In our website we want to launch country specific domains. so which one is preferred over another like add-on, parked domains or anything that i don't know.
our requirements is quite simple we want to publish country specific domain but the contents are mostly same except some price changes and unique features and/or languages for particular countries. so to take advantage of maintainability we want to use code from single directory in whatever choice we select.
right now we are in impression that we should go with add-on domain but i think we can also accomplish our requirements by using parked domains and detecting from which country domain the user is came from and render content accordingly.
Why not just go with a sub-folder like domain.com/us (for US for example) or maybe even a subdomain (us.domain.com [again, for the US version]) as explained here? Much better and cheaper alternative IMO than buying dozens of country-specific TLDs...
So we have a SharePoint farm that is upon an AD forest, that forest is linked to other forests in a two-way trust.
Then, we have the people picker that is working quite fine and finding every user we try to find, regardless of what domain the user is on.
Now, I need to configure the people picker to find all users from current and future domains in the entirity of the relations BUT one of them. So, it must be a configuration where regardless of what domains, OUs, new or old 2-way trusts are configured, the people picker will find users for all domains BUT one of them.
I've tried to search for an LDAP query that'd do the job to feed to peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter however could not find it or build it myself. Our AD expert could not get to it too.
I'd rather not use Peoplepicker-searchadforests because later on when they'd add a new domain, someone would have to remember that the people picker needed some configuration. I might be far away when that happens and someone would have to crack his head to find it.
So, from an LDAP Query standpoint, what'd you suggest? Much appreciated.
In my community, every user should only have one account.
So I need a solution to verify that the specific account is the only one the user owns. For the time being, I use email verification. But I don't really need the users' email adresses. I just try to prevent multiple accounts per person.
But this doesn't work, of course. People create temporary email addresses or they own several addresses, anyway. So they register using different email addresses and so they get more than one account - which is not allowed.
So I need a better solution than the (easy to circumvent) email verification. By the way, I do not want to use OpenID, Facebook Connect etc.
The requirements:
verification method must be accessible for all users
there should be no costs for the user (at least 1$)
the verification has to be safe (safer than the email approach)
the user should not be demanded to expose too much private details
...
Do you have ideas for good approaches? Thank you very much in advance!
Additional information:
My community is a browser game, namely a soccer manager game. The thing which makes multiple accounts attractive is that users can trade their players. So if you have two accounts, you can buy weak players for excessive prices which no "real" buyer would pay. So your "first account" gets huge amounts of money while the "second account" becomes poor. But you don't have to care: Just create another account to make the first one richer.
You should ask for something more unique than an email. But there is no way to be absolutly sure a player don't own two account.
The IP solution is not a solution, as people playing from a compagny/school/3G will have the same IP. Also, Changing IP is easy (reset the router, proxy, use your 3G vs wifi)
Some web site (job-offer, ...) ask you for an official ID number (ID, passport, social security, driver licence, visa (without the security number, so peolple will feel safe that you won't charge them), ...)
This solution got a few draw back:
minor don't always have an ID / visa
pepole don't like to give away this kind of info. (in fact, depending where you live: in spain for example, it is very common to ask for ID number)
people own more than one visa.
it is possible to generate valide ID/visa number.
Alternative way:
ask for a fee of 1$
to be allow to trade more than X players / spend more than X money.
people that pay the fee got some advantage : less ads, extra players, ...
paying a fee, will limitate creation of multiple account.
fee can be payed using taxed phone number (some compagny provide international system)
the payment medium could be use as an ID (visa number)
put some restriction in new account (like SO).
eg: "you have to play at least 1 hour before trading a player"
eg: "you have to play at least 3 hour before trading more than 3 players"
Use logic to detect multiple account
use cookie to detect multiple account
check last connection time of both player before a transaction. (if player A logout 1 minute before player B login : somethings is going on)
My recommandation :
Use a mix of all thoses methode, but keep the user experience fluide without "form to fill now to continue"
Very interesting question! The basic problem here is multi-part -
Opening an account is trivial (because creating new email IDs is trivial).
But the effect of opening an account in the game is NOT trivial. Opening a new account basically gives you a certain sum of money with which to buy players.
Transferring money to another account is trivial (by trading players).
Combining 1 & 2, you have the problem that new players have an unfair advantage (which they would not have in the real world). This is probably okay, as it drives new users to your site.
However adding 3 to the mix, you have the problem that new players are easily able to transfer their advantage to the old players. This allows old users to game the system, ruining fun for others.
The solution can be removing either 1,2,3.
Remove 1 - This is the part you are focusing on. As others have suggested, this is impossible to do with 100% accuracy. But there are ways that will be good enough, depending on how stringent your criterion for "good enough" is. I think the best compromise is to ask the user for their mobile phone numbers. It's effective and allows you to contact your users in one more way. Another way would be to make your service "invite only" - assuring that there is a well defined "trail" of invites that can uniquely identify users.
Remove 2 - No one has suggested this which is a bit surprising. Don't give new users a bunch of money just for signing up! Make them work for it, similar to raising seed capital in the real world. Does your soccer simulation have social aspects? How about only giving the users money once their "friend" count goes above a certain number (increasing the number of potential investors who will give them money)?
Remove 3 - Someone else has already posted the best solution for this. Adopt an SO like strategy where a new user has to play for 3 hours before they are allowed to transfer players. Or maybe add a "training" stage to your game which forces a new player to prove their worth by making enough money in a simulated environment before they are allowed to play with the real users.
Or any combination of the above! Combined with heuristics like matching IP addresses and looking for suspicious transactions, it is possible to make cheating on the game completely unviable.
Of course a final thing you need to keep in mind is that it is just a game. If someone goes to a lot of trouble just to gain a little bit of advantage in your simulation, they probably deserve to keep it. As long as everyone is having fun!
I know this is probably nothing you have expected, but...
My suggestion would be to discourage people from creating another account by offering some bonus values if they use the same account for a longer period, a kind of loyalty program. For some reason using a new account gives some advantages. Let's eliminate them. There are a lot of smart people here, so if you share more details on the advantages someone could come up with some idea. I am fully convinced this is on-topic on SO though.
We have implemented this by hiding the registration form. Our customers only see the login form where we use their mobile number as username and send the password by text message.
The backend systems match the mobile number to our master customer database which enforces that the mobile number is unique.
Here is an idea:
Store UUID in a cookie at clients. Each user login store the UUID from Cookie in relation to the account entity in the databse.
Do the same with the IP adresses instead of UUID.
After that write a program interface for your game masters that:
Show up different account names but same IP (within last x hours)
Show up different account names but same UUID (nevertheless how long ago)
Highlight datasets from the two point above where actions (like player transfers) happened which can be abused by using multiple accounts
I do not think you should solve that problem by preventing people having two or more accounts. This is not possible and ineffective. Make it easier to find that evil activities and (automatically temporarly) ban these people.
It's impossible to accomplish this with a program.
The closest you can do is to check the ip address. But it can change, and proxies exist.
Then you could get the computer MAC address, but a network card can be changed. And a computer too.
Then, there is one way to do this, but you need to see the people face to face. Hand them a piece of paper with a unique code. They can only subscribe if they have the code.
The most effective solution might be the use of keystroke biometrics. A person can be identified by the way the person writes a sentence.
This company provides a product which can be used to implement your requirements: http://www.psylock.com/en
I think 1 account per email address should be good enough for your needs. After all, account verification doesn't have to end right after signup.
You can publish the IP address of the computer each message was posted from to help your users detect when someone is using multiple accounts from the same computer, and you can use a ranking system to discourage people from using temporary accounts.
Do your game dynamics allow for you to require that both users be online for a trade to occur? If so, you can verify the IP addresses of both users involved in a trade, which would be the same unless the user was paying for multiple internet connections and accessing two accounts from separate machines.
Address the exact scenario that you're saying is a problem.
Keep track of the expected/fair trade value of players and prevent blatantly lope-sided trades, esp. for new accounts. Assume the vast majority of users in your system are non-cheaters.
You can also do things like trickle in funds/points for non-trading actions/automatically overtime, etc.
Have them enter their phone number and send a text message to it. Then, keep a unique of all the cell phone numbers. Most people have one cell phone, and aren't going to ask their friend to borrow it just to create a second account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways
I would suggest an approach using two initiatives:
1) Don't allow brand new accounts to perform trades. Accounts must go through a waiting period and prove that the account is legitimate by performing some non-trade actions.
2) Publicize the fact that cheaters will be disqualified and punished. Periodically perform searches for accounts being used to dump bad players and investigate. Ban/disqualify cheaters and publicize the bans so that people know the rules are being enforced.
No method would be foolproof but the threat of punishment should minimize cheating.
actually you can use fingerprintjs to track every user, use js encrypt the fingerprint in browser and decrypt in server
I want to track unique referrals, something that is not easily cheated.. I'll present a use case to better present my problem:
If I put a link on twitter, and someone clicked the link. I have no way to know that the clicker is unique. Maybe he clicked the link before or maybe he changed his ip by using something like proxy or he's using a wifi that have dynamic ip.
I need a way to find unique users to my system. That is not easily cheated..
There is no way to 100% guarantee the user is unique. Checking for a cookie can be used but it is super easy for a user to delete. Checking IP address is slightly better but as you have already mentioned, it is also fairly easy to get around.
Requiring a user to register before it counts is currently the best way to ensure unique visitors. How solid it is depends on what you require of the user in order to register. Requiring user to validate registration through a code sent in an email greatly helps. Requiring personal information like credit card, ss#, etc.. helps even more, though it depends on your site as to whether you can realistically expect that sort of information from them.
Other than that...sorry, there is no other way. As Brad said, "welcome to the internet" :)
Is there a best practice for using email/user accounts for 3rd part APIs in a business scenario?
For example say my company domain is foo.com, and I need to access data from Flicker, youtube, twitter, facebook, jigsaw, Amazon, ebay, and many others.
Should I have seperate email addresses/user names like flickerapi#foo.com,youtubeaip#foo.com, facebookapi#foo.com or something like apiuser#foo.com and have a consitent username used across services if they require a seperate user name? What do you do? Are there any disadvantages or advantages to one or the other? The obvious disadvantage to me of multiple would be remembering all the email addresses.
There are many facets to the answer for this question, and I dont think there is obviously any single superior way.
To be safe you should plan on having multiple, just in case the one you are trying to reserve is already taken (its rare, but it happens). That way you can plan on using a single one but you are prepared if something in your design has to change.
The rest is about visibility, and how risk-averse you want to be. Having one account per service means that if one is compromised (password is discovered, etc) its the only one affected (assuming you use different credentials for each). The downside is that its very obvious these all point to the same place (not necessarily bad) and abuse of one could lead to problems in other places.
Having multiple accounts mitigates some of this, but you have other headaches, such as multiple passwords, managing multiple expiration processes, and auditing to make sure the accounts all still work, etc.