MALADROITHIM'S PROFILE

According to Alexa, www.brandonabley.com barely even exists.

author=Ephiam link=topic=419.msg9002#msg9002 date=1202928453
A proxy server, eh... o.O What's that? =X

Lol.

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) which services the requests of its clients by forwarding requests to other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource, available from a different server. The proxy server provides the resource by connecting to the specified server and requesting the service on behalf of the client. A proxy server may optionally alter the client's request or the server's response, and sometimes it may serve the request without contacting the specified server. In this case, it would 'cache' the first request to the remote server, so it could save the information for later, and make everything as fast as possible.

A proxy server that passes all requests and replies unmodified is usually called a gateway or sometimes tunneling proxy.

A proxy server can be placed in the user's local computer or at specific key points between the user and the destination servers or the Internet.

Types and functions
Proxy servers implement one or more of the following functions:


Caching proxy server
A proxy server can service requests without contacting the specified server, by retrieving content saved from a previous request, made by the same client or even other clients. This is called caching. Caching proxies keep local copies of frequently requested resources, allowing large organizations and Internet Service Providers to significantly reduce their upstream bandwidth usage and cost, while significantly increasing performance. There are well-defined rules for caching. Some poorly-implemented caching proxies have had downsides (e.g., an inability to use user authentication). Some problems are described in RFC 3143 (Known HTTP Proxy/Caching Problems)


Web proxy
A proxy that focuses on WWW traffic is called a "web proxy". The most common use of a web proxy is to serve as a web cache. Most proxy programs (e.g. Squid, NetCache) provide a means to deny access to certain URLs in a blacklist, thus providing content filtering. This is usually used in a corporate environment, though with the increasing use of Linux in small businesses and homes, this function is no longer confined to large corporations. Some web proxies reformat web pages for a specific purpose or audience (e.g., cell phones and PDAs).

Access control: Some proxy servers implement a logon requirement. In large organizations, authorized users must log on to gain access to the web. The organization can thereby track usage to individuals.


Anonymizing proxy server
An anonymous proxy server (sometimes called a web proxy) generally attempts to anonymize web surfing. There are different varieties of anonymizers.


Hostile proxy
Proxies can also be installed by online criminals, in order to eavesdrop upon the dataflow between the client machine and the web. All accessed pages, as well as all forms submitted, can be captured and analyzed by the proxy operator. For this reason, passwords to online services (such as webmail and banking) should be changed if an unauthorized proxy is detected.


Intercepting proxy server
An intercepting proxy (also known as a "transparent proxy") combines a proxy server with a Gateway. Connections made by client browsers through the gateway are redirected through the proxy without client-side configuration (or often knowledge).

Intercepting proxies are commonly used in businesses to prevent avoidance of acceptable use policy, and to ease administrative burden, since no client browser configuration is required.

It is often possible to detect the use of an intercepting proxy server by comparing the external IP address to the address seen by an external web server, or by examining the HTTP headers on the server side.


Transparent and non-transparent proxy server
The term "transparent proxy" is most often used incorrectly to mean "intercepting proxy" (because the client does not need to configure a proxy and cannot directly detect that its requests are being proxied).

However, RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1) offers different definitions:

"A 'transparent proxy' is a proxy that does not modify the request or response beyond what is required for proxy authentication and identification".
"A 'non-transparent proxy' is a proxy that modifies the request or response in order to provide some added service to the user agent, such as group annotation services, media type transformation, protocol reduction, or anonymity filtering".

Forced proxy
The term "forced proxy" is ambiguous. It means both "intercepting proxy" (because it filters all traffic on the only available gateway to the Internet) and its exact opposite, "non-intercepting proxy" (because the user is forced to configure a proxy in order to access the Internet).

Forced proxy operation is sometimes necessary due to issues with the interception of TCP connections and HTTP. For instance interception of HTTP requests can affect the usability of a proxy cache, and can greatly affect certain authentication mechanisms. This is primarily because the client thinks it is talking to a server, and so request headers required by a proxy are unable to be distinguished from headers that may be required by an upstream server (esp authorization headers). Also the HTTP specification prohibits caching of responses where the request contained an authorization header.


Open proxy server
Main article: open proxy
Because proxies might be used for abuse, system administrators have developed a number of ways to refuse service to open proxies. IRC networks such as the Blitzed network automatically test client systems for known types of open proxy. Likewise, an email server may be configured to automatically test e-mail senders for open proxies, using software such as Michael Tokarev's proxycheck.

Groups of IRC and electronic mail operators run DNSBLs publishing lists of the IP addresses of known open proxies, such as AHBL, CBL, NJABL, and SORBS.

The ethics of automatically testing clients for open proxies are controversial. Some experts, such as Vernon Schryver, consider such testing to be equivalent to an attacker portscanning the client host. Others consider the client to have solicited the scan by connecting to a server whose terms of service include testing.


Split proxy server
A split proxy is a proxy implemented as two programs installed on two different computers. Since they are effectively two parts of the same program, they can communicate with each other in a more efficient way than they can communicate with a more standard resource or tool such as a website or browser. This is ideal for compressing data over a slow link, such as a wireless or mobile data service, as well as for reducing the issues regarding high latency links (such as satellite internet) where establishing a TCP connection is time consuming.

Taking the example of web browsing, the user's browser is pointed to a local proxy which then communicates with its other half at some remote location. This remote server fetches the requisite data, repackages it, and sends it back to the user's local proxy, which then unpacks the data and presents it to the browser in the standard fashion.

Some Web accelerators are proxy servers. Some reduce the quality of JPEG images to speed transmission. Some use a split proxy with special protocols and local and remote caching. (See Google Web Accelerator.)


Reverse proxy server
Main article: reverse proxy
A reverse proxy is a proxy server that is installed in the neighborhood of one or more web servers. All traffic coming from the Internet and with a destination of one of the web servers goes through the proxy server. There are several reasons for installing reverse proxy servers:

Security: the proxy server is an additional layer of defense and therefore protects the web servers further up the chain.
Encryption / SSL acceleration: when secure web sites are created, the SSL encryption is often not done by the web server itself, but by a reverse proxy that is equipped with SSL acceleration hardware. See Secure Sockets Layer.
Load balancing: the reverse proxy can distribute the load to several web servers, each web server serving its own application area. In such a case, the reverse proxy may need to rewrite the URLs in each web page (translation from externally known URLs to the internal locations).
Serve/cache static content: A reverse proxy can offload the web servers by caching static content like pictures and other static graphical content.
Compression: the proxy server can optimize and compress the content to speed up the load time.
Spoon feeding: reduces resource usage caused by slow clients on the web servers by caching the content the web server sent and slowly "spoon feeds" it to the client. This especially benefits dynamically generated pages.
Extranet Publishing: a reverse proxy server facing the Internet can be used to communicate to a firewalled server internal to an organisation, providing extranet access to some functions while keeping the servers behind the firewalls.

Circumventor
A circumventor is a method of defeating blocking policies implemented using proxy servers. Ironically, most circumventors are also proxy servers, of varying degrees of sophistication, which effectively implement "bypass policies".

A circumventor is a web-based page that takes a site that is blocked and "circumvents" it through to an unblocked web site, allowing the user to view blocked pages. A famous example is 'elgooG', which allowed users in China to use Google after it had been blocked there. elgooG differs from most circumventors in that it circumvents only one block.

Students are able to access blocked sites (games, chatrooms, messenger, offensive material, internet pornography, etc.) through a circumventor. As fast as the filtering software blocks circumventors, others spring up. It should be noted, however, that in some cases the filter may still intercept traffic to the circumventor, thus the person who manages the filter can still see the sites that are being visited.

Circumventors are also used by people who have been blocked from a web site.

Another use of a circumventor is to allow access to country-specific services, so that Internet users from other countries may also make use of them. An example is country-restricted reproduction of media and webcasting.

The use of circumventors is usually safe with the exception that circumventor sites run by an untrusted third party can be run with hidden intentions, such as collecting personal information, and as a result users are typically advised against running personal data such as credit card numbers or passwords through a circumventor.


At schools and offices
Many work places and schools are cracking down on the web sites and online services that are made available in their buildings. Since circumventors are used to bypass censors in computers, web sites like MySpace, Bebo, Xanga, Silkroad Online, YouTube, Miniclip, Facebook, and other non-work or school related social web sites have become targets of mass banning.

Proxy Web server creators have become more clever allowing users to encrypt links, and any data going to and from other web servers. This allows users to access websites that would otherwise have been blocked.

A special case of web proxies are "CGI proxies". These are web sites that allow a user to access a site through them. They generally use PHP or CGI to implement the proxying functionality. CGI proxies are frequently used to gain access to web sites blocked by corporate or school proxies. Since they also hide the user's own IP address from the web sites they access through the proxy, they are sometimes also used to gain a degree of anonymity, called "Proxy Avoidance".


Managed 'clean-pipe' proxy servers
Used in an increasing number of work-places, especially those with multiple Internet breakout points. Currently an emerging technology to rival in-house, hardware solutions. Many consider this a branch of Software as a Service or Security as a Service. Providers include AT&T and ScanSafe.


Risks of using anonymous proxy servers
In using a proxy server (for example, anonymizing HTTP proxy), all data sent to the service being used (for example, HTTP server in a website) must pass through the proxy server before being sent to the service, mostly in unencrypted form. It is therefore possible, and has been demonstrated, for a malicious proxy server to record everything sent to the proxy: including unencrypted logins and passwords.

By chaining proxies which do not reveal data about the original requester, it is possible to obfuscate activities from the eyes of the user's destination. However, more traces will be left on the intermediate hops, which could be used or offered up to trace the user's activities. If the policies and administrators of these other proxies are unknown, the user may fall victim to a false sense of security just because those details are out of sight and mind.

The bottom line of this is to be wary when using proxy servers, and only use proxy servers of known integrity (e.g., the owner is known and trusted, has a clear privacy policy, etc.), and never use proxy servers of unknown integrity. If there is no choice but to use unknown proxy servers, do not pass any private information (unless it is properly encrypted) through the proxy.

In what is more of an inconvenience than a risk, proxy users may find themselves being blocked from certain Web sites, as numerous forums and Web sites block IP addresses from proxies known to have spammed or trolled the site.


Proxy software:

AlchemyPoint is a user-programmable mashup proxy server that can be used to re-write web pages, emails, instant messenger messages, and other network transmissions on the fly.
The Apache HTTP Server can be configured to act as a proxy server.
Blue Coat's (formerly Cacheflow's) purpose-built SGOS proxies 15 protocols including HTTPS/SSL, has an extensive policy engine and runs on a range of appliances from branch-office to enterprise.
JAP - A local proxy, web anonymizer software connecting to proxy server chains of different organisations
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server is a product that runs on Windows 2000/2003 servers and combines the functions of both a proxy server and a firewall.
Nginx Web and Reverse proxy server, that can act as POP3 proxy server.
Privoxy is a free, open source web proxy with privacy and ad-blocking features.
Proxomitron - User-configurable web proxy used to re-write web pages on the fly. Most noted for blocking ads, but has many other useful features.
SafeSquid Linux based, complete content filtering HTTP1.1 proxy, allows distribution of 'profiled' internet access.
SSH Secure Shell can be configured to proxify a connection, by setting up a SOCKS proxy on the client, and tunneling the traffic through the SSH connection.
Sun Java System Web Proxy Server is a caching proxy server running on Solaris, Linux and Windows servers that supports HTTP/S, NSAPI I/O filters, dynamic reconfiguration, SOCKSv5 and reverse proxy.
Squid cache is a popular HTTP proxy server in the UNIX/Linux world.
Tor - A proxy-based anonymizing Internet communication system.
Varnish is designed to be a high-performance caching reverse proxy.
WinGate is a multi-protocol proxy server and NAT solution that can be used to redirect any kind of traffic on a Microsoft Windows host. It also provides firewall, VPN and mail server functionality. Its WWW proxy supports integrated windows authentication, intercepting proxy, and multi-host reverse-proxying.
WWWOFFLE has been around since the mid-1990s, and was developed for storing online data for offline use.
yProxy is a NNTP proxy server that converts yEnc encoded message attachments to UUEncoding, complete with SSL client support.
Ziproxy is a non-caching proxy for acceleration purposes. It recompresses pictures and optimizes html code, among other features.

I can't believe I am writing this because if you are asking this sort of question you probably won't understand the tutorial but:



The easiest and lamest method:

- Put down "on touch" events that teleport the hero back to the start or whatever. This creates the illusion of the sentry spotting your hero but is not very flexible.


PROBLEMS WITH THIS METHOD:

- It sucks.

- It is extremely tedious to add new sentries.

- Your sentries are immobile.


BENEFITS WITH THIS METHOD:

- It's really easy to do but it still sucks and limits your game design so much you might as well not even bother.




The most effective method that is still pretty easy to make and will create sentries that can move around:


PROBLEMS WITH THIS METHOD:

- The sentry will see through walls and crates and such. Incorporate this into your map design. Make your walls several tiles wide and do not put a bunch of things on the map that it would seem as if the player could hide behind. If you do want to put down some crates, make sure it is a huge bunch of crates many tiles wide and tall.

- The sentry is not entirely modular and will require you to edit each event that you copy down on the map. However, these adjustments are very minor and insignificant compared to setting down touch events manually for every sentry.


BENEFITS TO THIS METHOD:

- Your sentries can walk around.

- It requires much less manual editing to copy than a sentry that relies on events.

- While a few variables need to be edited for each sentry as RPGMaker does not support local variables, all commands will be contained to just one event so it will be much neater. Also, your game won't start to lag from having a million events.

- It does require you to use a lot of event commands but does not require you to code in RGSS.


HOW TO DO IT:

- Set the sentry to be a parallel process event. Make sure you add a wait at the end so that your game doesn't get stuck in a loop (0.0 or 0.1 frames or whatever depending on your iteration of maker).

- Call a common event. Put all the rest of these commands inside of the common event page. Each sentry will need its own common event. To make it easy on yourself, set up 5 common events called sentry1, sentry2, etc, so that your system will support five sentries on each map. You can add more if you please.

- Set variable hero x to equal the hero sprite's x location.

- Set variable hero y to equal the hero sprite's y location.

- Set variable sentry1 x to equal Current Event x location (your sentry is the NPC who is looking for the hero; note that each sentry will need its own variables)

- Set variable sentry1 y to equal Current Event y location (again note that each sentry will need its own variables or you will have really odd bugs)

- Set up variables sentry2 x, sentry2 y, etc up to sentry5 x and sentry5 y.

- You'll now have to create a check that will establish whether or not the sentry notices you. In most stealth games the sentry can see in front of him, so we'll create a box where the sentry can see. We'll set the visibility range to 4 tiles so that your sentries can't see through really thick walls. It is probably dark where your characters are sneaking so it makes sense that the sentry can only see a few yards in front of him. Plus, if you've ever played Metal Gear Solid you are probably familiar with how completely blind and deaf video game sentries are (it's more fun to sneak up on and kill stupid people I guess)Illustration:

The "o" is the location of the sentry and the exclamation marks represent the tiles where the sentry can see you.

xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . o . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
Sentry can see in front of him.

xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . o . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . x x x x x . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
Note that the sentry can see through walls. This is a limitation of this script. Solution:

xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . o . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . x x x x x x x |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . x x x x x x x |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . x x x x x x x |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . x x x x x x x |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
Make your obstacles large so that the sentry cannot see through them. If this limitation really bothers you then learn how to program and make an RGSS script instead of using this lame event crap like I do. Anyway, this method will be suitable for areas such as hallways or wide open fields.


- Now, create a condition that has four branches: one for the current event facing up, one for facing down, one for left, and one for right. In older RPGMakers these were called "forks" so you might have one of those.

- Add nested commands inside of those conditions that perform that actual check as to whether or not you have been spotted. This is the important part. Your script will end up looking sort of like this:

NOTE: Variable commands in proper programming and in new RPGMakers use a kind of shorthand.
+= means "add to current value"; e.g. if x = 10, x+=5 means "10 + 5 = 15" or "x already equals 10, and now I want you to add 5"
-= means "subtract from current value"; e.g. if x = 10, x-=5 means "10 - 5 = 5" or "x already equals 10, and now I want you to subtract 5"
== means "set to this value"; e.g. if x = 10, x == 26 means "change x to 26 regardless of what its current value is"

NOTE: If a conditon is indented it means it goes inside the other condition. EG:

Condition: blah
Condition: blah

The second condition is inside of the first condition.


FOR SENTRY EVENT:

Event start, Parallel Process
Call Common Event: Sentry1
Wait: 1 Frames/0.1 Seconds
Event Close



FOR COMMON EVENT: SENTRY1

Event Start
Variable Sentry1 X == Sprite Location Current Event X
Variable Sentry1 Y == Sprite Location Current Event Y
Variable Hero X == Sprite Location Player X
Variable Hero Y == Sprite Location Player Y
Variable Sentry1 X -= Hero X
Variable Sentry1 Y -= Hero Y
Condition: Current Event is facing DOWN
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 0
Condition: Sentry1 Y > -5
Condition: Sentry1 X < 3
Condition: Sentry1 X > -3
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End
Condition: Current Event is facing RIGHT
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 3
Condition: Sentry1 Y > -3
Condition: Sentry1 X < 0
Condition: Sentry1 X > -5
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End
Condition: Current Event is facing LEFT
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 3
Condition: Sentry1 Y > -3
Condition: Sentry1 X < 5
Condition: Sentry1 X > 0
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End
Condition: Current Event is facing UP
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 5
Condition: Sentry1 Y > 0
Condition: Sentry1 X < 3
Condition: Sentry1 X > -3
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End
Event Close



Copy and paste all of this into 5 separate events, incrementally increasing the numbers each time. Common Event Sentry2 will refer to variables Sentry2 x, sentry2 y, etc. The variables Hero X and Hero Y do not need to be changed for each common event because the location of your hero will always be the same regardless of which event is referencing it, so it is not a problem that many different scripts are always changing the value (they will change the value to the same thing).

IMPORTANT: Each sentry on your map must refer to a separate sentry common event or you will encounter strange bugs. Make sure you keep track. If you want more than 5 sentries, than you can easily add more common events. You can reuse your common events on the next map, but not on the current map. So if you teleport to a new map, you can just copy and paste your old sentries over.

NOTE: When you have an event call a common event, all "current event" commands refer to the event that called it. That's why the common event calls "current event" all the time.

NOTE: You can set your sentries to have specific movement paths, to wander randomly, whatever. As long as they have that one line that refers to a common event, they will have an AI that will do all the legwork for you. This is how efficient game making works.

NOTE: You can increase the sentry visibility by increasing the absolute value of the greater than/less than checks in the AI portion. For example, changing the checks to:

Condition: Current Event is facing DOWN
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 0
Condition: Sentry1 Y > -13
Condition: Sentry1 X < 4
Condition: Sentry1 X > -4
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End

Will result in a range that looks more like this:

xxxx| . . . . . o . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx

Do not change the zero values, though; those are important in determining that the sentry only sees forward. If you were to change that value so that the script looked like this:

Condition: Current Event is facing DOWN
Condition: Sentry1 Y < 2
Condition: Sentry1 Y > -5
Condition: Sentry1 X < 3
Condition: Sentry1 X > -3
This is where the failure event occurs
End
End
End
End
End

xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! o ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . ! ! ! ! ! . |xxxxxxx
xxxx| . . . . . . . . . |xxxxxxx

. . . your sentry will have eyes in the back of his head!





So, this should probably work really well. There might be bugs or something so if you use this method let me know and I can help you out. Either way, this is probably the best way to make robust sentries with admitted limitations that does not require sophisticated coding. As long as you build your map design and sentry behavior around the idea that your sentries can see through thin walls and small obstacles, you should be able to make an entertaining and convincing sneaking scene. You could with minor adjustments extend this script to your monsters so that your monsters wander around blindly until they see the hero and then rush at him. Hope this helps!

Also holy shit I just typed a lot.

I think the individual game blogs need RSS support in order to be viable blogs.

author=kentona link=topic=657.msg8944#msg8944 date=1202837801
I thought it was starkly real and added to the story. Ken Follett doesn't beat around a dead horse and use euphemisms for such reality such as sex scenes and rape in this novel.

I believe it made the scene more poignant.

But it made no . . . sense.

It's like if you were some beautiful woman living in the woods and you see an emaciated starving man without a jacket on laying in the snow, would your first instinct be to have sex with him?

Key phrase: If you were a woman; I can imagine that the first impulse of many men who encounter helpless women is to have sex with them BECAUSE ALL THE MEMBERS OF RMN ARE PERVERTS EXCEPT FOR CRAZEBERRY.