Anti-Cheat feedback

[sisif 30]

... its generally impossible to create a code that is 100% hack resistant. one thing is for sure; no matter how much time the devs spend rewriting and patching the code, it will only be a matter of time before an exploit is found and the whole merry go round starts again. its a never ending circle, that is a fact.

 

Can you name one successful game that is plagued by cheats to this extent? This is not just a game where one super programmer hacked the code and is taking advantage of it, we are talking about thousands of average Joe that get exploits from internet.

And it is not some amazing new trick that suddenly surprised the game developers. When I joined the game (more than 6 months ago) I was seeing tanks flying. These days it has become impossible to play certain maps without running into one or more cheaters.

[SilentShadow 104]

Tweaking the anti-cheat to stop the teleporting tankmen could not possibly be that hard.

 

All it would require is a system which would boot a player whose actions are registered as "impossible" in normal play.

 

There would be no risk in this for the innocent players, for their actions could never be registered as impossible, thus no wrong autobanning.

 

You may have stated that you have already implemented such a system, but I still see many hackers, which leads me to believe that there is something awry with what you have implemented.

 

A prime example I myself have seen is where a hacker teleports, and captures flags every so often, instead of instantly, so as not to be detected by the systems.

 

The anticheat, as I stated before, can be improved if you focus upon the very hack of teleporting itself, instead of focusing on the instant-flag capture hack.

 

Many new players can be traumatized by the newby games, which is the very epitome of hacking, it is the hackers' playground since the rank limits have been changed.

This will lose you many MANY players over the course of a few months, or even weeks, and eventually your revenues will drop, which means no more Tanki!

Who else would want that - not even the hackers themselves want that, yet they continue to hack, which is why it must be stopped before the hacker community grows too much for us.

[MonkeyMagic 89]

... its generally impossible to create a code that is 100% hack resistant. one thing is for sure; no matter how much time the devs spend rewriting and patching the code, it will only be a matter of time before an exploit is found and the whole merry go round starts again. its a never ending circle, that is a fact.

 

Can you name one successful game that is plagued by cheats to this extent? This is not just a game where one super programmer hacked the code and is taking advantage of it, we are talking about thousands of average Joe that get exploits from internet.

And it is not some amazing new trick that suddenly surprised the game developers. When I joined the game (more than 6 months ago) I was seeing tanks flying. These days it has become impossible to play certain maps without running into one or more cheaters.

 

just about every game out there has been hacked to death at some point, be that browser or console games. if you actually read what i wrote, and what you quoted you will see the reason why the hacks return even after a patch fixed the initial exploit. you seem to have no understanding of how this works.

 

and as for who is hacking? yes it may not be just one 'superhacker' in fact the hack programs and exploits are available out there for sale yes FOR SALE. so its worthwhile someone spending the time to hack this and other games when the hacks can be sold on the web for real money.

 

unfortunately there will always be people that cheat their way through life and want to take the easy path without the hard work or skill involved to succeed.

[MonkeyMagic 89]

Tweaking the anti-cheat to stop the teleporting tankmen could not possibly be that hard.

 

All it would require is a system which would boot a player whose actions are registered as "impossible" in normal play.

 

There would be no risk in this for the innocent players, for their actions could never be registered as impossible, thus no wrong autobanning.

 

You may have stated that you have already implemented such a system, but I still see many hackers, which leads me to believe that there is something awry with what you have implemented.

 

A prime example I myself have seen is where a hacker teleports, and captures flags every so often, instead of instantly, so as not to be detected by the systems.

 

The anticheat, as I stated before, can be improved if you focus upon the very hack of teleporting itself, instead of focusing on the instant-flag capture hack.

 

Many new players can be traumatized by the newby games, which is the very epitome of hacking, it is the hackers' playground since the rank limits have been changed.

This will lose you many MANY players over the course of a few months, or even weeks, and eventually your revenues will drop, which means no more Tanki!

Who else would want that - not even the hackers themselves want that, yet they continue to hack, which is why it must be stopped before the hacker community grows too much for us.

 

just a though, here me out. if i was hacking tanki and writing the code to do so, i would also write a code that masks the fact that even though i am flying my tank in the game, the system will not recognise this, as i am a clever hacker and will mask the detection.

 

think of a virus in your browser that sends your browser to the websites the virus wants! why doesnt your browser recognise the fact its been directed somewhere else? answer: smart coding.

 

dont be naive as to how smart the hackers are!

 

perhaps tanki should track the hackers down and offer them a job! takes a thief to catch a thief!

[r_optprime0 0]

dont be naive as to how smart the hackers are!

 

perhaps tanki should track the hackers down and offer them a job! takes a thief to catch a thief!

dont be naive as to how smart people working in info-security are.

returning to my earlier statement - the programmers are a bunch of amateurs.

creating a secure code (not a 100% - no such thing, but a better one) is hard, but not impossible. this little game is WAY easier then a browser. a lot less communication and functionality is needed here.

 

your second proposal isn't bad at all.

A - they dont necessarily need to hire him. just spend 10$ and buy his hacks, run them in a controlled environment and see where are the faults.

B - since they obviously lack knowledge in info-sec, and want to become a big business, hiring the guy isn't a bad move.

[sisif 30]

just about every game out there has been hacked to death at some point, be that browser or console games. if you actually read what i wrote, and what you quoted you will see the reason why the hacks return even after a patch fixed the initial exploit. you seem to have no understanding of how this works.

You're funny, I am a programmer who actually created scripts for various games in the past, I am also a game owner who is catching scripters, so I believe I have some idea of what hacking/cheating is all about.

[MonkeyMagic 89]

just about every game out there has been hacked to death at some point, be that browser or console games. if you actually read what i wrote, and what you quoted you will see the reason why the hacks return even after a patch fixed the initial exploit. you seem to have no understanding of how this works.

You're funny, I am a programmer who actually created scripts for various games in the past, I am also a game owner who is catching scripters, so I believe I have some idea of what hacking/cheating is all about.

 

really? i am surprised to hear that. what language?

 

besides, you still dont seem able grasp the hacker/developer eternal battle!

 

i would be very interested to hear what games you have worked on and own.

[r_optprime0 0]

the hacker/developer eternal battle!

 

what battle ?

this is nothing like a hacker vs. security battle.

 

nobody is expecting the programmers to secure the flash platform. its so exposed and easy to manipulate, there's no point.

but hello ? some server-side checks ? this is communication 101.

you never accept data from the user without verification, its so basic its pathetic.

[r_Micky30 4]

Solution: FIX THE CODE!!!!! Validate that the player movement routines make sense BEFORE allowing it to take place.

...

Give me a break already. Fix the code !!!

Hi,

I'm not a code-writer but have dealt with systems for a long time by now.

IMHO, it's not the code that needs to be fixed. As you said -- movement should be validated.

It seems to me, that in order to reduce the load of servers every client (program running in players computer) keeps all its parameters and tells other clients where he is and what it does. That model is based on trust and obviously hasn't work as well as planned since the current hacks alter game parameters in cheater computer and all other players have to respect these (movements, positions, power levels etc).

 

I support the idea, that the model needs a validation party to be added what keeps a track of all(?) players, their parameters and activities and therefore can detect anomalies. The problem could be the amount of information that arbiter has to process. I guess some compromises are necessary.

 

Edit: I see optprime already said that this is essential ... :)

 

I'd like to remind everyone that this is supposed to be a commercial game. People spend REAL money on it. To spend REAL money on something that is so insecure and broken like this is just crazy.

 

... we should let them know with the voices of the 9 million players here!

9 million players ... get real.

Create a new account, advance to corporal and see what your rating (not rank) is.

I agree, that this is commercial product/service and I have been too lazy or too tolerant to write a complaint to law enforcement :)

[sisif 30]

really? i am surprised to hear that. what language?

besides, you still dont seem able grasp the hacker/developer eternal battle!

i would be very interested to hear what games you have worked on and own.

Are you expecting me to say something like Visual Basic or Php?

I've gone through a lot of languages, from basic, to pascal, c, assembly language, c++, perl, ruby and various web oriented scripting languages.

There is no hacker/developer battle when the developer is good, only when there are poor developers.

What you are witnessing here is not a battle, is a gang bang, where tanki is being gang banged by the flying tanks.

There is absolutely no excuse for having such a flaw in the game for 6 months or more.

Regarding the games that I own, it is not relevant for this topic, unless of course you want to hack it, to prove me what a bad developer I am. In this case, we can talk, I am up for a challenge.

[r_AdvocatusDiaboli0 861]

There is always a Hacker/Developer battle, even successful MMO companies like Nexon, or RTS games like StarCraft II have hacker problems.

 

However on StarCraft II its not that bad but on Nexon games you can simply say the game is run by hackers so they don't fix them.

[Eyalz8 0]

Anti cheat is never a solution to hackers, it just holds them back.

 

To avoid hackers, one must calculate all the sensitive information in the server, that includes tanks coordinates, life, time to re-appear after dying, physical size of crystal boxes, etc..

 

The situation right now - crystals are calculated in the server, it's basic but still great and holds hackers from simply changing the amount of crystals.

 

The bad thing, is that everything i mentioned above that should be calculated within the server itself is actually left to the client - our browser, which is why hackers can teleport, be immortal, pick up all crystal boxes etc..

 

Anti cheat will never do the job because everyone can bypass it.

[r_nuclearbom0 62]

Also a game (Client) like GTA, I don't even like the game without cheats, but I don't like Tanki Online with cheats ._.

[tankci99 0]

Lightning capers are still exist., after two years:

I was a loyal Tanki game fan till now.

Today, a cheater ruined the game.

This new cheat includes a kind of time shifting. You cannot follow the tank which is moving from a point to point not continuously.

Picture attachment 0002LEGEND shows how he is moving. In the picture, despite the tank is in front of me, you can clearly read the cheater has also captured our flag.

That is because of he can move his tank abnormally fast which is not normally a part of game. It is a cheat.

In the picture the tank moved from point a to b less than a SECOND!!!!

I don't want to play with cheaters.

Please solve the problem.

 

[65536g 20]

The resolution is more moderators. Quite frankly the requisites to become a moderator are far too stringent.

 

The resolution can never be the moderators for 2 very simple reasons:

1. Moderators are humans. Humans make mistakes, loose interest, get prejudiced, need to sleep, etc. The moment one brings in humans the system immediately requires a whole enchilada of arbitration to make sure these humans actually do bother to stick to the rules at least occasionally.
    
   
2. Only fanatic humans are maintaining order just for its own sake. The lesser mortals have to be paid for the time on the job. In one way or another the moderators have to be paid. It's no longer cheap when it goes month after month, year after year. It's cheaper to have 2 developers running their anti-cheat code on all the servers 24*7, rather than having on each game server 21*8 hour moderator shifts a week.
   

Cheers

:tank:

Edited May 11, 2013 by 65536g

[Guest]

@65536g: Necroposting is a bannable offence

Planned: People’s moderation (Every player can help in keeping order in chat)

Outdated topic.

 

Closed.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Guest