587 replies to this topic

[Thomas G Wolf]

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, on 11 May 2015 - 06:45 PM, said:

My worry is not that there are cheaters, but that PGI as a company is willing to label anyone who is not satisfied a cheater.

Sorry to break it to you but PGI is not Turkey. They could not afford to do so for fear of lawers getting on their case should they abuse their power in such a way.

[Nik Reaper]

IraqiWalker, on 12 May 2015 - 01:54 AM, said:

They have recording data. A lot of matches where infractions are reported have the infraction happen only during that match, and so that match is always examined on their side. They retain the telemetry, and data from all matches for a long while, probably.

Hm, interesting ,how much of it though ?

I'v never been under the impresion that they get much more than they share on the stats page, and if they do why do they not share more stats with us then even though there have been a number of requests over the years for more stats?

They do seem to record some more than that , firendly damage, components destroyed and a number more, but wouldn't you need enough info to recreate a game, as a ingame recording, to be sure if there are no injected packages to analyse?

One thing is if you can target enemys that aren't in anyones fow by using a map hack , but you would need to raytrace the targeted mech to be sure he couldn't be targeted by the other team.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 12 May 2015 - 02:18 AM.

[Lily from animove]

OMGUTOOL, on 12 May 2015 - 12:41 AM, said:

you guys have to understand one thing....
companies don't have the leisure to check every bit's and bite's of the data which goes through there server.
but when they are pointed to it then it is easy......
most games run's on UDP protocols.
which if you google will show that it is a unverified form of data transportation for less load on the data traffic.
but it will still carry every bit of info of what is has done and where it has been.....
oh and yes it can be changed.....
and it takes time to find the changes or should i say Hidden data.....
but when PGI or any other company know what packet's to looks for then its simple to find the history of that packet.
and stop kidding your self if serious hackers will actually spend there time making hacking program's just for a game......
hiding and modifying data on packet level is high level hacking......or programming and takes lot's of time...
and effort....
128bit encriptions......
or 256bit.
if you understand what it takes to break a 128bit encryption then you would not mention these kinds of dumb questions and arguments.......

"128-bit encryption" means that the secret key is a sequence of 128 bits. It tells nothing about the password length or contents.
To break such a file, two possible paths: try all possible passwords until the right one is found, or try all possible secret keys until the right one is found. "Right one is found" means that "decryption works and produces something meaningful / expected.

There are 2 to the power of 128 = 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible keys of 128 bits; that's a lot and trying all of them will take millions of years.

hacking is a million dollar business today, if you think hackers aren't going to do that, its only because the game is too small for profit. But when people pay enough (and some rpicate hacks exist being paid thousends of dollars for), then these things will be done professionally.

And no, you do not even "encrypt and decrypt packages, LOL you can simply, overwatch and simulate ANY datastream on your PC, and you can see which datastreams gets altered by your hack and how they should look like usually. and then you know at which palce you have to adjust. Nothign that happens on a local machine is any kind of special secret.

[Nik Reaper]

Lily from animove, on 12 May 2015 - 02:12 AM, said:

hacking is a million dollar business today, if you think hackers aren't going to do that, its only because the game is too small for profit. But when people pay enough (and some rpicate hacks exist being paid thousends of dollars for), then these things will be done professionally.

And no, you do not even "encrypt and decrypt packages, LOL you can simply, overwatch and simulate ANY datastream on your PC, and you can see which datastreams gets altered by your hack and how they should look like usually. and then you know at which palce you have to adjust. Nothign that happens on a local machine is any kind of special secret.

Also are we not talking about haks that provide extra information that the player extracted from the incoming packages, like looking behind the curtain, rather than trying to trick the server?

[Wesxander]

Thank you for the effort. Good JOB PGI. It does the community good to see active policing.

[Jakob Knight]

It seems to me that several players have rather pointedly summarized the offender's actions, and there is no dispute that the person -did- cheat by anyone on this thread. That seems to corroborate that PGI's actions and methods were probably accurate, and that no evidence of a false-positive in their methodology exists. In other words, that the player did cheat and was caught at it.

All other points in this post seem to be mere speculation and technical background. Also, a wish by some for detailed information on the cheat detection methods used (though it seems the 'stated' motivation for such a request is only so the requesters can feel good), a wish most reasonable people would understand is impossible in a public Forum if those methods are to remain functional (as there seems to be agreement that they have been).

For myself, I am satisfied that PGI acted correctly, and the fact that they explained anything at all to the Community has been a measure of transparency they did not have to take in this case. I wouldn't mind a statement that they gave the player a chance to explain themselves, but they really aren't required to actually do that by the EULA so I wouldn't be surprised if such a statement isn't forthcoming, especially given that privacy between the affected parties is important to give the banned player a chance to avoid real-world and other-game impacts from their actions.

Every player will decide for themselves how to take this, but I don't see anything that indicates there is an issue here beyond if the tagging of a player with a title of 'Banned - Cheater' goes too far...and that issue hasn't been even close to the vast majority of posts about this, so it seems people don't think it does.

So why all the drama? Isn't this more resembling panic by some players than an actual point of concern or contesting? And if so, I wonder why that panic exists in those players.

[IraqiWalker]

Nik Reaper, on 12 May 2015 - 02:10 AM, said:

Hm, interesting ,how much of it though ?

I'v never been under the impresion that they get much more than they share on the stats page, and if they do why do they not share more stats with us then even though there have been a number of requests over the years for more stats?

They do seem to record some more than that , firendly damage, components destroyed and a number more, but wouldn't you need enough info to recreate a game, as a ingame recording, to be sure if there are no injected packages to analyse?

One thing is if you can target enemys that aren't in anyones fow by using a map hack , but you would need to raytrace the targeted mech to be sure he couldn't be targeted by the other team.

It could be that a lot of it is irrelevant to us. Such as for example how often player X wobbles his turret.

[PFC Carsten]

Easy solution: If cheater is detected, let him/her play as normal, but let EVERY opposing player have a PERMANENT lock on him. Problem solved.

Edited by PFC Carsten, 12 May 2015 - 02:41 AM.

[Nik Reaper]

IraqiWalker, on 12 May 2015 - 02:37 AM, said:

It could be that a lot of it is irrelevant to us. Such as for example how often player X wobbles his turret.

What I'm asking is can they recreate a game from the info they track, if they can't , ei. they can't make a recording of it from the data, I find it a lot less likely they can extrapolate anything less than the most blatant case of cheating, if that...

[DrSlamastika]

How you can recognize a cheater? I mean a normal player, not somone from PGI? It is possible, cose I have no idea how you can cheat in this game. I think I never ever saw cheater in this game.

[Nik Reaper]

DrSlamastika, on 12 May 2015 - 02:46 AM, said:

How you can recognize a cheater? I mean a normal player, not somone from PGI? It is possible, cose I have no idea how you can cheat in this game. I think I never ever saw cheater in this game.

By analaysing incoming packages you can see everyone on the map and there info, and by using a 3rd party program a aim bot of certin percision can be made.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 12 May 2015 - 02:55 AM.

[Der Kopfsammler]

Well, thanks for adressing this issue PGI, they were starting to become too notorious. Its rare for a MMO company to actually admit they have cheaters ruining their game, so props to that.

[Asmosis]

ITT: a lot of players talking about stuff they wish they knew what they were talking about.

[Whatzituyah]

Der Kopfsammler, on 12 May 2015 - 03:10 AM, said:

Well, thanks for adressing this issue PGI, they were starting to become too notorious. Its rare for a MMO company to actually admit they have cheaters ruining their game, so props to that.

I think this doesn't count as a MMO

http://en.wikipedia....on_shooter_game

Definitely Does not count as a MMO at best this is a Multiplayer game

[Moshi]

huzzah! huzzah!

[fousek69]

Thanks

[Insects]

IraqiWalker, on 12 May 2015 - 02:37 AM, said:

It could be that a lot of it is irrelevant to us. Such as for example how often player X wobbles his turret.

How dare they! How often we wobble our turrets is none of their business, that is private.

[Insects]

Nik Reaper, on 12 May 2015 - 02:45 AM, said:

What I'm asking is can they recreate a game from the info they track, if they can't , ei. they can't make a recording of it from the data, I find it a lot less likely they can extrapolate anything less than the most blatant case of cheating, if that...

Nobody knows what they log.
But yes they could log every packet in and out of the server to disk if they chose and if they make the tool they could play the entire match back. I doubt they would spend the time and extra server load to do that though.

[Jetfire]

I am not familiar with any gaming company which publicly posts proof of cheating for any ban they issue. I have only seen companies ban players according to their own terms and interactions are limited to the company and the accused.

Edited by Jetfire, 12 May 2015 - 04:34 AM.

[Morang]

What counts as cheating and what doesn't? What "third-party tools" are you talking about? Teamspeak could be described as 3rd party tool that gave a great advantage to players before the introduction of built-in voice comms. There were protests on forums against the use of gaming mouse macros because "it gives unfair advantage to people with better hardware" (as if better FPS because of better CPU and GPU doesn't, LOL). SweetFX and custom user.cfg can improve visibility and contrast for better aiming (user.cfg though isn't "3rd party", just legit game settings). Every mechwarrior and his surat uses something from the list above.

So please specify what are you fighting? Are there really aimbots/wallhacks or manipulations with lag/sync? Or what?

Edited by Morang, 12 May 2015 - 04:37 AM.