Hacking-cheating in Game

[dafuq]

Originally Posted by Fenrod

By the way, it seems like the dev team is avoiding the subject...

because they already know that they cant do anything about hackers

[The Degenatron]

Originally Posted by Fenrod

By the way, it seems like the dev team is avoiding the subject...

That's a smart move. The last thing you want to do in a war is tell the enemy how you intend to fight them.

Also, if I were SOE, I'd be banning on a whole host of "hard-coded" information: MAC Address, CPU ID, MS SID, ect. In fact, the game could build a hash table of a persons software and use that to verify them and only SOE would know which applications were in the hash table.

[Pepsi]

Originally Posted by Fenrod

By the way, it seems like the dev team is avoiding the subject...

I don't think we should expect any miracles from SOE. The game is going to get hacked, there is no stopping that. People on those forums are even talking about "mass murder" hacks (killing everyone on the continent). The best SOE and us can do is:

1) Discourage the development of hacks in the first place (not really sure how to do this)
2) Be responsive when someone goes crazy with the hacks.
3) Have enough flexibility to nullify the chaos the hacker has caused. For example of a worse case scenario, a hacker uses the mass murder button to kill all of the TR and VS. When the GM bans that person, all deaths they have caused have been wiped from stats records and the cost of any vehicle destroyed has been refunded to the victim's resource pool.

The key isn't about permanently banning people like the above poster said, it's about removing the will and enjoyment out of using the hacks.

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by dafuq

well, they could sue them like blizzard did with the bot creators of honorbuddy or what the name was

it was mmoglider

[Wandering Mania]

Originally Posted by Braveliltoaster

that doesn't surprise me, and the fact that the games free to play its going to be a mess. SoE said they will have GM's looking for hackers, big deal they get banned and they start a new account its a never ending cycle and that is what pisses me off. If someone gets caught hacking they should be banned from the game permanently, Like a hardware ban!

There seveal diffrent ways to permantly block a user.
1. IP Bans if SOE did that thay can block them from makeing a new account on the sight also. But thay olny work untill the IP cycles or gets changed.

2. Hardware Bans true but thay are a bit more diffacult to pull off, and thay olny work untill new hardware is purched and installed on the hackers system.
and
3. Serial Key Bans A.K.A. Software bans that can ban hackers baced on a certin system keys but those are also a bit more diffacult to pull off, And these olny work untill a new OS is installed

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Wandering Mania

There seveal diffrent ways to permantly block a user.
1. IP Bans if SOE did that thay can block them from makeing a new account on the sight also. But thay olny work untill the IP cycles or gets changed.

2. Hardware Bans true but thay are a bit more diffacult to pull off, and thay olny work untill new hardware is purched and installed on the hackers system.
and
3. Serial Key Bans A.K.A. Software bans that can ban hackers baced on a certin system keys but those are also a bit more diffacult to pull off, And these olny work untill a new OS is installed

The first can be gone around by unplugging your modem overnight, the second by installing a new $5 network card, and the last by reinstalling your OS. And the win-at-all-costs snotnose sociopath crowd will happily do any or all of these on a regular basis to get their daily superiority fix.

Having admins actively looking for hackers in-game is the best way to harden the target I can think of. But how do we prevent the same fuckers from coming back every day? There's only one way....

*CHARGE FOR THE CLIENT*

If people will pay $40 to play BF3 on somebody's shitty box in their mother's garage, they will pay the same to play on SOE's uber servers with 2000 combatants.

It's the only way.

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by Heaven

Sorry in advanced if I sound noob-ish around this topic as im not really clued up to anti-hacking programs or how they work, I can see that hacking in this game could potentially be the destroyer of the game as once your banned you can create another account to hack the game again creating a never ending vicious cycle.

I have played alot of WoW in my time and rarely see anyone cheating/hacking on this game, I know this game is pay to play and PS2 is FREE, but what does this game use to stop hacking and cheating? Maybe SoE could take a leaf out of their book...

They use this thing called Warden. They do a scan every couple of days and hacks in that game are just to boost that characters economic state by botting and killing stuff. MMOGlider used to be a bot program which would inject into the game before warden would start. Although, Warden would do periodic scans(I think with both small and massive ones), cause MMOGlider did get sent to court.

Also I think it had to do with the way they made the game I'm pretty sure they made it so it was all serverside. I remember something where they couldn't upgrade the graphics/audio cause it was like serverside and the only way to upgrade those was through a whole new expansion. Notice the graphic and sound change from BC to WotLK?

[sagolsun]

Unfortunately there's little SOE can do to combat cheating. And with how the scene transformed into an industry the recent years this can potentially become a game-killer. A cheater won't just ruin a round, he will ruin days of playing by individual players and the persistent world.

I see only a few viable options:

1) Super-harsh user authentication:
ID scan, cellphone number and token bank account transfer verification to positively identify users. Initial registration is open, "verified" accounts give more privileges. Non-verified accounts are all assumed to be cheaters and griefers.

2) Lawyers, police, SWAT teams and oh my
Sony is good with waging legal battles. There's no technical reason why child porn websites can't operate in the open and cheating sites can. The US has shown it will demand rendition of non-US citizens for as little as setting up sites with links to video sharing sites that host infringing content.

I'm talking about http://tvshack.net/ and the rendition of a UK citizen because people from the US were using those links, hence US corporations were losing money.

SOE should step up the game and let their legalmonkeys and lobbyists loose on this. Unlike EA and BF3 there's actual sense to go down this warpath.

3) Unconventional warfare
Hire blackhats to disrupt cheating operations, reveal personal data of users, setup a bestiality porn repository on the cheat developer's servers/PCs (assuming it's illegal in their country/state), bundle some nasty al-quaeda recruitment spambot with free cheats, conduct psyops and scare tactics. Destroy the real-life dayjobs and reputation of cheat developers.

^ For the record all of those have been used by corporations or nation states. I'm not inventing anything new here.

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by sagolsun

3) Unconventional warfare
Hire blackhats to disrupt cheating operations, reveal personal data of users, setup a bestiality porn repository on the cheat developer's servers/PCs (assuming it's illegal in their country/state), bundle some nasty al-quaeda recruitment spambot with free cheats, conduct psyops and scare tactics. Destroy the real-life dayjobs and reputation of cheat developers.

^ For the record all of those have been used by corporations or nation states. I'm not inventing anything new here.

[Piper]

Lot of talk in this thread so far about what Sony (or insert company) can do about hacking and little to none about what we can do about it?

I'd like to suggest that when the hacking took off in PS1 it was in part because SoE seemed to be doing squat about it, which only encouraged it.....however...

...there were plenty of outfits that did nothing about their own outfit mates when they were caught or outed for hacking. They didn't boot said haxors from their outfit lists, they supported them.

I have no idea what they'll do about it, especially given its F2P (another tick in the huge Sub'>>>>MT box for me anyway), but I know what we could try and do about it as a community....out 'em in our outfits and don't defend 'em when it happens.

Sure you might just get a lot of outfitless hackers but we'd at least be doing our part too.

[Helwyr]

Cheaters are the bane of online games, it doesn't take a huge number of them to ruin a game. I'd happily pay a subscription to be on a server largely free of this problem.

I think developers should secretly put out their own hacks and have the software loaded with malware from hell. Maybe, some already do, not like it's something they would acknowledge.

[SkarBlade]

Hackers will always be challenge, no matter how much we try to stop it and fix it. Hackers will always find a way to get back on.

[UnityVS]

Stats are key to catching out hackers/cheats

BTK= Bullets to kill
High ratios ie 400kills, 600bullets hit, using say a gun fast firing gun with a heavy recoil,as an example, is sign of both possible aimbot and damage mod, RivalXfactor from the BF3 community highlighted this in a youtube vid

Server to check client suggestions
Bullets/ammo fired in certain time scale-- check-RoF check as an example.
Code parity checks on sensitive parts of code-check for values that would have been changed


Obvious suggestions I guess *shrug*

[Rockstone]

Originally Posted by sagolsun

I'm talking about http://tvshack.net/ and the rendition of a UK citizen because people from the US were using those links, hence US corporations were losing money.

SOE should step up the game and let their legalmonkeys and lobbyists loose on this. Unlike EA and BF3 there's actual sense to go down this warpath.

No. The law shouldn't get involved. Last time Sony did something like that resulted in SOE's servers being shut down. Ban them by the IP level, and move on.

(although, the situations are different, I will admit)

[NePaS]

Originally Posted by Rivenshield

*CHARGE FOR THE CLIENT*

If people will pay $40 to play BF3 on somebody's shitty box in their mother's garage, they will pay the same to play on SOE's uber servers with 2000 combatants.

It's the only way.

Well seeing as you bring up BF3,you have just shot your own argument down in flames.The damm game is riddled with buggers.Also the fact that the gits at AA will give you a new key if you get caught using their hack