To give an update about the blocked users:
- We had about 100 users that have been blocked, due to massive connections. Except a few (shubhank for example) that were giving several gigahashes to the pool, the majority only contributed a few megahashes, with a lot of connections (>1000).
- We're currently down to about 25 users with many connections. This is good news, as the load has reduced on the pool server, allowing me to shut down back-ends, which cost me money, money I will probably never get back. Most of the feedback I've received was positive, too bad we have a few trolls.... The others have been unblocked.
- I am occasionally unblocking everybody, so those that did not request an unblock will get an unblock anyway if they stopped their connections. However, as soon as the script runs again (currently once per 24h) the accounts going over the limit are blocked again.
- There surely are people that are doing honest work on the pool, compared to real botnets. However I cannot distinguish between them, that's why I'm enforcing a global rule for everybody to use only a limited amount of connections. These limits are high enough for any single miner to continue mining, but it is for me impossible to manage separated rules for everybody: that's why there will be no exceptions. Anyone can run a proxy server to run as many clients as they'd like.
- Shubhank008: it's nice to see that you can manage your users with just one server. But please do not underestimate the total load of all combined connections, plus the fact that not all miners are equally efficient
- Shubhank008: you're still welcome to mine on our pool, I've only paid you as an act of good faith, but we can continue this discussion on irc. I can give you details about the remaining connections.
Well kinlo, I was about to congratulate you for rectifying, but you still have many, many users with blocked payments for already mined blocks. And I still have not received all answers from involved users yet. So there may be more than the 25 you yourself recognize. Some of them, as you well know, have greater amounts owed that Shubhank008 had. It does not seem very fair to hold those amounts for such a long time just because your script correctly or incorrectly (as you yourself recognize) flags them as bots.
And at any measure
it is not a good practice at all, to hold payments for mined blocks. This
should never be done at any pool.
Will you be so kind to honor all users for all their mining work that has already been converted into coins, coins that you are still holding. Would you please pay what in all common sense is actually theirs, their share of work for already mined blocks?
A recommendation here: clear payments for all accounts asap, pay all users what you owe them for all mined blocks, by now a high amount when you add up all users.
You are not clean until you pay them all, kinlo.
Then you may want to enforce your policies, whatever they are, crazy or not, but you should inform all miners before they open an account at your pool, that you will be from time to time holding payments for their share of mined blocks according to whatever crazy rules you are implementing. This will probably avoid any mistakes on their part as well. Inform them of your policies, crazy or not, so that they are aware of the risks they are taking when mining at your pool. As of today your miners are not informed when joining your pool. Until you do that it seems like a miners trap.
kinlo, can you please update, as organofcorti is hungry for more data, as well as clarify your pool policies regarding appropriation of payments to miners for mined blocks. Will you continue to do that? Thanks.