Quite rude, but not true. I don't even read the indep player's
turn reports, let alone submit orders for them.
Banning hotmail accounts would not adequately address the possibility
of using these accounts to cheat by playing multiple positions.
AOL allows one to have up to 5 unique addresses. There are many,
many other free email services (rocketmail, whowhere, tripod,
geocities, valise, iname, etc.). People who are their own sysadmins
can manufacture infinite numbers of accounts. Many honest players
make use of these services for a variety of reasons -- because they
use shifting temporary student accounts for access to the net, to
separate work email from personal email, to have multiple email
accounts for a single ISP account, etc.
I could require a unique credit card number per oly account, but this
would unfairly ban some players who use their friend's card to pay --
this happens with many European players, where credit cards are not
nearly as common as in the US. And it wouldn't help, since many people
have multiple credit cards of their own. And what to do about the 1/3
of players who pay by check/money order.
I could require a fax or postal mail copy of your driver's license
or passport before signging up a faction...this may be going a bit
far though. It also just proves that someone was able to get
a xerox of someone else's passport (friend, etc.) - not that the
other person is actually playing a unique position.
Btw, I was initially quite suspicious of all the .be accounts
(I see majestic@mail.dma.be is listed for both fr8 and hf9),
but after corresponding with some of them they convinced me
there really was a group of players who simply did not all
have unique email accounts. I confess however that I really
don't know what's going on in that terminal room in Belgium.
In general the approach has been to investigate any claims of cheating
and ban those that do. Olympia has always expected its players to
be honorable and to abide by the no-cheating terms set out in the rules.
This is a small enough hobby that if a cheater is discovered it can
be a cloud that follows them from game to game as they try to play again.