reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Archived here are older posts which are no longer relevant or were redundant.

Moderators: Stardust@home Team, DustMods

Post Reply
Sebastian
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 9:44 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Post by Sebastian »

I freqently get these "You have reached this page via an unusual route" messages without pressing backspace or any other unusual action on my side.

I may be wrong, but it appears to me that these errors are somehow related to the appearance of *_movie_type=testing strings in the URL. This might indicate possible cheater activity.
icebike

Re: reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Post by icebike »

Sebastian wrote:I freqently get these "You have reached this page via an unusual route" messages without pressing backspace or any other unusual action on my side.

I may be wrong, but it appears to me that these errors are somehow related to the appearance of *_movie_type=testing strings in the URL. This might indicate possible cheater activity.
I don't think that has anything to do with cheating. Type=testing means you are in a calibration movie, and upon your action, it will have to update your counters. Maybe there is a problem with that process.

What browser are you using?

Personally, I think that the Stardust folks should do a little more URL obfuscation, because when it says ondeck movie is testing, that means you are looking at a calibration movie, and when it says ondeck movie is real it means its a real one. It also tells you what the NEXT frame will be.

I can't be sure all browsers act this way. Mozilla does after the first movie. The first one gives no clue. I'm thinking they only tested extensively with MSIE, which is much more accomodating about hiding urls.

I don't look at the urls. I find its better not to know, and just look at the images and judge by what I see.
Sebastian
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 9:44 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Post by Sebastian »

icebike wrote:I don't think that has anything to do with cheating. Type=testing means you are in a calibration movie, and upon your action, it will have to update your counters. Maybe there is a problem with that process.
If next_movie_type=testing gets you a calibration movie, someone could (for example) randomly generate such requests and "order" calibration movies at will. This would give a 1:3 advantage for scoring...
icebike wrote:What browser are you using?
Mozilla with Linux.
Jwb52z
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:05 am

Post by Jwb52z »

I get this error too, as I mentioned elsewhere on the board, and I am using IE6.
Galactic Groove
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:20 am

Post by Galactic Groove »

You get this message when you go back to the page you previously just scanned. I came across a spot on a movie that i thought may be a track and it wasn't a test slide so i wanted to save the pic :D So when i clicked Back in my browser, that message was displayed on the top of the movie.
It's obviously meant to prevent people from just stat padding but i guess you're coming across it in some other method.
tacvek
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:23 am

Re: reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Post by tacvek »

Sebastian wrote:
icebike wrote:I don't think that has anything to do with cheating. Type=testing means you are in a calibration movie, and upon your action, it will have to update your counters. Maybe there is a problem with that process.
If next_movie_type=testing gets you a calibration movie, someone could (for example) randomly generate such requests and "order" calibration movies at will. This would give a 1:3 advantage for scoring...
icebike wrote:What browser are you using?
Mozilla with Linux.
next_movie_type and next_movie_id seem to indicate what the previous movie was.
vibri2001
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:58 am

Re: reached this page via an unusual route -> cheaters?

Post by vibri2001 »

tacvek wrote:
Sebastian wrote:
icebike wrote:I don't think that has anything to do with cheating. Type=testing means you are in a calibration movie, and upon your action, it will have to update your counters. Maybe there is a problem with that process.
If next_movie_type=testing gets you a calibration movie, someone could (for example) randomly generate such requests and "order" calibration movies at will. This would give a 1:3 advantage for scoring...
icebike wrote:What browser are you using?
Mozilla with Linux.
next_movie_type and next_movie_id seem to indicate what the previous movie was.
I agree next_movie is actually your previous movie. On_deck_movie is actually the current movie.
ccurtisny
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:35 am

Post by ccurtisny »

I've had that several times as well. I'm not even watching to see if they are calibration movies or not, but I've had it jsut from clicking on "NO TRACKS" or BAD FOCUS." Both of which really sucks, because what if those movies were important?
greyhorse
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:02 pm
Location: Indiana, USA

Post by greyhorse »

I've also come across this error. Strangely enough I didn't see it when I did use my back arrow accidently (too many clicks after jumping over to check "My Events"). It doesn't seem to be tied to any particular choice (Track, No Track, Bad Focus) in my experience. Also, while it is not part of your "score", there is a counter that updates with every movie you view- so there is a change to your numbers with each new movie... Exceptions being "Bad Focus" (no credit given in any category, right??) and this error. So it may not be related to ranking updates, either. I've had this error come up on possible track locations twice now- I don't look to check for testing or non-testing, so who knows... If they were real ones, I'm sure that enough people are looking that they will be spotted :) I've also just gotten the "white screen of death" that just says error from stardust, and the only way to get around it (for me) has been to go back to the log in page and start over... bleh :?
Zsinj
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:02 am

Post by Zsinj »

I receiver this error after it takes a little bit longer than usual to load. Nothing to do with how people can potentially cheat.
Join us on the Unofficial IRC channel!
irc://irc.freenode.net/stardust@home
m4rk3r67
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:51 pm
Location: Fort Collins, CO

Post by m4rk3r67 »

Hopefully the admin will read this and pass along to the website developer...

I'm not a web developer but, in order to "obfuscate" the type of movie that is being viewed (ondeck_movie_type=testing) so people can't "cheat" and to hopefully increase the reliability of the searching process I think you would use the POST method instead of the GET method within your HTML. That way all the variables are hidden from the users instead of being displayed in the url address.

Hopefully this helps and I'm not totally whacked. :)
lantif
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 2:46 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

"back" button

Post by lantif »

I've just joined and got my "wonderful" certificate, but all I'm getting when
trying the movies is:"You have reached this page via an unusualroute, possibly by pressing the "back" button on your browser. So your answer on this movie won't be counted."
But I havn't used the "back" button. Everything stays at 0 and my ranking is 65535 out of 6803!?!
And I don't know what to do. Can someone help?
What I might ad is that I'm not a computer-expert, and if one has to be to participate, I'm clearly out of it, despite my certificate.
anatolytt
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:05 am
Location: Moscow, Russian Federation

Post by anatolytt »

I think there's a cookie/ip/session check procedure involved in the "route unusuality" check, so

1) check your firewall/antivirus that can block cookies and cookie handling settings in your browser

2) if u're behind NAT or proxy-server there can be a problem with sessions, in this case it can't be easily solved on client side
Dust in the wind... All they are is dust in the wind...
lantif
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 2:46 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Post by lantif »

anatolytt wrote:I think there's a cookie/ip/session check procedure involved in the "route unusuality" check, so

1) check your firewall/antivirus that can block cookies and cookie handling settings in your browser

2) if u're behind NAT or proxy-server there can be a problem with sessions, in this case it can't be easily solved on client side
Thanks for your advice anatolytt, but even when I shut down the firewall and antivirus I still get "You've reached this page ..." everything stays at 0 but the ranking is changing latest was 8009 out of 8224, strange.
Post Reply