I recently read somewhere (bnet forums) that ASIA now uses a gateway server to hide game IP from client.
(i) This is true right?
(ii) Has there been any update on whether this update will be piped to west/east/europe?

(iii) This will make organized dcloning much harder. Has anyone considered countermeasures beyond just doing an iterated sell -> search -> sell -> ... type procedure at like 3 am or over a week?

(iv) Do diablo 2 servers currently employ load balancing or is this part of the planned update?

They do not hide anything. All servers were collapsed to ONE Server, because lack of participation. Meaning NO ONE hardly plays the Asia Realm.

This won't happen with the others unless participation dies much like Asia, but I doubt it for at least another 3 years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/b0cv5l/changes_in_asia_server_is_coming_to_you_as_well/

? honestly idk if this guy is accurately interpreting what the blue posts are saying

From the blue post.

I create few games in Asia: 122 , 127, 128, 107

seems like all is fine

Dude, I bet Asia realm has the most users...

ips r not hidden in Asia ne more.
They tried something with their server (official reply from bnet dev, but I forgot what it was)
but it crashed, so they had to use temp server for a month or so.
That happening is over now tho.