NARIS: The Fly on the Wall Your Mother Warned You About

[Gatito]

Although this has already been brought up, why on Earth would you make a topic advertising a project that's far from being done? Doing so is pointless.

Not only that, but you've butchered any credibility that you once held over the course of this topic. You say that your snark is justified, however in a scenario like this, looking professional is more important than lashing out against critics.

As stated previously, the original purpose of this thread was to put out feelers for development talent that could help us with the project. That's another line that has, once again, ALWAYS been in the OP. Regarding my propensity to attack my critics, it's what I do best. And I don't think it's unprofessional at all to fight back when challenged, especially when challenged by such a pessimistic, cynical, introverted, anti-outsider community like the Gameplay forum.

I find it interesting how you publicly ask for development talent, yet insist on keeping the development talent that you already have a secret. Wouldn't it make more sense to ask for interest through private channels if it's this secretive?

[Belmaria]

As stated previously, the original purpose of this thread was to put out feelers for development talent that could help us with the project. That's another line that has, once again, ALWAYS been in the OP. Regarding my propensity to attack my critics, it's what I do best. And I don't think it's unprofessional at all to fight back when challenged, especially when challenged by such a pessimistic, cynical, introverted, anti-outsider community like the Gameplay forum.

I find it interesting how you publicly ask for development talent, yet insist on keeping the development talent that you already have a secret. Wouldn't it make more sense to ask for interest through private channels if it's this secretive?

I've always preferred the shotgun approach because I've always found that it's what works best.

We may continue the project in private, but for now, as has already been stated multiple times, it's temporarily shelved.

[Gatito]

I find it interesting how you publicly ask for development talent, yet insist on keeping the development talent that you already have a secret. Wouldn't it make more sense to ask for interest through private channels if it's this secretive?

I've always preferred the shotgun approach because I've always found that it's what works best.

We may continue the project in private, but for now, as has already been stated multiple times, it's temporarily shelved.

In what previous experiences has this shotgun approached worked for you?

[Ayvari]

As stated previously, the original purpose of this thread was to put out feelers for development talent that could help us with the project. That's another line that has, once again, ALWAYS been in the OP. Regarding my propensity to attack my critics, it's what I do best. And I don't think it's unprofessional at all to fight back when challenged, especially when challenged by such a pessimistic, cynical, introverted, anti-outsider community like the Gameplay forum.

Anti-outsider: Outsiders hated us first! Go on, ask the others.

Pessimistic: You aren't meeting the right folks.

Cynical: The game engenders cynicism. It's not just Gameplay.

Introverted: Not all of us! You still aren't meeting the right people.

[Belmaria]

I've always preferred the shotgun approach because I've always found that it's what works best.

We may continue the project in private, but for now, as has already been stated multiple times, it's temporarily shelved.

In what previous experiences has this shotgun approached worked for you?

This thread isn't about the merits of marketing approaches.

[Roavin]

Experienced raiders and defenders shouldn't be the only people with access to intelligence regarding potential attacks, and having an easy to use tool which can reliably identify potential raids would increase the amount of people interested in helping in the defense effort significantly. The rules-based detection project was an off-shoot from an original project with similar goals. We attempted to distribute a blacklist of known and suspected raiders in the form of a dossier file, so that regions could monitor activity and protect themselves from raiders. It failed because it couldn't detect new, "clean" nations, so we decided to create a rules-based engine that could be installed in most common browsers, which would assist non-defenders in keeping their individual regions safe from attack, without having to ask for help from organizations like the Wardens. However, we don't currently have a way to merge our code into a browser plugin, and also don't have stable detection rules.

As I've mentioned to a few others in private chat and telegrams, we're using Spam Assassin as the basis for our engine, and are finding it difficult to get SA working in a browser-only environment, which is why we need help from experienced programmers. We also need to gain more information about how to construct our SA rulesets, so as to increase the accuracy of our detection. And finally, we will need to create an integrated web interface for nations to use, similar to the altered interface provided by NS++. Without all of these components, the work we have accomplished will be pointless.

So to reiterate, we need help with statistics, Perl code (SA is written in it), Possibly Ruby on Rails, Possibly PHP/SQL, SA rulesets, and XHTML integration into NationStates. If anyone thinks they can help, and is interested, that's the purpose of this thread.

And as a PS, the misidentification of defender nations could be solved by whitelisting.

Eh, I really don't see SpamAssassin as the right tool for the job here. Would you send individual happenings through SpamAssassin as if they were emails, or how would this work? I can't think of a way this could work with SA even in theory, tbh. Plus, if this is supposed to work in the local browser, you'll need JavaScript, not PHP or Ruby.

For a spotting tool, something a bit more specialized would, I imagine, actually work and be helpful. Something that detects cross-endorsements and uses simple heuristics to detect raider puppets vs. normal nations.

[Belmaria]

Experienced raiders and defenders shouldn't be the only people with access to intelligence regarding potential attacks, and having an easy to use tool which can reliably identify potential raids would increase the amount of people interested in helping in the defense effort significantly. The rules-based detection project was an off-shoot from an original project with similar goals. We attempted to distribute a blacklist of known and suspected raiders in the form of a dossier file, so that regions could monitor activity and protect themselves from raiders. It failed because it couldn't detect new, "clean" nations, so we decided to create a rules-based engine that could be installed in most common browsers, which would assist non-defenders in keeping their individual regions safe from attack, without having to ask for help from organizations like the Wardens. However, we don't currently have a way to merge our code into a browser plugin, and also don't have stable detection rules.

As I've mentioned to a few others in private chat and telegrams, we're using Spam Assassin as the basis for our engine, and are finding it difficult to get SA working in a browser-only environment, which is why we need help from experienced programmers. We also need to gain more information about how to construct our SA rulesets, so as to increase the accuracy of our detection. And finally, we will need to create an integrated web interface for nations to use, similar to the altered interface provided by NS++. Without all of these components, the work we have accomplished will be pointless.

So to reiterate, we need help with statistics, Perl code (SA is written in it), Possibly Ruby on Rails, Possibly PHP/SQL, SA rulesets, and XHTML integration into NationStates. If anyone thinks they can help, and is interested, that's the purpose of this thread.

And as a PS, the misidentification of defender nations could be solved by whitelisting.

Eh, I really don't see SpamAssassin as the right tool for the job here. Would you send individual happenings through SpamAssassin as if they were emails, or how would this work? I can't think of a way this could work with SA even in theory, tbh. Plus, if this is supposed to work in the local browser, you'll need JavaScript, not PHP or Ruby.

For a spotting tool, something a bit more specialized would, I imagine, actually work and be helpful. Something that detects cross-endorsements and uses simple heuristics to detect raider puppets vs. normal nations.

The browser plugin wasn't the only component of the project originally. We were also planning on establishing a database of information to augment our human intelligence project, which is what the Ruby and PHP work would have been.

As for Spam Assassin not working in theory, we already have Spam Assassin natively installed and working with the world feed. We break up each individual happening into an individual message for SA to analyze, and use custom rules, combined with self-trained spam/ham, to determine the likelihood of a move or WA endorsement being spam. We were also planning on integrating regional statistics into the analysis, and determined that since SA only looks at one message at a time, in order to gain a big picture view, we would need to run multiple rounds of analysis on different data sets and correlate them together into one last "message" for SA to analyze to gain a view of the bigger picture. At present, it's still being tinkered with, but it's taken a back seat to our humanint project, as that has yielded more fruitful results.

[Queen Yuno]

Today I attempted a tag raid and got a telegram from you saying NARIS detected my raiding activity O_O

You're a pretty good spotter.

[Belmaria]

Today I attempted a tag raid and got a telegram from you saying NARIS detected my raiding activity O_O

You're a pretty good spotter.

Thanks for the compliment, but it wasn't me. It was the singularity. *plays eerie music*

[Roavin]

SA only looks at one message at a time

That's exactly why I can't imagine the SA approach to work

[Belmaria]

SA only looks at one message at a time

That's exactly why I can't imagine the SA approach to work

I chose SA when outlining the original project because it was the rules-based detection system I was most familiar with. If you know of any engines that would be better suited for this purpose, I'd be open to trying them out.

[Applebania]

It's ironic that the majority of detractors come from those you attempt to assist.

Perhaps it's time to take your time, skill, and effort to the other side.

What a poor attempt at social manipulation. I'll tell you what. You seem to be at least somewhat of a nice guy so I'll give you some advice. You should be more concerned about the spies we have within your leadership than with poaching us to join the dark side. Have fun.

*chuckles after generating fear within the enemy ranks*

Lord, I am so tempted to post an internet tough guy copypasta...

[Belmaria]

What a poor attempt at social manipulation. I'll tell you what. You seem to be at least somewhat of a nice guy so I'll give you some advice. You should be more concerned about the spies we have within your leadership than with poaching us to join the dark side. Have fun.

*chuckles after generating fear within the enemy ranks*

Lord, I am so tempted to post an internet tough guy copypasta...

I wasn't trying to be tough. I was trying to spice things up. We've been spying on raiders for ages now, but no one has gotten caught yet. It's not fun if there's no risk.

[Revall]

I wasn't trying to be tough. I was trying to spice things up. We've been spying on raiders for ages now, but no one has gotten caught yet. It's not fun if there's no risk.

It's clearly been doing you wonders.

[Belmaria]

I wasn't trying to be tough. I was trying to spice things up. We've been spying on raiders for ages now, but no one has gotten caught yet. It's not fun if there's no risk.

It's clearly been doing you wonders.

Give us time to get into the swing of things again. I was the primary organizer before, so when I took an extended hiatus, the others didn't really do anything.

[General Knot]

We've already detected multiple raids, and have spies in multiple raider organizations. As a friendly piece of advice, do not underestimate us.

I'm overestimating.

[Belmaria]

We've already detected multiple raids, and have spies in multiple raider organizations. As a friendly piece of advice, do not underestimate us.

I'm overestimating.

We detected at least one of your raids tonight. And the night's still young.

[General Knot]

I'm overestimating.

We detected at least one of your raids tonight. And the night's still young.

You know your technology is obsolete when the naked eye "detects" the staging of dirty puppets faster.

[Belmaria]

We detected at least one of your raids tonight. And the night's still young.

You know your technology is obsolete when the naked eye "detects" the staging of dirty puppets faster.

We already see that you're lining up in your puppet region again, obviously for another attack. We're looking at susceptible regions to determine the likelihood of an attack as I type.

[Auraian]

Y'know puppets get lined up in jump points like... every night? In preparation for a tag raid with targets determined usually.... 2-4 minutes before they're actually hit?

[General Knot]

You know your technology is obsolete when the naked eye "detects" the staging of dirty puppets faster.

We already see that you're lining up in your puppet region again, obviously for another attack. We're looking at susceptible regions to determine the likelihood of an attack as I type.

That's impressive.

[Belmaria]

Y'know puppets get lined up in jump points like... every night? In preparation for a tag raid with targets determined usually.... 2-4 minutes before they're actually hit?

They've been lined up for about 15-20 minutes now. Something relatively big is about to happen, and I think we've figured out what that "something" is.

[Belmaria]

Update: Our statistical hunch was correct. We were also able to accurately predict a future raid before it occurred. Only 2/5 detections were false positives tonight, and we will continue to improve this detection rate in the coming weeks.

[General Knot]

Update: Our statistical hunch was correct. We were also able to accurately predict a future raid before it occurred. Only 2/5 detections were false positives tonight, and we will continue to improve this detection rate in the coming weeks.

Knot: You did an absolutely wonderful job today. I'm going to commission you as a Lieutenant, does that sound alright? You'll be given access to our Officer barracks as well.
Belmaria: It sounds wonderful, thank you!
Knot: I'm bullshitting you as hard as you're bullshitting Gameplay. I normally keep spies around to exploit, but there's nothing for me to exploit when it comes to you.
*** Knot removed Belmaria from this conversation. ***

Your "statistical hunch" was the result of you being given the target in the raid chat. Is it finally time to stop playing around?

[Belmaria]

Update: Our statistical hunch was correct. We were also able to accurately predict a future raid before it occurred. Only 2/5 detections were false positives tonight, and we will continue to improve this detection rate in the coming weeks.

Knot: You did an absolutely wonderful job today. I'm going to commission you as a Lieutenant, does that sound alright? You'll be given access to our Officer barracks as well.
Belmaria: It sounds wonderful, thank you!
Knot: I'm bullshitting you as hard as you're bullshitting Gameplay. I normally keep spies around to exploit, but there's nothing for me to exploit when it comes to you.
*** Knot removed Belmaria from this conversation. ***

Your "statistical hunch" was the result of you being given the target in the raid chat. Is it finally time to stop playing around?

Wait, what? When did this conversation take place? Can you provide screenshot?