[Mr Melbert] presolum - ban evasion

[presolum]

BYOND account: presolum

Character name: Charles legris
Ban type: permanent
Ban length: permanent
Ban reason: Ban evasion, alt of Spencleb.
Time ban was placed: 2023-08-25 02:25:34
Server you were playing on when banned: Manuel
Round ID in which ban was placed: 213275

Your side of the story: Was playing on the server and just being a ghost, when I was approached by an admin on an accusation of ban evasion, had to look up what it entailed and thought it was about something IC. Admin would not elaborate why he/she thought I was this person and kept giving me weird vibes as if an old acquaintance.
Why you think you should be unbanned: I in general was minding my own business and could understand if it was about concerns I had been admin-remarked about but this seemed way out of left field, I would like clarification on why they determined I was this other user?

References of good conduct:

[mrmelbert]

Hello again, and thank you for appealing, but the ban will not be lifted.

I believe we have collected enough evidence to prove you are evading a ban.

Quoting Timberpoes circa 2021:

The admin team use much more than CID, IP, ckey and stickyban magic to connect evading accounts. I don't think that is tipping the admin team's hand, evaders must be aware of this because we catch evaders outside of these 4 data points and they still come back again and again to be caught.

...

This is one of those ban evasion cases where the totality of information that has gone into concluding this player is a evading ban also includes data analysis that goes beyond looking at CID, IP, ckey and stickyban magic. The exact details of how we identifed this person as an evader are only effective in the future as long as they aren't publicly known things we monitor. Once an evasion detection method is identified, it is often subverted (sometimes very easily) and one of our biggest advantages is ban evaders not knowing what we have available to detect them when they've changed CID and IP and subverted stickyban magic.

While it is reasonable to expect some detail to be given about how we detected the evasion so this player can offer up an explanation, I would argue that it is also reasonable to not publicise the ways and means we detect and trace ban evaders where alternative techniques are used alongside IP/cid/key/stickyban magic links.

This is one such case. I am prepared to share information with the headmins involving the circumstances of the ban.
Otherwise, that's all I have to say.

[presolum]

So lemme see if I got this straight. Data is being collected on me outside of what BYOND collects(CID, IP, ckey), some form of data analytics ran(you could be geolocating, running AI/ML on language/behavior, other seedy nefarious shit) on users that could be flawed/return a false positive, and then results purposely kept opaque from them? Are you not running against your own sites or hosts privacy policy or as well applicable Privacy Law on locality(State Law/EU Privacy Act), I request to see what the basis of this infraction is and data being used/processed. If not here then privately or IM'd if you believe this is a privacy matter. That quoted old response reeks of behind the curtain action. or do I have to raise this?

[Vekter]

So lemme see if I got this straight. Data is being collected on me outside of what BYOND collects(CID, IP, ckey), some form of data analytics ran(you could be geolocating, running AI/ML on language/behavior, other seedy nefarious shit) on users that could be flawed/return a false positive, and then results purposely kept opaque from them? Are you not running against your own sites or hosts privacy policy or as well applicable Privacy Law on locality(State Law/EU Privacy Act), I request to see what the basis of this infraction is and data being used/processed. If not here then privately or IM'd if you believe this is a privacy matter. That quoted old response reeks of behind the curtain action. or do I have to raise this?

That is not even close to what's being said.

Timber (and by extension Melbert) is saying that there are reasons we know you are evading a ban but we cannot share them as it would make it easier for you or others to evade bans in the future. We aren't running some kind of data collection conspiracy.

[Timberpoes]

You're an idiot.

[Misdoubtful]

You certainly aren't the brightest bulb in the box, are you?

[kieth4]

[Misdoubtful]

You have no standing nor any entitlement to any information that we have regardless of the situation.

None of the information used to come to the actual conclusion is related to GDPR either for that matter, or more importantly any other personal information acts currently in effect around the globe that would actually affect you, and we know what they are. We've made that very clear. Especially considering your efforts to hide yourself in regards to 'CID, IP, ckey and stickyban magic'.

We aren't about to open the box on how we know.

You would however be able to request deletion of your material, but we may deny it, due to the legitimate interests of our operations continuity. Our 'intellectual property' on how we are able to do this are protected by provision 63 even if you were covered by GDPR. Providing said information would undermine our ability to detect and act against forbidden behaviors that go against our rules, thus undermining our 'software' and our ability to protect it.

We've collectively made our stances known on this, and you otherwise aren't worth the wasted time for us nor for anyone else with this.

You aren't going to get anywhere with this and anything else said would be rehashing that.

I advise you appeal your ban evasion with sincerity in the future, or we'll just keep playing this game of cat and mouse where you will lose every single time.

Appeal denied, and closed.