by TheVicar » Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:49 am
They could be anywhere, depending on routing. Check out Creamy Goodness, Silas Golic. They have pings you would not expect and they are in New Zealand and Australia. High speed (low latency) connections/routes are available from different places
I know people in the UK who have download speeds that are more than 10x-30x the bandwidth that I have, but their latency/pings are only a bit different to mine. Bandwidth and latency dont really have a relationship. They are 2 very different things
My bandwidth is currently 3.8mbps, with a 28 latency when playing aX42. I could use satellite broadband for my internet, and get 35mbps - but then my latency would be more than 1000ms. Ping/latency can only be used to recognise the player to a degree, its not a 100% guarantee though. There are easy ways to consistently increase your latency, within your home - and not by downloading in the background (that would only intermittently change my latency - it would increase and decrease very quickly and everyone playing would see that fluctuation)
The key to half identifying a player by ping, is that they cant reduce their ping
Problem: There is a way around that though - but you must think ahead...
Example: The player with a ping of 115 cant play with a lower ping than 115. Unless they randomly get a better connection by mistake. Only if they were clever enough to start playing with a locally fixed/modified ping that was higher than their minimum attainable ping, could they then fake their latency as a lower one by choice in the future - But they would have had to have thought ahead a long time ago, to hide their lowest possible ping, and 115 didn't do that
I can play at a stable ping of 30+ more than my best attainable ping, by using a local trick on my network - But my best ping is 17 depending on my ISP's route. The ping would then always show up on the internet as approx 47 when I was playing. I then play as a disruptor with a ping of 47, under other peoples names to cause shit. When I want to play and not be identified, I stop the local trick on my network and rejoin the server with a ping of 17 (with the same IP, or change my ISP's IP to a different one, as I dont have static IP in UK)
There are too many variables to trust a ping/latency as an identifier, or guess a location. The only thing to know is that 95% of people wouldn't easily beable to reduce their ping. I'd forget about trying to use ping to guess anybodies location that much. Only having their "true" IP can help locate them, and also that can be spoofed...
The 95% just became 92% in the future. Once the local trick is learned the 92% becomes progressively lower over time and the identifier problem gets slightly worse. But the disruptors must do this ahead of time. They must plan ahead before changing their real internet connection
And I dont think they care that much to worry about even doing it
Its TheWildWest online these days