How are two PCs ditinguished by the game if they are behind the same router?

[Ponge]

Hello.

I recently read some sanctions (and the rules) about cheating, and one point got my attention:
Single player having more than one instance of Discovery open to fly their own characters is considered cheating (I presume this means running multiple instances of Discovery on the same computer).
I have shared characters with my brother, and we aid each other in getting some money (I fly the miner, he flies the transport, or vice versa, but on two different computers). As far as I know, this is not cheating, as two players are flying one ship each (despite we both have access to both characters).
I had a talk with one of my friends recently, and he said, both of our computers have the same IP on the Internet, as servers see the IP of the router.
My question is: how are two different computers distiguished by the Disco Server, if they are behind the same router (thus they have the same IP)?

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[EmotionEngine]

It's been a while since I did anything network and communications related especially in regard to video games, so if I post something wrong someone else is welcome to correct me.
Not only do computers have an IP address they also have a MAC address.
What's the difference? The MAC address is unique to every network device and cannot be changed (more or less impossible for 2 devices/computers to have the same MAC address)
The IP address is also unique but can and will automatically change when it's detected 2 or more devices are using the same IP address.
The modem/router also has both because it (just like your computer) is a network connected device that has to communicate with the Discovery server)
How (I think) the server distinguishes between 2 computers using the same modem/router: Think of it this way - The router is merely a post-man, he gets a bunch of letters from your router, some with your name on them and some with your brothers (Name=IP and MAC) then delivers them to the Server who can tell which person sent which letter because of the individual IP and MAC on each letter regardless of the Post-man's IP and MAC.

It's a silly example but I hope it helped.
Again if I'm wrong or not to specific someone please correct me.

[Potter Harry]

I had a talk with one of my friends recently, and he said, both of our computers have the same IP on the Internet, as servers see the IP of the router.
My question is: how are two different computers distiguished by the Disco Server, if they are behind the same router (thus they have the same IP)?

Either your friend is lying or he didn't check properly. Two people on the same home network cannot have the same IP. This would create something called an IP conflict, forcing one of the two users of the same IP address to not be able to connect at all. Both of you should have faintly similar IP addresses, though, both being in the same IP range. With that, you can be identified as two different people on the same network.

However, Discovery Freelancer also uses another way to identify specific systems. The installer comes with some sort of spyware which records and sends the serial number of your hard drive away to the owners, admins or whoever. I'm not entirely sure how it's performed, but it is. Plenty of people who could support my claims on this one. And yeah, it's relatively harmless, but it's still spyware.

[tyro]

you have different internal addresses, but they are not visible in the internet.
server sees only IP of your router, thus you both have one IP address.
you may check this on any site with geoip tool.

[Haste]

The installer comes with some sort of spyware which records and sends the serial number of your hard drive away to the owners, admins or whoever.

I (used to) own a server in a different game. This game, to be precise. Guess what, it records that same number for, largely, banning purposes.

Not like ban evasion is unheard of, but yeah. Neither is this kind of anti-ban-evasion measure.

And yes, it's quite likely for both of you to have the same IP address. There often is no real way to know if it's two different people or one person multiclienting*, other than ingame behavior (one would assume it's quite difficult to fly two ships in combat at the same time as one person, for example).

*) The "One ship on the laptop, one on the desktop" type of multiclienting. Doing it on one system has become a bit harder recently.

[n00bl3t]

I had a talk with one of my friends recently, and he said, both of our computers have the same IP on the Internet, as servers see the IP of the router.
My question is: how are two different computers distiguished by the Disco Server, if they are behind the same router (thus they have the same IP)?

Either your friend is lying or he didn't check properly. Two people on the same home network cannot have the same IP. This would create something called an IP conflict, forcing one of the two users of the same IP address to not be able to connect at all. Both of you should have faintly similar IP addresses, though, both being in the same IP range. With that, you can be identified as two different people on the same network.

However, Discovery Freelancer also uses another way to identify specific systems. The installer comes with some sort of spyware which records and sends the serial number of your hard drive away to the owners, admins or whoever. I'm not entirely sure how it's performed, but it is. Plenty of people who could support my claims on this one. And yeah, it's relatively harmless, but it's still spyware.

The MAC address is unique to every network device and cannot be changed

You'd be surprised how easy it is to change a MAC address.

I can confirm that MAC address spoofing takes only a few minutes, if that.

Message me on Skype about spyware Doj.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[Zen_Mechanics]

If its a network, under Wi-fi, you will have a different IP address, MAC Cloning though is simple.

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Were fools to make war on our brothers in arms.

[Haste]

If its a network, under Wi-fi, you will have a different IP address

Internally, yes. Externally, nope.

[Luke.]

Your IP is made of 4 Octets. In a home network, it'll be a Class C network, therefore only the last number can change

i.e: 77.100.12.2 - only the green number will change depending on the computer that's connected to the router. This last number is called the host. What was said above me is correct, 2 computers cannot have the exact same IP but servers may only pick up the network IP and not the host IP.

To evade this on a ban perspective, it would normally only be an account ban...if the offence is that serious then unlucky, your siblings etc will just have to deal with your actions.

I don't enough about how Freelancer and Discovery works to be able to tell you if they can read the host part, though. I do IT in college, that's how I know about IP's

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[Ponge]

Yes, it is about the internal and external IPs. I am quite sure it is not against the rules to play from multiple PCs on a home network, it would be nonsense to ban someone for this.
I was just curious how the machines are differentiated by the server, if the external IP is the same.
Hoping for an Admin/Developer saying something sure about this.

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