, as it's against company policy, but let's say I did), then my accesses would appear to be coming from France (since that's where the company's internet gateway is), so I would be blocked, even though I'm most definitely on the northern side of the English Channel... -- David Smith Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England GPG Key: 0xF13192F2 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org