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Sunday, December 12, 2010

End of Week 4 Update : UK Studio Strategy and "Hackers and Cheaters"

First things first; the Scottish snow really sucked this past week (link). Being stuck in transit between London and Scotland made me really appreciate some of the lovely California weather we have come to expect. But once I made it up there, I do have to say it was worth the very painful trip getting there.

The talent we have been able to find in the UK and have been contracting with has been really great, so our next step is now to set up a new game studio in the UK in February 2011. Right now we are just debating WHERE to put such a studio as an extension to our US operation. The clear front-runners at the moment appear to be Edinburgh (near Weaverly Station which would put us right next to Rockstar North of all companies) or Cambridge (near JagEx and others). Other options include Dundee, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Manchester or London/Guildford. Each of these offer various advantages (and in some cases various incentives), and we are spending the next four weeks determining the right location both for us and our staff. I will keep this blog updated with our progress as we evaluate all our options (and I might even invite people to make suggestions) before we pull the trigger.

Hackers and Cheaters

Now on to the main issue this week. Hackers and Cheaters. This is a tricky topic to talk about in anything except "hushed tones" and using code-words and only partial information. But I will give it a shot, so that during the rest of the relaunch process we have a basic framework for the discussion when the topic comes back up again.

First off, let me define two separate terms; we usually refer to people that do bad things in-game as cheaters, spammers or griefers. We really try hard not calling them "hackers" - only because hackers tend to connote much more sinister stuff like DDoS and Malware attacks. But sometimes we slip, and we call the cheaters "hackers." But I digress.

So what can we do about Cheaters in APB? Well there are a ton of "cheat-busting"solutions out there such as NProtect, HackShield, PunkBuster, XTrap etc. All those have various advantages and disadvantages, though the most annoying disadvantage is of course that none of them are perfect in catching all cheats, some of them are easily circumvented, and some tend to interfere with normal gameplay to lesser or greater degrees. But everyone pretty much agrees that using some form of execution protection is a must, and the newest types of protection are now much more custom and game-specific, rather than generic. That's generally the type of protection we are now moving toward.

First the good news; as a mostly server-driven game APB is naturally much more resilient to cheaters than most other F2P MMO's. There is a good reason F2P games usually don't use server driven architectures; they cost a lot more per CCU to operate than P2P communication solutions, so in APB we are going to run a giant experiment to basically determine if hardware costs/specs have progressed far enough to make F2P server-driven games financially viable. Our current calculations seem to support that it will in fact work. By avoiding using P2P to transmit action data, the ability to attack or hack the core APB functions drop significantly. This is true for all types of hack attacks except one key category of cheats; aim-bots. Because aiming relies on visual data that by necessity HAS to exist on the client (after all - if you didn't have this data, you wouldn't be able to shoot anyone, since you wouldn't be able to see them) it makes them the trickiest category to protect against.

But even here there are some good news; before APB was shut down most aim-bots were actually actively being detected. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the data was not being acted on for various reasons (analysis was on of the reasons).

There is another issue - most people who lose any match in any shooter game tend to presume that they lost to a cheater, even when they lost fair and square. Part of human nature I suppose, which means cheating is actually over-reported. When we have run live in-person tournaments we basically end up concluding that there ARE many people out there who are basically MACHINES, and play at a level many many steps above where everyone else is.

On to hackers. Well we have been particularly aggressive trying to deal with hackers, since in some cases they have made our lives a living hell. The most interesting case being the one in 2007 when an employee of an unnamed telco-company decided to DDoS us, and basically the DDoS lasted during the hours he was on the job every day. Eventually the particular perpetrator was tracked down.

More recently we were hit by a string of DDoS attacks starting on December 25, 2009 (thanks for that Christmas present). That was actually the start of more than 50 attacks over the last 12 months alone.


To combat DDoS, which we now seem to be pretty good at doing, let's just say that "we do things," and in some cases "we use some outside providers" and internally "we have some good stuff," and we finally collaborate with some pretty mean people to help us out bringing people to justice. Just two days ago the newspapers in Turkey released this story: http://www.sabah.com.tr/Gundem/2010/12/10/ikileaks (here is the somewhat cryptic Turkish to English Google Translation). These guys were part of the group that were specifically targeting Knight Online.

DDoS attacks are clearly annoying (and very destructive to the business), but they are not as dangerous as the targeted malware attempts by Chinese goldfarmers that have become prevalent toward game companies (think of Stuxnet, but aiming for game companies instead). Sometimes it boggles the mind that there are people out there with an actual business model that requires some form of hacking to improve the margins of their operation.

That's a quick overview of the situation. Apologies for not being more detailed given that we have to keep things quiet in order to be effective. But once the game gets back up and running I am happy to share more specific details about specific items as they arise when we are live.

Cheers, Bjorn / TechMech

26 comments:

  1. Glad that you guys are going to be bringing down the hammer on those cheaters. Being as I played the game as much as I did, and being a fairly decent player myself, I know what you mean when you say a lot of people assume if they lost, it's because the other person cheater... no one could possibly beet uber-1337 me. Either way I always made sure to do a lot of digging and snooping before recording anyone who I thought to be cheating and submitting the report... if only RTW actually did a decent job of getting rid of those guys...

    Anyway, some questions for you good sir.

    1. Will you be instating in-game moderators? And what do you plan on doing with customer support? One big flaw of RTWs APB was that if you did come across someone cheating, you had to leave the game, write an email, hope they read the email, and then hope that they did something about it. In game moderators would of helped so much... there was also like, no customer support. Literally, it didn't exist outside of email.

    2. Do you plan to advertise? Biggest reason APB didn't take off (because it could of done so much better with it's potential, i'm sure you guys will bring it out) was because no one even knew it existed. I've seen one single banner advertisement for the game in my life. Besides that, no major magazine ads, no TV spots, no major internet ad campaigns, nothing.

    3. Do you have a mailing list of everyone who has subscribed in the past? APB had a decent starting player base, I just know a ton of them quit because of the neglect it was getting. I'm almost positive if you were able to mass email every past player and at least let them know that it's coming back under new management, you would end up with a big following of past players.

    And lastly, even though it's been asked plenty...

    4. What are the plans for the player beta-testing looking like so far? Any idea on when we would see any applications for that floating around? I know tons of players say this but i'm sure I could help out plenty. Sadly I haven't had beta-testing experience in the past, but that is mainly because of the whole vicious circle, "no experience, no beta." Kinda hard to get that experience without a chance. Actively looking for bugs and flaws to know I helped make the game better is reward enough for me... either way if you are accepting applications or anything of that matter, I haven't been able to find an email address to send one to.

    Thanks for any answers to these questions. And even if you miss them, thanks for your work on this game. You guys are godsends. This is a game I was following through development for years. They day it came out was like Christmas for me. To have it ripped right back away from me after barely 2 months was heartbreaking. To see you guys trying to save it again, I give you major respect for it. This game has massive, MASSIVE potential. It doesn't deserve a silent death.

    -Rapid99 (Zombie Server)

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  2. OK OK

    So... This news just tell us, wait wait, nothing is done for now ? ^^

    About hackers, I know is there many "noobs" crying about hacking everytime they are powned... Many peeps threat me as hacker....

    But, personaly, at the start of Crysis, I caught some many cheaters with fraps, It was a success and Crytek put theire ID in the black database....

    After that, I just try to do the same on GTA 4, Combat Arms, COD6, and most recently on COD 7, but it just seems to be like if I pisse in a violon....

    I caught 7 hackers on APB, with some fraps records, I give it to RTW, and... NO NEWS about my work

    It was freaky insane.... When you do this stuff, you just feel like you do the work of someone else, but no one give a fuck about that...

    I just can't stop my fight against cheaters, I'll do the same on APB reload with pleasure (yeah, it's not a pleaseure to play against hackers, but if we can fuck them simply with a good record, it's just orgasmic :) )

    But... If my work will be useless, I guess you can understand I'll be frustrated....
    U think, if you named some "official in-game moderator" who agree to caught cheaters, hackers, and racist (yeah cause is theire many of them too...) It can be really usefull...

    Every kind of anti-hack seems easy to fuck.... Just take a look at the official X22 website....
    He garantee his cheats are punkbuster proof....

    But, If you got (real) in game moderators, cheaters will think two times before using a hack....

    So, If I can be a part of this anti-cheat/hack on APB Reloaded, I'll be really proud to be one of your "official in-game moderator"

    Crim : MuRpHyNiGHtLonG
    Enf : MuRpHyxBiTcH
    Server : Obeya

    And btw, if you got the old RTW anti-cheat mail database
    Take a look @ the 6 or 7 mails I send with :
    murphynightlong@gmail.com

    You'll see what kind of movie I talk about....

    Feel free to contact me about this "hacking counter measure" on the mail I'll give you upper ;)

    Regards

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  3. Good to hear that we all are protected from cheats. It's very big problem in almost all shooters because all people gets really frustrated when they loose to a cheater) During my beta testing of an old APB i saw many aimbotters, speedhaxors and even those who were Duplicating items)
    Anyway its good to hear that we can count on lesser number of cheaters) Also, as i thought, ddos is not a problem for a company with such big experience in that things, so i am happy to forget about such problems as server or site crashes because some buddies decided to ddos)
    Waiting for good news from you, all really exited)

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  4. All the anticheat software listed in the blog are utterly useless. The best iv come across would be VAC2 made by valve this is worth considering as they can also advertise the game on steam, I'm sure you've heard of it so I won't explain myself.
    In game moderators will get rid of some cheaters but hardly worth the amount of time/money.

    I just have one question It is more to do with week3 but I'll ask anyway, will the retail disk that many of us have will be useless or can we use that data to make the initial download and install of the game alot quicker?

    Thanks, Joel

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  5. Punkbuster is horrible. It hardly seems to stop anything and it causes a lot of lag and malfuctioning detections on most games I've had the displeasure of playing with PB protection. BFBC2 server for instance all had PB disabled simply because it caused more problems than actual cheaters did.

    Aimbotting in FPS games is a cat and mouse game, the best thing you can do is a big mean lion of a cat and keep on top of it as much as possible so it doesn't become rampant. Planetside, near the end of it's lifespan, failed the battle aimbotters and it became easy to do and with a small risk. Unfortunately in F2P games that risk is even less because people stand to loose no money..

    So aimbotting has no sure fire way of solving, and i won't comment on that. Just keep on top if it is all I can say..

    However, what you didn't mention is exploiting. This is a form of cheating you CAN stop (somewhat) easier, as long as you are willing to put out quick hotfixes and monitor the gameplay. Something RTW seemed incapable of unwilling to do.
    One of the prime examples of exploting were the leagues. I reported several players with screenshots of them admitting they were exploiting the leagues and how they were doing it but they never got banned, their rewards never got taken and RTW never did or said anything about it. League exploiting happened only a daily basis and it worked for those who did it. If you do implement this league system (which is a nice concept) be prepared to monitor it daily and act swiftly or don't implement it at all. It's really not that hard to see somebody who has 10k arrests in one day while the next person had 200 arrests is dodgy at best...

    Hotfix wise you have to keep on top of it game design exploits. For instance at some point it became possible to get yourself stuck in a tree where you couldn't be killed from in anyway. Criminals would do this and use an auto-accept mission script and then left the game running like that during the entire day, winning every mission they were given because most missions involve killing the opposition at some stage! Free money, free standing, free ranking. Hotfix things like this asap.

    The way APB played meant that aimbotters were actually easier to still win against than aimbotters in more conventional FPS games. Exploits are far more annoying if the aimbotters are kept to a minimum!

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  6. Punkbuster is horrible. It hardly seems to stop anything and it causes a lot of lag and malfuctioning detections on most games I've had the displeasure of playing with PB protection. BFBC2 server for instance all had PB disabled simply because it caused more problems than actual cheaters did.

    Aimbotting in FPS games is a cat and mouse game, the best thing you can do is a big mean lion of a cat and keep on top of it as much as possible so it doesn't become rampant. Planetside, near the end of it's lifespan, failed the battle aimbotters and it became easy to do and with a small risk. Unfortunately in F2P games that risk is even less because people stand to loose no money..

    So aimbotting has no sure fire way of solving, and i won't comment on that. Just keep on top if it is all I can say..

    However, what you didn't mention is exploiting. This is a form of cheating you CAN stop (somewhat) easier, as long as you are willing to put out quick hotfixes and monitor the gameplay. Something RTW seemed incapable of unwilling to do.
    One of the prime examples of exploting were the leagues. I reported several players with screenshots of them admitting they were exploiting the leagues and how they were doing it but they never got banned, their rewards never got taken and RTW never did or said anything about it. League exploiting happened only a daily basis and it worked for those who did it. If you do implement this league system (which is a nice concept) be prepared to monitor it daily and act swiftly or don't implement it at all. It's really not that hard to see somebody who has 10k arrests in one day while the next person had 200 arrests is dodgy at best...

    Hotfix wise you have to keep on top of it game design exploits. For instance at some point it became possible to get yourself stuck in a tree where you couldn't be killed from in anyway. Criminals would do this and use an auto-accept mission script and then left the game running like that during the entire day, winning every mission they were given because most missions involve killing the opposition at some stage! Free money, free standing, free ranking. Hotfix things like this asap.

    The way APB played meant that aimbotters were actually easier to still win against than aimbotters in more conventional FPS games. Exploits are far more annoying if the aimbotters are kept to a minimum!

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  7. I'm getting a google error when posting: URI is too long. It does seem to have actually posted my comment though...

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  8. Good to hear from you.
    I would very much like to see any and all cheaters dealt with swiftly.
    Maybe alongside your passive ant-cheat solution you can implement a vote-kick among the population where when one player gets X amount of votes to kick him, a support ticket is made and sent to admins with top priority.
    I agree that RTW did have a working system in place but it seems they were very hesitant on pulling the trigger to ban most of the people who were on their list.
    I look forward to beta, and hope you guys find a suitable placement for your infrastructure.
    Keep us up to date.

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  9. I think it's a great thing to focus on though it's a war that cannot be won even though small battles can be.

    I have done small bits of research, but enough to know that anti cheat solutions run behind on facts in terms where the scripters look for parts of the anti cheat solution and embed their effects into the parts where it isn't detected.

    The only way to effectively block all cheating would be to let it scan every bit of code which will result in high amounts of system resources lost just like you can see on many popular anti-virus scanners.

    But these days, the only hacks that are detected are the ones that are free to use, the ones you would find filled with possible backdoor and virus infections, but so easy to obtain that they are swiftly detected cause PB and other solutions will also have them to find out where they affect the active memory.

    The ones that go undetected for months, and i repeat, months are the premium ones, the ones you have to pay monthly fees for to be able to log into a gateway to be able to use them.

    I am NOT listing any of them, nor am i saying i have used any in the past, i am merely aware of them thanks to a very open scripter that was nice enough to give me more information on the what's and how's.

    In short, there is no such thing as pre-emptive defense on all fronts, cheaters will remain and anti-"hacking" solutions will always run a few steps behind them.

    I wish it was the other way around non the less.

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  10. @Tars
    I hear you, but in light of the demise of APB due surely in part at least to paranoia or actual presence of cheaters, I can only see that this will be one thing that needs bolstered hugely.
    Have the anti-cheat running and making footprints, have gms in every instance or players that are voted to be gms by other players, have the availability for player vote kicking, have the ability to spectate any persons actions via first person. Doing many small things and using different techniques to deter and slow cheating will help greatly, instead of relying on just one counter-measure to keep the playing field level.
    You are correct there is no sure fire way to stop cheaters.
    If though we focus on many, many small aspects on how to control and minimize the damage it does to the community and IP itself, we will have a greater chance of enjoying this game without cheaters, which aren't an inherent part of the game.

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  11. I never realized they were actively tracking the aimbotters. Seeing the problems with Pbuster the general assumption was that were was nothing to protect against any third-party programs. I guess RTW just tried to make that believe us then :-).

    Keep it on, I can't wait till the release!

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  12. I far as i knew APB had no hit box, obviously a aim bot is still helpful but that right there is a significant deterrent. Over reporting has been and always been a problem it makes the "hacking community" seem much larger then it is, during the entire time i played APB i could never honestly say i met a hacker nor did i excuse any of such a thing. APB just had imbalance issues i mean Sniper///Pistol switch was towards the end of the game the only way to play if u wanted to win even after the patches to negate such a thing. If you find a successful hack prevention system, throw in some in game mods + ticket system like in WoW and actually have people investigating/persecuting the negative element you will have a smoothly running MMO on the security front. One thing good about DDOS the more it happens the better you get at preventing/stopping it. Last thing the few anticheat programs you mentioned are horrible imo im no hacker but take a second a google "how to disable/hack [insert antichest software here]" and you will have many proven ways to go around those systems.

    Warden hurts the hax.

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  13. Ugh, the eternal fight against cheaters... I can understand botting in a grind-heavy game but I'll never understand how using an aim-bot makes a game fun for ANYone. Anyway, best of luck in the fight, right?

    While we're at it, why not use silent votes? Like a votekick, only it suggests to a moderator to investigate the player in question; when the number of unique votes reaches a set point, the moderator is then notified that the player in question is suspected of cheating. A bit slow, sure, but it helps to make sure nothing slips through the net. Certainly not a replacement for a more automated process, but it would be a step in the right direction.

    A bit disappointed that this week's update was so uneventful, but hey, progress is progress. Can't wait for the next update.

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  14. I'm definitely encouraged to hear that you'll take a tougher stance on cheating in game.

    One thing that I really wished RTW did was have at least one staff member on hand that could pop in and overview the instance. One that could, at whim, enter the head of the supposed cheater and see exactly what they see, to find out of they're cheating.

    I think, as long as you have staff actively online things will be much better.

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  15. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
    Me and every other APB player lost the game to hackers. Now that you have your anti-hack or as you would want us to say anti-cheat im pumped up to play this game again.

    I hope you will accept me in your closed beta I have participated in 5 beta's
    Metal of Honor Open Beta
    Left 4 Dead Closed Beta
    MAG Closed Beta
    R.U.S.E. Closed Beta
    and also APB Closed and Open Beta

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  16. Good to know they are going to experiment on the cheaters aspect. But lets hope they can keep safe from DDoS attacks aswell. Because im sure some players will be mad enough if they make the money system completely retarded like some of their other games they did it will piss them off.

    At any rate, heres to hoping they can perform a perfect test!

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  17. Great news maybe people will give this topic a rest, nothing worse than people telling me that I cheat cause they paranoid. Also like that you pointed out what hacker actually means :p

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  18. After reading a memoir of a former apb third party software user, I find one of the best methods is to fight fire with fire.
    As described in the article, the user reports being unable to act randomly once position of opponent is known.
    With this information, an admin could use said software to analyze whether or not another person was cheating. It would allow an admin to see the paths and actions of a suspected cheater.

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  19. 1. Don't make the same mistake as RTW... be transparent about cheating. Show who is cheating and show them being banned for it. People get angry when they don't actually see action taking place.

    2. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to code something in the game itself that can detect if someone is being suspiciously accurate with their shooting, and then just flag the account for a mod to view personally.

    Now for some of my personal suggestions:

    - I know if the game is free, at some point you're going to have items you can buy with cash. I don't have a problem with this as long as there is some way to earn these items without paying. Even if it's extremely difficult. I liked RTW's system because you could essentially play well and get enough items to sell for RTW points and pay for your subscription. I'd like to see the same thing happen here, except instead of subscription you'd be buying cash items or whatever.

    - I hope that you have at least SOME moderation. RTW was extremely lenient to the point where people would push the envelope just to see how far they could get.

    - I hope beyond hope that there is actually a point to the high score boards and league rankings and such... The old game was just whoever cheated/exploited the most would get top ranking and prizes. I would much rather see a ranking system that takes many attributes into account instead of just "wins/losses" or "kills/deaths"

    - I also hope that the rankings and match-ups are better calculated so we get decent match-ups. Weapons, upgrades, etc should all be taken into account.

    - and speaking of upgrades, please make sure if you keep upgrades in this game that each upgrade has a positive and negative effect on your weapon. Give people more choice in how they want to play. Not just "everyone gets +3 damage and +3 firing rate increase, etc"

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  20. I eagerly await this re-iteration of apb goodness. I loved this game from the moment its original idea came to fruition. Even went the game when live and glaring faults became apparent, I was really dissapointed when rtw came crashing down taking apb with it. I know the biggest issue with the game was the uber unbalanced stacking that was happening throughout the game but even with that I really enjoy whooping on ppl that were exploiting... im glad its making a comeback hoping for a triumphant one. I can tell ya this I am going to be losing a ton of sleep when apb returns... a TON of sleep

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  21. For Studio I say Dundee or Newcastle.

    Dundee because its where APB was born really.

    Newcastle because Ubisoft Illustrations are based there and there are numerous other companies (Could check Games Horizon probably fora full list).

    Either one mainly because I live in both cities and travel between the two every 3 or 4 months :D

    Anyway Hackers, Game Guard, XTrap etc.

    Sorry but "LOL", these things are terrible. All Anti-Cheat/Hack Protection really does suck, I will admit most of the common cheaters will find it impossible to get around them but they are stupidly easy to get around. I think be glad no one goes around posting how to but if you know some Assembly, how packers protect the protection then its easy to take down. Even easier to host a fake server and basicly downgrade to a super old version which a UCE (Undetectable Cheat Engine) Exists for it.

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  22. Hacking and cheating was a big problem but where it was most anoying was scamming.

    Because apb points could`t be direct traded with ingame cash people abused it and scammed the "good believing people"

    And there was alot of ingame spamming by illigal companies selling or offering apb points
    wich ruined the economy of ABP because the payd points worth almost nothing.

    and besides the game needs more dept missions where to easy/repeatable

    loved the updated that caused recoil :P

    and theams of 4 are fun teams of 20 would be awsome maybe special servers for other gamemodes TeamDead match perhaps like GTA IV online

    "premium rules i would buy it"
    - most importend for me where the possibilities of creating your own style !!
    (spend alot of time there :P)

    my nick was numnut and would love to play in a possible beta,

    (ps this game has a style you need to like not as easy as cod :P)

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  23. While on the topic of Chinese Gold Farmers, they were a really big issue in APB.

    Not only would they spam the chat window at the Social District, but occasionally whisper to you directly, even when in an action district.

    The ignore command was helpful to some extent, but limited, since most gold farmers would make a new character, and your ignore list would become full.

    On top of that, they would also use bots to farm cars, or automatically join missions as backup and be AFK the whole time - but still earning rewards when you finish the mission.

    So not only were they an annoyance, but were actually affecting gameplay. Will there be a hard push against spammers and gold farmers?

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  24. I guess, the best thing you can do against hackers is using something like MD5

    If someone don't got EXACTLY the same game as everyone => he'll be kicked out, and he must explain you by mail for what kind of fuck he got other DLLs than the ones your create

    We caught many peeps with that on crysis
    Servers just scan the players game's version, and tell if it's ok or not

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  25. No updates this week? Really looking forward to it, I hope its a good one this time. Maybe beta info. :)

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  26. first off, lemme say that, just finding out just now that APB ws coming back, is probably the best news I've heard all month, possibly all year (Aside from the eminent realease of Eve Incarna, and the official 'we're actually making it right now' announcement and teaser trailer of oWoDo (I'm going to keep spelling World of Darkness Online like that until it catches on. Pronounce it Oh-Woah-Doh BTW).

    But, praise is not so much the point of this comment, it's about the use of the term hacker, or rather, the shameful misuse of the word. To most of the world, their idea of a hacker is what you see in movies like "Swordfish" or "The Italian Job" or (gulp) "Hackers". Sadly, these ideas are misguided by media simply because it was an early term that people remembered. It's stereotyping really. (Like calling in-line skates Rollerblades or calling a food processor a Quisenart or however it's spelled). In actuality, just about any 'hacker' any normal person can think of off the top of their heads (Real or fictional) isn't a hacker at all. Hackers, real hackers mind you, call these people crackers, which was a term that started when people first started cracking things like pay-phones and vending machines and gumball dispensers.

    Think of it this way. A hacker tends to be a curious person too smart for their own good at times. sure they'll hack a database or snoop into a security camera feed out of some form of curiosity or a desire to learn or to simply see if it can be done. think of them as a cave diver, seeking knowledge or a challenge. The do it because it 'can't be done' or is a challenge, they get in, poke around, and leave without a trace, or maybe a harmless bit of txt or other calling card, no harm, just 'Killroy was here'. A good example is Robert Redford in the beginnign of the movie "Sneakers". He hacks the bank system, deposits money into the account, withdraws it and closes the account, heads straight for the manager, hands over the money and says "Your unhackable system? It just let me steal 25 grand from you." Kind of like the stories of the kid who build an atomic bomb the shed behind his house simply to see how hard it would be to get the parts to make it.

    Now a cracker on the other hand, is what most people call a hacker. The attack systems, infect them with viruses, steal, change important documents, things of that nature. It's not actually limited to that, cracking used to cover everything from computer systems to gumball machines, and started with low-tech things like the latter. The guy who takes apart his old xbox to give it a bigger Hard drive, he's a cracker (though they've splintered further and call themselves modders). The guy that jail-broke his iphone so he could get all the apps for free, he's a cracker. The guy that broke the drm for that new Kanye West single you're listening to, he's a cracker. 90 percent of the hackers you see in movies, working for some monetary gain or to cover someone's tracks or even that noble hacker on the run for his life suddenly finding himself to bring down a global conspiracy after diving into the wrong d-base? Those are all crackers.

    Long story slightly less long, Hackers=curious, crackers=malicious, modders=crackers with a penchant for innovating rather than harming.

    Using Hacker as a blanket term gives decent, hard working and overly curious people a bad name. I could go on about further subgroups like simple coders and script kiddies and the like, but I think I've ranted enough. Give credit where credit is due, but remember to put blame where it lies, and not be a technolocist. Yeah I know that's not a word but I'm not entirely sure I've ever heard a term for being prejudiced against the technological minded. Fine, I'll simply call them the Greyfaced. Some of you might know what that means.

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