Rainbow

Re: How Can I Secure A Game? I find the problem in the question itself, I mean personally if I was serious about something like it I would work my ass off to find out about it. There is no definite answer to this so all I can tell you is firstly take your time to learn how SQL injection attacks work and once you know the basics move onto constrainining inputs to prevent SQL injections, use type safe SQL command parameters to prevent SQL injections and probably a quite basic method of using a least privileged account to connect to the database to reduce the risk and damage. To put it in simple words to counter SQL injections you need to constrain and sanitise input data aswell as check for known good data by validating for type, length, format, and range. However that will not come to by a brainwave - you need to put some effort into this. Well mysql_real_escape_string simply escapes all the "dangerous" characters in the string provided and returns the escaped string such that it may be safe to put into a MySQL query. However, if you do not sanitize input prior to passing it to mysql_real_escape_string() function you still may have SQL injection vectors. For example; mysql_real_escape_string would not protect against an SQL injection vector such as the following: $result = "SELECT fields FROM table WHERE id = ".mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['id']); The back-slash never actually makes it into the data, so if your data is being modified in some way, it is likely due to something else or the way you are later outputting the data after retrieving it from the database. Works pretty similar in how magic quotes since they both act as a process that automagically escapes incoming data to the PHP script. Although I believe the mc command has been deprecated and removed on PHP 5.3.0 + so its not worth relying on that. Ummm the last I knew of the htmlspecialchars() command is simply for filtering outputs that are to be sent to the browser, and for data to be output via SQL to a database you want to use a function that escapes certain characters that are "special" to SQL, preferably one specific to the DBMS in question, such as the one you mentioned - mysql_real_escape_string(). His post has value in a sense that it is not misleading and outlines the facts of how people go about securing a game. It is not a simple function that you learn to use, there are many more steps required... You provided him with an explanation that will only be beneficial for a few days until he gets round to reading it and after that he wont have a clue on what to do next. Ofcourse atleast you are helping unlike most of the others but point being is that preventing hackers from exploiting your website is much harder than what it seems. :-) Back to answering the question. Some more information: http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/mysq ... ection.php http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163917.aspx http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/ ... tacks.aspx http://www.wwwcoder.com/main/parentid/2 ... fault.aspx http://www.silksoft.co.za/data/sqlinjectionattack.htm http://si.php.net/manual/en/function.my ... string.php From my personal experience as a web developer I learnt to stop writing dynamic queries when not needed and prevent the user supplied input which may contain malicious SQL from affecting the logic of the executed query. Wether it is to use prepared statements, use of stored prodecures or just escaping supplied input. However do keep in mind that SQL Injections is only one method of "hacking" thus you need to do more research on other dangers and how to deal with them. I have PM'd you with a list of links regarding some tutorials etc... so if you ever need some more help do contact me. Sorry for a vague explanation, but these are the basics that you will need for now. :lol:

Re: What would you do with $100,000,000?   Who pays for money :? Everyone does. If you go to a foreign exchange you are infact paying for money. :lol:

Re: Need a "pile items" in inventory It would not hurt to use the search function once in a while. Something I found - not tested, but looks like it should work fine. :)   <?php include( "globals.php" ); $used=array(); $q=$db->query("SELECT * FROM inventory WHERE inv_userid=$userid"); while ( $r=mysql_fetch_array($q) ) { if ( ! in_array ( $r['inv_id'], $used ) ) { $currdel=array(); $used[] =$r['inv_id']; $currdel[]=$r['inv_id']; $amount=$r['inv_qty']; //grab sellers others $q2=$db->query("SELECT * FROM inventory WHERE inv_userid=$userid AND inv_itemid = {$r['inv_itemid']} AND inv_id != {$r['inv_id']}"); while ( $r2 = mysql_fetch_array($q2) ) { $used[]=$r2['inv_id']; $currdel[]=$r2['inv_id']; $amount+=$r2['inv_qty']; } //if($userid == 1) //print "DEBUG: DELETE FROM inventory WHERE inv_id IN(".implode(",",$currdel).") "; $db->query("DELETE FROM inventory WHERE inv_id IN(".implode(",",$currdel).")"); //if($userid == 1) //print "DEBUG: INSERT INTO inventory VALUES('', {$r['inv_itemid']}, $userid, $amount) "; $db->query("INSERT INTO inventory VALUES('', {$r['inv_itemid']}, $userid, $amount)"); print "$amount of item id {$r['inv_itemid']} Merged... "; } } print "[b]<font color='red'>Items Merged</font>[/b] <center><a href=inventory.php>>Back to your Items</a> "; $h->endpage(); ?>

Lack of Motivation or Obsessed with Money This is a topic that has been sort of the "peak of my interests" the past few months: Seeing how current and new administrators on games tend to act. I'm a former administrator myself, and I will admit I had my faults for sure, but I've seen a lot of problems from the "newest" administrators. This is just basically my thoughts on it. Feel free to disagree, agree with me, etc. I apologise in advance if per chance I have unknowingly offended anyone with my opinions. So as I have stated, my main argument is with the new game admins, lately it seems they lack of motivation and dedication. First off, the big deal is: "How did the game come to be"? Often times, when you visit a new game, you expect to see something promising, something fun, come out of it. However, when you get down to earth and find out why the administrator started the game in the first place, things start to fall out of order. Typically, the administrators I've talked to about their games often reiterate the same reasoning for starting a game: "Just for the hell of it" or "4 Teh Moneyz". Now I'm not suggesting you shouldn't start a game if that's your reasoning, but there is more to running a game than just for the hell or the cash. Let us fast forward a few months from the initial start of the game "for the money". The administrator, by this point, is usually disengaged from the game as noone really plays it and uses the reasoning of "well, no one really comes here anymore. It's a waste of my time". This exactly, is the reason why doing a game for the hell of or for the money only is not necessarily my highest recommend idea. The administrator usually gets angry with the game, places the blame on the members, and then shuts the game down thinking "no one cares". A lot of the newer administrators underestimate the value of a dedication and motivation when creating a game. Just because this is the internet, does not mean per say that all boundaries of reality are thrown out the window. Just like real life, if you want to be good at something you need dedication, motivation, and determination. Another common issue that needs to be addressed is the behavior and attitude of the administrators. A lot of administrators I've known that are just making games do not get that there is secret to getting good staff, good members, and such; You as the administrator, must enforce and surpass to speak, your own rules, and you must keep a positive outlook no matter how "gloomy" the outcome may look for your game. Simply saying "Why do I even bother with this game?" when it is not going the way you want it to is not going to help. In fact, that is just going to negate a lot of the members visits for the most part. Once again, it's never easy, but welcome to life. The administrator is the essential key to the game. Without the administrator, the game does not function as it should, and ultimately will stray off course. Moving onward, let's tackle how administrators handle the hacking of their games. It's a common issue, and for the most part it gets blown out of proportion quite easily. Hackings usually happen to the upcoming games, and sometimes the "big ones". There are two main reasons for it happening: 1) A personal vendetta between the administrator and someone else who can hack or 2) Just for kicks or 3) They do it to cheat. Hacking, is per say, like bullying, in that you just need to realise that you cannot give in and react negatively or irresponsibly - and just like in bullying it happens to those whom cannot protect themselfs wether physically or securing their code. Angry is motivation - if you get hacked then learn how to secure it. :S Finally, never under-estimate the value of having a good interaction with your members. Friendliness is the key when you want to have an inviting, nonetheless successful, game. I know that I would NEVER join a game that has an administrator who pushes around his or her members and picks favorites. A game is all about a balance, so to speak, of friendliness, seriousness, and above all fairness. You can't pick favorites when your an administrator of a good game, you just can't. More often than not, just because you know a person better than another doesn't mean they are more qualified for a specific position in terms of staffing. Just keep in mind that you need to be courteous and aware of your members at all times. So to finish off - secure your game, be friendly and dont give up. Even if the community you have is small it is precious and care for it. No matter what. And I know many here are in it for the quick buck - well I have nothing to say to people like that. Will be interesting to see what people think of these new admins using illegal copies of MC code for some quick cash... what is your opinion?

Re: What would you do with $100,000,000? I will stop my Mother and Father from working one more single day, pay their mortgage and make sure they get everything they wish for and deserve I would totally work with some folks from the United nations to invest in deep need countries building schools for children also generating jobs and that would be satisfactory enough for a lifetime just travelling around with little for myself and enjoying the smiles of people that stupid money gave the chance of a better life. I mean my life is as good enough as it is and the joy of someone being happy would give me that urge. I cant think of anything money can buy to make me happier apart from giving happiness to others. On my behalf I would pay off my mortgages. I'd also pay off every one of my family members' mortgages. Put enough money under my mattress any kids I have can go to whatever college they want despite what the economy is doing at the time. Buy some new clothes. Scratch that?hire a personal shopper to buy me a new wardrobe, complete with a personal trainer to get me into said wardrobe. :D Ofcourse I would invest it smartly too. And let me make a promise if I do win the $100,000,000 in a lottery, then all CE members get $10 :D

I am a believer in this particular mystery and I genuinly think only narrow minded, ignorant minds would dismiss intelligent life elsewhere. Consider the size of the universe, logically it cannot end and then also consider the age of the universe, again we cannot even imagine the number of years it has existed. Then there is the fact that life exists on Earth, in more than one form , i.e Humans, Other Animals, Insects and so on... You mst be very unreasonable and ignorant to assume that we are the ONLY intelligent life in the universe. Humans believe that we are intelligent, I too think I am fairly smart; so unless I am missing something and been taught wrong, it seems to me extra-terrestrial life is more than just a probability, and to me it is a very high possibility. Consider how long it took for us to evolve on Earth. Apparently Homo Sapiens have existed on Earth for about 200,000 years or so. It is a relative short time of man's existence on Earth compared to the age of the universe, ad to me it seems almost like a fact that there has to be some kind of more intelligent species on Earth. The Universe wont be crammed with masses of intelligent life, since the things that happened on earth for life even to exist were very lucky, several different disasters, then specific evolutionary factors would have to happen as well for a animal to develop a big enough brain. Then we would have to have the luck of the strange event of consciousness to happen as well, there could be an alien with all the characteristics thats needed, but could just be an pure animal with no self awareness which we enjoy. The universe is almost infinite in time and space, so there probably will be other life but we wont meet them and have babies together like a bad star trek episode. However I suppose the size and age should not be up for debate as no one can question it due to the lack of information on the matter other than upon standard logic and scientific observation, and scientific speculation as to the size and nature of the universe makes it 100% that there is other life, this is a mathmatical certainty. Whether we will ever meet it, that is questionable. For me my mind is made up and the answer is simple, I just need to consider the following; There is life in the universe Based on principles of physics the universe is always expanding and is for all intents and purposes infinite in size Therefore - A universe with one group of life and infinite size with variety in nature as we observe everywhere, will contain more than one. How could they do it on their own without any technology, we would struggle to build them today? I find it interesting that in a culture where two story homes were unheard of and all the temples and monuments were built on a one-story plan, that the Great Pyramid contains no less than four (and quite possibly five if the rumors are true) levels. The Pyramids are quite unlike anything built before or since in Egypt. Let us not forget the narrow passages that point directly to Sirius and Orions; Belt. Why were they there? No one was meant to enter the tomb after it was sealed. Surely such an view of those Stars would be wasted on Egyptian Astronomers who could never enter? So what was their purpose? Well a central belief of Egyptian religion was that the deceaseds spirit would continue to use their tomb after their journey to the Underworld. So we can only conclude that these viewing holes were for the use of the Pharoahs Ka. And why would the Pharoah need to see Sirius and Orions Belt? Was He perhaps waiting for a message from the stars? A messsage from the beings that helped him craft his grand monument? Dont you guys remember something being geometrically the same !!! Also look at ancient egyptian art, near all the pharaos there are mystical people like figures with MASSIVE heads, and there has been many conspiracy theories that US are hiding something from us... and even someone that hacked the NASA computer found alien space crafts... maybe they discovered it when they pretended to land on the moon? I think we may be aware of it... But realistically if we found out they existed we would start to panic, so if they are hiding it, in a sense its for our own good. Also how can you explain our quick evolution... from cavemen we went to building pyramids and then producing technology like TV's and mobiles... maybe an alien came down and gave them to us. :-D People that are religious will ofcourse say we have proof against this theory; as the religious sacred texts show us there was only one creator and there is only one life however what I would say to that is, provide evidence, provide reason, provide something other than pointing to the bible or another sacred text. What are your views on this matter? I am a believer are you? :lol:

I havent made my mind up however right now I am probably against abortions, I consider that life begins the moment you are conceived. No matter what the situation, the parent(s) should not destroy this life, even more so if they are believers in God. According to virtually all religions out there, God decides who lives and who doesnt. It is not upto the parent to play God. If they really do not want or need the child facilities such as adoption are available to them. However, I do think that a new life is a blessing to any parent. Even if they cannot afford to or to cope with the child, it brings them joy and happiness, it gives them something to live for, other than themselves. However then I go onto think about the fact that the baby grows and developes inside the womens body and in a sense it belongs to her body. Does she not have the right to choose whether/or not this entity stays within her and grows until birth? Some people will share the opinion of it is up to her to decide what is the best for her and what would the best be for the baby; ie under certain circumstances. Why should the women destroy her life for something that cannot even be classed as a living organism? It depends on your opinion and definition of life, something without feelings and instincts to be honest is not alive; even further, a sperm and an egg could also be termed alive, by the same notion as a clump of cells could. For some a baby that is half matured and can feel, needs to breathe and needs resources is alive, a conceved egg is not. I agree with my initial statement in principle, people govern this world not a god, even if a god exists, so the argument;its not their place to play god; is irrelivant, as god doesnt play this part either. However I am a great believer in logic, if you set something along a path which will end in a certain result you are responsible for the result. As a ball rolled down a steep slope will reach the bottom without fail, at the point of conception a baby is CONCEIVED, hence life begins at conception, by definition. However im more concerned with peoples morality in their actions, not whether god will send people to hell. Our society is pathetically retarded in that you can do whatever you want, have sex with whoever you want in whatever state, and then totally deny responsibility for it via abortion. A womans body is her own, a child is someone else, and at the point of conception they become thus. Only the child, as per basic fundimental human rights, now has a right to life. If she didnt want to get pregnant she shouldnt have had sex. Dont do the crime if you cant do the time, pure and simple. Some people dont consider it a baby in the starting process they just think of it as cells just because an arbitrary line is placed so that people can get abortions for the sake of societies upbringing (to prevent unwanted kids) they think its a factual statement on life beginning. Any child who went to a basic biology class knows this is false. The unwanted kids wouldnt be a problem if people accepted responsibility, they are only unwanted because the mother has been instilled with the idea that she can have sex whenever she feels like with whoever and can get away with it by denying responsibility, as she does either in abortion or being an unwilling mother. I have absolutely no sympathy for people who take a course of action knowing the facts (IE unprotected sex= chance of kids), then deny responsibility on the grounds that the rest of society doesnt consider that often enough either. But surely abortion should be used when the mother is at risk, and when it is a rape case. I also think emergency conctraception pills should be made more regularly available or free along with long term contraception, like Injections and implants, people should be educated more about the alternatives. So if these things along with condoms are not used then both parents should have to look after the child. It would cause people to be more careful looking after them selves. No one would want to watch and totally legal abortion but they agree with it i think, you have to do both i think and no one would be able to. I am pretty neutral on the matter, what are your thoughts on the following questions; Does Life start at Conception? Is abortion right? Will be interesting on hearing the thoughts of the CE members =D

Re: [Guide]MC Economy Some more guides will be released soon aswell as part two to this one. I appreciate the good feedback I recieved and it will inspire me to do more of these, its good to know I helped someone out. Once again, thank you. :) Also if you need assistance with the economics on your game then please do mail me and I will give you step by step advice after checking your game out - advice that will not require a reset. :lol:

Re: Skull City economic stats Total Cash: $83,131,424 Average Cash: $312,524 Cash in banks: $53,940,561,632 Bank accounts: 254 Average bank balance: $212,364,415 Total Crystals: 272,041 Average Crystals: 1,022 Total Items: 54,562 I suppose the first is cash in hand? Anyway the economy is way too inflated for me to even begin to try and review this game. :) Recommendation :P : http://criminalexistence.com/ceforums/i ... ic=29259.0

Part 1 I have been playing a few MC codes games and the economy was appauling, mind you a few where from CE so I decided I might aswell write something up while I do have the time. Ok well let me start off by giving a short introduction of what an economy is, in relation to your game. The economy in your game is the realised social system of production and pretty much generation, exchange, distribution, and consumption of different goods and services in the community. By the model I follow, the basic reason for having an economy is to raise the realistic factor in the game aswell as increase the collective strength within the game. A communities economic system is, in brief, a description of how the economy determines what will be produced and how it will be allocated, and who gets what and by what means. So in short the economy is everything numerical of value within the game, wether its items, houses, signature making services whatever, all gets taken into account and is a result in a certain economy, wether for the good or the bad, and the latter applies to most games. The administrator has a burden in a sense that he or she has to think about the cost of job he is performing and wether it will be right considering the result of the final economy. The admin has to deal and think carefully and effectively about his what will be required and are necessary to create the economy you plan to have. Engineering economy depends upon a number of monetary and non-monetary factors, the prices are not the only things that affect your economy, i.e if you make everything of high value there are other commodities and services that you do not have a control over. Consider it like this, economics in reality is a social science and like other social sciences, it has its own principles or laws, thus wether in reality or not if you are to acquire the skill to intepret the laws correctly and manipulate them to suit you, will depend on how prepared you are. The principles just tell us how we should behave under certain circumstances, and a reverse affect of also giving us an idea about the results likely to follow certain conditions. Everyone here should know the basics of economics, for example the simple law of a fall in price does result and is accompanied by extension in demand. Economics laws of economic tendencies are those which relate to branches of conduct in which the strength of the motives chiefly concerned can be measured by a money price. As the economic phenomenon are complex and varied, a number of factors influence the formulation of the basic principles which are nothing but generalisations and are called as laws. Think of them as guides, noone will tell you what to do it is up to you to figure this out and apply it to the enviroment, however you must know the basics before attempting and probably ruining your game. So now we established the point that the fundamental assumption of economic analysis is that every individual acts in a sensible manner and it is sensible for the individual to balance marginal costs and marginal gains. Sensible conduct leads to maximum of money gains. So if you decide that $1000 is enough to earn from crimes in your game apply the principles mentioned in this post and see how it goes. Ofcourse I am sure someone didnt understand the fundementals so let me break it down for you: So the basic principles relevant to the game will be this: 1)Prices rise when the game's players manage to gain money by the system generating too much money 2)Markets are usually a good way to utilise and organise economic activity 3)Administrators can improve market outcomes 4)People respond to inecitives 5)The cost of something is what you give up to get This basically means inflation which means that prices rise in order to mirror all the money that is being generated by the system. The generating of new money is something that needs to be controlled because even though it might ?temporarily make the people feel wealthier? at some point prices will start going up, and inflation will come in play, and it will be very hard to take back under control. In general it happens when demand for products and services by consumers is stronger than the supply of the desired products and services so stability between goods and money is the best way to keep inflation away. In this context inflation is purely used to refer the increase in levels of prices which too much money being generating and the economy just basicaly making a RAPID increase. I will go onto talking about inflation abit later on.. Well a market is self explanatory as in markets agreements are made, and prices are settled, which then are communicated to the rest of the comnutty. Thus the public are aware of the prices and you have direct proportional control over these prices. Most of the time administrators will step in to assist the economy and the admins get involved in developing better outcomes. Ofcourse every admin wishes the best for his own game so if the market people buy/sell at outcome is not efficient, and second if it fails to distribute the income efficiently then something needs to be done - i.e if the buyers sell and sell but never buy then it will not have the competative edge to it, they money needs to go into the economic cycle. Ofcourse these are regulated by caps etc... When you decide what to buy wether in real life or in a game a cost and the advantages of something vary or change and upon this variable our decisions change too. Incentives will attract will to buy that thing in that certain place. For example if I asked my son to wash the car so that he can use the car tonight, in other words he benefits from saying yes, but if they weren?t any incentives, he?ll probably doubt it. People are responding to incentives, incentives that benefit them; obviously you?ll do more buying and selling if you are not going to be taxed and if there are certain other benefits involved. So for example if you plan to regulate costs buy adding certain caps then the only control over that would be to offer inecetives to use the market where you can control it - so for example set a tax on trade transactions whereas remove them from the market. Ok now lets consider which is the main area that affects us in this community and is by far hardest to cope with, to me it seems that from the economy side of things inflation is the biggest burden. So to summarise inflation can be defined as decrease in the value of money and the loss of purchasing power in some medium of the commodity exchange. Inflation rate is defined as percentage change in the price index over a certain period of time. 'Reasons of inflation Situation of inflation can occur at any time, and its occurrence depends upon a number of reasons. No specific cause is responsible for the occurrence of inflation. But some proposed reasons of the inflation are mentioned below- If the production cost of various services and goods increases then naturally the prices of the final products would also increase. This leads into the situation of inflation. Inflation occurs when industries and business houses increase the total prices of their services and goods in order to amplify their profit margins. This category of inflation is called as ?administered price inflation? or ?pricing power inflation?. This type of inflation is tedious to tackle because various industries and business houses have the complete authority/power of pricing their services and goods. A situation of inflation occurs when a specific section of a mass industry increases the prices of its services and goods, because this step of a particular section of a mass industry will produce considerable effects on various other sections of industry also. For example- increase in the price of crude oil will spontaneously cause increase in the train fares and airfares. A special category of inflation known as ?Fiscal inflation? occurs, because of excessive spending of the government. Fiscal inflation was first observed in United Sates of America at the time of President Mr. Lydon Baines Johnson. One another type of inflation is known as hyperinflation. Hyperinflation occurs during or after a heavy war. This inflation is also popular with the name of galloping inflation. Another severe type of inflation is known as stagflation. It occurs in an economy which faces economic stagnation and high unemployment rate. So we can say that inflation has some serious consequences on the economy as a whole. So the government should make some strict policies to curb inflation and thus help the country to have a stable economy'   With that information you can see the bad affects of inflation and how it can affect your game. So my fix is simple - if starting a new game and you are serious about it then take proper care and plan for these kind of things to suit your needs, at the end of the day it will benefit you. I believe you should remove all of the money generating functions, or atleast minimise them, for example the casino, streets and crimes and most importantly DONT GIVE FINANCIAL BENEFITS TO DP HOLDERS... if you do not have any money generating features then the money will only kept within the community, i.e you cant get it from anywhere else thus the money will be within the community and be spent within the community, so if you have 10 members and everyone starts with $1,000 then there is only $10,000 in the flow of the community and therefor $400 would be a heck of alot. Inflation produces detrimental effects on the health of an economy and the uncertainty about the future behavior of?inflation rate may restrict the potential to the game and drive people away. And for all those who do already have inflations here is the best idea ever to decrease it - just shift the decimal poin a few places to the left making everyone who had a 1trill have 1mill - the proportions will still be the same amongst everyone so no complaints should be made ( remember to propally regulate this transaction ). I hope it helped, this only took me a few minutes to write up, I will be making a very indepth guide to this either for sale or just give it out for free which will have over 15,000 words whilst this being of 1759 words. Anyway hoped I helped someone. PS: Part 2 coming soon if I have time. :roll:

Re: captcha or another method I hate letter captchas myself, due to when generated I find it too difficult in some cases... blurry letters, grainy background, sometimes you have to end up guessing the letter. Then again when generated too easy, some bots will be able to read it. I have not tried this but in theory it would be an effective and more usable alternative if you would be to ask simple questions that anyone can answer, except for bots/refreshers. Instead of captchas use saptchas Simply compile some arithmetic questions or something that is common sense. For example using some multiplication questions, or giving a question when you boil water does it get hot or cold. Also referring to some posts above I think there are a bundle of existing methods of character recognition... so letter captcha is a fail... as a computer won't have any problem at all filtering out colored background, but it can confuse human and I think it has become pretty easy to defeat captchas, knowing the algorithm it uses.   "Advantages of SAPTCHA over CAPTCHA:   [*]SAPTCHA software is much easier to implement than CAPTCHA [*]Textual SAPTCHA does not discriminate against disabled who can use internet. [Audio CAPTCHA plus visual CAPTCHA would double effort and is thus very uncommon in practice] There is methods for breaking image based CAPTCHAs. If you use popular CAPTCHA, you may still get spammed by entirely automatic bot. SAPTCHAs can be much more varied and there won't be common method of breaking until it becomes possible for computers to interpret human instructions in normal human language. [*]   Advantages of CAPTCHA over SAPTCHA (disadvantages of SAPTCHA):   [*]If SAPTCHA is used to protect registration, it is easier to register many accounts at once than with CAPTCHA; may matter with popular email services. [*]Verbal SAPTCHA is problematic when it is multi-language resource that needs frequent changes. When it is something like photo gallery, visual CAPTCHA is allright as it doesn't contribute to inaccessability." [*]   I done some research on this awhile ago and found a script. It is a security field, and it is based on the perception that bots post data to forms in very short or very long regular intervals of time, where it takes reasonable time to fill in a form and to submit it for human beings. http://www.djangosnippets.org/snippets/1092/ Instead of captcha images or Ajax-based security interaction, the SecurityField checks the time of rendering the form, and the time when it was submitted. If the interval is within the specific range (for example, from 5 seconds till 1 hour), then the submitter is considered as a human being. Otherwise the form doesn't validate. So if you modify the script long enough surely it will be capeable of dealing with bots?   import time import datetime import base64 from django import forms from django.utils.translation import ugettext from django.conf import settings MIN_TIME = getattr(settings, "MIN_TIME", 5) # 5 seconds MAX_TIME = getattr(settings, "MAX_TIME", 3600) # 1 hour def cryptString(plain): # Your implementation for encrypting a string. # For example: return base64.encodestring(plain) def decryptString(cipher): # Your implementation for decrypting a string # For example: return base64.decodestring(cipher) class SecurityField(forms.CharField): """ A field which checks whether the form was filled in within the given range of time The concept works only for Unbounded forms. """ time_elapsed = 0 def generate_value(self): started = cryptString(str(int(time.mktime(datetime.datetime.now().timetuple())))) return started def _pass_test(self, value): started = int(decryptString(value)) current = int(time.mktime(datetime.datetime.now().timetuple())) self.time_elapsed = current - started return self.MIN_TIME < current - started < self.MAX_TIME def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs): super(type(self), self).__init__(*args, **kwargs) self.widget = forms.HiddenInput() self.initial = self.generate_value() self.required = True self.MIN_TIME = MIN_TIME self.MAX_TIME = MAX_TIME def clean(self, value): value = super(type(self), self).clean(value) if not self._pass_test(value): raise forms.ValidationError(ugettext(u"The data transfer didn't pass the security test. You are considered as a spambot.")) return value   I think he generally and pretty much literally ment retarded people, or ones with disabilities, or maybe dislexia. Because simple queries such as 6 x 5 may be difficult for them.   But if you come up with the algorithm then people will get the hang of it just as quickly... it will only take a few weeks if not days. And also I dont understand how a program can bypass a saptcha - if the question for example is - I have the amount of oranges as much as there are letters in 'orange' - How many oranges do I have. That question would confuse the bot as you would use numerical fields in the form yet text values in the question. And you can ask common sense questions such as who is the president of the US etc... I dont see how a bot would be able to bypass that, so feel free to clarify. :s

Re: How can you get a different Icon for your website? Hawk Cronus is right - In IE it is not necessary to use any html tags at all. Internet Explorer will automatically look in the root directory for the favicon.ico file whenever a page is saved to favorites or is bookmarked... The tag is usually just used to either direct the favicon.ico path for those pages not in the root directory, or to use a custom image instead of the default favicon.ico. However there is a problem with this as when you bookmark the site it saves the favicon off in Temporary Internet Files and when you clear out the Temporary Internet Files, the favicon.ico will disappear. So I think it is just easier to add the html tags... thus then it will work on all browsers and will appear all the time. "The code below will load a webpage icon to the address bar after clicking refresh or saving the site in the favorites." <link rel="icon" href="http://www.whatever.com/myicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"/> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.whatever.com/myicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"/>   $rand = mt_rand(1,2); echo '<link rel="icon" href="favicon'.$rand.'.ico" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon" />';   If you wish to use that then remember to explicitly name your favicons with 1 and 2 at the end of each name.

Well I saw a need for this in this particular area and I believe it will help many people which is the primary reason for doing it but also make me a return and hopefully some profit. What I will be offering is investments for equity in your game/website. Not only will I be investing myself but if you require a funding that is much higher than I can provide then I will pitch the idea or organise a 'meeting' with another private investor, from this fees will be mainly success based - with a percentage in cash and option shares, based on the amount of funding that is introduced. There is a modest project management fee to reflect the expenses and work required to prepare, authorise and market the proposition - so with the latter option it is just returning the favor if the project indeed is a success. So I give you to routes to go down upon; The first route is that I will myself invest and then help the game grow. In return for my x investment I will expect a decent chunk of equity/percentage of profits from the website/game. Depending on my assessment of the risk, I will expect a corresponding share of your website. It?s a bit like the odds on a horse, the greater the risk of it losing, the longer the odds and therefore greater the winnings on the occasions when they are lucky. Especially if all you have is an idea - you need to recognise what a gamble they?re taking and expect their share to be higher than if you are already up and running. When sending a letter to me regarding this, you will have to compose your own business plan and marketting plan... You will have to convince me why it is a good idea for me to invest in you. Also remember that I will provide the funds and help you... not work for you. The second route as I mentioned me looking for another private investor of the network, and if you are to take this route on my part I will provide a review of your business plan, and this feedback will be discussed with you, and I will advise you on the business plan and the deal structure. Next, after I and yourself devise the plan that will have the investment proposal that is sensible for the client and sufficiently attractive to the investors, the website will be marketed. The steps you will need to take will be simple... in your own created form write what you will need of the investor - what experience etc... and make sure to include the deal offered and the funding needed. Make sure to include your contact details. And ofcourse which route you wish to go for. Also write a report on your website and why you think it can be a success. :) In circumstances of you not wanting to reveal the full idea, it is going to be harder to get investments ? but remember an idea is not a business. I usually rank the management team and their ability to implement the idea as the most important aspect of an investment decision. I will do my best to protect your confidentiality and that of the investor until you are both ready to talk to each other. Also if there is anyone out there, a member of CE, that would like to join this scheme then I will gladly add you... Time will be taken in discussions to understand your investment needs so then as soon as a particularly relevant business opportunity arises you will be contacted immediately - unless ofcourse either I will want to invest myself, or someone offers a better deal. Let me tell you now that on my behalf I wont do this on a large scale and I will be picky when it comes down to actually investing so you better have an awesome idea or you will recieve a rejection letter. On my behalf I can only invest up to $300 on each project at the max, however if you need something up to $2000 then I have contacts that I can refer you to. If you require an investment of more than $2000 then you are on a higher scale than this proposal and I am not at that stage to back someone at that price. Remember to mention your age as that will be important to outside investors as they will require you to sign a contract just like they will sign a confidentiality agreement. To the sceptics out there - this is not about me ripping peoples idea's, I am providing them with help, funds and guidance. As someone said before ideas dont pay bills. So if you wish to turn your idea into something more - then this may be for you. As I mentioned before I personally am prepared to invest ANYTHING between $10-$300. Thank you for reading. 8-) -Rainbow

Re: [V2]Coin Toss Modification I also believe the PHP 6.0 release issued the removal of obsolete extensions such as ereg extensions, the others that were deprecated were 'register_globals', 'magic_quotes' and 'safe_mode'

Re: Cron Job Replacement   Glad to see that it was not just my bias towards this code then. I was beginning to think and reconsider taking the modification down the commercial route. Now that someone spoke sense - someone who seems to be a reputated member amongst this community then maybe now others will reconsider their position and actually evaluate my modification before making assumptions that it is no further improved than the others released out there. I mean I do have the common sense and realise people will not buy something that can be acquired for free. Anyway thank you Haunted Dawg for the kind and honest words, hopefully the others will become less ignorant. :)

Re: Cron Job Replacement   'This' has not been done as a free modification as I made 'this' however if you found a free modification SIMILAR to mine then feel free to link me and I will provide you with a very extensive list of why my product is worth the money I will be expecting. I have done some market research and found there is a gap in the market, and I had some interest from the senior members of this forum and indeed some others off this network. So please... Do not question my credentials and if you wish to enquire further about this product to a view to a purchase then as I said I can provide a full, lengthy, indepth report on why this modification will be better than the one you will link me to. Sorry to be repeatative. :)   And does it offer all the features that I plan or already do offer? If so then I seriously need to reconsider about taking this further for commercial use. :)   I would apprieciate Haunted Dawg if you private message me with the differences within the two modifications in comparison and whether you think this is at all an improvement of your version. Thank you. :)

Re: Cron Job Replacement   'This' has not been done as a free modification as I made 'this' however if you found a free modification SIMILAR to mine then feel free to link me and I will provide you with a very extensive list of why my product is worth the money I will be expecting. I have done some market research and found there is a gap in the market, and I had some interest from the senior members of this forum and indeed some others off this network. So please... Do not question my credentials and if you wish to enquire further about this product to a view to a purchase then as I said I can provide a full, lengthy, indepth report on why this modification will be better than the one you will link me to. Gracias ;)

Re: Hacked :(  

Re: [V2]Coin Toss Modification As some one mentioned you should include ctype_digit as it will check for numeric characters. As ctype_digit only functions correctly on strings. Cast your vars to string before you test them. Also, be wary and only use ctype_digit if you're sure your var contains either a string or int, as boolean true for ex will convert to int 1. To be truly safe, you need to check the type of the var first. Also make sure you know which command to use for example is_int() returns true if the argument is an integer type, ctype_digit() takes a string argument and returns true if all the characters in the string are digits;   is_int: ctype_digit: 123 true false 12.3 false false "123" false true "12.3" false false   So then it is up to you to consider what is trying to be done and which one would be more useful. If you don't really care if the argument is a int type or a string with numbers, use is_numeric. I can see a few vulnerabilities in the code... But I will leave that up to you to see and sort out. :)

Cron Job Alternative Modification The following modification is simply a replacement for cron jobs. This modification runs using PHP and MySQL. With this mod you can easily set times when a PHP script should run; automating tedious tasks such as trimming a database table, or refilling different bars.You can schedule a task to run hourly, daily or weekly - and the scheduled data is stored in a MySQL database via PHP. I have tested this modification with many different PHP scripts and it will fire any PHP script, that is a gaurantee and I will give you a refund if it doesnt, in theory it should also run most perl scripts too... however this has not been tested to the full extent. Services and Features: - Free support - Free setup - The modification saves run logs to database - The modifcation saves error messages to database - It runs remote scripts in a secure folder - You can schedule PHP scripts to run: 1-59 minutes hourly daily weekly - add scheduled jobs - modify existing scheduled jobs - delete existing scheduled jobs I will be open and honest and admit there are certain limitations. The modification fires the commands from hits - so if your game receives hits every single hour you can set a schedule to run hourly and you can be sure the task will be fired - If you arent a big game then you can help ensure this script runs every hour by placing the following code on the pages on the site; Again refering to the limitations note that any scheduled jobs due to be fired or if the fire time has past will be run when the script cjr.php is run. The method used is to fire any jobs if the fire time is now or has past. For example... If you create an hourly scheduled job and add this at 5pm, but your web site doesn't receive a hit until 8pm then the script will be fired just once at 8pm and the next fire time will be set to 9pm (all on the same day). Again this may not apply to your game... but this modification has been made both to suit MC Codes AND regular websites. There will be different versions of the mod - one to be adapted to work with MC codes ( v1 and v2 ), Other websites. You can also either buy this mod and modify it yourself or you can pay a 10% fee additional cost of the price to recieve frequent updates and fixes. For example the product is nowhere near finished and we know what we will be interested in adding later on; - single one time run jobs can now be added -for competitions/reminders/events - Improvements to modifying current existing jobs If you are interested in this product then contact me. The price right now will be cheap due to the fact I have not released it yet, and in this stage it will go for 70% cost than the projected finished product. We need you to help us test it and we will return the favor. I will only accept offers from whom I feel are trustworthy and only three copies will be sold. If you wish to enquire more about the price then please do private message me about it. If all goes well we may offer the 'lite' version of the product for games on free hosts without cron jobs to help them out for ad space belonging to us. :) -Rainbow

Re: Rain and Sunshine = Rainbow The Rain has brought the RainBow back :D

Re: Stupid Idiots There are many simple ways to download and acquire a script or a layout that you wish to use, due to the amount of warez spreaders and supporters around here. I think it just comes with the territory. There will always be some broke/cheap/bored people who will share illegally, things rather than pay for them. I used to use bootleg copies of Photoshop, aswell as a nulled version of FTP before my work bought me a copy because I couldn't afford the real thing so I'm not claiming to be totally innocent of this. I think for the most part people still buy modifications and scripts because it's gauranteed, and the honest thing to do. There will always be a segment who can't or won't pay for something... and usually those people who get these scripts weren't gonna be sales anyway so I don't think the loss is too bad for the person... My point being I am honest, and $30 or whatever is not alot to pay so even if I was offered it for free I would still pay... Make Sense? In short I personally thin the rest and the more honourable members of the community will gladly pay for the scripts because the developers deserve to be paid and it encourages them to continue making awesome stuff. Believe it or not piracy sometimes turns out to an advantage as it can be used as a marketing tool for the sellers to gain market share,it is being used by a few guys alike to gain popularity. Look at MC scripts... It is blatantly an illegal script now but due to that Dabo and CB may get the advantages as now everyone here knows of them and may join their future projects such as MD for example. This is my opinion and your opinion may vary, and I dont condome piracy and warez either... However writting a topic for every illegal script acquired is stupid. And its stupid because idiots that pass around scripts will always exist. However they wont really affect the developer, as those guys wouldnt buy the product anyway... Just like big movies make billions despite the fact that they are pirated. If it can be viewed, it can be pirated. It is up to the develop what he wishes to do and he will deal with it accordingly, I think he himself will come across this topic and decide how to deal with it, and the only way to do so, is to take legal action. :)   You have to learn that you cannot stop it. It is not just this community, it is throughout the world. As I mentioned earlier, think of it this way, how comes Microsoft is pirated yet it still makes so much money, how comes the movie industry is doing so well even though a large proportion of its business belongs to the piracy theifs. You cannot stop it, so its better just to learn how to cope with it. I am not here to tell you what to do, as you can make up your own mind... But if you are just going to give up then you surely wont make any money at all. Just take legal action against whom commits the alledged crime.   Well no matter how good their templates are, I think you tried to brand their name in the wrong sector. The community here arent the ones who will spend that kind of money on a game overall let alone a template by itself. Although I do admit they do create awesome layouts.   Those who will commit the theft wont be trustworthy... that is obvious. Honesty is the best policy however it wont work in these kind of situations kid. I mean you can take an oath but easily ignore it - for example an oath is broken everyday via marriage. :D

Re: Dogdy bussines   I did not critisise any spelling... So get your facts right.

Re: [Other] Gangster Game Script [99.00] Well with the current situation and specificity of other products distribution and use around this community all game script authors are developing fast and offer unique selling points, that we would be attracted to buy. As a consequence of these changes, the production of these scripts is more orientated to the features and the quality of the coding, which allows the web developers here to develop and hopefully produce a high quality game and in general to create options and oppertunities. To be able to compete with the new scripts that came out here you have to produce high quality scripts, and the buyers of the scripts need more high quality of coding, as there is so much competition out there, they have choices. This as you figured out isnt very encouraging for the newcomers to commercialise their own scripts, since the community here and most importantly your market is changing from someone who just want a skeleton base for their game to a very strong price orientated and quality based market and also want further support with the engine. So I think overall its a bad idea just to come here and commecrialise the scripts that will sell will most likely be from reputated members around here, or ofcourse the script itself being oustanding; and no disrespect but I dont see nothing that I could not do myself, and MC Codes seems to be free around here and the easy option for most, so $99 is fairly expensive considering they get a decent structure code for free. Goodluck selling it... - Rainbow -

Re: Dogdy bussines Its not about the spelling, its about how you use the word in the content. And I dont think that cleverer is the right usage in your statement; I may be wrong though. As spellcheck cheks each word, not the overall sentence and how it fits in :-D