IP Forwarding using HTTP Tunneling

So here is my dilemma. I have 2 5-box teams. 1 is on the server that I have 2 lvl 70's and the other is on my RL friends server in which I have no other characters.

For the 5 Shamans I have on Pernolde (the friends server), I wanted to use his 70 mage to start boosting them through instances a little bit (rotating 1 of my shamans out each run). But... I remember that Blizzard has been known to ban accounts for sharing a single account with other people. They do this by checking the IP address that the person logs in with. More than 1 IP address = ban.

I set up a HTTP tunneling server on my home PC a long time ago so that I could telnet into it at work and use it as my own HTTP proxy (to see any sites that were banned by my office, such as gmail)... and I know that this could be used to log in with my friends mage using a tunnel to make the connection come from his IP... but I knew that it was a major pain in the ass to set up on windows.

For the TLDR crowd: Does anyone have experience with HTTP tunneling on Windows?

What is this going to do to latency?

Here's the deal... you are being overly paranoid.

I regularly log into accounts of several friends and have since I was in Beta 3 of WoW. The whole don't share accounts isn't so they can rampantly ban people, it's so they can easily tell you to fsck off when you cry that your BFF you met online and have never met in person steals all your phat lewt.

Don't cheat, don't exploit, don't be a dick to people, and ensure that anyone you give your account info to isn't going to be a jackass as well and you'll be fine.

Besides, in a world of laptops, cyber cafes, hotspots and VPN Tunnels, banning by IP address would be stupid. Blizzard would be so busy banning legitimate paying customers they wouldn't have time to post their half billion in profits from last year.

Well latency wouldn't be an issue with 2 cable internet connections... I've actually used WoW like this at work once haha.

As for being overly paranoid... this may be so. I just really don't want to get this guy banned. I mean, if he did get banned, it would be obvious that it was my fault as I've heard that they list that they saw multiple IPs in the email that you receive.

You do have a point on the internet cafes/vpns/hotspots. I'm going to look into people that have been banned for using another persons account on a separate IP before I get to boosting :(

They do indeed use IP addresses as a flag for investigation, but not quite to the extent you perhaps think.

If the account logs in from, say, Tokyo at 1pm GMT and then again at 3pm GMT from London then it's a clear case of account sharing and they might want to have a look.

But it's not a flat "multiple IPs = ban", and I can say that with absolute confidence :)

I regularly log on a mates account just as he's tanking a boss in SSC or something :) ... During TBC Beta he gave me his details to log his toon for something, I don't think he knows I have them still, good job I'm too honest to rip him off (he's also poor in-game ;) )

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Originally Posted by Otlecs

They do indeed use IP addresses as a flag for investigation, but not quite to the extent you perhaps think.

If the account logs in from, say, Tokyo at 1pm GMT and then again at 3pm GMT from London then it's a clear case of account sharing and they might want to have a look.

But it's not a flat "multiple IPs = ban", and I can say that with absolute confidence :)

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If this was an issue my buddy who spent 2 years in Germany and shares an account with his old man would probably have issues... since they consistantly overlog each other (not even a few hours difference, one logs out in Iowa, one logs in in Germany). The IP may be something that they use to support their decision to ban int he end, however no one can know that for a fact since Blizz doesn't share WHY they banned you, they just do.

Account sharing is all over the place; a huge part of the ingame population would have been banned by now if all it took was two different IPs. Even without sharing an account, I can be on several different IP addresses depending on where I'm playing from. Or even at home, my router's IP will change occasionally. Yet I have never heard of one single person getting banned for this.

It's not worth worrying about.

My old raiding guild had a core group of people who shared accounts to account for being short on a tank or healer. I would imagine a lot of guilds do this. I don't think it is worth worrying about.

Like others have said, don't worry about it. I know people who have been sharing account info since WoW came out, for various different reasons. Basically Blizz won't do anything about it unless you get reported for account sharing a number of times, even then it's doubtful. Of course don't do anything that would get you banned, hacks, cursing excessively, etc.

If anyone else is extremely paranoid about this sort of thing, I can recommend PingFu, I know the author and can personally vouch for the service being Excellent for US Customers (Not too shabby for us EU players either).

Http://www.artofping.com