What is the phanton hacker bug?

Jaged · 2003-04-17, 09:16 PM

I have heard alot of people talking about this. What is it?

FliggenMan · 2003-04-17, 09:24 PM

its not a bug, its the ability of a single person with hacking cert and infiltration suit to enter a base, hack a vehicle terminal, and create an ams to deploy a load of troops inside the base, which is obviously unfair. The new patch is fixing this.

Subliminal · 2003-04-17, 09:26 PM

2 things that it might describe

A) the ability of a single cloaker to enter an unarmed base and hack it by himeself

B) If you start hacking a terminal and enter your inventory and move stuff around you can sometimes walk away and the hack coninues.

r3d · 2003-04-17, 09:27 PM

WRONG
The pahntom hacker bug is where someone starts a hack on the Command consol terminal and then Hits I to manipulate his or her inventory, then gets out and the person is no longer hacking the terminal, but its still being hacked, by nothing. Thus a phantom hacker, unstoppable, but reverisble once the hack is done.

Hellsfire123 · 2003-04-17, 09:29 PM

Yea, i hate having the base suddenly hacked by one lone vanu soldier. It is really funny to kill them though. The "bug" also refers to the hacker who doesnt care if the base stays hacked or not. People who just grab a wraith, infil suit and a rek and set out to hack as much as possible.

Squick · 2003-04-17, 10:03 PM

Not to nitpick guys... But in the chat where Spork coined the phrase "phantom hacker" he was refering to a hacker going into a base, hacking the base, then leaving.

So when a team shows up to hack the base back there is no one to be found.

The solution sounds like some sort of automated internal base defences.

Squick

TheAngelOfWar · 2003-04-17, 10:06 PM

they called that a bug? i call it tactics. if you're all alone, of COURSE you're gonne get the hell outta dodge before the enemy MAX's come over for dinner.

Squick · 2003-04-17, 10:10 PM

Originally posted by TheAngelOfWar
they called that a bug? i call it tactics. if you're all alone, of COURSE you're gonne get the hell outta dodge before the enemy MAX's come over for dinner.

No, not a bug... I do not ever remmember hearing it called a bug...

One sec, let me pull the quote...

The problem is it makes the game more like playing whack-a-mole. Unless you keep someone sitting in a base all alone for hours upon end getting no xp to guard from the off chance of a solo hacker hacking the base then leaving.

BRB, let me find the quote.

Squick

Seer · 2003-04-17, 10:10 PM

They didn't call it a bug, they recognized it was lame and decided to engineer it out.

DrHealex · 2003-04-17, 10:10 PM

I just assumed that the solution to such a problem would require that the hacker would have to remain in base for 15min.
I am quite eager to see what they actually did, although being away from home for the weekend is gonna tug at my patience when there is PS to play at home.

TheAngelOfWar · 2003-04-17, 10:12 PM

gimme your address, ill keep it warm :-)

Squick · 2003-04-17, 10:12 PM

This was on 4-11-03, the game was down and everyone piled into the chat room, at one point there was just under 1,000 people in a moderated chat room staring at each other without being able to chat! lol... Then Smokejumper, not Spork, came in and started talking:

...
SmokejumperPS: The "phantom hacker" issue is our highest design priority and we will have fixes soon.
SmokejumperPS: phantom hacker = those pesky guys that run in, cap a console and run off without caring wether they get the cap or not.
SmokejumperPS: The real problem is not the actual hack... but rather ... that when you get there to defend the base from attackers theres never anyone there.. and that stinks. So we're solving that.
SmokejumperPS: We have tower changes coming too. Some movement of items within the tower and some other features.
...

Hamma · 2003-04-18, 08:06 AM

I'm glad its fixed. The other night after a server crash, almost everyone got booted from cyssor. When we got back a phantom hacker from NC had hacked every base on the continent. That sound like fun to you?

Anam Nantom · 2003-04-18, 08:43 AM

Originally posted by r3d
WRONG
The pahntom hacker bug is where someone starts a hack on the Command consol terminal and then Hits I to manipulate his or her inventory, then gets out and the person is no longer hacking the terminal, but its still being hacked, by nothing. Thus a phantom hacker, unstoppable, but reverisble once the hack is done.

This is exactly what I had heard it was.. all this talk about a person hacking and running, that's fine! Of course having more automated based defences would be nice.

In Neocron, I was a "drive by hacker". What I did was actually drive my hover-bike to an outpost, do a quick hack (had to defeat three "AI"'s, or "firewalls" at one terminal to do this, and then I'd get the heck out of Dodge..because after that first "firewall" was hacked through.. any and all members of that group were notified that it had been hacked.. and believe me, the CHASE was ON!

So, from what I heard, this was a bug that allowed someone to start a hack and move away from terminal, and it would continue hacking until through.. NOT someone just hacking and running.. this is a tactic.. guerilla hacking, drive-by-hacking, whatever.. but not a bug!

At any rate I definetly think that hacking should be very challenging.. bring it on!