Adjust how hatcheries can use API

[olympe]

13 hours ago, TJ09 said:

 

Hatcheries that don't support login wouldn't be able to access hidden accounts, no. But that doesn't really bother me, since I'm of the opinion that all hatcheries should use the login feature instead of having an unverified text box.

This might seem like the solution to everything, and while it would undoubtedly help in the case of malicious viewbombing of certain people, that's not all there is. Plus, there's more hassle when adding your dragons.

 

Of course, viewbombing isn't restricted to adding someone's dragons to all available fansites, it has developed so far that whole fansites get attacked. Adding this kind of login feature won't achieve anything that hiding your scroll wouldn't. And, overall, hiding your scroll when you go offline seems less of a hassle than having to log in every time you add an egg to a hatchery.

[Fuzzbucket]

12 minutes ago, Cinspawn said:

Wow, I had no idea it was possible with the current API to enable 'login to Dragon Cave' to use a hatchery. I had no idea there are already hatcheries that do this. 

 

And I have NO IDEA why this is not the standard and even mandatory! Wouldn't this literally solve all the viewbombing problems? And you can just stay logged in with cookies, just like you do on Dragon Cave. 

 It can't be mandatory. The sites are not run by TJ.

 

Also it won't stop people bombing individual eggs they have the code for.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[Cinspawn]

4 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 It can't be mandatory. The sites are not run by TJ.

But the API and its rules are? Its not like the hatcheries can do whatever they want, if it goes against TJ's view they get their access revoked. 

 

 

ETA: I realize it won't solve all viewbombing, nothing ever will. I was just baffled that the API can be used this way because it was my understanding that it wasn't possible. 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Cinspawn

[HeatherMarie]

15 minutes ago, Cinspawn said:

Wow, I had no idea it was possible with the current API to enable 'login to Dragon Cave' to use a hatchery. I had no idea there are already hatcheries that do this. 

 

And I have NO IDEA why this is not the standard and even mandatory! Wouldn't this literally solve all the viewbombing problems? And you can just stay logged in with cookies, just like you do on Dragon Cave. 

 

But it wouldn't solve all viewbombing problems. It would definitely *help*, and lessen or even totally stop viewbombing that's done just by adding someone's eggs to tons of hatcheries. But it wouldn't stop everything. Anyone with a code can viewbomb a dragon, regardless of if hatcheries even exist. And as olympe pointed out, it also wouldn't help when entire hatcheries get attacked. Those attacks target *everyone* that has eggs in the hatcheries, and don't need any permission to put any scrolls in there.

[Cinspawn]

Yeah I realized that after my initial first reaction @HeatherMarie  I just was a little shocked cause for a second it felt like the perfect solution - yet (almost) no one was using it. But I understand now and I can be ignored 

[Ruby Eyes]

27 minutes ago, Cinspawn said:

Wouldn't this literally solve all the viewbombing problems?

Not all of them.

- As long as someone knows the code of your egg (e.g. because they tried to grab the same rare that you got), they can place it in any high-traffic place they like.

- Hatcheries as a whole might still be targeted for the viewbombing version of DDoS attacks.

But I suppose as long as you keep your scroll hidden, requiring a login verification would solve a big chunk of viewbombing or misplaced-help issues.

 

oh, page wrap

 

16 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 It can't be mandatory. The sites are not run by TJ.

It could be. The API could be modified in a way that growing things would only be delivered after some kind of verification key has been delivered. No idea how feasible that would be though.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[osmarks]

31 minutes ago, Cinspawn said:

Wow, I had no idea it was possible with the current API to enable 'login to Dragon Cave' to use a hatchery. I had no idea there are already hatcheries that do this. 

 

And I have NO IDEA why this is not the standard and even mandatory! Wouldn't this literally solve all the viewbombing problems? And you can just stay logged in with cookies, just like you do on Dragon Cave. 

Er, no, it'd solve hatchery-based viewbombing problems. Which is to say, most, but not all.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't notice the second page, this is already addressed by other people.

 

@Ruby Eyes I'm fairly sure it'd be possible to adjust the API to require that a user logs in before showing what's on their scroll, yes.

@Fuzzbucket TJ09 can do that or just revoke API access to noncomplying stuff.

Edited December 3, 2018 by osmarks

[Shadowdrake]

Making hatcheries need an API login would, at the least, make it much harder to viewbomb individual people's entire scrolls. I know we have trolls but if this is implemented at least they can't harass a specific person for weeks or months on end by way of a username and a couple of clicks. And although hatcheries can gain more views than normal, unlike EATW where it took out all sick eggs and left any new ones to take the brunt of it instantly, the large amount of eggs constantly in most hatcheries will spread the views around instead of it being instant death to someone unaware. Taking someone's singular codes and spamming it on social media sites is a lot more work, compared to what trolls can currently do.

[Dracaena]

I think the trolls are getting much more sophisticated.  Not long about (prior to this recent attack at AoND) I noticed a trade egg of mine getting views when it wasn't supposed to be.  I ran around the hatcheries and found it in Silvi's.  I removed it, checked scroll and it was already back in,  this went on for a few repeats until I managed to remove and hide scroll faster then they could reenter the code by having two tabs open and clicking fast as I could.  They had no way to know when/if I would find where they had posted that egg, it had to have been some script/program running to keep that egg in the hatchery.  If they are going to this much trouble,  requiring user logins at the hatcheries isn't going to phase them.  They'll just up the ante and find creative ways to bomb anyway.  Like the entire egg section of AoND that just happened.  They didn't bother with the hatchling section, I fear it was just a test run for them.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

16 hours ago, Cinspawn said:

But the API and its rules are? Its not like the hatcheries can do whatever they want, if it goes against TJ's view they get their access revoked. 

 

 

ETA: I realize it won't solve all viewbombing, nothing ever will. I was just baffled that the API can be used this way because it was my understanding that it wasn't possible. 

 

There are people who get around not being allowed access to the API. People who are ever so savvy, like TJ is.

[Shadowdrake]

3 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

There are people who get around not being allowed access to the API. People who are ever so savvy, like TJ is.

Sure, temporarily. If TJ gets wind of it though he can straight up ban their hatchery/them from being able to even view the DC site. See: osmarks' site after he tried to make a running hatchery when TJ didn't respond to his API request.

Anything relying on other people to contribute views will get around by word of mouth, and if said trolls want to spam views they'll either have to waste their comp and electricity for little result, or set up a botnet which takes time and effort or money. Hardly as convenient as having our hatcheries do all the work for them.

[osmarks]

The amount of people with significant programming knowledge, who are on DC, and go around trolling people, is probably pretty small.

 

Besides, while simple stuff like ARing is easy without API access (I have a really simple thing for that for ND experiments), if you want an actual forum-listed hatchery people will leave viewers open for, you do kind of need API access.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, osmarks said:

The amount of people with significant programming knowledge, who are on DC, and go around trolling people, is probably pretty small.

 

Besides, while simple stuff like ARing is easy without API access (I have a really simple thing for that for ND experiments), if you want an actual forum-listed hatchery people will leave viewers open for, you do kind of need API access.

 

It only takes one. And they may not be here. They may just have it in for TJ, or for the game, or whatever.

[osmarks]

@Fuzzbucket You seem to be missing the fact that this suggestion is on the hatchery side. It seems unlikely that someone will go to the effort of - and manage to - make a non-API hatchery for the sole purpose of viewbombing people, and then get them to use it.

EDIT: not on the hatchery side, to affect the hatchery side.

Edited December 4, 2018 by osmarks

[Fuzzbucket]

This is being suggested as a way to stop viewbombing. All I'm saying is that nothing will actually stop it.

[osmarks]

5 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

This is being suggested as a way to stop viewbombing. All I'm saying is that nothing will actually stop it.

This is suggested as a way to reduce it. It would probably do that. Viewbombing can be entirely stopped, but the changes required are mostly kind of drastic (e.g. removing sickness, removing the entire system of views/clicks for growth, etc).

[Keileon]

16 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

This is being suggested as a way to stop viewbombing. All I'm saying is that nothing will actually stop it.

I know it has a strikethrough, but my OP states:

 

While it wouldn't eliminate viewbombing entirely, it should mitigate it quite a lot.

[Shadowdrake]

9 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

This is being suggested as a way to stop viewbombing. All I'm saying is that nothing will actually stop it.

Door locks may not keep out a dedicated burglar, but they will still stop the average would-be opportunist. Better to have some protection than none at all, and reduce the number of possible viewbombers from literally anyone to just one or two with the motive and the means.

[purplehaze]

As I am reading this, it appears that it would also make it impossible to keep an eye on someone else's scroll (Scrollsitters). Already we cannot hide or ward an egg/hatchling. If this were done there would be no way to add or remove a friend/ other player's eggs in the hatcheries, either. It would require knowing their DC log-in, which is a really bad idea for anyone to give to another person and frankly not something that I would be comfortable being responsible for, even for a good friend (not to mention that I have been told this is forbidden by tos and counts as multi-scrolling). There may be one or two hatcheries that allow you to add an egg by its code, but as far as I know it can't be removed that way. 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2018 by purplehaze

[Fuzzbucket]

 

NOT good. I have to rely on scrollsitters quite a bit....

[Ruby Eyes]

... maybe DO make it dependent on the "accept aid" flag? Right now, it doesn't serve a lot of purpose anyway ...

[evina]

I'd like to share my thoughts on the discussion thus far. Implementing the login feature did take a bit of work, but I wouldn't say it was more difficult to implement than any other feature of the site. I would like to see more hatcheries use the login feature but that may be unrealistic for a while. Even if it was made mandatory it would take a while for everyone to consistently implement. Also, as others have mentioned, it wouldn't completely eliminate view abuse. I think the best solution, for now, would be TJ's suggestion of preventing dragons from hidden scrolls being added to sites.

[osmarks]

@evina I'm pretty sure hidden scrolls can't be added to fansites.

[Keileon]

Yeah, TJ's suggestion was to allow the login feature of the API to add dragons from hidden scrolls, not to prevent it.

 

Unless you mean preventing the code from being added if it's on a hidden scroll?

[deleted_account]

On 12/3/2018 at 3:28 AM, TJ09 said:

I'm of the opinion that all hatcheries should use the login feature instead of having an unverified text box.

please no.  I'd seriously rather quit DC.

 

This woudn't solve a thing, viewbombers surely have thier ways without hatcheries. Just fix Sickness (e.g. may it auto-fog instead of kill, and require manual unfogging - this way only those of attacked (and wrongly cared for) eggs would die whose owners don't login for another week...) and all problems solved. Just allow hidden scrolls to be somehow accessed, but don't force everyone to login to extra sites just to be able to play... though tbh unhiding your scroll is still less of a fuss than loging everywhere... you'd better add an in-game hatchery for hidden scrolls.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Meh