EVE General Discussion

It's a dirty tactic, but we all know it happens. Often in large fleets I've heard an FC tell the fleet to convo spam a certain character (usually the FC of the opposing fleet) causing their client to lag out severely or even crash. This works even if that character has their client set to auto-reject conversation requests, as the requests still get sent to their client.

The conversation requests of course cause the incoming traffic to saturate the target machine so much it can't respond to legitimate traffic. This is literally what is known as a denial-of-service attack.

Previous petition responses, however, indicate that this is not considered an exploit. How does that make any sense? I understand that our coalition and at times our alliance is guilty of doing the same, but that doesn't make it right. When I've been in fleets where the FC has said to convo spam a certain person I've never done it. The EULA specifically states:

http://community.eveonline.com/pnp/eula.asp

"The System" here refers to the client system, which includes the server and all player clients connected to the server.
Furthermore:

Conversation spamming clearly violates both of these terms of the EULA.
The relevant sections are 6.A.1 and 10.C.iv


So the question is, shouldn't this be declared an exploit?

The victory is the experience.

Let me address this:

The EULA clearly says "You may not take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the System."

Sending somebody a convo is an action "you" perform. The system is designed to support a conversation request from "you." One request does not break the game. Likewise, each of your fleetmates also may convo anyone they choose, so long as they don't do so in a way that causes their single request to be re-propagated automatically or in some other way cause lag to the system, they have performed a legitimate function of the game. To whit, even the FC calling for everyone to do this is not an exploit, per se, because they haven't directly taken action that presents a disproportionate load. In fact, when the FC attempts to convo the target, their request is just as valid as any other request which has been sent.

So in short, the answer is "you" aren't doing anything "wrong." Only taken as a whole does the attack cause a strain on the system, which isn't any different than jumping your giant fleet into jita and enacting lag and ti-di. It's just a natural part of a lot of people playing a video game in a persistent environment.

My 2 isk.

His pilots. They are not bots.

They are players.

They are in control.

The owners of botnet computers...they aren't.

I just wanted to congratulate them on losing a fleet ...

Ok, not an exploit.
Just a maneuver used by bad players who are unable to compete appropriately.

Therefore, whoever uses this technique is automatically the loser because how can you be taken seriously?

lol

So you believe you are aware of the number of requests actually being sent, their timing and time-frame, and the victim's client machine's tolerance for load?

Because I have no idea at any given time whether or not somebody is being convo'd. Any attempt, ever, could potentially break their game.

I cannot imagine why people are popping up even to defend this, which, in my opinion is clearly an exploit.


Jetting a single can is not an exploit. A whole fleet jetting hundreds of cans to cause grid loading lag is. This we know.

Starting a single convo is not an exploit. A whole fleet starting hundreds of convos to cause lag is.


Simple.

set maxConvoReq 10

Get thousands of your friends to willingly DDOS a real website and see if your IP classifies it as a DDOS. You can ask them as they cut the hardwire and hand you your termination notice.