Corp messages are currently secure, but they're not sent as events in realtime, so they're not useful as a way to securely control bots. I believe that's the concern here, not content of corp messages. Some people want a secure, private corp comm link. That's what subspace was meant to be, a means for corporations to communicate as a group, but it was intentionally not made secure. I've wanted to avoid making it secure or making a replacement for it with a private corp comm link because I think that's a pretty big change.

Restrict the first 100 sub space channels to corps of the same number. Only a member of corp 1 can set their sub space channel to 1, etc. They can choose any number above 100 too, but the only number below 101 would have to be their corp number. Simple, secure, problem solved.

+EP+

The problem isn't whether or not corp messages can be made secure. The issue is whether or not they should be.

Yea I said my piece, if JP doesn't feel it is needed I won't argue it. Just thought it would be a nice secure feature to have IMO. If you dead set against it far as I am concerned time to move on.

a lot of people (to my knowledge) regard subspace crawling as either cheating or at least an underhanded way of playing the game. I think that securing subspace channels would stop a lot of arguments.
I see your point John.. and i for 1 have attempted to defend against subspace crawling by automating the changing of our corps subspace channel on a regular basis through my bot.
I think it might be wise to gauge the community's attitude on this matter.. perhaps add the ability as a sysop configurable option.

Subspace crawling as a tactic is supposed to be gone with current versions. If that's not the case, I will continue to review the situation. I'm not completely against a change here, I just don't want to make major changes unnecessarily.

The only reason I was thinking that it would be in the players interest is that in games where others are scanning the CLV screens for corp actions such as cashing ..

Then cycling channels as a group to cercomvent the timer you put into the new server can be defeated and the scripts that are public display on sub-space the bust sector numbers.
So if this were switched and the public scripts fixed to watch the Corp channel or corp messages would be able to trigger and bring furbs without disclosing to scanners the cash sites.

This isn't an issue for me , I just think the lesser players would rather a big group would not kill them off for using public scripts. And because of the flaw of non secure comms in TWGS.

Leave it as it is and maybe ethics will wear off so anything goes will become a wave of the future and things will get ugly.

I prefer we save the new players with as much help as we can provide.
That is just my take but I'm the minority here.

Vid

It would change the balance of the game to give a corp
a completely secure form of communication.



This is my point.

SS crawling is a waste of resources. Some elementary
security measures and it is rendered moot. Why not
argue to increase the number of radio channels?
Giving a corp a totally secure form of comms that
solo players can't enjoy? Where is the balance there?

I realize this is an area for feature requests, but some
features could potentially alter the balance of the game.



But Vid, wouldn't you and the other established corps
love a totally secure corp channel? That'd make bots
completely secure, wouldn't it? No worries about spoofing,
those days are over, eh? Nice that you'd think of the
lesser players though. Be a nice change for the holidays.

Actually , most bots are secure , its the stand alone scripts that even solo players may use that spit out info that can be used against them.

But I think your right , if the number of sub-space channels were increased to say 1 million , then the chances of finding yours is astronomically impossible.

I was just thinking how a corp channel (even used as solo) still would give security.

Most of us big bot users have auto channel changers and private hail controls in the bots now.

So this feature really doesn't have to be to help us.
I think the team who experiences an eavesdropper using their channel in combat
or while they are planet gridding may change their vote on this matter.

This is just another reason I'd like to ask J.P. to play his game a bit more in actual games and see where this would/could improve things when he is out red cashing and see how others can tell when your actively cashing and start their scan cycles.

I won't go into too much detail on the techniques here but even delays can be used as long as tracking is matrix'ized.

Either way .. enjoy the holidays I'm outta here.

It should be impractical to scan the current number of subspace channels because of the dynamic channel switching delay I implemented awhile back. If you're changing channels frequently, the delay before you can switch will grow, making it impossible to scan the entire channel range in a reasonable time frame. So as far as I know, this isn't an issue anymore. Subspace should be as secure as it was before crawlers were invented, but no more than it was.

I don't understand the problem. Make a corp only private channel and then subspace crawling is a thing of the past.

I want to avoid changes that effect areas other than the specific issue, if it can be avoided. Taking away subspace crawling doesn't necessarily need to introduce a new private channel for Corps, even if such a new channel would fix that problem.

Not looking to "introduce a new private channel for Corps"
just a better way to display the channel that exists in the software.

I've gone as far as I care on this , I'll drop it and get on with the holidays.
Lets have a Merry Christmas and enjoy our lives , I'm also hoping that
the New Years will be better then the last ... cheers to all.

Vid Kid/CareTaker

As I said before, I'm open to improving how Corp messages are handled, as long as it doesn't create a private channel for Corp messages. So I haven't really said no to this. We just got off into a discussion of why or why not have a private Corp channel.

Some people have expressed continued concerns about subspace crawling, so I wanted to know if the current solution is a deterrent to subspace crawling. If it isn't, then more needs to be done, up to and possibly including a private Corp channel if that's the only solution. But I'm just not there yet.

Either way, enjoy the holidays!