Remove the activation rate limit

[OG 667]

Seriously. Trying to reclaim months of Humble Bundles codes is painful. What problem is this limit preventing?

[OG 667]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย my new friend:

The cooldown also hasn't changed ever. It is exactly 1 hour. Any attempt within that hour resets it.

Thanks, that solves that problem then. I was retrying about an hour afterwards but apparently just under it.

[my new friend]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย OG 667:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย my new friend:

The cooldown also hasn't changed ever. It is exactly 1 hour. Any attempt within that hour resets it.

Thanks, that solves that problem then. I was retrying about an hour afterwards but apparently just under it.

It sucks when you think 60 minutes elapsed when only 59 minutes 30 seconds elapsed and have to wait another hour. lol I think most of us have done this once.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย my new friend:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย OG 667:

Thanks, that solves that problem then. I was retrying about an hour afterwards but apparently just under it.

It sucks when you think 60 minutes elapsed when only 59 minutes 30 seconds elapsed and have to wait another hour. lol I think most of us have done this once.

I remember posting on a forum once that limited posting rate like that. Though it was a much shorter lockout time. But basically it was "don't touch it; if you touch it you start over".

[my new friend]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Quint the Alligator Snapper:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย my new friend:

It sucks when you think 60 minutes elapsed when only 59 minutes 30 seconds elapsed and have to wait another hour. lol I think most of us have done this once.

I remember posting on a forum once that limited posting rate like that. Though it was a much shorter lockout time. But basically it was "don't touch it; if you touch it you start over".

The friend invite cooldown is the only other one that resets like that, afaik.

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Snakub Plissken:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย OG 667:

What's driving you to be an apologist for a needless policy? Why is that a scenario I should accommodate as a paying customer?

Your ignorance doesn't make it needless. And neither does your dismissal of existing reasons for the limits.

Best of luck.

Do you mind naming at least one 'existing reason' ?

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Snakub Plissken:

Well there's a limit. What's driving you to redeem months worth of codes right this second all at once? Why is that a scenario Valve must accommodate?

What's driving him to redeem multiple codes at once, or his redeeming behaviour in general is none of your businnes.

He bought the codes, so the launcher that's required to let him play his purchased games should have a pretty strong reason for refusing him his games, even if that's just temporary.

Oh wait, there is none. While there are pretty strong reasons for the activation limit for brute force key guessing attempts, there is not a single reason for blocking people after entering correct codes.

Maybe you should read a bit more than the head line, next time.

[Mad Scientist]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย OG 667:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mr. Gentlebot:

Have some patience when you have large bundles, redeem the ones you really want first, redeem the others after a cooldown.

I get that this is a solution but a pet peeve is computers wasting our time. The whole reason they were invented was to remove drudgery and this seems antithetical to that mindset.

100% disagree on the comment I quoted. Tone is important and there was a lot of attitude in that reply. But that's someone else's problem so good luck to them.

Yet people tend to make ways to abuse & exploit systems, especially when they have no protections, hence why certain systems need protections. Things aren't going to be unlimited in this aspect. You do whatever for an hour, come back - redeem more, repeat until complete.

2nd part was you perception, which is not necessarily accurate.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

What's driving him to redeem multiple codes at once, or his redeeming behaviour in general is none of your businnes.

It's a curious question that they can choose to or not to answer, but it brings up the "Why should this be changed?" part of the question, since most do not hit such a limitation.

The likely answer is a large bundle, for obvious reasons.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

He bought the codes, so the launcher that's required to let him play his purchased games should have a pretty strong reason for refusing him his games, even if that's just temporary.

To prevent, flag, or scrutinize too many attempts. That allows self protections to disallow infinite guessing attempts for bots/gens etc, reducing a possibility of an infrastructure attack by letting bad parties keep guessing until they get something, and finding a possible way to figure out the solution to generate and redeem as many accurate keys as possible. They are not obligated to have no security and not scrutinize large attempts because someone bought something elsewhere.

Since it's temporary, there is no issue as they can inevitably redeem them all.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

Oh wait, there is none. While there are pretty strong reasons for the activation limit for brute force key guessing attempts, there is not a single reason for blocking people after entering correct codes.

Scrutiny is a valid reason.

They can still redeem, so there is no issue in the long run.

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mr. Gentlebot:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย OG 667:

I get that this is a solution but a pet peeve is computers wasting our time. The whole reason they were invented was to remove drudgery and this seems antithetical to that mindset.

100% disagree on the comment I quoted. Tone is important and there was a lot of attitude in that reply. But that's someone else's problem so good luck to them.

Yet people tend to make ways to abuse & exploit systems, especially when they have no protections, hence why certain systems need protections. Things aren't going to be unlimited in this aspect. You do whatever for an hour, come back - redeem more, repeat until complete.

2nd part was you perception, which is not necessarily accurate.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

What's driving him to redeem multiple codes at once, or his redeeming behaviour in general is none of your businnes.

It's a curious question that they can choose to or not to answer, but it brings up the "Why should this be changed?" part of the question, since most do not hit such a limitation.

The likely answer is a large bundle, for obvious reasons.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

He bought the codes, so the launcher that's required to let him play his purchased games should have a pretty strong reason for refusing him his games, even if that's just temporary.

To prevent, flag, or scrutinize too many attempts. That allows self protections to disallow infinite guessing attempts for bots/gens etc, reducing a possibility of an infrastructure attack by letting bad parties keep guessing until they get something, and finding a possible way to figure out the solution to generate and redeem as many accurate keys as possible. They are not obligated to have no security and not scrutinize large attempts because someone bought something elsewhere.

Since it's temporary, there is no issue as they can inevitably redeem them all.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

Oh wait, there is none. While there are pretty strong reasons for the activation limit for brute force key guessing attempts, there is not a single reason for blocking people after entering correct codes.

Scrutiny is a valid reason.

They can still redeem, so there is no issue in the long run.

Missed the point.

OP and me were literally talking about *only entering correct codes*, if there is a reason for blocking *only correct codes*, feel free to let us know.

[davidb11]

The reason is simple. Too much of anything fast is going to set off the anti-spamming codes command.
That's how it works.
It's too many things over a small period of time.

[Mad Scientist]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

Missed the point.

OP and me were literally talking about *only entering correct codes*, if there is a reason for blocking *only correct codes*, feel free to let us know.

Perhaps read;

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mr. Gentlebot:

Scrutiny is a valid reason.

Just because it is correct, does not mean large quantities are not to be scrutinized. If someone did break the general code so to say, then you wouldn't want them to redeem as much as possible. You'd want to halt further attempts, scrutinize it, and either auto flag or manually check during that 1-Hour period of time. Hence, correct or not, very important to scrutinize.

Ironically as Snakub pointed out, it's none of your business which is what you tried earlier.

[Brian9824]

It's also just general protection against shadiness, as in someone getting access to keys they shouldn't have. The majority of people will never experience it, and the few that do just have to wait a little bit.

Considering they already waited months before redeeming the keys a few days longer isn't a big deal

[nullable]

In general user facing programs have to be designed around what you want to allow the user to do. Because if you allow users to do something dumb, bad, harmful, who's fault is that? It's not the users fault for doing something the system allows.

And it might simply be, "There needs to be some limit. How about fifty?"

"Yeah, who's gonna have fifty keys to add?"

I'm not sure when the limit was added, but activating keys was a day one feature. And it might have been fifty then because there weren't fifty games on Steam so who could hit that? And even with tens of thousands of titles, a hundred million users have never come close to hitting it, so why change it? Because one person a year has some desperate edge case and can squawk about being a paying customer? Pfft, good luck. Other users won't care, and it's not a real problem for Valve, so whatever. Squawk away, pile on random other grievances too. Cite EU consumer law incorrectly, pull out all the common unhappy customer tropes.

It was either some sort of informed decision, or a arbitrary but reasonable at the time number that's not really worth changing. Even though it's just a single friggen int that could be changed in a minute, and pushed out as a hotfix without even any testing. It's still not worth even a discussion on Valve's side.

At this point that variable has seniority over half the developers working on the client, and they've got to get permission to change it. And who knows, that variable may turn around and demote you. Ints are known for being cantankerous and power mad.

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย brian9824:

It's also just general protection against shadiness, as in someone getting access to keys they shouldn't have. The majority of people will never experience it, and the few that do just have to wait a little bit.

And how does it actually protect ? If anything, it only delays and doesn't prevent anything. The 'attacker' is just going wait, and then continue redeeming.

If you got a key you shouldn't have, nothing is going to happen. It's no protection against that.

What are we talking about here? The keys itself are the security measure, If you already contest the integrity of a valid key, you may very well claim that the whole key redeeming system is insecure.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย brian9824:

Considering they already waited months before redeeming the keys a few days longer isn't a big deal

That's one scenario.

A more common scenario is, that one doesn't accumulate keys over months, but buys a big key bundle on one day, containing 50+ or even more games. Or maybe multiple smaller key bundles at once.

The most important question for a supposed security measure is, is it necessary or not. Just because the resulting restrictions are "no big deal", doesn't justify the measure itself.

[davidb11]

It is necessary and it makes no sense to ignore how literally everyone explained this to you already.

This is one of those small things you can't really complain about.
It's like going through metal detectors, no one wants to do that, but there's a damn good reason for it. :P

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mr. Gentlebot:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

Missed the point.

OP and me were literally talking about *only entering correct codes*, if there is a reason for blocking *only correct codes*, feel free to let us know.

Perhaps read;

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mr. Gentlebot:

Scrutiny is a valid reason.

Just because it is correct, does not mean large quantities are not to be scrutinized. If someone did break the general code so to say, then you wouldn't want them to redeem as much as possible. You'd want to halt further attempts, scrutinize it, and either auto flag or manually check during that 1-Hour period of time. Hence, correct or not, very important to scrutinize.

Ironically as Snakub pointed out, it's none of your business which is what you tried earlier.

Very unlikely and hard to imagine.

Are you really saying that you could 'hack' keys, by knowing the seed random?

I doubt it, the key system is secure, and the only way to cheat a key is by brute force attempts.

Anyways, if there should really be a way to exploit or cheat valid keys, keys can get revoked in the end. So regarding entering correct keys, that cooldown does litereally - nothing.

[davidb11]

Again, you are literally ignoring what has been written, and it makes no sense to do so.
Please do not actively ignore what people say.