Wednesday, December 26, 2018

DDoS problems again, streams & online gaming on hold...

Getting hit with the whole DDoS bullshit again, expected to be retaliation from Twitch user iBreezyy after his channel got another report against it for racist & aimbot discussions over his VOIP during his Christmas stream.  I am currently on the phone with my ISP looking to see if we just need to replace the modem again, I will be following up with a police report & giving them his address so they can search his computer for evidence of being behind it if the issue doesn't get resolved tonight.

UPDATE: Contacted my ISP, they explained the situation to them, they reset my modem to factory default. Even after resetting everything on the modem to factory, packets were still continuing to drop in the ping test I had been running since the latency issues when I first attempted to stream Fortnite on 12/26/2018. After a while, the connection finally stabilized as I continued to watch the ping test, but I knew that if I attempted to stream again, I would start getting hit by it again. Shortly after that, I noticed iBreezyy started a stream, expecting he was going to continue the DDoS attacks until he felt I wasn't going to stream anymore, then decided to start his own stream.

After the modem's connection finally stabilized, I put the modem back into bridge mode again, I lost access to the modem's interface after that & spent the next few hours calling Xfinity over & over again attempting to get a fix; I just got disconnected from my 4th call with them & this representative apparently isn't educated in how a modem functions when put into bridge mode & doesn't realize that a router is a key element in receiving internet from the modem. I have explained over & over that I don't have the option to use the modem when it is not in bridge mode when using my web development software, the reason being is that it's reporting to the servers an incorrect IP address (a LAN IP rather than a WAN IP) & the servers my site is hosted on is rejecting the connection when it gets that the connection is coming from a standard LAN IP as opposed to my actual IP address over the internet.

I'm about to give up on them fixing it & just call them when I need it taken out of bridge mode, it's apparent they can't get the modem back to a working order as it was before the factory default, I'll spend all night on the phone with them if I just keep calling until they decide to send a technician; I'll just leave it as is & call them when I need it taken out of bridge mode (which will be never if their modem can't report the correct IP address when attempting to update my personal site)...

I'm going to give streaming another shot tonight to see if the statement of contacting the police again is what caused the attacks to stop, as it's expected they will start again when I attempt to stream again (unless the threat of filing another report is what got them to stop), that's when I'll file the report & bring up the case number from the last report, including the address of where iBreezyy lives so they can go speak to him at his home & search for evidence on his computer.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Internet issues interfering with streaming & online gaming


Due to technical issues with my internet, I'm going to have to wait until my internet stabilizes before I can start streaming again.  Currently the cause of the issues is undetermined (could have been something my friend was doing with is computer, could have been a DDoS attack organized by Twitch user iBreezyy again), but it's not going to be possible to stream or play any online game while that issue continues to be a problem, I'll (hopefully) give it another shot in a few hours)...  If I continue to run into the problem into tomorrow, I'll consider it a string of DDoS attacks & get law enforcement involved again...

Friday, December 21, 2018

Streams limited, Medicaid issues negating personal life...

For the past several months, Medicaid has been harassing me with regular reviews & requests for verifications that is taking up any extra time I may have to spend on other things, this is obviously interfering with my ability to do streams as often as I would like, not to mention my health is quickly deteriorating from the stress it is causing & not getting enough time (if any time at all) to recover from the previous series of what should have already been put to rest... It's expected they are looking for a reason to boot me off of what I should still be eligible for due to being disabled, however we already know that Trump is shooting to get as many people off of Medicaid as possible (even those that still depend on it to continue living, much like myself), unless I can find an outlet that is going to gain me enough income to live off of (a job would be fine if I could get hired, however job seekers with disabilities get much the same treatment as those with criminal histories, most of my attempts to get a job result in dead ends & wasted time), I have to continue dealing with it until I can find an alternative to it (I'd sooner just tell them to fuck off & be done with it, but I won't have any medical insurance if I do & I don't know what to expect if I tell them to get lost) or until it ultimately ends up killing me... Until I get a break from this constant avalanche of notices they are sending me every few days (sometimes several days in a row), I can't say when I'll be able to get back to streaming regularly again, much less going back to a normal life where I don't have to worry about Medicaid constantly trying to find a reason to pull my medical coverage & all expenses it covers (including, but not limited to doctors, disability case managers, medications, inhalers, hospitals, etc.)...

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Fortnite streams are currently on hold (StW servers down)

I was intending on doing a Fortnite stream today before I lose out on one of my dailies (already at the max of 3), however when I attempted to access the game after patching, I ran into this:


This only leaves Battle Royale, which I don't play, so Fortnite streams are currently on hold on my channel until resolved. I'm currently monitoring the server status at https://status.epicgames.com, once the Save the World servers are back up, I'll be starting a new Fortnite (Save the World) stream ASAP.

If the Save the World servers are not back up by today's daily reset, I will start streaming other games until the servers are known to be back up.

UPDATE:  Servers appear to be back up, however I got gypped on a daily quest due to not being able to get into the game for over 4.5 hours (I should have been able to complete at least one in that time), so this blog entry is going to stay here, rather than my original intentions in deleting it were I able to complete one so I didn't lose out (the servers came back up literally directly after the daily refresh)...

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Channel points & rewards


I have been offering rewards on my channel for probably a couple months now, including a number of games available in exchange for points in the Stream Elements store.  It's come up a few times where viewers were asking how they could gain points & I decided I needed to write an article on it so people could have easy access on how to gain points, including what bonuses are available when certain conditions are met.  First I'll go over how I'm determining how many points are required to get something from the store.

Store prices are comparable with the prices of those games at approximately 1 point per American cent if you were to purchase it at full price from an online store (it is possible these could be adjusted in the future if the price drops or raises).  Items can only be purchased from the store while a stream is running, this is to prevent abuse of bonuses that auto-award points (more on this later).  Note that some activation keys are pretty old however, it is possible they may have expired; let me know if you have a problem with this when you attempt to activate a key, I will refund the points if necessary (of course I will be testing the key on a new account before I issue any refunds to make sure it's actually expired & hasn't actually been used).

As for how to gain points:
  • Viewing:  2 points per 10 minutes
    • Points are gained at a rate of 2 points per 10 minutes while viewing.
    • This is by no means a way to gain a quick game from the store, but it does accumulate over time if you are an actual viewer of the stream.
  • Viewing (subscriber): 1 point per 1 minute
    • Subscribers get a x5 multiplier on points gained by viewing.
  • Following:  5 points one-time bonus
    • You gain 5 points for following.
    • One-time bonus that will be removed if the follow is removed.
  • Hosting:  10 points per host, limited to 1 per stream
    • Manual hosting auto-awards you with 10 points every time you do it.
    • Bonus limited to one time per stream.
  • Auto-hosting:  50 points one-time bonus after first auto-host
    • Stream Elements used to be able to determine when an auto-host had been initiated & award the host bonus every time a host had been started through this method, but Twitch has made changes that has since broken this method & points aren't being awarded for auto-hosts anymore...  This isn't really something I can keep track of to manually award without some kind of logs...
    • I would have sooner allowed users to continue getting the 10 point bonus on auto-hosts, but seeing as this auto-award has been broken, I had to come up with another method to be able to continue giving an awarded bonus to those that were doing it.
    • Auto-hosts are determined by being added through the system on Twitch.
    • Once the first host is noticed through Twitch's auto-host system, you will be awarded 50 points.
    • This bonus will be removed if the auto-host is removed.
  • Raids:  8 points per active viewer in a raid
    • I've been wanting to award points for raids for some time, but wasn't sure how to go about it considering Stream Elements doesn't have an option to auto-award points on raids, so I came up with a "per person" method.
    • Originally I felt I was going to have to do a lower amount on raids due to bots & inactive users that just sit in a channel & don't actually contribute to the channel (not even counting as a viewer), I determined that Stream Elements can determine how many of these users are actually active when they get sent to your channel, so I decided to go with a slightly higher rate per person.
    • 8 points per active viewer (active users determined by Stream Elements logs).  Active users are typically those that are actually in the channel (not bots or connected through IRC clients) & haven't dropped to an Away or Invisible status. 
  • Cheering:  1 point per bit cheered
    • You gain 1 point per bit cheered towards the channel (usually during the stream, as soon as I get a chance to do so).
    • Cheers of over 100 bits will immediately award 100 points per 100 bits spent.
      • Any value outside the multiple of 100 bits needs to be added manually, as stated in the first bullet.
  • Tipping:  100 points per $1 tip
    • Tipping through Stream Elements will give you 100 points per 1 American dollar spent towards the channel.
    • Tips can not be anonymous if you want to gain points from it.
    • Tips have to be at least $1, additional cents on the dollar will award additional points, but I'll have to add them manually.
    • Single tips $5 or more will have the tipper highlighted as a VIP Tipper on the channel's list with the highest tip given listed next to their name (unless requested they do not wish to be in that list, but it will still be public on Stream Elements, I have no way to hide this).
  • Subscriptions (Twitch):  Bonus points on subscriptions matching the calculated revenue from Twitch analytics (adjusted as necessary), plus the x5 watch bonus.
  • Subscriptions (Patreon):  1 point per 1 cent (100 points per $1) recurring subscription
    • You can chose your monthly recurring subscription rate.
    • You will need to provide your account name if you want to receive points, but can request to remain anonymous
    • Subscriptions over $5 will have access to posts on Patreon regarding game giveaways on various sites.
    • Subscriptions over $10 can request a Tier 1 gift subscription on Twitch in exchange for 500 points gained in the month of payment on Patreon.
    • Subscriptions over $15 can request a Tier 2 gift subscription on Twitch in exchange for 1000 points gained in the month of payment on Patreon.
    • Subscriptions over $30 can request a Tier 1 gift subscription on Twitch in exchange for 2500 points gained in the month of payment on Patreon.
    • Subscriptions are recurring, this will need to be canceled if you want the subscription to stop, however you will still get the remainder of the month of Free Game updates if you subscribed at $5 or over.
Retired bonus notes:
  • The auto-host bonus has been retired due to Twitch retiring the Dashboard panel that showed who had you on their auto-host list & who was currently hosting you.  Should a visible means of being able to tell who is hosting you & who has you on their auto-host list be added back to Twitch, this bonus may be reinstated.

Last updated 1/10/2020
Restrictions:
  • Bots are not eligible for points
    • Twitch accounts are usually determined to be bots if they are sitting in my channel for excessive amounts of time while it is offline (I can tell this through my IRC logs, usually connected to my channel & others that I moderate nearly 24/7).
    • This restriction would be different if those bots actually counted as a viewer, but seeing as they don't, I'm not getting any closer to partner status from them being in chat, so they aren't going to be gaining any points towards freebies off of my channel's shop when they don't even count as a viewer...
  • Obviously, those who have been banned from the channel are not eligible for points & will have all their existing points removed.
  • Breaking the chat rules will gain you a timeout & wipe your points at the end of the stream.  Typically the only people to break chat rules are new viewers that don't even read the rules before speaking, so this shouldn't be a huge concern for anybody that has been around in the channel for a while, this usually only effects those that enter the channel looking for personal gain.
    • Breaking the chat rules does not necessary mean you are blocked from the point system (only means you have to start over in gaining points), but could warrant a ban if serious enough (meaning you're banned from gaining points as well) or you are repeatedly breaking the rules over & over.
    • Getting hit by a filter that gives you an auto-timeout doesn't necessarily count as breaking chat rules, I can still see what you said through my IRC client, I will determine whether what was said was actually breaking the rules or not once I have a chance to look at any comment that may have been censored.  If you are a regular on the channel, I can add your name to the channel regulars list to help mitigate accidentally triggering the chat filters.
    • In the event that somebody who has cheered, tipped or subscribed to the channel does break one of the rules & gets timed out over it (provided it's not severe enough to be a ban), your points will never drop below points gained from these bonuses minus points spent in the store.  These values are tracked & you will only drop to this value if you break the rules, however you may lose any other points that were not gained through these 3 methods.
      • Timeout status will be tracked for anybody who has cheered, tipped or subscribed to the channel, so follow & auto-host bonuses can not be re-applied to those balances.
  • Abuse of bonuses will have your ability to gain points removed & your existing points wiped.
    • This "abuse" specifies manipulation of limited bonuses, such as attempting to get points for the follower or manual hosts more times than you should.
      • This point in particular is why points can only be spent while a stream is running, it gives me time to mitigate any attempted bonus point abuse before starting a stream.
Last updated 11/28/2018
Special notes regarding name changes:
  • Points are stored on existing names.
  • Names do not change on Stream Elements when a name is changed on Twitch.
  • If you are fairly regular in the channel, I may add your name to the regulars list, this will lower the chance that auto-filters will auto-timeout you (10 seconds) & wipe your comments in chat (filters regarding discrimination or aggressive harassment won't however, this filter even hits moderators & is permanent unless I cancel the timeout).
  • Changing your name on Twitch does not update your name on Stream Elements.  This will not only nullify you being on the regular list, but also leave your points on the old name.  Let me know if you've changed your name, I can transfer over the points to your new name & re-add you to the regular list (if you were on it already) once I've verified the name change (this usually means you still have to be following the channel so I can verify the name change through my followers list based on placement & cross-referencing that list through my external spreadsheet of followers).

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Mass-assault at large

The organized attacks from iBreezyy's channel has hit a new high (as my IRC logs are catching fairly quickly, even when I don't have a stream running) & I've decided I need to get the police involved again.  I've already filed a few reports against his channel to Twitch over the last few days (which did result in a temp ban for maybe 8-12 hours), but these reports only go so far (if anywhere at all).  With the amount of fodder (meaning Twitch users that are allowing iBreezyy to manipulate them into doing his dirty work for him) he has thrown at me in only the last 22 hours, it's become obvious this isn't something I can attempt to ignore & go on with my life while it's still happening, I need to give the police the additional information I managed to find online so they can speak with him about this vendetta of his face to face & what's going to happen if he chooses to continue pursuing it.

Attempting to put a stop to this may limit my ability to stream in worst case scenarios (if you see a ban on my channel, you will know he's succeeded, but I don't expect a bunch of false reports is going to get him anywhere, it hasn't in the past, regardless of how many pawns he's managed to get in on it), however the most likely outcome is I'll have to turn follower-only chat back on with an excessive minimum for new users to be able to speak (I don't want to make people feel obligated to have to follow to speak, but if this is what I have to do to mitigate these extended attacks that have been happening for 7.5 months already, I will do it; the channel had a 24-hour minimum for 2.5 months after the follow-up attack on 3/19/2018).

I am going to request that people do not file reports against him on my behalf, I am fully capable of fighting my own battles, I can deal with this myself (it wouldn't be the first time I've dealt with somebody like this, it won't be the last).  I will however request that if he or one of his goons does happen to approach you directly & slander my character, that you do report him through his channel (or through the channel of anybody who contacted you to do it), this is one area where you can help in putting a stop to this (it will be helpful if you have a screenshot to provide in the report, Google Drive is a decent means to share just about anything you would want to share giving you 15 GBs for free, provided it don't break copyright laws).

The full details regarding this matter (starting with the original griefing situation in Fortnite on 2/19/2018) can be found at http://www.wondergamer.net/Twitch/abuse/ibreezyy.htm

If you run into a ban message on WonderGamer.net, you could be in a wildcard IP range that has been banned for multiple hacking attempts from multiple IP addresses in that range; this can be adjusted once I've determined you aren't using an IP address that a hacking attempt has been attempted from, but adjustments may not work too well with dynamic IP addresses (you can check what type of IP address you have here).



UPDATE:  Currently I am attempting to compile an IRC evidence index before I file another report with the police, this is going to take some time to compile with nearly-daily logs starting around the time of the follow-up attack on 3/19/2018.  Getting this log completed is a priority, so streams will be limited until it's completed & I have been able to file the follow-up police report against iBreezyy.  This index will show every time anybody associated with iBreezyy entered my channel according to my IRC logs.  There may still be streams in between, this will give me a chance to test whether there are going to be disconnects to further prove possibility of DDoS attacks, however most of my time will be getting put into compiling this index until it is completed, I need to get the police report filed as quickly as possible, I've already notified Twitch that they may be subpoenaed for information on other individuals that have been taking part in these attacks on iBreezyy's behalf.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Let's discuss self-promotion

Self-promotion is a means where a user joins a channel & attempts to get them to come to their own through advertisements, sometimes using bonuses for new visitors or followers (sometimes bogus, sometimes real).  While this may be a real problem on various sites such as Twitch or YouTube, you have to look at how much can be said before it actually hits the point of self-promotion.

I for one have no problem pointing out certain details about their channels, provided they aren't outright attempting to get my viewers to go to theirs.  To give a few examples, a few channels that I used to go regularly to (regularly enough that I had follows & auto-hosts on them) or even was new to made these accusations, the irony about it was that the auto-hosts (or manual hosts, if I chose to do so) was basically promoting their channels through my own when whatever was said that they felt they had enough detail (however minor that detail may have been) to call me on what they believed to be self-promotion.

To give a few examples:
  • I pointed out that I had some videos of people griefing in games, for use in reports against them or just to get the word out on who they were with video proof of the situation.
  • I made it a point to say I would leave the host on their channel going on my own until I got my own stream up (the irony in this one is they already know they are being hosted & it's in the same sentence where they are already getting promoted on my channel; despite it being in the same sentence, they call you on self-promoting).
  • The channel is getting trolled, the streamer is detailing the rules of their channel & I back up their statements stating the rules on my channel are the same (or at least similar), apparently enough for them to warn you that you're self-promoting where the purpose was backing them up...

I don't know about you, but saying something minimal about your own channel shouldn't be considered as self-promotion & it only makes me wonder how much they run into problems with others self-promoting on their channels to make that much of a hair-trigger conclusion that you're only in their channel for no good (even if it's a channel I've been to many times before).  It's these types of allegations that have had me end a host I had put on their channel prior or remove an auto-host I may have had on them for some time.  Streamers may be able to run their channels as they see fit, but is it worth the negative publicity & loss of potential income if they make the wrong decision?  This is something streamers need to ask themselves before they allow a hair-trigger shotgun misfire on actual viewers that made no mistake other than attempting to speak in chat on those channels to begin with.

My channel bans owners (and sometimes moderators) of those channels when they decide to make such faulty decisions (sometimes with an article being written to my personal site), sometimes including followers of those channels if they are coming to my channel to harass me while I'm streaming (these are extreme situations, I've done this with 2 streamers & their followers coming to my channel in the past); while that might not mean much to larger channels, those that don't have the option to receive donations over Twitch itself (or have a decent income to purchase new games themselves), it does cut them out from being able to accumulate points that can be used to purchase new games with those points (not having to spend actual money or getting them a discount if they want to cover the rest of the points in tips), so those who actually see this (particularly those with smaller channels; I'm sure larger channels don't need this benefit with the income they may be gaining from Twitch simply for streaming, so it won't matter if they get banned or not) need to consider the consequences of their hair-trigger actions, start thinking it out & looking at the full picture.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Illness & YouTube attacks

Seems I may have caught something, this is draining my energy to be able to continue streaming.  I will still stream when I can, but there's no guarantee I'll be doing it as often as I have been if I don't even have the energy to get out of bed...  It appears I may be missing some Fortnite dailies because of this also, this is perhaps the one thing that keeps me running the game every 1 to 3 days, but I can't let my health go to shit because I don't want to have a cutoff on gaining new dailies, I'll just have to take my losses...

Aside from that, I'm currently having an issue on YouTube (again).  Seems somebody actually succeeded in hitting the channel with a false report that YouTube accepted, the result is I have a 3 month strike against it, which lead to this review (5th one on YouTube already, none of them positive) being written in response to it.  New videos & comment moderation has been put on hold on my YouTube channel until the strike period is over; that means if the appeal isn't accepted, the YouTube channel will be getting no further videos or user comments going public (unless a user is on the whitelist) until at least 11/21/2018...  The video that was removed was re-uploaded to the same domain the review was written on regardless & I was able to pull the description from the linked video on my Steam account, so it's still accessible through my personal site, however it's expected there may be more strikes getting piled on top of this one (this video was back from 2014 when I still played Destiny, I expect whoever is responsible will find more videos to complain about; we already know that iBreezyy is organizing attacks against my channels through his & it's expected his actions are to blame for what I received today, these details were including in the appeal when filed with YouTube, including the information regarding the police report, something that has already been reported to Twitch, but I didn't have the ability to file against him on YouTube until now).

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

StreamElements added to channel

I have now added StreamElements to my channel, primarily as a bot for moderation against those who keep breaking the rules in chat, however I have left a few of the statistical commands functional.  Currently I don't have a system for use of the points, perhaps in the future I might use them for game key giveaways (still have a number of them sitting in a TXT file for Steam, as well as a couple on Uplay).

For those who have proven they can be decent in the channel, I've added them to a list to make it so auto-moderation won't be as strict on them, however abusive language or discrimination will hit even moderators (if I ever add any beyond StreamElements), that restriction will not be removed even from subscribers (via Patreon).

I haven't set up a tip option yet, however I will probably do this as soon as I get a chance; currently the only method to donate is on Patreon & this is recurring (meaning it's a monthly donation until you cancel).

EDIT:  I've decided to set up a shop where people who have enough points on my channel can redeem them towards perks, currently this is in the form of activation keys I have had sitting around for a while (a few of them may have expired, let me know if you run into problems after activating them).  The easiest way to gain points is to donate, donations will award points equal to 100 points per dollar donated; subscribing at the minimum on Patreon to gain access to the giveaway list (giveaways I've dug up on the web that you can grab yourself), you'd be getting 500 points per month (in addition to viewer, follower & hosting points).  Note that the activation keys have a cooldown of a week, so if you're going to get one, make sure you get the one of most interest first; the cooldown is to make sure that everybody gets a chance to get a key & it's not limited to just one person with a ton of points.  I have issued points to a number of people on my long-time friend/viewer lists, as well as those who have been hosting/auto-hosting my channel.

Friday, June 22, 2018

June 22, 2018 DDoS attack

Once again this channel has become the victim of DDoS attacks by iBreezyy, I decided seeing as this is apparently going to be a regular situation, I wouldn't be ending the stream when getting hit with them anymore, I would let them continue to gather statistics from the attacks & allow a build of videos to be uploaded to YouTube every time they affected the stream (they may kill the streams or making them unviewable, but the severity is not enough to disconnect me from online games, only cause some lag), every stream & video ends up being used as evidence regarding the attacks & linked to the regularly updated article regarding the attacks started back in February when I first had the misfortune of getting griefed by this individual in Fortnite (it's continued since then after the video of that griefing was published online).  There was at least 13 disconnects from Twitch servers during this attack (I can't say for certain because I lost track, could have been over 15).

I contacted my ISP tonight while the stream was still running, attempting to trace the source of the attacks so an internet crimes report could be filed against him, through subpoena against Twitch if necessary (this seems to be the only time that Twitch actually listens to reports I file against users, when they realize I have gotten the law involved).  I was disconnected from the representative several times during the call, due to the fact that it's a VOIP phone line, so the DDoS attacks on the modem was also disconnecting the phone.  I pointed out the drops in connection only happen when I'm doing a Twitch stream, which gives good motive of being iBreezyy doing it to interrupt my streams, a legal adviser I spoke to about this agreed with me, but stated I still needed more evidence to have a subpoena issued for his arrest, this is why I left the stream going when I contacted my ISP, so they could get the IP address of where the attacks were coming from.  After rebooting my modem & having to call back to get a second representative (the first one stopped attempting to call back after all the disconnects), they stated they are sending a technician in the morning, this may result in a new modem, meaning a new IP address well.  He also stated there would be about a $30 credit issued towards my bill due to the connection problems.

The next call I make will be to my local police, along with a complaint to ic3.gov, where the next complaint to Twitch will include a case number, officer's name & district of police, as it did back when I was getting death threats from PSN user EPICMINECRAFT25 (he disappeared between a week or 2 after that, a subpoena was issued for his personal information after that report was filed; I can't say for certain where it went, I suggested the subpoena be filed against PSN, it may have been filed against Twitch due to the fact this is where the death threats were being made).  Once the law is involved, iBreezyy will be guaranteed to have his Twitch acocunt perma-banned, however he should be more concerned about jail time when it gets to that point; he many be laughing at the idea that he could spend time in jail for it, but I know it to be a fact, a 16 year old was sentenced to 2 years after doing the same thing.

It was determined that due to the fact I had the wrong audio device selected when I started this stream (resulting in no game audio in the stream or recorded videos), I would not be uploading the videos showing results of what happened during the DDoS attack, this will be different when the streams are properly getting audio however.

As has been stated before, full details on the vendetta from iBreezyy can be found here.

UPDATE:  Xfinity Technician came by, determined there was no problem with the lines, showing him the video stuttering in the Past Broadcasts on Twitch (the 5 orphaned videos after the first disconnect) was enough to warrant getting a new modem without question (probably would have had issues proving that otherwise, as the connection was good this many hours after the DDoS attack, it wouldn't be bad until I attempted to stream again).  He gave me his supervisors number in case I have further issues with this problem even after the modem replacement, he thinks it could be a matter on the neighborhood node or the main hub if not the modem; I'm pretty certain it's just iBreezyy getting somebody to DDoS the modem because he's pestered a hornets nest (harassed my channel for over 4 months in retaliation to the video of him griefing on 2/19/2018) & he don't like the results of his actions, so he's resorting to illegal actions to continue his vendetta with a facade on his own channel & through false reports (by himself & others he has doing it for him) he thinks is going to work in his favor.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Broken PS3 Twitch app (part 2)

Considering contacting Twitch over their Facebook page & through their email support STILL has no effect on the functionality of the PlayStation 3 Twitch app, I've decided it was time to try contacting PlayStation to see if they could do something to have Twitch fix their app, otherwise it needs to be removed from the PSN store if the only thing it does successfully is wastes space on the your PS3...  Of course PlayStation was either late on the reply or doesn't intend on replying (there's still the thread I created on the PlayStation.com Support Forums, I'll be either sending them an email or calling them in the next week if no response is given), giving enough time for some trolls to start having their way with the comment regarding the broken app (completely ignoring the second point, being that it should be removed from the PSN store if it's not going to be fixed).  The trolling replies to this post pushed the priority that I get the second video recorded & published (showing that the app no longer is capable of even streaming a channel, even after sitting there loading for over 5 minutes), this video can be found at https://youtu.be/02j-SGpt3JI (as well as embedded below), which has also been added to a playlist that now had 2 videos in it showing how this app is broken.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

June 19, 2018 DDoS attack

Another stream ended early due to yet another DDoS attack, again suspected to committed by iBreezyy or somebody he knows (this second attack happened only hours after pushing an update to the page regarding attacks from him & his crew of internet thugs).  A new video of what could be seen on my side will be added once I'm done processing & uploading it to YouTube from the local recording (exporting from Twitch really isn't an option in this case):
 

This screenshot shows stats in OBS at the end of the stream, including duration of video (local, although it's how long the stream should have been if not for intentional denial of service attacks), how many & what percentage of dropped frames there were (since the last disconnect, there was 1 total) & the upload bitrate at the end of the stream (which pretty well shows the ability to stream never recovered, just like the ending attack on June 16, 2018):
 
Click for full-sized image
 
The frequency of these attacks told me this was going to become a pretty regular issue, so I decided it was time to add every video regarding these DDoS attacks (including others that I'm certain are going to happen in the future) to a playlist, which is being used to embed videos displaying results of DDoS attacks on the page regarding the attacks from this individual.  Additional details (such as OBS statistics at the end of the stream/recording) can be found in the description of each video.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

June 15-16, 2018 DDoS attack

It appears I am currently getting hit by a DDoS attack, expected to be by somebody Twith user iBreezyy has hired to do it, this is going to prevent any decent streams from being done until I can get the latency issue resolved, I will be contacting my ISP to see if they can trace it to the source of the attacks & put a stop to it (even if that means prison time on the individuals causing it).  I still have the local video of that stream, I am attempting to get it ready to be uploaded to YouTube (won't really be able to rely on Twitch video exporting in this case).  In that video one of the individuals in the mission decided to start griefing after I mentioned the attacks on my channel from iBreezyy & gang over the past few months after uploading a video of his griefing, so this video is going to be used for 3 different reasons:
  1. The connection issues that happened due to the DDoS, including latency in Fortnite as it could be seen on my side, this won't really be reliable trying to view it from Twitch, however I will have notes about the latency in the description of that video (including any followup videos that may have started in addition to the starting videos as a result of disconnects & reconnects; there were 3 disconnects total during this stream, I can only account for how many dropped frames there ware since the last reconnect because it resets when OBS reconnects to Twitch's servers, there were literally over 96% by the time I hit the second disconnect).
  2. Pointing out that the likely culprit was instigated by iBreezyy (or somebody he knows).
  3. A new griefing video on the individual that attempted to follow in iBreezyy's footsteps when I pointed this out during the mission; this individual has been blocked on the Epic Games platform (all this really does is mute them in text chat however, "blocking" really doesn't do what it's supposed to do on the Epic Games platform) & has been added to the Blocked tab of the Fortnite progress spreadsheet (linked off of my Twitch channel when I have Fortnite information in the Now Playing panel).

After 3 disconnects, the final statistics (after the third disconnect from Twitch services) can be found in this screenshot:
Click for full-sized image

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Video of broken PS3 app (still broken after 2 months)

I've been talking about how the PlayStation 3 Twitch app has been broken for some time, I decided it was time to get a video recorded to show the actual problem & why it's currently (nearly) unusable.  While I did receive an email a while ago about the PS4 app being updated, this really means little to me seeing as I don't own this system (the newest PlayStation system I own being a PS3), so it seems Twitch may have simply decided to phase out the PS3 version of this app (or possibly this is a marketing ploy to help Sony sell newer systems).  In any case, the matter you will see in this video shows why I haven't been watching people much while eating (about the only time I did watch it on PS3) & I lowered my rating on the app from 3 stars to 1.  This is something I would like to see fixed, but my attempts to point this out to Twitch have all been in vain; maybe a video showing the current problems will somehow get to them (not going to hold my breath on that) & with any luck, we'll see a new version being pushed on PS3 to fix this problem in the future...


Details on what's broken (almost everything) is in the description

Personal Discord server

As of 4/21/2018, I now have my own personal Discord server, which I decided was needed as I needed to be able to ban individuals that are causing problems (expected & proven by the countless attacks by iBreezyy & gang over the last couple months) & should be inviting others to my streaming buddies channel (where I don't even have moderation privileges to take care of the problem if it gets that far).  Access to my server will only be available on request & sent via whisper, so if you have whispers restricted (as I do, due to attacks on my channel over the last several years), you will either need to be following the channel or be on my Twitch friends list to be able to receive the whisper.  Invites will not be given out to just anybody, only to those who have proven themselves decent enough in chat that I am willing to game with them (used mainly for gameplay chat, not General chat), private channels may be created in the future if this becomes a problem during streams.

iBreezyy organized attacks continue

Attacks/stalking continues to be a problem with Twitch user iBreezyy & gang, as can be seen from the IRC logs regarding this matter, as well as the follows from several individuals that are contributing to his channel.  Currently the following accounts are known to be a part of these attacks:
  • DeedsGames
  • hunterwj1
  • iBreezyy
  • JustAMexicanyt
  • nightmareeCS
  • thybreeze
  • whysosaltyxxx
  • Xxwheelz01xx

At this point I have had to take matters to the extreme & start banning ANYBODY who has contributed to his channel through ANY form of donation (using the donation lists on his channel) ANY time I see ANY individual that is currently known to be in on these attacks organized through his channel & friend lists.  Once they stop coming to my channel to cause problems, I will be able to stop banning people from his donations & subscribers lists, but ANY time I see an individual from that list enter my channel (regardless of whether I'm streaming or not, then last time it happened on 4/21/2018 was actually while I was cooking & not streaming), additional bans will be placed using his donation lists.

For those who would like to claim these are false-bans, I'm okay with that & I'm not entirely going to argue with it (however there may still be some truth behind the ban, especially with certain individuals that have been seen following the channel; I started keeping archives of all follower emails about a month ago, a few have been confirmed to be following, subscribing or even donating iBreezyy's channel, these are kept is a special folder called Twitch troll follows).  I might be willing to unban individuals who got banned simply due to being a contributor to his channel in the future (provided they haven't actually followed mine, as that's a red flag that shows they are likely in on the attacks; iBreezyy's channel is for the most part a PvP channel, mine is primarily a PvE channel when it comes to Fortnite), however there's NO chance in that happening while I still have these troll accounts following my channel & them showing up in my channel on a regular basis (expected to be so they can continue reporting the channel for false reasons at ease every time I start a stream, as was proven from a Past Broadcast from his own channel).

UPDATE:   After digging into this for a while longer, I found that both iBreezyy & nightmareeCS are EXCEEDINGLY AGRESSIVE Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hackers, finding multiple accounts with VAC bans for both of them (including one for DeedsGames) & this eventually lead to the currently active stream page for nightmareeCS on Twitch (Milesp1).  All details regarding the new information has been published to the existing article regarding iBreezyy & gang at http://www.wondergamer.net/Twitch/abuse/ibreezyy.htm; this newly acquired information will be getting supplied to Twitch, Steam (against the accounts that don't currently have VAC bans on them) & Epic Games through various reports if these lowlifes don't start to back off from my channel soon.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

False reports & IRC (Twitch chat) logs

So from iBreezyy's video which gave light of the fact he was filing false reports, I spent a couple hours going through my backed up IRC logs (what was left of them anyways) to log what was in them for future reference as they may be needed in a future court case against him (or his parents, if what he's stating about being underage is accurate, but technically speaking I think he's breaking Twitch policy if this is true & could have his account closed for that reason, I'll have to check the Twitch policy age minimum later).  What I collected so far can be found here & will continue to be added to each time I see a large gathering of unknown individuals joining & leaving my channel within a short period.

This is going to give some indication of just how often the false reports are being filed, as well as who is likely a part of it.  Of course I'm not going to point fingers until proven guilty (with the exception of those who have already proven themselves guilty from the Twitch troll party on 3/19/2018), so currently these logs are just speculation of possibility, not definite (at least not yet).  Of course there's no saying how long this has been going on prior to the logs cutting off, it could have been happening every day since the original issue on 2/19/2018, which I unfortunately have to expect is probably accurate based on his attitude when filing a couple more reports during his 3/22/2018 stream, so if you get right down to it, I'm surprised he hasn't already had his account banned for excessive abuse of the report function...

Note that there are a number of grey boxes in these logs (screenshots); these are individuals that have shown they can be pleasant on the channel & therefore I have censored out information regarding them seeing as I don't really need to be publishing details about their activity in my channel when they have proven themselves to be decent people.

At this point I'm certain there will be a new article on my personal site about iBreezyy by the end of the week, it's a shame Twitch can't get these matters resolved before negative articles about their service end up getting published on various other sites...

UPDATE:  A side note, but after going over the Twitch's Terms of Service, it states:
If you are between the ages of 13 and 18 (or between 13 and the age of legal majority in your country of residence), you may only use the Twitch Services under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms of Service.
According to his own statement, he's stating he's a child.  I doubt a child, but a teenager at best.  However even as a teenager, (under Twitch's ToS) he should be getting supervised by an adult & I can guarantee that's not the case when you consider how he's been acting.  Because things are starting to add up, I decided it was time to file another report, similar to the last, however categorized as an underage user:
In your terms of service, it is stated that those between the age of 13 and 18 must be supervised by a parent or legal guardian.  In the Past Broadcast located at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/241771155 (slanderous discussion started in the last 17 minutes of this video, this particular statement made at 3:35:54 in this stream, along with additional statements about reports against my Twitch channel by him & his friends starting at 3:33:32), he stated that he was "a child" while make a "child abuse" report on my YouTube channel under asinine reasoning.  With what he was stating during this stream, what happened during the attack on my channel on 3/19/2018 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/240727033) & the original issue on 2/19/2018 (https://youtu.be/mcFJSAZtGUI) that appears to has gotten him to recruit others into reporting my Twitch (and YouTube channel as of 3/22/2018 when this stream of his aired, the one I found the evidence of it in & backed up on my personal site, linked in my Twitch blog at https://twitch-wondergamer.blogspot.com/2018/03/organized-harassment-false-reports.html) I can GUARANTEE he has no adult supervision during when he stream or even uses Twitch, so this is a close repeat to the last report with perhaps the most accurate categorization that I can give with the evidence he has provided while his stream was running on 3/22/2018.
I don't have a lot of trust in Twitch when you consider the amount of attacks that have been allowed to happen against my channel & good portion of those never getting penalized for their actions, but we'll see where this goes; if anything I would expect him to get contacted with a reminder of Twitch policy & there may be a limit on how often he streams, where it might become apparent he has an adult there with him (not that I expect he's actually going to start following this rule, but I suspect Twitch will probably be able to determine this if they are monitoring his channel if it has a warning on it), but we'll see where it goes from here.

UPDATE: And that report seems to have done the trick.  I went to the hospital (due to an infection after my surgery on 3/15/2018) after making that report, came back, got some sleep (not getting much sleep the night before), checked his channel to see if the report had done anything & got the standard error that usually shows up on banned accounts (note the URL in the address bar):


I checked my Twitch ban list just to make sure he hadn't changed his name (expecting the name might have changed in the banlist along with any possible name-change on his channel, it does this with auto-hosts anyways), doesn't seem he has.  Hopefully he will learn from this & not try to push the buttons of somebody who actually reads the policy of services they use, which in this case managed to be used against him & probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done my research & figured out he was committing slander & filing mass false-reports (through not only himself, but also his friends & followers) on a regular basis.

I expect he will be able to successfully appeal the ban, but it may be under the stipulation that he be under supervision when he streams or views (although I would expect the latter to be impossible to verify).  He does have a YouTube channel, I can guarantee he will continue this charade on that channel (I find it highly unlikely he will learn from this) & I'm expecting a video probably dedicated to me (or rather his false-representation of me), which is where I will have the ability to file a report against that channel as well (once he's thrown some slander on that channel, I will have enough evidence through his own doing that I will successfully be able to file a complaint against his channel under YouTube abuse policy without having to supply additional evidence, although it's going to be an uphill fight considering YouTube still doesn't give the option to supply supporting evidence unless it's through a legal threat).  There is also a detail I have put on the Discussion tab of my channel regarding these attacks, slander & false-reports, I expect he will be reporting that when he finds it, which is probably going to backfire on him & cause his YouTube account to get banned as well (of course from my experience with YouTube, they don't verify facts when allegations are made from big name companies, so he might actually succeed were he to report it, but at the same time he takes a risk of getting his own account banned as well, where this would only be a strike on my account, possibly a full ban on his).

UPDATE:  I've been watching the IRC logs closely (and logging them in chunks multiple times a day) since I realized what was going on (after seeing the video on iBreezyy's channel) when this group of people joined, then leave shortly afterwards, particularly when a stream isn't even running.  The fact of the matter is they are still at it with the false-reports in hopes that they will be able to get my account banned, but I don't really have any fear of that because I'm not doing anything that is going to warrant one needing to be placed.  What I do know however is there is going to be one HELL of a page going up on Twitch on my personal site (regarding revictimization of a victim) if he ever succeeds, with iBreezyy being a BIG part of it, with a possible lawsuit against his parents for damages caused by those reports; I already have enough evidence to go after them for slander committed by their son, but I don't believe slander is a good enough reason to have the police issue a subpoena against Twitch for his personal information to issue them a summons, however this may at least be discussed with the police in the near future if he keeps at it.  I'm more expecting he's going to take a more extreme route that could land him in prison for 20 years, however I won't get into details on that just yet, just keep in mind I have contacts ready to prosecute, as well as for the local media (news stations) & drafts ready for publication on multiple sites should it happen (this won't be publicity he's going to want & I can only imagine what his parents will have to say about it when it becomes national news).

The fact of the matter is after they viewed his video, Twitch is now fully aware of the false-reports iBreezyy & his followers are making against my channel (I would expect they were aware of it prior to viewing the video, however it seems that wasn't enough to ban those accounts for extensive abuse of the report function) & I expect sooner or later the accounts that are continuing to abuse it to the extent I expect it's happening (based on my IRC logs alone) will start being banned on that reason (this is actually stated at the top of the box when you open it to report a channel, "Abuse of this feature is a violation of the terms of service").

I am certain he currently blames me for getting his channel banned & he's ramped up more of his followers (or perhaps I should say former followers, seeing as his channel was banned for lack of supervision for his age while using Twitch) to make even more false-reports against my channel, however he needs to realize it was his own actions that caused his account to be banned, all I did was point out what he was doing to Twitch using his own video as evidence (until he realizes that, things aren't going to change & eventually it will escalate to the point that he will be forced to change when he no longer has the option to make that decision on his own).  This is why I publish this information online with all possible evidence right off the bat, which has gotten me a number of attacks in the past, however as many times as it has happened, I know how to deal with it & the continued retaliation will just continue to dig himself a deeper grave.

UPDATE:  As of 3/28/2018, looks like iBreezyy's channel has been reactivated.  We'll see if he's able to follow Twitch policy from this point forward; his aggressive nature & persistence in attacking my channel over the last month would tell me otherwise (my IRC logs I expect are going to continue pointing that out for me, as it did earlier today that the abuse of report function is still happening) & this is only what I got from the last 17 minutes of his own stream aired on 3/22/2018 (which has been deleted from his channel since it was reactivated, but that portion of that video is still backed up on my personal site & viewable from this blog, likely becoming a part of a new article on my personal site if the attacks continue).  If this continues to be a problem & I have to report his channel again (where Twitch may chose to ignore the reports), I may have to speak with my local police about it (as I did with PSN user EPICMINECRAFT25), followed by a lawsuit against his parents for his slander (when children are the target of a lawsuit, the parents or legal guardian become responsible for monetary damages in court, even if that only includes punitive damages).  I would expect sooner or later other users who are doing this for him will also be getting thrown into the lawsuit mix (I already know of one other definite user from the evidence I took from his channel on 3/25/2018, which was the evidence that was used in the report when his account got banned).

Monday, March 26, 2018

Organized harassment & false reports

On 3/26/2018, I ended up finding out that iBreezyy has been going the extent to retaliate against my account for making his griefing public in this video.  The retaliation was to be expected, but I didn't expect him to go as far as slander, abuse of the report function (okay, I suppose this one was to be expected, but not to the extent he's doing it) & recruiting a mass of individuals to make reports to back up his abuse of that same function.  You might claim I can't back this up, well I can actually & it comes from his own mouth.  After re-recording that portion from his own Past Broadcast, I actually had the evidence to make reports against both his Twitch & YouTube accounts.

373 MB download, should stream in most browsers, right-click & save if you want a local copy (video only) or to view multiple times without having to redownload:
Video
Description
 NOTE:  You may receive a ban message if you are in a ban range that includes hacking activity.

This was the first report I made against his Twitch account as prior to finding this in his Past Broadcasts, I did not have any evidence to make a legitimate report against him.  Once I had it, I spent several hours re-recording it & typing an extensive description before filing any reports.  The Twitch report when through without a hitch, however obviously hasn't done anything as of yet.  The report that was sent to Twitch was as follows:
There is a number of reasons why I am reporting this account today, the matter starting back on 2/19/2018 when he chose to grief in a Fortnite mission I was in (https://youtu.be/mcFJSAZtGUI).  I only found out about his channel after the 3rd name change on his account (seems Epic Games allows you to see names changes from your block list).

On 3/19/2018, my Twitch channel got hit with an attack via chat where I ended up having to ban 5 different accounts, which is also when I enabled Follower-only chat to help mitigate attack such as you will see at https://youtu.be/614Emx8pxfk

On 3/24/2018, I saw them entering the channel for another attack, however the Follower-only chat function stalled them from being able to do it & I increased the minimum of that function to 1-day when I realized what was coming.  This was later discussed with a friend (who happened to join around the time they did) about mid-way through my stream located at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/242237338 (Past Broadcast, so this video will expire) & I posted a new blog entry about it when I had finished my stream, which can be found at https://twitch-wondergamer.blogspot.com/2018/03/another-attack-attempt-but-foiled.html.  This attempt was foiled due to that function, but it was attempted & there were a few follows placed in an attempt to do it (details about this are on the blog), I increased the minimum to 30 minutes after ending my stream to deter the likelihood they would attempt it again (it will continue increasing as they continue to try attacking the channel.

Unfortunately I found out today while watching one of his videos that he's been attacking my channel regularly by misusing the report function & as of 3/22/2018 (when his stream was running, which is also where I got evidence of this from) he's also doing the same on my YouTube channel (I would expect also my Epic Games account or any other account he know I have).  Until now I had no evidence to support a report against him, now I do however, so I am using this evidence to make the report & hope something will come of it.  This discussion is done in the last 17 minutes of his Past Broadcast found at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/241771155, I have re-recorded this portion of the video to be used as evidence regarding the organized harassment & attacks on my channel, as well as misuse of the report function & slander, it will be used in a later article on my personal site if the abuse & manipulation of code of conduct to be used in their favor continues to be an issue.  Slander has also apparently become an issue (which this video verifies), I'm expecting I may need to get the police involved if it goes much further...
On 3/26/2018, I ended up finding out that iBreezyy has been going the extent to retaliate against my account for making his griefing public in this video.  The retaliation was to be expected, but I didn't expect him to go as far as slander, abuse of the report function (okay, I suppose this one was to be expected, but not to the extent he's doing it) & recruiting a mass of individuals to make reports to back up his abuse of that same function.  You might claim I can't back this up, well I can actually & it comes from his own mouth.  After re-recording that portion from his own Past Broadcast, I actually had the evidence to make reports against both his Twitch & YouTube accounts.
When I went to report his YouTube channel, I realized 2 things:
  • I wouldn't be able to report his channel because even through I had the evidence to make the report, YouTube does not give you the option to provide supporting evidence on violation reports, so in the end I wasn't able to file it...
  • While trying to find a valid reason to report his channel, I noticed a few that made me determine that having YouTube host that video wasn't the best idea, because it would give him a legitimate reason to report the channel that YouTube might actually act on.  For this reason the video was deleted on YouTube & I decided to instead host it on my personal site, I would be giving details about it later in my YouTube channel's Discussion.
The ironic part here is he's abusing the report function probably daily (while there's no proof to support this, it does seem he's doing it fairly often based on the comments in his video) & getting others to join him in abusing the report function.  If reports against him doesn't penalize his account, his continued abuse of the report function is going to backfire on him, because Twitch will see what he's complaining about, realize he's just trying to cover up a situation, then he'll feel the wrath of his own actions.

Unfortunately most trolls/griefers can not grasp the concept of learning from their mistakes, believing they can never be caught if done over the internet, only choosing to retaliate in a fashion that only further shows theirdemeanor & how poor of a person they actually are.  Some may actually learn from it & change their ways so it doesn't happen again, in some cases I might even be willing to work with them if they apologize & show they can be a decent person (removing or at least hiding all evidence of what happened in the first place), but after the first sign of retaliation, any mercy I may show that individual is off, they get to reap the rewards that they sow.

I have a story with a particularly stubborn individual with the PSN username of EPICMINECRAFT25, where he took it too far (death threats & threats of physical harm) & gave me a reason where I was able to take the matter to the police.  Somewhere between a week or two after the report was filed, the attacks from this individual stopped & I haven't seen any activity on his PSN account since.  It is still undetermined exactly what happened, but I would expect the police showed up at his door, after that is anybody's guess.  The way he acted only gave indication that he was a juvenile & if the police did in fact show up at his door, there's a number of ways it could have played out:
  • He might have been arrested
  • He might have been grounded
  • He might have been too scared to continue his harassment
The fact that his PSN account hasn't had any further activity since then also gives a few possibilities, starting with the same first 2 above, but throwing in the possibility that his PSN account might have been banned (while I would expect his profile to go private if it was in fact banned, the possibility is there as I believed the police had to subpoena either PSN or Twitch to get his personal information).  Full details regarding the matter with EPICMINECRAFT25 can be found here.

I will do what I need to do to get these attacks to stop & continue making the public aware of the situation as they continue to happen.  I have already had to upload this video to my personal site so it wouldn't be subjected to the possibility of my YouTube account getting flagged for a possibly legitimate reason to file a report (he, his friends, followers, subscribers & who knows who else have already filed countless false reports against my accounts if what he's stating in this video is correct, why give him a reason to file a report that might actually succeed), there's really no reason in me not adding his Twitch account as a new entry on my personal site anymore.

UPDATE:  I later decided to increase my Follow-only chat minimum to 1 day to match how many days this shit has kept me from doing streams on my channel, it may later be increased if the attacks continue.

One other thing to point out is what happened on my YouTube channel on 3/22/2018.  It's already been mentioned that they reported it & it was stated they were going to comment on the video, however I noticed a comment was never left (probably because they realized that comments were moderated & it would never see the light of day on that video, that's not to say I wouldn't keep logs of it or publish it somewhere else as further evidence of abuse by iBreezyy & his friends, follower, etc.), but they did happen to downvote it on that same day:
This really doesn't do much, while the options to upvote or downvote are still there, I've had to mitigate downvote abuse in the past, so these statistics aren't public for that reason (which was disabled at the same time that comment moderation was enabled).  I have both of my channels locked down for a reason & situations like this only show why it needs to be done.  Follower-only chat is currently set to 24-hours on my channel specifically because of these situations (I never wanted people to feel obligated to have to follow to chat, but I will enable it when the channel is getting attacked like what happened on 3/19/2018), where the excessive amount of time is probably deterring users to keeping a follow they may have had on the channel, but if the loss of new followers comes at the expense of a lack of security against further attacks, I'm okay with people not following to have a higher chance of mitigating further attacks against the channel (I don't stream to get follower or donations anyways; I play games to have fun & stream only in case people want to watch, it's their decision where they want to take it from simply watching, however I won't tolerate abuse/discrimination against myself or others in the channel).  The other option is I could turn on auto-moderation, however this would probably be too much trouble to deal with as I don't have moderators on my channel, it might be something I'll look at later (provided I can block/moderate everything & define a user whitelist to pass through auto-moderation, this might become an option in the future).

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Another attack attempt, but foiled

On 3/24/2018, the same individuals (possibly with more in tow) attempted to attack my channel once again, however enabling Follower-only chat (if only for 10 minutes) gave me enough time to stop it before it happened.  I personally don't like using this feature as I don't want people to feel obligated to have to follow to chat (however I do expect they verify their email address, as many accounts that don't are troll accounts), however it was proven in this attempt to have a positive effect on stopping the 2nd attack on my channel from this group, as when I noticed the gathering of individuals that had joined my channel (5 according to the dashboard), I checked my viewer list via IRC & noticed a few names in that list that had already been banned in the previous attack (including none other than iBreezyy, the one that started out by griefing a mission I was in simply because I didn't give him a weapon (only finding out after 2 name changes on his Epic Games account that he happened to be a follower/subscriber of Ring_of_Favor, somebody I had an issue with last year, more details can be found here).

Twitch users joining channel to attack (screenshot from IRC logs), stalled by Follow-only chat being enabled:
Gray areas indicate censoring, the one friend I had join during the stream & around the same time these individuals were about to attack my channel, they left about the time I started discussing the matter over Discord with him.

My email notifications from Twitch would indicate that a few of these accounts did follow in expectation they were going to wait out the 10-minute wait time in order to be able to attack the channel once the time had elapsed:
Click for full image
Click for full image
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While I do have logs for when they followed through Twitch email follower notifications, I don't have logs on when they unfollowed (thybreeze later refollowed, no new notification was sent, likely due to being in the same day), so I can't be certain what was said during the stream to cause them to back off, however I discussed with this friend over Discord that when I saw the attack coming, I increased the minimum to 1 day.  Other things that were stated included the fact that I was considering banning every single account that joined when this group joined (something I'm still not certain I want to do as it's not certain every one was a part of the group, however I would expect otherwise), also bringing up the fact that the last attack resulted in 5 reports to Twitch & 3 to Epic Games, which could have resulted in a ban on iBreezyy's Fortnite license (not that I would expect Epic Games to do anything on offsite activity, I chose to file the complaints regardless to see if anything would come of it).

The Follower-only chat now has a minimum of a half-hour (increased from 10 minutes from the attack 5 days ago), it will continue to increase as I see this continue to happen.  The date that I disable this function also got pushed back an additional 5 days (to 4/24/2018).

UPDATE:  It was later determined that the original purpose of coming to my channel was not to attack verbally in chat (this only happened the first time on 3/19/2018 as it seems they saw an opportunity to do it without witnesses, not realizing I would Highlight that stream & upload the local recording on my computer to YouTube), but rather to abuse the report function, which I became aware of due to approximately 17 minutes of discussion at the end of one of his streams, which I re-recorded as evidence & used in a couple reports against him, the 2nd report being successful when I used his statement of being "a child" to report his account for being an underage user without adult supervision (being a violation under Twitch's Terms of Service).

Monday, March 19, 2018

More attacks

On 3/19/2018, I ran into another matter with attacks on my channel from a number of people who was originally believed to be a part of a troll party in Fortnite, however I recognized one username as being a follower of Ring_of_Favor's channel (further details can be found here) & a comment during this attack would further point out that I was correct when I recognized his username (only realizing it later after a couple name changes on Epic Games after the video of his griefing was published), but getting back to the attack that actually happened, the Highlight of that attack can be found here.
Twitch version embed broken due to API change, have not managed to get it fixed yet;
this video can be viewed here


There is additional details in the description as to what lead up to this (a trolling video that was re-uploaded to YouTube after a bug on Twitch caused that Highlight to "expire" on Twitch), showing griefing in Fortnite by one individual, only backed up by the other lowbie in that party (and later by NightmareeCS in the most recent attack).  This attack has resulted in both videos being used in reports to both Twitch & Epic Games (5 reports to Twitch, 3 to Epic Games, one of the reports being a second report on the same individual that got reported after the griefing incident).

Monday, March 12, 2018

Expired Highlights (bug)

Due to a bug on Twitch that effected Highlights between 2/26 to 3/8 of 2018 (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Bp-9RR5Psamv2dPF9jVd1imWgjsgf-TV), a couple of my Highlights were deleted when the original Past Broadcasts expired.  I unfortunately did not have a local backup of the Fortnite griefer video for Dr. Jew, however I did have a backup of the one for Aluuurt (PSN username Logster45; this user has since changed his EG username to BreezyyHD), so I will be uploading the backup of that video once I get finished cutting off the first half of the video (irrelevant to the issues displayed in the video, this was just preparation for the next mission).  Because of this, I will be making it a point to have a backup (or export) of each video I have on Twitch on YouTube as well (expect in special cases, such as when the soundtrack of a game would cause a penalty on YouTube; the worst that can happen here on Twitch is the video gets muted).  Both of these videos were uses in griefing reports to Epic Games & if EG hadn't seen them before their unfortunate collateral damage to the Highlight expiration bug, they won't be seeing them because the link to the video provided in the report will not be valid (even if the backups are uploaded to replace deleted videos)...

UPDATE:  I finally got the video uploaded to Twitch, however it seems the purpose in these are to schedule events to show those videos, not to simply allow viewing of them, so uploading the backup to Twitch ended up being a HUGE waste of time, however I did get the backup uploaded to YouTube, so I'll instead be embedding that video here:

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Surgery (3/15/2018)

For those who have been watching, you may have noticed I've had connection problems that has effected my ability to continue streaming, cutting short those streams at least twice in the last week.  I am posting this update to let my viewers/followers know that I am expecting to have surgery on Thursday (3/15/2018).  While I am expected to be released the same day (unless there are complications), I will be in recovery & may not have the ability to stream much (possibly at all) until I have recovered from the procedure.  I still do not know how long the recovery period is expected to be, so I can't give an estimate on how long streaming could be put on hold due to the expectation that I won't be able to spend time sitting at the computer to play/stream games (games on the Wii might still be possible).

UPDATE:   I will definitely be offline the entirety of the 15th seeing as I need to be monitored the rest of the day & overnight, even if I'm back at home; the only way this will be possible will be if I spend the night at my parents (I don't have a guest room & I'm certain they don't want to sleep on the couch in the front room).  My parents do at least have proper internet at their house now (having dial-up up until only the last month, where they got internet through Xfinity), it might be possible for me to connect to their wifi through my Android or laptop, but streaming definitely won't be possible (if gaming at all) until I get back home on the 16th & that's only if I can tolerate the pain until I've fully recovered from the surgery.