How unique is IP?
#1

Hello! I'm trying to make a BAN system, but I'm wondering how to make it the best. I know that GPCI cant be used for that, and I also know that nowadays people can change their IP easily. The question is the following:
How unique is the IP address? So If I ban one IP, is there any chance that a Non-Banned user will get the same IP, and unwanted he will get banned? Thank you!
I'll be happy for every help in making the most secure ban system.
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#2

An IP is very unique, and issues only arise in very specific circumstances. Making an IP ban system should be fine, although they can use VPNs to bypass this. On the other hand, range banning would possibly ban the wrong people, so you shouldn't do that unless you really have to.
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#3

Quote:

I'll be happy for every help in making the most secure ban system.

For the null amount of tools which SA-MP provides, this is a little too optimistic. But I'll let you find this out by yourself as you keep trying and researching.

As for the question, Long answer:

To answer your question, how unique an IP address is heavily varies on location. First world countries will often have a single IP address assigned to each user and they might rotate once every few weeks or even months, so for these people an IP ban will often be enough unless they resort to using VPNs.

In other locations, an IP pool is provided to an area and a random IP from that pool everytime a user connects to the network (i.e. restarting a router). In these cases there might be a super small chance of banning someone who is in the same area as a banned player if they happen to be assigned their banned IP.

The worst case scenario is shared IP addresses, such as in a very small town where I used to live. This is the case where several people (a couple dozens, in my case) will all be connected to the internet through the same IP address, which caused issues such as download sites only allowing one person in the town to download at once due to their IP checks, and many other things. Needless to say, banning a player in one of these cases will ban all the other players in that town if they exist. These are extremelly rare nowadays though, and not worth worrying about.

If you feel people are using VPNs to change their IP address, there are APIs online that will receive IP addresses and return to you wether they're VPNs or not, and then you can handle things your way from there. Keep in mind however that people doesn't only use VPNs for evading bans. Some people use them for improving ping (In my case, with a Brazil VPN I have 15-20% lower ping to Europe than connecting directly), some people use them for privacy or government restriction reasons, and there are several other cases more.

Short answer:

Don't worry about any of that, it's not your problem. Just account and IP ban like everyone else, and train your admins to find and remove evaders who bypass this.
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#4

Not so long ago I think someone was making a include or plugin or something that would get someone's HWID and mac address, not sure if they ever released it or finished it, Will do a search for you see if I can find it again.
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#5

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLeech
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Not so long ago I think someone was making a include or plugin or something that would get someone's HWID and mac address, not sure if they ever released it or finished it, Will do a search for you see if I can find it again.
This cannot be done with a plugin let alone an include, not without requiring players to install a mod for the server (which in my book is often a big no-no as a user). Furthermore I reckon falsifying such data should not be much harder than falsifying a GPCI
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#6

Thank you guys! So Ill do the IP banning. Anyway, the Mac and HWID cant be done by a plugin or include in the server folder, you need connection with the players pc. Theres two methods to do that. Develope an easy app, and let the players connect to your server if the app is running(communicating via sql, or ftp),and you can check in that way the unique ID. The second method would be if Kalcor have made an update to client where the client does all of these, and you can call back a function in your server, which returns the id. It wont be so hard to do it. I think a lot of people will be happy if you'd do this Kalcor
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