03 Oct, 2006, Justice wrote in the 21st comment:
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This related directly to the java security model. Using the default security context for java applets, you cannot connect to a server other than the one you downloaded the applet from. This requires a proxy on the server to handle the actual connection. The other alternative is to request permissions to connect to another server, which results in a dialog asking the user to approve this action.

And I agree, it's more often used to bypass bans, or hide your ip address when doing less than savory things… than it is for legitimate purposes. It's rare to have telnet access restricted, and when it is, perhaps you should be working instead of playing muds.
03 Oct, 2006, Brinson wrote in the 22nd comment:
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Back when I had AOL I used proxies constantly.

Alot of mud admins are very biased when it comes to AOL users.
03 Oct, 2006, Justice wrote in the 23rd comment:
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I wouldn't say that mud admins were biased against AOL users. Rather, people who used AOL got themselves banned… one of the risks of using a large ISP. IP bans however… are notoriously easy to get around.
03 Oct, 2006, Conner wrote in the 24th comment:
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From my experience, people who use AOL often earn that "bias" for other AOL users. The problem is that if you ban AOL, you block "millions" of potential players who are not the responsible party, so instead one ends up having to simply monitor all AOL users a bit more closely and try to use other forms of "punishment" than banning whenever possible.
03 Oct, 2006, Brinson wrote in the 25th comment:
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Conner, that's the same argument white supremacists(sp?) use in favor of racism. The actions of an individual NEVER warrant a punishment or judgement against the masses. Its immoral.
03 Oct, 2006, kiasyn wrote in the 26th comment:
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Yeah but it can be impossibel to ban someone with a dynamic IP short of banning their entire ISP. =]
03 Oct, 2006, Conner wrote in the 27th comment:
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Brinson said:
Conner, that's the same argument white supremacists(sp?) use in favor of racism. The actions of an individual NEVER warrant a punishment or judgement against the masses. Its immoral.


Right, which is why I said that one ends up having to watch all AOL users rather than banning them all over the actions of a few (well, dozens of actually) individuals. Because it'd be wrong to punish them all over something only a few committed, but it's not possible to ban only the offenders without also banning the rest.
03 Oct, 2006, Brinson wrote in the 28th comment:
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That's true with any dial-up ISP, which at the peak of mudding was almost universal. A particular bias against AOL users is pretty common, though.
03 Oct, 2006, Conner wrote in the 29th comment:
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They're much bigger than any typical dial-up ISP so they represent more players, both the problem players and the typical ones.
03 Oct, 2006, kiasyn wrote in the 30th comment:
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And I suppose AOL gives out a lot of free time? (Not sure, no AOL here ^_^)
03 Oct, 2006, Conner wrote in the 31st comment:
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They give each new signup their first month of unlimited usage for free, so, yes.
04 Oct, 2006, Brinson wrote in the 32nd comment:
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If you get the right promo codes you can get 3 and 6 month free trials to AOL. They're only given out with huge purchases like PCs but alot of people get them and give them away. For 2 years I did nothing but use free trials of ISPs because when my dad died, our family's credit cards weren't paid on time and our credit rating got fucked up. So we couldn't get credit cards.
11 Oct, 2006, Timbo wrote in the 33rd comment:
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My family used to use AOL, and now is on cable. Since switching, I have been getting AOL-using friends to log on to new MUDs if I think they're worth a chance and dedicating any time to, just in case. With fewer and fewer people on AOL, it's been getting harder and harder for me to weed them out though. I'd hate to waste time on a MUD and then later find out that I can't have 100% of my friends log on without me vouching for them, or create their character from my IP for them, or help them use a proxy, or whatever other ridiculous thing that some moron thinks people should do in order to have the priviledge of playing their game.

Because of my pickiness though, I've pretty much totally avoided the MUDs with the worst admins, and avoid drama that I hear others complain about all the time, except for one MUD. On that one, adminship was handed over to somebody new after I had already established myself on the MUD. One can guess what provider she eventually blocked after deleting all the players, promoting her newbie friends, and closing half the areas.
20.0/33