Too many people are spreading rumors about hacking. I've listed some facts below to kill these baseless rumors.
What is/can Blizzard do to stop hackers? They're doing everything they can. They are using Warden and they're suing the people developing/distributing the hacks. A few months ago the biggest game-hacking community site was taken down by Blizzard.
How does Warden work? The truth is, nobody knows for sure. Warden is a black box, which keeps changing shape as it's updated. By poking, listening and sharing ideas, we've learned more and more about how it works. The following is not a fact, but a description of what most hackers generally agree upon.
Warden scans certain files/processes for changes. It does this by hashing (taking unique digital signatures) to see if the game files/processes have been altered. When you use .dll injections, you alter the game, hence changing the executing game processes memory segments, which Warden will detect when evaluating the digital signatures.
The game design has nothing to do with hacks being detectable/undetectable.
Are some hack undetectable? As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable. 99 percent of the hacks use .dll injections and the developers behind advertise their hacks as being undetectable because they claim you can disable Warden. The truth is, you can and many developers have succeeded doing so, but every single time when Warden updates new countermeassures against hacks are implemented and a wave of cheaters are banned (makes us all feel good, right? ). So although hacks using .dll injections and Warden disablers are not undetectable, you can consider them to be temporarily undetectable in a sense... So undetectability can't be garanteed, but getting banned can.
Now to the hacks that don't use .dll injections. These work by continuously reading from process memory to fetch unit locations, unit/structure production and use these data to render graphics on your screen displaying the amount of expansions, unit counters, current production and unit locations. These hacks are not very widespread and the ones that exists only offer a limited amount of basic features. For instance to disable FoW without using .dll injections, you must read all unit locations every 10-100ms from the SC2 process (unless you don't want real-time updates of the unit locations), render these units (huge work unless you render them as circles, dots, squares, triangles, which gives you a poor idea of what units you're looking at) and remove all rendered units from your screen, if they're in your field of view AND your field of view isn't on FoW, so you don't have the rendered twice... Any developer can tell you, this isn't a viable option... its too much work, and the end result won't be good unless you put A LOT of time in rendering the units (good luck) which is why nobody has or will implement disabling FoW without using .dll injection.
So is hacks that doesn't use .dll injections undetectable? Not anymore, because Warden scans for .exe signatures, so the only way to make a hack 100 percent undetectable is by not using it or by grabbing the source code, refactoring it and compiling your own assembly, which you never share. Every single time the game is patched, you need to spend a good couple of hours finding the offsets you use to find the unit locations, etc. etc. from the SC2 processes and how many people are capable of that? Only those whom have good time and enjoy looking at assembly code *yuck*.
Lesson learned? - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking. - No hack that you have access to is undetectable. - Game designs have nothing to do with hacks being undetectable. - Hacking will eventually get you banned. If Warden doesn't bust you, sooner or later the community will. - Don't hack. I don't mean to preach, but for your own sake, I don't want you to lose your account.
Edit: Initially I made the thread writing VAC instead of Warden, this obvious mistake is corrected after it was brought to my attention by a site administrator.
also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use, that plus a list of easy to find hacks = ban waves :D
On February 20 2012 00:00 MasterOfChaos wrote: I also disagree on the viability of external maphacks. Just their screen on a secondary monitor, or even second PC in the network. Rendering the map, and static images for each unit type is good enough. I'd prefer it over an internal maphack any time. You don't need to scroll around to see everything, you can stream without the stream picking up the hack,... They are also pretty easy to develop.
> Every single time the game is patched, you need to spend a good couple of hours finding the offsets you use to find the unit locations In SC1 updating offsets took a few minutes unless blizzard updated their compiler, I even automated the process for my plugins. And even when the auto-finder failed it was typically quick, since you already know how to find them, from the first time you found them.
External maphacks are more viable than DLL injection, if you only go for the observer/MH stuff. If you read the stuff from memory and create the map yourself, you can actually produce an overlay. If you disable the FoW completely, you can pretty much obviously fuck up since you don't know what is scouted and what not. Furthermore: a) You don't need to update the offsets from patch to patch (proof the discontinued MH which name I won't tell still works) b) They are still not detected by warden if you don't scan the memory like fucking crazy.
Another note: **** updates regularly according to the Warden scan offsets, so even the injection is not detectable for the paying user. GG.
I don't think a maphack gets you far, ofc it lets you concentrate on your macro but it doesn't really make you better. A better macro player will always win over a maphacker, always.
So basically warden gets you by evolving and then getting the people who got under the old version of Warden, thats pretty genius. Basically that means the only people who will continue to cheat through the years are those who are willing to pay for SCII multiple times.
I had heard a LONG time ago, that it wasn't a maphack out, but a production tab hack. You can see everything they are making without looking on the map, then it's all down to unit control. aka you can play as greedy as possible.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use, that plus a list of easy to find hacks = ban waves :D
They have done this for a while now. Back when I played WoW they did the same thing.
- No hack that you have access to is undetectable.
Sounds like quite the statement, have you looked up everyone of them?
I'm assuming if you have access to it, so does Blizzard.
On February 20 2012 00:06 VoO wrote: Blog rather than thread? Links to hacking site, really?
External maphacks are more viable than DLL injection, if you only go for the observer/MH stuff. If you read the stuff from memory and create the map yourself, you can actually produce an overlay. If you disable the FoW completely, you can pretty much obviously fuck up since you don't know what is scouted and what not. Furthermore: a) You don't need to update the offsets from patch to patch (proof the discontinued MH which name I won't tell still works) b) They are still not detected by warden if you don't scan the memory like fucking crazy.
Another note: **** updates regularly according to the Warden scan offsets, so even the injection is not detectable for the paying user. GG.
I don't think a maphack gets you far, ofc it lets you concentrate on your macro but it doesn't really make you better. A better macro player will always win over a maphacker, always.
The site has been taken down.
No doubt, if I was personally going to develop and use a hack, I'd base it on RPM and not .dll injection. However DLL injection is by all means a better option (except issues with being detectable). You write a lot of ifs, but you can toggle FoW off/on, there is even a very well documentated wikia, which explains how you can disable FoW without your units attacking enemy units on ramps. It's quite hard to comprehend how much time people invest in maintaining this wikia... you'll also find plenty of code examples, tutorials, updated offsets, etc. etc. Off topic!
I fully agree with your last statement though. In SC2 the better player will always win, maphack or not... unless they are even.
On February 20 2012 00:06 VoO wrote: Blog rather than thread? Links to hacking site, really?
External maphacks are more viable than DLL injection, if you only go for the observer/MH stuff. If you read the stuff from memory and create the map yourself, you can actually produce an overlay. If you disable the FoW completely, you can pretty much obviously fuck up since you don't know what is scouted and what not. Furthermore: a) You don't need to update the offsets from patch to patch (proof the discontinued MH which name I won't tell still works) b) They are still not detected by warden if you don't scan the memory like fucking crazy.
Another note: **** updates regularly according to the Warden scan offsets, so even the injection is not detectable for the paying user. GG.
I don't think a maphack gets you far, ofc it lets you concentrate on your macro but it doesn't really make you better. A better macro player will always win over a maphacker, always.
The site has been taken down.
No doubt, if I was personally going to develop and use a hack, I'd base it on RPM and not .dll injection. However DLL injection is by all means a better option (except issues with being detectable). You write a lot of ifs, but you can toggle FoW off/on, there is even a very well documentated wikia, which explains how you can disable FoW without your units attacking enemy units on ramps. It's quite hard to comprehend how much time people invest in maintaining this wikia... you'll also find plenty of code examples, tutorials, updated offsets, etc. etc. Off topic!
I fully agree with your last statement though. In SC2 the better player will always win, maphack or not... unless they are even.
Yeah, I heard from the offset Wikia and the tutorials, but didn't bother to search. I was on the site a few days ago to decompile Q*zz*'s for fun. I wrote my own external maphack/macro trainer and played with in custom games, don't think it is detectable since it doesn't read that often and runs in the JVM - just to verify my expertise with this topic... I don't think the offsets changed for 3-4 major patches, which is almost 6-7 months.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use, that plus a list of easy to find hacks = ban waves :D
That's pretty fucking retarded, just saying. As a hack-free user, I dont like the idea that some guy in arizona can look through my computer and see whats running and what's not. I thought it was against the law to read stuff like that. I guess not, the government is controlled by corporations such as blizzard.
Honestly i have nothing against them not having a program that is able to detect all the hacks all the time,the risk for he hacker to get caught is likely not worth the reward. But its annoying that they don't ban master + players hacking based on there replays ( aka the anti hack thread on tl ), especially now that they are openly against stream cheating which means that banning someone for map hacking when hey were stream cheating is still on par with there policy ( hell, not even perma banning, ban them for 1 month or 2 weeks to "scare" them ). And from my previous experience with blizzard games in which you could boot ( wow ) i can tell you for a fact that i wasn't caught in my last year of playing even tho i booted, hell everyone was booting if they didn't had enough money and blizzard didn't give a shit ( hence why I started booting, you can't compete in a boot economy if you don't boot/already have money so that you can do what its called "play the ah"...but won't go into details since i assume a few guys here are/were wow players ). You have to consider that booting was basically half of the problem with wow economy ( which is, if you compare it to what it was, messed up as hell... or at least as when i left ) so if a player booted it affected everyone, unlike sc2, yet they did not ban booters, i have to wonder why ? Is booting that hard to detect ? I doubt that they care more about hacking in sc2 which is a game that will provide them with about 900 millions ( out of which i have no clue what is actual profit ) considering that the expansions are sold as much as the original, while wow provided them with about 1-2 billions a year only from subscriptions ( again, no clue what was the actual profit they made was ).
As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable.
So if they are all but undetectable, doesn't that mean they are everything except undetectable, in other words easy to detect? I think you used that phrase incorrectly.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Too many people are spreading rumors about hacking. I've listed some facts below to kill these baseless rumors.
The truth is, you can and many developers have succeeded doing so, but every single time when Warden updates new countermeassures against hacks are implemented and a wave of cheaters are banned (makes us all feel good, right? ).
What i seen so far on cheating forums is that all this cheats disable themself when they detect new warden version. So noone get banned.
Lesson learned? - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking.
They do the best they can. Problem is, the best they can is very bad, compare to best others can.
- No hack that you have access to is undetectable.
in theorie yes. But easy to be undetectable for Blizzard.
Blizzard failes in anti-cheating in all there games. They did so from beginning to now. why do people act like they are good in it or even try hard. Its obvious not the case.
I'd like to append that I really like this discussion since I personally think every company which is connected to the internet should employ a security specialist and a company which distribute a multiplayer game should hire a professional anti-hacking company. That's my main issue with this thing, since Blizzard can hire a mathematician for the matchmaking algrotithm but apparantly not a security professional.
Does warden turn itself off when you close sc2? I imagine of you were doing something you really wanted to keep secret you would apply some sort of external filter on outgoing network traffic, or would use a clean machine; but a lot of people aren't going to be following or even know about those kind of precautions, and it's important to remember that (unlike game hacking) not everything people do in secret is wrong or even negative.
On February 20 2012 00:11 mrafaeldie12 wrote: Blizzard should add a second layer, because this "Warden" is pretty shitty. How about nProtect or GameGuard eh?
nProtect and GameGuard are a complete joke when it comes to hack proctection.
I've been hacking/botting RO servers and other random F2P mmos for years that rely on these outdated "protection" protocols. They are oooollllldddddd and have a serious impact on gaming performace from a server point of view.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Lesson learned? - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking. - Game designs have nothing to do with hacks being undetectable.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Lesson learned? - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking. - Game designs have nothing to do with hacks being undetectable.
On February 20 2012 00:00 MasterOfChaos wrote: I also disagree on the viability of external maphacks. Just their screen on a secondary monitor, or even second PC in the network. Rendering the map, and static images for each unit type is good enough. I'd prefer it over an internal maphack any time. You don't need to scroll around to see everything, you can stream without the stream picking up the hack,... They are also pretty easy to develop.
> Every single time the game is patched, you need to spend a good couple of hours finding the offsets you use to find the unit locations In SC1 updating offsets took a few minutes unless blizzard updated their compiler, I even automated the process for my plugins. And even when the auto-finder failed it was typically quick, since you already know how to find them, from the first time you found them.
Watch that in HD, you will see that on second screen you have hi-res map, that contains also icons of buildings, Skype-voice plugin, that notifies you and your allies about important buildings such as (6-pool being build, dark shrine, army move out of enemy base,...) There is also obsmode like statuses, buildings being built and units being trained.
Basically you have voice notification right in a moment when enemy made the choice.
Not a single byte has been written to SC2 process, also the UI is on other machine, not just screen. Sources won't be available this time
Yeah, d3scene was not taken down, but coder on that site was. I beleive that guy who published his external .NET hack was Qazzy, and his work was heavily based on sources that others released before he started to develop extenal cheats.
So nowadays it might be a little bit problem to find it. But I do not know that for sure.
On February 20 2012 01:49 ch33psh33p wrote: Lol shutdown d3scene wat? That site will NEVER be taken down, if you actually do know the insides of this situation
I know one of their hack developers for SC2 recently got a cease and desist notice from Blizzard. You don't need to shut the site down to shut the site down, if you get what I mean.
This tread almost feels like encouraging people to hack The link in the Op is also still active, its not been taken down atm so he is basicly just pointing people towards a site for hackers. Realy suprised this tread stays open The warden en how it all works should not be discussed, whats the point? The only point i can see is to help people share knowledge about it so they can develop new hacks It has nothing to do with sc, no player was ever banned unrightfully.
Can't you bypass process scanning by sandboxing it some way? Its not that different from what is used by anti-virus that sandboxes execution to detect malicious execution and hiding the AV. Of course you can detect the virtualization layer but short of making it so you can't play on VM (assuming you can actually play on VM), there's not much they can do.
i just wanted to post to let you know that d3scene wasn't taken down.... they are still very much alive with tons of active users. i'm not a regular there, but when the game first came out I was obviously curious about what hacks existed and found this site from a google search. i just went to d3scene.com and they aren't down...
they were taken down for a few days over a year ago, but that means nothing. that's just a hiccup... and claiming that "blizzard shut down the biggest sc2 hacking website" as an argument for ongoing efforts by blizzard to stop hacks is laughable... I haven't read into it, but I'm guessing it was as simple as a blizzard lawyer sending a cease and desist letter to d3scene's host and them temporarily suspending the account. perhaps d3scene even had to switch hosts, but the fact remains that d3scene was definitely never fully "taken down".
On February 20 2012 02:02 Antisocialmunky wrote: Can't you bypass process scanning by sandboxing it some way? Its not that different from what is used by anti-virus that sandboxes execution to detect malicious execution and hiding the AV. Of course you can detect the virtualization layer but short of making it so you can't play on VM (assuming you can actually play on VM), there's not much they can do.
Yes, you can. But it depends on what Warden expects. Actually hackers continously monitored what Warden is scanning (and yes, it is interesting information to hackers) to protect themselves. If Warden scanned something new, what was not yet scanned known, they immedeatly shut down hacks. Tadaaa - clean SC2 process.
Trying to fight hackers' is like trying to take on the world. Best you can do is minimize the damage. And if a hacker really recieved an cease an detest letter then their not trying hard enough.
On February 20 2012 02:04 PR4Y wrote: i just wanted to post to let you know that d3scene wasn't taken down.... they are still very much alive with tons of active users. i'm not a regular there, but when the game first came out I was obviously curious about what hacks existed and found this site from a google search. i just went to d3scene.com and they aren't down...
they were taken down for a few days over a year ago, but that means nothing. that's just a hiccup... and claiming that "blizzard shut down the biggest sc2 hacking website" as an argument for ongoing efforts by blizzard to stop hacks is laughable... I haven't read into it, but I'm guessing it was as simple as a blizzard lawyer sending a cease and desist letter to d3scene's host and them temporarily suspending the account. perhaps d3scene even had to switch hosts, but the fact remains that d3scene was definitely never fully "taken down".
I think that shutting down a site does not solve the cheat-maker problem. You need to go after them, not after a website. There are 5 more websites with same assemblies over the Internet. If you hunt down creators you get rid of assemblies. Or at least you would minimize the numbers.
On February 20 2012 02:07 Ashur wrote: I think that shutting down a site does not solve the cheat-maker problem. You need to go after them, not after a website. There are 5 more websites with same assemblies over the Internet. If you hunt down creators you get rid of assemblies. Or at least you would minimize the numbers.
This.
The people that are actually MAKING the hacks don't have a centralized website... would be too easy for Blizzard to get their IRL information, and totally screw them with huge lawsuits. Instead, the actual hackers just sign up for existing "hacking" websites and distribute their warez in a way that their personal identity can remain anonymous.
It's the same thing with major industry pirates (gaming, music, movies, ect.)... The people releasing the content aren't stupid enough to run personal websites where the owner's information can be tracked... and instead they use "scene release drops" and anonymous 3rd party applications to push the content they want released.
Blizzard can and never will stop hackers. The ONLY thing that will ever help stop them would be to put an ounce of effort towards fixing the exploits that hackers use to make the programs in the first place.
since to play sc2 you are already forced to go through a central blizzard server, there is absolutely no excuse for hacks to be possible. It blows my mind they find sniffing known signatures a better plan than making their algorithms hostile-proof :|
If people agree that this discussion is "encouraging people to cheat", then I suggest the admins close this thread, because that's not the aim - far from.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Lesson learned? - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking. - Game designs have nothing to do with hacks being undetectable.
Thanks for the link. Interesting topic to write a paper about. I'll study it carefully when I have time, since I need to leave in an hour.
But before I read the article, I'll explain why I put my those two statements.
1. I don't see what Blizzard can possibly do more than they already are. They have displayed a 0 tolerance policy by not only banning cheaters, but also by tracking down hackers and suing them. They're currently spending a lot of ressources to implement counter hack measures such as Warden, and even educating/hiring full time personel to study replays. What more can be done? I hope the answer is in your paper - regardless, I'm sure it will be interesting to read having skimmed it.
2. If we were to develop games with security as primary focus, instead of gameplay/graphics/balance/story then I'm sure the output would be less desirable.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: - Blizzard is doing the best job they can to get rid of hacking.
Wrong. They could eliminate hacking permanently if they would put 1% of the effort they did to make this game unpiratable
edit: At the end, I wonder: Are you an hacker , with sufficient knowledge to say what you just posted?
I never claimed to be a hacker. I graduated 1½ years ago, which is nothing and what I do is considered pamper programming - yes I just came up with that term - C#.NET (WCF, WPF, ASP.NET/PHP, etc. etc.). I do have what I consider a healthy interest for hacking though, but to make this short, if you have a problem please be direct and argue instead of these ignorant one-line insults... Also if you have the answer to how Blizzard can elminate all hacking with little to no effort, I suggest you immediately contact them... if not for the sake of the online gaming community, then at least for your own selfish reason, I'm sure you'll be compensated well
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Too many people are spreading rumors about hacking. I've listed some facts below to kill these baseless rumors.
So basically all you do is to reply to rumours by spreading rumours yourself.
You're opinion about Warden and Blizzard is excessively positive. In the end, Warden has some generic detection mechanisms that try to detect if someone tampers with the process. However, everybody with a decent understanding of low-level OS security knows how to bypass this. For example, the DLL-injection you refer to is basically the simplest method you can use to inject code/data into a process. There are plenty of other ways to do this much more stealthy. It's virtually impossible for Warden to detect hacks generically, which is why it's only good at detecting stuff it knows beforehand. That's true for every anti-hack tool. The situation is technically very much related (actually its almost identical) to the malware vs. anti-virus engines domain, the latter being known for performing very bad at detecting new malware variants.
Your opinion that Blizzard does everything to bust hackers also seems to be based on the fact that they provide "some" anti-cheat tool only. I'm not saying they're doing a bad job, but claiming the do "everything they can" is just way exaggerated.
Saying that "No hack that you have access to is undetectable" is right of course. On the other hand, you could also say that no anti-cheat tool (including Warden) can detect all hacks. The bottom line is that cheats that are not so wide-spread that they will eventually fall into the hands of Blizzard will (almost) never be detected by Warden.
On February 20 2012 02:04 PR4Y wrote: i just wanted to post to let you know that d3scene wasn't taken down.... they are still very much alive with tons of active users. i'm not a regular there, but when the game first came out I was obviously curious about what hacks existed and found this site from a google search. i just went to d3scene.com and they aren't down...
they were taken down for a few days over a year ago, but that means nothing. that's just a hiccup... and claiming that "blizzard shut down the biggest sc2 hacking website" as an argument for ongoing efforts by blizzard to stop hacks is laughable... I haven't read into it, but I'm guessing it was as simple as a blizzard lawyer sending a cease and desist letter to d3scene's host and them temporarily suspending the account. perhaps d3scene even had to switch hosts, but the fact remains that d3scene was definitely never fully "taken down".
But before I read the article, I'll explain why I put my those two statements.
1. I don't see what Blizzard can possibly do more than they already are. They have displayed a 0 tolerance policy by not only banning cheaters, but also by tracking down hackers and suing them. They're currently spending a lot of ressources to implement counter hack measures such as Warden, and even educating/hiring full time personel to study replays. What more can be done? I hope the answer is in your paper - regardless, I'm sure it will be interesting to read having skimmed it.
2. If we were to develop games with security as primary focus, instead of gameplay/graphics/balance/story then I'm sure the output would be less desirable.
This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
Blizzard has one of the most amazing development teams of ANY game design company in the world. That is a fact and everyone knows it. Most of these hacks are so simple to develop they use less then 100 lines of code to execute the hack in it's entirety. There are obviously more complex hacks that will detect when warden is active and immediately shut down to prevent detection... but that's just frosting on the cake, unnecessary to the hack (but quite delicious).
When blizzard does a massive ban wave of 10,000+ ACTIVELY hacking accounts... do you think the CEO's and higher-up's say THANK GOD we have now provided a safer and more fair environment for our paying customers! NOPE!!! What is more likely that is said is "THANK GOD we just sniped 10,000 actively hacking accounts... now they all have to buy a 2nd account! CHA-CHING $600,000 USD in 1 fell-swoop!"
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered. Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
I could go on much more about this but I'm running late for work and have to scoot, but I'll check back on this topic later and if you have any questions (or still doubt what I've said is true) then I'd be glad to make more VALID points, rather then generic comments like "Blizzard wants to stop hackers because it's the right thing to do, and they are simply looking out for OUR best interest".
EDIT:
1 more thing before I go... Warden is 100% NOT a "counter-hack measure"... the ONLY thing Warden does is catch cheaters. You can cheat all you want with the most easily detectable hacks while Warden is actively scanning your computer, and it won't do a damn thing about it (until the next ban wave). Viewing this as an anti-cheating measure is wrong. Warden is very profitable. Think about how many people have had to buy the game more then once because Warden caught them with their pant's down...
Wrong. They could eliminate hacking permanently if they would put 1% of the effort they did to make this game unpiratable
This statement is so retarded and has absolutely no base
Blizzard could put 100% of their workforce towards stopping hacking and somebody will still find a way to hack. The only way to prevent hacking is to know 100% of the ways that somebody can hack your system, which is actually impossible when you think about human progression.
No game or software is impenetrable, don't kid yourself.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered. Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
That's utterly nonsense. It's not that there is some "vulnerability" in the Starcraft 2 Code that can be "exploited" for the purpose of creating maphacks. The Starcraft 2 process has to store the information about which unit is where (and whether it is visible or not) somewhere and you can always read/modify that information somehow.
Also, I don't think this thread was meant for discussing conspiracy theories.
Wrong. They could eliminate hacking permanently if they would put 1% of the effort they did to make this game unpiratable
This statement is so retarded and has absolutely no base
It's actually not retarded. Check HoN protocol and its memory. Currently you cannot rejoin SC2 games when you had disconnect, or you cannot mentor/spectate players. Its because SC2 protocol. If Blizzard would rewrite it, game would be cheat-maker unfriendly. But that won't happen.
But before I read the article, I'll explain why I put my those two statements.
1. I don't see what Blizzard can possibly do more than they already are. They have displayed a 0 tolerance policy by not only banning cheaters, but also by tracking down hackers and suing them. They're currently spending a lot of ressources to implement counter hack measures such as Warden, and even educating/hiring full time personel to study replays. What more can be done? I hope the answer is in your paper - regardless, I'm sure it will be interesting to read having skimmed it.
2. If we were to develop games with security as primary focus, instead of gameplay/graphics/balance/story then I'm sure the output would be less desirable.
This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
Blizzard has one of the most amazing development teams of ANY game design company in the world. That is a fact and everyone knows it. Most of these hacks are so simple to develop they use less then 100 lines of code to execute the hack in it's entirety. There are obviously more complex hacks that will detect when warden is active and immediately shut down to prevent detection... but that's just frosting on the cake, unnecessary to the hack (but quite delicious).
When blizzard does a massive ban wave of 10,000+ ACTIVELY hacking accounts... do you think the CEO's and higher-up's say THANK GOD we have now provided a safer and more fair environment for our paying customers! NOPE!!! What is more likely that is said is "THANK GOD we just sniped 10,000 actively hacking accounts... now they all have to buy a 2nd account! CHA-CHING $600,000 USD in 1 fell-swoop!"
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered. Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
I could go on much more about this but I'm running late for work and have to scoot, but I'll check back on this topic later and if you have any questions (or still doubt what I've said is true) then I'd be glad to make more VALID points, rather then generic comments like "Blizzard wants to stop hackers because it's the right thing to do, and they are simply looking out for OUR best interest".
EDIT:
1 more thing before I go... Warden is 100% NOT a "counter-hack measure"... the ONLY thing Warden does is catch cheaters. You can cheat all you want with the most easily detectable hacks while Warden is actively scanning your computer, and it won't do a damn thing about it (until the next ban wave). Viewing this as an anti-cheating measure is wrong. Warden is very profitable. Think about how many people have had to buy the game more then once because Warden caught them with their pant's down...
If that's actually the case and, as you apparently wish people to believe it, then people may lose faith in buying from Blizzard. At the same time, Blizzard can predict this outcome. The next logical thought is that they just want to fool everyone into thinking they're doing their best so people don't lose faith.
Even if true, that's highly insulting to the developers, whom you rated as top class. I'd not be happy about making a competitive game only to have my customers open to exploit by hackers and a lie about "doing our best" to stopping them.
So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
Wrong. They could eliminate hacking permanently if they would put 1% of the effort they did to make this game unpiratable
This statement is so retarded and has absolutely no base
Blizzard could put 100% of their workforce towards stopping hacking and somebody will still find a way to hack. The only way to prevent hacking is to know 100% of the ways that somebody can hack your system, which is actually impossible when you think about human progression.
No game or software is impenetrable, don't kid yourself.
sorry If I may sound rude, of course no software is unpenetrable but just look at the fact that multiplayer starcraft 2 still doesn't exist. What if they put the same effort gainst the hack scene?
Anyway, if you think I'm wrong,you can just go on (many) hack websites and you will see hackers discussing how blizzard could have (Easily) prevented all the hacks that now are spreading towards the community.
Edit: actually after my last statement I'm thinking that if Blizzard doesn't care ( a lot ) for the hacking part , it is just because by banning people they seal a new way of gaining money (people who bought this game will have to rebuy it), a nice well-though initiative by Blizzard
On February 20 2012 02:47 Sergio1992 wrote: Edit: actually after my last statement I'm thinking that if Blizzard doesn't care ( a lot ) for the hacking part , it is just because by banning people they seal a new way of gaining money (people who bought this game will have to rebuy it), a nice well-though initiative by Blizzard
Nothing is easy as it seems. Maphack prevention would cost a lot of manpower to implement, Especially in a moment when game is already released with different network-engine.
On February 20 2012 02:47 Sergio1992 wrote: Edit: actually after my last statement I'm thinking that if Blizzard doesn't care ( a lot ) for the hacking part , it is just because by banning people they seal a new way of gaining money (people who bought this game will have to rebuy it), a nice well-though initiative by Blizzard
Nothing is easy as it seems. Maphack prevention would cost a lot of manpower to implement, Especially in a moment when game is already released with different network-engine.
exactly. If they cared a bit about the game , or us in general, they would have just delayed the game once again to fix the issue. But...
On February 20 2012 02:53 Sergio1992 wrote: But...
Wait a minute, ain't HOTS dalayed?
Wait, are you saying that they are delaying it to give us a better product, instead of delaying it to make it be launched on a period when it will be more profitable on the market?
Edit: blizzard was roses and flowers years and years ago. Now all they care about is profit. And if you have proofs that this isn't true... well, only you and people that are fanatics (people that would buy every blizzard's product with closed eyes) believe at them.
On February 20 2012 02:51 Ashur wrote: Nothing is easy as it seems. Maphack prevention would cost a lot of manpower to implement, Especially in a moment when game is already released with different network-engine.
Exactly. The sheer fact that Blizzard couldn't even implement about half of the Battlenet 2.0 features they announced at release says it all. How can you possibly believe that they would put such an enourmous effort into the anti-hack engines, when they can't even finish core aspects of the game itself in time?
On February 20 2012 02:51 Ashur wrote: Nothing is easy as it seems. Maphack prevention would cost a lot of manpower to implement, Especially in a moment when game is already released with different network-engine.
Exactly. The sheer fact that Blizzard couldn't even implement about half of the Battlenet 2.0 features they announced at release says it all. How can you possibly believe that they would put such an enourmous effort into the anti-hack engines, when they can't even finish core aspects of the game itself in time?
On February 20 2012 03:01 Ashur wrote: Yes Sergio1992 & Sid. Bnet 2.0 fiasco, hack-flawed engine and endlessly delayed product is selfexplanatory, isn't it.
sorry if straight facts didn't satisfy you. At least we tried
I have no idea how hacks work and I have little idea what kind of hacks are there at this moment. But I know the fact that people on Chinese servers have been complaining about hacks all the time, as the monthly pay policy on their server are breeding hacks. So your compliment on Blizzard's work on fighting hacks is laughable. BTW, most hack gamers are protoss there, and the most popular hack at the moment is "Auto Blink Stalkers"?
On February 20 2012 01:12 VoO wrote: I'd like to append that I really like this discussion since I personally think every company which is connected to the internet should employ a security specialist and a company which distribute a multiplayer game should hire a professional anti-hacking company. That's my main issue with this thing, since Blizzard can hire a mathematician for the matchmaking algrotithm but apparantly not a security professional.
Well said, i think sooner or later they will do it.
It's funny because I heard of this paper from one of my teacher that said one of his PhD student made a MapHack for sc2. The adavntage of the proposed method is that it makes maphack impossible if you respect the protocol, because the computer don't recieve all the informations. However it may create some problems, like more computation and problem for the replays (how do you construct a replay, send everything in the end ?), and I don't think it would be easy for blizzard to implement it.
Lol some people are getting a bit paranoid. Most of what the OP said is true. And someone asked if he's a hacker. He probably does know a lot of elements of hacking. Clearly when he says in quotes "yuck" talking about source codes he has had prior experience looking thoughtfully at source codes. And he talks about dll injects etc. So shortly he is probably a hacker. And that's cool fun knowledge to use. He obviously knows the consequences of SC2 hacking and doesn't seem like he'd even bother. There is enough cool things to mess around with hacking skills that WONT come with consequences. This makes me miss back in the day where my friend and I made hacks for online games using dll injections. That was a fun learning experience as he was way better at it than I
On February 20 2012 04:12 Berailfor wrote: Lol some people are getting a bit paranoid. Most of what the OP said is true. And someone asked if he's a hacker. He probably does know a lot of elements of hacking. Clearly when he says in quotes "yuck" talking about source codes he has had prior experience looking thoughtfully at source codes. And he talks about dll injects etc. So shortly he is probably a hacker. And that's cool fun knowledge to use. He obviously knows the consequences of SC2 hacking and doesn't seem like he'd even bother. There is enough cool things to mess around with hacking skills that WONT come with consequences. This makes me miss back in the day where my friend and I made hacks for online games using dll injections. That was a fun learning experience as he was way better at it than I
That's basic programming knowledge + some insider info from website mentioned in OP.
By your logic, any 13 year old is a hacker :D
Wait wait wait. What was the purpose of your post again? To bash on me or the OP or both? All I said was
A. He knows elements of hacking.
B. That the things he said about blizzard are a lot more true than most of the people replying on the site.
And C. I talked about my experience with having fun learning dll injection, dissasembling code, etc.
Never once did I use the term 'hacker' besides as a reference because that's not a very good word in general. A lot of programmers can hack that doesn't make them hackers. Or maybe it does. So that's why I wouldnt use the word. You just posted randomly to bash someone with probably zero hacking experience and a rude attitude. Please contribute the the conversation not just be an asshole
Edit: Even when I did say hacker it still was me saying he probably meaning it's speculation. And I also was using it to directly refer to someone on page one who was going all crazy going "your probably a hacker blah blah"
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
Wait, its legal for them to scan my computer and see what I'm doing. Isn't that invasion of privacy? Not to be like anti-hacking but isn't that a little extreme I don't like how blizzard can do that
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
Not to be like anti-hacking but isn't that a little extreme I don't like how blizzard can do that
Try reading the EULA then. It clearly states it. (Point 8)
On February 20 2012 04:34 BWalma wrote: Wait, its legal for them to scan my computer and see what I'm doing. Isn't that invasion of privacy? Not to be like anti-hacking but isn't that a little extreme I don't like how blizzard can do that
It's in the terms of agreement.
A while back Im pretty sure they didn't have it in there for WoW but were still doing it. A guy found out and sued or something so they just real quick added it to their terms of agreement lol. At least I think that's how it went down
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
Yes that's actually how it works. One single guy owns a billion dollar company, happens all the time. Most companies don't know about information security and learn it only the hard way, e.g. Sony. There are myriads of examples where high profile companies got owned by a single basement dweller.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
On February 19 2012 23:59 dehdar wrote: Now to the hacks that don't use .dll injections. These work by continuously reading from process memory to fetch unit locations, unit/structure production and use these data to render graphics on your screen displaying the amount of expansions, unit counters, current production and unit locations. These hacks are not very widespread and the ones that exists only offer a limited amount of basic features. For instance to disable FoW without using .dll injections, you must read all unit locations every 10-100ms from the SC2 process (unless you don't want real-time updates of the unit locations), render these units (huge work unless you render them as circles, dots, squares, triangles, which gives you a poor idea of what units you're looking at) and remove all rendered units from your screen, if they're in your field of view AND your field of view isn't on FoW, so you don't have the rendered twice... Any developer can tell you, this isn't a viable option... its too much work, and the end result won't be good unless you put A LOT of time in rendering the units (good luck) which is why nobody has or will implement disabling FoW without using .dll injection.
I kind of strongly disagree with this (and your previous statement that these hacks are not widespread). Something as simple as a live production tab during the game gives you a huge advantage in the game. Starcraft is a game about information, and these non-injection hacks can give you all the information you need to win a game against someone equal your skill. You can blindly counter everything without the need of any kind of map hack. Frankly, the non-dll-injection hacks are far more damaging to the game, since they are not as easy to detect, and this is the point where Blizzard fails.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The social feature lack was just one simple example out of a bunch many other things. Just get the big picture. Blizzard isn't a software security company. Providing a "perfect" Warden being capable of detecting almost every hack (even the unknown ones) would mean that they would have solved a problem that the anti virus industry (btw, also a multi billion dollar industry) has been struggeling with for a decade. I'd say it's rather unlikely Blizzard managed to do that
It's funny because I heard of this paper from one of my teacher that said one of his PhD student made a MapHack for sc2. The adavntage of the proposed method is that it makes maphack impossible if you respect the protocol, because the computer don't recieve all the informations. However it may create some problems, like more computation and problem for the replays (how do you construct a replay, send everything in the end ?), and I don't think it would be easy for blizzard to implement it.
You can download replay from the server after game was played. In addition, those replays could be published to everyone (not just players involved into particular game) and you could download and watch them directly in the SC2 client. In another addition, gamers could join already running game and observe it. If only Blizzard did it properly with this on mind. They didn't. And I bet they won't implement it in future releases.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
On February 20 2012 05:07 dehdar wrote: I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
no , it is different When you know someone is doing his best , and is putting all the effort needed, even if he fails, you are happy with that When you see someone that isn't doing shit, but pretend to be doing a great job, and also lies to you, you can't say that you are mean with him, you are just being realistic.
On February 20 2012 05:07 dehdar wrote: I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
no , it is different When you know someone is doing his best , and is putting all the effort needed, even if he fails, you are happy with that When you see someone that isn't doing shit, but pretend to be doing a great job, and also lies to you, you can't say that you are mean with him, you are just being realistic.
Sergio care to explain what Blizzard COULD be doing that they aren't? Or will you keep that as a secret?
On February 20 2012 05:07 dehdar wrote: I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
For my part, I'm not hating on Blizzard. I think they're putting effort into fighting hackers and Warden is good tool to do so. It serves its purpose. But I still wouldn't say they do "everything" they could possibly do. They do what is reasonable from the perspective of a business.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
Thats your argument. Really.
Sorry, thats so, well, to put it nicely: off the track, that i dont even know how to answer it. And frankly, i dont even care.
But let me try anyway. Look, blizzard is a company. Right? They are a business. So lets say, you are a company. What you want to do, is to prevent cheating for the "average joe". Mission accomplished. If you dont know what youre doing there, chances are high that you get banned. So far, so good. As a company, you try to hold this standard. Nothing more, because everything else would be completely retarded. You cant make it cheatproof, no matter how much money you burn into that mission. You just cant. In the end, the same people (the ones who know what theyre doing) are still cheating, the average joes couldnt cheat beforehand.
Get it? Theres no reason at all to improve further. In the contrary, it would be stupid, because you lose money due to manpower needed to prevent cheating (which again, will never be accomplished).
That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they may have promised stuff and did not deliver. In any way. People like that guy who mentioned that blizzard should rework the whole "system", to prevent hacks.. Yeah. Right. Let them invent the game new, just to be cheated after a short while again (because again: you cant be not-cheated, even if nothing is stored locally). So you burned alot of money for.. What?
Blizzard is actually doing it completely right with SC2. If you do more, its pointless. If you do less, a lot of cheating happens. Both is not the case.
Edit: of course, not to mention people like these in this thread, which want a completely cheatproof game, but FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU if you try to scan my computer for cheats!! And yes, to be at least in any case efficient against cheats, you have to scan the processes. For more safety, you would need to scan even more.
But, im curious.. Because you seem really wise and stuff. Stop being just talk, and show me how it could be done. Whats your idea of "cheatproof", what could they do?
On February 20 2012 05:07 dehdar wrote: I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
For my part, I'm not hating on Blizzard. I think they're putting effort into fighting hackers and Warden is good tool to do so. It serves its purpose. But I still wouldn't say they do "everything" they could possibly do. They do what is reasonable from the perspective of a business.
Yes I fully agree and it's my fault if people interpret it any other way. In the domain of what's feasible, blizzard is doing what they can. However I get the sense that a lot of people are blaming Blizzard that their games can be hacked... as if the developers can change all this by inverting a bit...
To the people that quoted my post saying things like "it's impossible to secure" and "they have done everything they can"... I'm going to shoot down your entire argument right here and right now:
Maphacks work by modifying just a few game variables. Every time a patch comes out, the variables are SIMPLY RENAMED so that the people that made the maphacks have to find the variable again. This is literally the extent of what they have done to "actively" stop maphacking. They changed the name... PLEASE realize that this is NOT what some of you are calling "impossible to secure"... as they have done literally NOTHING to prevent maphacks. If you can show me a shred of evidence otherwise (you can't, because they haven't), then I'll retract my statements.
You are acting like I think if Blizzard actually tried there would be no hacks... which simply isn't true. What I am saying is that if they DID do something, people would have to find a NEW WAY to make a maphack. Every MH that has been released for SC2 since launch has used the same exploit. (read carefully on my wording of exploit, as I'm intending it to be used as "code that can be modified to do something unintentional, and in this case, make a working maphack").
I realize that Blizzard can't make a perfectly secure game... because NOBODY can. However, they COULD be working to SOLVE THE ISSUES that hackers are using to exploit the game and create things like maphacks. This is how it works with ANY other game.
If someone figured out how to dupe in WoW, that would probably be fixed, correct? It would be fixed by finding out HOW the person did it, then patching the vulnerable code so that it wont work anymore. When it comes to maphacks, Blizzard has NEVER done ANYTHING to prevent them from being made (unless you consider renaming the variable in question prevention... which it isn't).
If you look at an open-source maphack from 2 weeks after the game was released... and an open-source maphack from yesterday, you will find VERY SIMILAR code because the exploits that are being used to create the maphack are STILL THERE. This has never been fixed.
I don't know how else to explain to some of you people that either:
A) Simply can't accept the fact that Blizzard hasn't done anything to PREVENT maphacks from being made B) Don't have the proper programming / hacking knowledge to realize this isn't very complicated stuff
It's network entrusion security / software vulnerability testing in it's most basic form. There is a SIMPLE flaw in SC2 that is allowing these maphacks to be made... and Blizzard has done nothing to fix the problem. There is no argument... it's just whether or not some people want to accept the reality that Blizzard doesn't care because they are MAKING MONEY from people using hacks (by banning them and forcing to cough up another $60 for a new account).
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
Thats your argument. Really.
Sorry, thats so, well, to put it nicely: off the track, that i dont even know how to answer it. And frankly, i dont even care.
But let me try anyway. Look, blizzard is a company. Right? They are a business. So lets say, you are a company. What you want to do, is to prevent cheating for the "average joe". Mission accomplished. If you dont know what youre doing there, chances are high that you get banned. So far, so good. As a company, you try to hold this standard. Nothing more, because everything else would be completely retarded. You cant make it cheatproof, no matter how much money you burn into that mission. You just cant. In the end, the same people (the ones who know what theyre doing) are still cheating, the average joes couldnt cheat beforehand.
Get it? Theres no reason at all to improve further. In the contrary, it would be stupid, because you lose money due to manpower needed to prevent cheating (which again, will never be accomplished).
That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they may have promised stuff and did not deliver. In any way. People like that guy who mentioned that blizzard should rework the whole "system", to prevent hacks.. Yeah. Right. Let them invent the game new, just to be cheated after a short while again (because again: you cant be not-cheated, even if nothing is stored locally). So you burned alot of money for.. What?
Blizzard is actually doing it completely right with SC2. If you do more, its pointless. If you do less, a lot of cheating happens. Both is not the case.
Edit: of course, not to mention people like these in this thread, which want a completely cheatproof game, but FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU if you try to scan my computer for cheats!! And yes, to be at least in any case efficient against cheats, you have to scan the processes. For more safety, you would need to scan even more.
But, im curious.. Because you seem really wise and stuff. Stop being just talk, and show me how it could be done. Whats your idea of "cheatproof", what could they do?
How could manpower that should be used to prevent cheating cripple blizzard's bussiness? What you just said it is weird
Well with you it is wasted time. You pretend to say that if they made more effort it would be wasted. It doesn't matter if a service is bad, if it looks good, or at least , it seems so, there is no need to complain about. Right . Or am I wrong?
-------------
Sergio care to explain what Blizzard COULD be doing that they aren't? Or will you keep that as a secret?
actively taking steps to prevent hacking. It is not hard.
Edit 2r4y said what I was writing. Edit 3: I edited because I was overall too aggressive in this post. I apologize.
people who waste their time hacking video games need to go join anonymous and actually put that skill to use instead of wasting it trying to make themselves feel good in a game, i've played ppl who were obviously hacking, terrans that never scan/scout and still know your tech path/unit positioning (diamond na even, sad they can't get farther even while hacking.) and if there's people who are so sad, they can't develop hacks, and they can't get good at the game, and use other ppls hacks to make themselves happy, plz just go commit suicide already
On February 20 2012 05:07 dehdar wrote: I don't understand how people have so little faith in Blizzard. I mean considering how many ressources they're invested to lower the amount of hacks compared to billion dollar industries that makes Blizzard look like a locale sausage factory, they should get a medal!
We can spend all day discussing how it's Blizzard's fault that a random guy who knows how to program, can make a hack in less than a day or to be very specific disable FoW with less than 25 lines of code.
But when you take into consideration that the U.S. military, Pentagon and NASA were all hacked by single persons, whom were very capable hackers, but nothing extra-ordinary, then I fail to see how all this anger towards blizzard can be justified. Robert Butyka a 26 year old developer gained full access to NASA's servers and databases. Same with the famous scott Gary McKinnon when he hacked Pentagon...
As I mentioned, Blizzard has invested a lot of ressources in implementing and updating Warden, and they have educated and hired full time staff to watch replays, they're spending countless of hours, days, weeks, months tracking and suing hackers... What more can they do without breaking the law? Perhaps they should install a worm that will monitor all activies on your machine, send suspicious activies back to mechanical turks working 24/7 at Blizzard so they can dispatch a Hitman to pay the hackers a visit? Will that be satisfying? Actually thinking of it... It kind of will But seriously, what more can they do? I don't mean to be "optimistic" or "support" Blizzard, I just express my opinion.
For my part, I'm not hating on Blizzard. I think they're putting effort into fighting hackers and Warden is good tool to do so. It serves its purpose. But I still wouldn't say they do "everything" they could possibly do. They do what is reasonable from the perspective of a business.
Yes I fully agree and it's my fault if people interpret it any other way. In the domain of what's feasible, blizzard is doing what they can. However I get the sense that a lot of people are blaming Blizzard that their games can be hacked... as if the developers can change all this by inverting a bit...
I also don't see why one should bash Blizzard for that. Hacking actually isn't that much of a problem in Starcraft 2. I've been playing online games for more than 10 years now and every other game that I played has been plagued with hacks/cheats much more than SC2 is. In 1500+ ladder games, I haven't had a single game in which I was convincingly sure my opponent maphacked. Apart from that, there were about 5 Drophackers (that probably were caught later anyway). Even if you maphack, the advantage the hacker gets still isn't as striking as it is, for example, with an aimbot/wallhack in first person shooters.
I think people worry far too much, Aslong as blizzard keep doing what they can to stop hacking becoming very widespread i'm quite pleased. I can honestly say there is only 1 game i've played on the ladder where i thought i was against a someone hacking, watched the replay and it clearly showed he was map hacking (I ended up winning woo!! ). So in general either i dont notice that many "hackers" or blizzard is doing enough to keep the population down.
But regardless of that, i personally just think if i can beat someone thats hacking then it shows i have the ability to play a "solid game". It would just feel like a different type of "practice". How do you beat somebody that knows everything you do. You just play as solid as possible. The greatest thing about a "solid" type of play it also works against non hackers. If you lose to a "hacker" then just figure out what you could have done to beat that player.
But think about it if somebody is using hacks to get to the level that you play at. Then you are already better then them. Even if they beat you you can analyse that replay and figure out how you could have won. If they are hacking and at your level then obviously they can be beaten. Or they would have a 100% record or atleast be playing much higher level players.
On February 20 2012 05:29 PR4Y wrote: To the people that quoted my post saying things like "it's impossible to secure" and "they have done everything they can"... I'm going to shoot down your entire argument right here and right now:
Maphacks work by modifying just a few game variables. Every time a patch comes out, the variables are SIMPLY RENAMED so that the people that made the maphacks have to find the variable again. This is literally the extent of what they have done to "actively" stop maphacking. They changed the name... PLEASE realize that this is NOT what some of you are calling "impossible to secure"... as they have done literally NOTHING to prevent maphacks. If you can show me a shred of evidence otherwise (you can't, because they haven't), then I'll retract my statements.
You are acting like I think if Blizzard actually tried there would be no hacks... which simply isn't true. What I am saying is that if they DID do something, people would have to find a NEW WAY to make a maphack. Every MH that has been released for SC2 since launch has used the same exploit. (read carefully on my wording of exploit, as I'm intending it to be used as "code that can be modified to do something unintentional, and in this case, make a working maphack").
I realize that Blizzard can't make a perfectly secure game... because NOBODY can. However, they COULD be working to SOLVE THE ISSUES that hackers are using to exploit the game and create things like maphacks. This is how it works with ANY other game.
If someone figured out how to dupe in WoW, that would probably be fixed, correct? It would be fixed by finding out HOW the person did it, then patching the vulnerable code so that it wont work anymore. When it comes to maphacks, Blizzard has NEVER done ANYTHING to prevent them from being made (unless you consider renaming the variable in question prevention... which it isn't).
If you look at an open-source maphack from 2 weeks after the game was released... and an open-source maphack from yesterday, you will find VERY SIMILAR code because the exploits that are being used to create the maphack are STILL THERE. This has never been fixed.
I don't know how else to explain to some of you people that either:
A) Simply can't accept the fact that Blizzard hasn't done anything to PREVENT maphacks from being made B) Don't have the proper programming / hacking knowledge to realize this isn't very complicated stuff
It's network entrusion security / software vulnerability testing in it's most basic form. There is a SIMPLE flaw in SC2 that is allowing these maphacks to be made... and Blizzard has done nothing to fix the problem. There is no argument... it's just whether or not some people want to accept the reality that Blizzard doesn't care because they are MAKING MONEY from people using hacks (by banning them and forcing to cough up another $60 for a new account).
I don't think you can make money from banning people. I think you make money by having a good reputation, patching your games to improve glitches, balancing races, enhancing competition by implementing new features (such as the ladder system), etc. etc. Who knows? I don't, because marketing is not my domain, so I'm not qualified to give an answer on this...
Regarding Blizzard you left out Warden. You can't expect them to redesign their game to counter hackers. Every single time you change production code, it needs to be reviewed, documentated, tested... Ugh micro-manage staff makes life so difficult When warden scans for specific patterns, they are matched against existing ones. For instance a pattern could be (I know you're well aware of this, but I'm sure others are reading too) you initializing some strings in a specific order in your functions... This is enough to get you banned. Sure you can counter this by hooking a query which will return NULL in your functions..., but who knows what Warden really does? So why complain? All we know for a fact is that it keeps evolving and cheaters keep getting banned. That's enough to keep me satisfied.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
Thats your argument. Really.
Sorry, thats so, well, to put it nicely: off the track, that i dont even know how to answer it. And frankly, i dont even care.
But let me try anyway. Look, blizzard is a company. Right? They are a business. So lets say, you are a company. What you want to do, is to prevent cheating for the "average joe". Mission accomplished. If you dont know what youre doing there, chances are high that you get banned. So far, so good. As a company, you try to hold this standard. Nothing more, because everything else would be completely retarded. You cant make it cheatproof, no matter how much money you burn into that mission. You just cant. In the end, the same people (the ones who know what theyre doing) are still cheating, the average joes couldnt cheat beforehand.
Get it? Theres no reason at all to improve further. In the contrary, it would be stupid, because you lose money due to manpower needed to prevent cheating (which again, will never be accomplished).
That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they may have promised stuff and did not deliver. In any way. People like that guy who mentioned that blizzard should rework the whole "system", to prevent hacks.. Yeah. Right. Let them invent the game new, just to be cheated after a short while again (because again: you cant be not-cheated, even if nothing is stored locally). So you burned alot of money for.. What?
Blizzard is actually doing it completely right with SC2. If you do more, its pointless. If you do less, a lot of cheating happens. Both is not the case.
Edit: of course, not to mention people like these in this thread, which want a completely cheatproof game, but FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU if you try to scan my computer for cheats!! And yes, to be at least in any case efficient against cheats, you have to scan the processes. For more safety, you would need to scan even more.
But, im curious.. Because you seem really wise and stuff. Stop being just talk, and show me how it could be done. Whats your idea of "cheatproof", what could they do?
How could manpower that should be used to prevent cheating cripple blizzard's bussiness? What you just said it is weird
Well with you it is wasted time. You pretend to say that if they made more effort it would be wasted. It doesn't matter if a service is bad, if it looks good, or at least , it seems so, there is no need to complain about. Right . Or am I wrong?
Sergio care to explain what Blizzard COULD be doing that they aren't? Or will you keep that as a secret?
actively taking steps to prevent hacking. It is not hard.
Edit 2r4y said what I was writing. Edit 3: I edited because I was overall too aggressive in this post. I apologize.
I never used the word cripple. I said it costs money (which could be spent elsewhere, because in the end, the money is spent for nothing). Big difference, but wouldnt look so good in your "argument", correct?
Also you assume the service is bad, which it is not. Theres not that many cheaters out there. In 90% of the games (at least!), when you think "that bastard HAS to be cheating!!!!11": you just suck. And with that i dont mean you personally, but every starcraftplayer, including me. And sure, you can complain all you want. But in the end, nothing will and nothing COULD change.
About my question regarding what blizzard could do, you gave a very vague answer. Could you go into detail with "preventing hacking active", please?
And as for your edit, i saw what you wrote. And i had a good laugh. You know why (im from germany btw).
The amount of expertise regarding hacking and cheating in this thread is flabbergasting. Makes me feel like a lot of people have at least checked out some of the hacks out there. Is this a thing now? Is that common?
I'd rather enjoy the game than constantly trying to break it.
And regarding that Youtube video advertising a maphack... I think posting that is just in bad taste.
Just for clarification, the theory that you have for how map hacks isn't entirely true. You can create a full blown map hack without injection, just memory modification. What "legit" players are unaware of is that in SC2 there is another player in your ladder games called "Neutral". Making a simple memory modification you can fool the game that you are the Neutral player and see all. (A fun fact, the "Neutral" player also controls the animals in the game).
In it's current form, Warden is unable to detect map hacks. Simple as. Not only is SC2.exe hooked, but Warden is also. Thus, maphack creators can tell when warden is scanning for active byte(s) changed in the SC2 memory and in turn, disable it for a brief millisecond. Warden continues on and the map hack remains undetected.
The ultimate failsafe is the hack actually disables itself if a new version of Warden is active. Requiring vetting from the map hacker to determine whether it is still safe to be enabled.
I have also not seen warden "scan my RAM" to see what 3rd party applications are running. If it does do this, what is to stop map hackers just change a couple of bytes in a HEX editor and thus create a new EXE signature? Nothing.
Also, reading from the memory can present a whole use of information. You have a unit class and a player class. The unit class contains all the information about a unit, ie marine, x coordinate, y coordinate, health, etc. A player class contains all the information, ie camera location, vespene gas, minerals, etc).
From this, you can derive player state, name, camera location, team, etc. Not only that, but it can be read from the memory just as easily also.
Mod edit - code edited out
Even Blink hacks are just as easy to create:
Mod Edit - code edited out
This can even be done by a VB script kiddie, if he show choose. I think you need to give a little more respect to these hackers then you give them. They are smart and don't just do things on the fly, they think about what they are doing. It takes a lot of know how to do what they do.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
Thats your argument. Really.
Sorry, thats so, well, to put it nicely: off the track, that i dont even know how to answer it. And frankly, i dont even care.
But let me try anyway. Look, blizzard is a company. Right? They are a business. So lets say, you are a company. What you want to do, is to prevent cheating for the "average joe". Mission accomplished. If you dont know what youre doing there, chances are high that you get banned. So far, so good. As a company, you try to hold this standard. Nothing more, because everything else would be completely retarded. You cant make it cheatproof, no matter how much money you burn into that mission. You just cant. In the end, the same people (the ones who know what theyre doing) are still cheating, the average joes couldnt cheat beforehand.
Get it? Theres no reason at all to improve further. In the contrary, it would be stupid, because you lose money due to manpower needed to prevent cheating (which again, will never be accomplished).
That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they may have promised stuff and did not deliver. In any way. People like that guy who mentioned that blizzard should rework the whole "system", to prevent hacks.. Yeah. Right. Let them invent the game new, just to be cheated after a short while again (because again: you cant be not-cheated, even if nothing is stored locally). So you burned alot of money for.. What?
Blizzard is actually doing it completely right with SC2. If you do more, its pointless. If you do less, a lot of cheating happens. Both is not the case.
Edit: of course, not to mention people like these in this thread, which want a completely cheatproof game, but FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU if you try to scan my computer for cheats!! And yes, to be at least in any case efficient against cheats, you have to scan the processes. For more safety, you would need to scan even more.
But, im curious.. Because you seem really wise and stuff. Stop being just talk, and show me how it could be done. Whats your idea of "cheatproof", what could they do?
How could manpower that should be used to prevent cheating cripple blizzard's bussiness? What you just said it is weird
Well with you it is wasted time. You pretend to say that if they made more effort it would be wasted. It doesn't matter if a service is bad, if it looks good, or at least , it seems so, there is no need to complain about. Right . Or am I wrong?
-------------
Sergio care to explain what Blizzard COULD be doing that they aren't? Or will you keep that as a secret?
actively taking steps to prevent hacking. It is not hard.
Edit 2r4y said what I was writing. Edit 3: I edited because I was overall too aggressive in this post. I apologize.
I never used the word cripple. I said it costs money (which could be spent elsewhere, because in the end, the money is spent for nothing). Big difference, but wouldnt look so good in your "argument", correct? Also you assume the service is bad, which it is not. Theres not that many cheaters out there. In 90% of the games (at least!), when you think "that bastard HAS to be cheating!!!!11": you just suck. And with that i dont mean you personally, but every starcraftplayer, including me. And sure, you can complain all you want. But in the end, nothing will and nothing COULD change. About my question regarding what blizzard could do, you gave a very vague answer. Could you go into detail with "preventing hacking active", please? And as for your edit, i saw what you wrote. And i had a good laugh. You know why (im from germany btw).
I never said that there is a spreading community. Though I won't deny soon there will be , because how easy it is to use\produce hacks.
edit 2: look the above post, it explained what I meant to hide... and be vague about.
Here's an idea, what if you did a Man in the Middle by using s a similar set up to a corporate firewall (computer with 2 NICs) to record and transmit the data? Then you could try and decode the network traffic.
Cept I dont honestly believe that Blizz is doing their best to root out hackers. They have the wave of bans but thats really it. Outside of that "wave" theres virtually no largescale bans just maybe a couple while a bunch of people are still get shammed. If they were truly doing their best they would get away from banning in waves an do it as cases come in. They're not so strapped for cash to where they can't afford to hire people to go through replays an on a set list of criteria come to the conclusion of weather or not a person hacked. Like continuously looking over into the FoW an such. So yea they have warden but they're waiting till they have a collective to ban people rather then "Hey this guy is hacking he's getting a ban NOW!!!" not 2 months into the future when the next wave comes but now unlike what usually happens.
On February 20 2012 02:45 cydial wrote: So many people think they know better than a multi fucking billion dollar company like blizzard to the point that they give advice as if they are some adviser for an info sec company.
And have you noticed that multi billion dollar company has one of the worst social features out of any modern online game?
And that proofs it! Everything! Because they had no chat from the beginning, they surely dont know how to prevent hacks and stuff and are stupid in general.
Well done, sir. Could not have done it better. /thread
.... seriously? Because they didnt have "social features" fitting your imagination, they dont know what theyre doing? Really? I have used the chat not once since its implementation. Not once. So, yeah. Glad they put the effort in it.
would you kindly read the whole topic instead of reading a statement out of context, and trying to insert your meaningless statement there, obviously not acknowledging the truth that lies behind some people' words?
Well there is no truth, because the "argument" has nothing to do with the actual topic? OP said "hacking hard/impossible". 12 guys saying "nah, pretty easy". One guy says "well im sure you know better than a multibillion company". Then someone comes and says "yeah, i saw that regarding their social options".
Wtf? So now you can judge the priority of anti-cheat-measures in companies with looking at their social services? Yeah, that really sounds like an argument to me. Really.
Edit: and "the truth" is, the "worst social features" is not even true, not that it would matter, but just to have it said.
The correlation is They promised it = they didn't give us They didn't promise it = imagine how much they care about hacks if they don't even care giving what should be rightfully ours according to their promises
Thats your argument. Really.
Sorry, thats so, well, to put it nicely: off the track, that i dont even know how to answer it. And frankly, i dont even care.
But let me try anyway. Look, blizzard is a company. Right? They are a business. So lets say, you are a company. What you want to do, is to prevent cheating for the "average joe". Mission accomplished. If you dont know what youre doing there, chances are high that you get banned. So far, so good. As a company, you try to hold this standard. Nothing more, because everything else would be completely retarded. You cant make it cheatproof, no matter how much money you burn into that mission. You just cant. In the end, the same people (the ones who know what theyre doing) are still cheating, the average joes couldnt cheat beforehand.
Get it? Theres no reason at all to improve further. In the contrary, it would be stupid, because you lose money due to manpower needed to prevent cheating (which again, will never be accomplished).
That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they may have promised stuff and did not deliver. In any way. People like that guy who mentioned that blizzard should rework the whole "system", to prevent hacks.. Yeah. Right. Let them invent the game new, just to be cheated after a short while again (because again: you cant be not-cheated, even if nothing is stored locally). So you burned alot of money for.. What?
Blizzard is actually doing it completely right with SC2. If you do more, its pointless. If you do less, a lot of cheating happens. Both is not the case.
Edit: of course, not to mention people like these in this thread, which want a completely cheatproof game, but FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU if you try to scan my computer for cheats!! And yes, to be at least in any case efficient against cheats, you have to scan the processes. For more safety, you would need to scan even more.
But, im curious.. Because you seem really wise and stuff. Stop being just talk, and show me how it could be done. Whats your idea of "cheatproof", what could they do?
How could manpower that should be used to prevent cheating cripple blizzard's bussiness? What you just said it is weird
Well with you it is wasted time. You pretend to say that if they made more effort it would be wasted. It doesn't matter if a service is bad, if it looks good, or at least , it seems so, there is no need to complain about. Right . Or am I wrong?
-------------
Sergio care to explain what Blizzard COULD be doing that they aren't? Or will you keep that as a secret?
actively taking steps to prevent hacking. It is not hard.
Edit 2r4y said what I was writing. Edit 3: I edited because I was overall too aggressive in this post. I apologize.
I never used the word cripple. I said it costs money (which could be spent elsewhere, because in the end, the money is spent for nothing). Big difference, but wouldnt look so good in your "argument", correct? Also you assume the service is bad, which it is not. Theres not that many cheaters out there. In 90% of the games (at least!), when you think "that bastard HAS to be cheating!!!!11": you just suck. And with that i dont mean you personally, but every starcraftplayer, including me. And sure, you can complain all you want. But in the end, nothing will and nothing COULD change. About my question regarding what blizzard could do, you gave a very vague answer. Could you go into detail with "preventing hacking active", please? And as for your edit, i saw what you wrote. And i had a good laugh. You know why (im from germany btw).
I never said that there is a spreading community. Though I won't deny soon there will be , because how easy it is to use\produce hacks.
edit 2: look the above post, it explained what I meant to hide... and be vague about.
I cant really tell if you are trolling or not.
The "above post" is a facepalm, so i guess you meant the posting before that. And he didnt explain at all how someone could prevent cheating, as you claimed with (quote) "actively taking steps to prevent hacking.". The post you referred to just explains how to create a hack. You were asked how these "actively token steps to prevent hacking" should look like. Three times now.
Also im not even sure that you quoted the right person, because again, you comment something which i didnt even say. With no word whatsoever i talked about a "spreading community". In fact, quite the opposite.
As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable.
So if they are all but undetectable, doesn't that mean they are everything except undetectable, in other words easy to detect? I think you used that phrase incorrectly.
Just trying to clear up some confusion.
while logically, it makes no sense, it is correct in the sense that it is a common usage of the phrase, and everyone knows what you mean
seriously whats the point of maphacking, all it means is you will keep winning until you reach a level where eventually you will face people massively better than you who crush you
On February 20 2012 08:33 roymarthyup wrote: seriously whats the point of maphacking, all it means is you will keep winning until you reach a level where eventually you will face people massively better than you who crush you
lol yea, hacks don't make up for a lack of skill The only real problem would be the use of hacks in tournaments, but when money's involved, those replays are going to be scrutinized like crazy, and there's no way you would get away with it.
As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable.
So if they are all but undetectable, doesn't that mean they are everything except undetectable, in other words easy to detect? I think you used that phrase incorrectly.
Just trying to clear up some confusion.
the usage of the phrase is correct
the phrase itself has always been a little bit weird, but he used it correctly. the phrase "all but x" means "very close to x"
Wrong. They could eliminate hacking permanently if they would put 1% of the effort they did to make this game unpiratable
Besides the fact that, the 1% would mean at least 1 million dollars, do you have any idea about making thing unpiratable? I'm pretty sure you don't, if you say things like that.
As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable.
So if they are all but undetectable, doesn't that mean they are everything except undetectable, in other words easy to detect? I think you used that phrase incorrectly.
Just trying to clear up some confusion.
the usage of the phrase is correct
the phrase itself has always been a little bit weird, but he used it correctly. the phrase "all but x" means "very close to x"
The phrase "all but x" means everything except x. Like batman is all but invincible, because he has many positive qualities but isn't invincible.
I thought Blizzard couldn't scan for .exe signatures because of the potential breach of privacy? AFAIK they used to do this practice but stopped because people were complaining that it was too invasive.
On February 20 2012 05:29 PR4Y wrote: To the people that quoted my post saying things like "it's impossible to secure" and "they have done everything they can"... I'm going to shoot down your entire argument right here and right now:
Maphacks work by modifying just a few game variables. Every time a patch comes out, the variables are SIMPLY RENAMED so that the people that made the maphacks have to find the variable again. This is literally the extent of what they have done to "actively" stop maphacking. They changed the name... PLEASE realize that this is NOT what some of you are calling "impossible to secure"... as they have done literally NOTHING to prevent maphacks. If you can show me a shred of evidence otherwise (you can't, because they haven't), then I'll retract my statements.
They sent a cease and desist letter to a few well known hack developers, who have since shut down their operations and haven't released the source code for their hacks. I think there have been 2 major sites and/or hacks that have since been shut down.
If someone figured out how to dupe in WoW, that would probably be fixed, correct? It would be fixed by finding out HOW the person did it, then patching the vulnerable code so that it wont work anymore. When it comes to maphacks, Blizzard has NEVER done ANYTHING to prevent them from being made (unless you consider renaming the variable in question prevention... which it isn't).
If you look at an open-source maphack from 2 weeks after the game was released... and an open-source maphack from yesterday, you will find VERY SIMILAR code because the exploits that are being used to create the maphack are STILL THERE. This has never been fixed.
There is a major difference between a game like HoN or LoL, where maphacks are impossible because of the way objects are called, to a game like starcraft. The scale of SC2 means that it isn't possible to use the same system like HoN or LoL without introducing a host of lag issues between the clients and servers.
Long story short, Blizzard has approached the problem of hacking in a number of different ways. From Warden detection to scaring the websites and developers of these hacks into shutting down directly through litigation threats. They're doing what they can.
To input my own opinion on this subject, there really is no point in hacking. You will just have your MMR artificially boosted until you face people who are just genuinely better than you. At which point you are really no better than before you were hacking.
If you hack in SC2, it is not if you will get banned, but when.
You can design the game in such a way that map hacking is 100% impossible. It's pretty simple axiom: if game server sends the whole game state to client, this information can be intercepted and used.
Some games (like HoN as some pointed out) designed in such a way that client doesn't get 100% game information, instead it gets only the information on units he can see.
Blizzard has chosen against that. There are notable differences between HoN and SC2. SC2 has much more active objects on the map than HoN (especially since it suppports not just 1v1 but 4v4 as well), visibility state can change very fast due to fast movement of some units, XelNaga Towers and availability of scans. Game client also needs the whole gamestate info to record replays, but this obviously can be solved by server-side replay recording.
Now before you start shouting "STOOPID BLIZZ Y U DESIGN SC2 WRONG U COULD AVOID MAP HAX BLAHDY BLAHDY BLAAAAAAAAARGH", I want to remind you about one peculiar unit... known as mothership.
Do you remember the time when game started lagging when mothership gotten built? Note that it lagged for both players. That is the case of when gamestate of a hundred objects can change very fast. It sounds simple to just go over list of objects and change their stealth status -- yet in the end Blizzard had to patch in the cap of amount of units that can be stealthed by a mothership in a game second.
Now consider that if your client wouldn't have the whole game state available, the scans would lag you much more badly than mothership cloaking nearby units. Either that -- or enemy units would get into vision not at the same time, but gradually. Have that picture in mind? Now imagine how two maxed players start trading the control of a XelNaga Tower.
That study linked above is very interesting and it states that providing partial vision to game clients can be done without big perfomance hits. But that's theory, in practice we have the mothership case, which shows why exactly Blizzard did design SC2 in such a way that both clients have whole game information.
Now when it comes to mentioned above blink hack, this is an entirely different case. This is not a passive hack, it needs an interaction with game engine, so the only possible way of opposing it is tools like Warden. Sure, Blizzard can try to obfuscate game data in memory (making the game slower in process), but it's just a cat and mouse game with hackers. You can't reliably build the 100% protection against things like these. However blink hack can be easily spotted in replays
While I don't hack, I have a friend who payed ~60.00 USD for a hack which works perfectly and for which he's never been caught. I don't know exactly when he got it, but I know he's had it since November of last year.
The hack is a full map hack and production tab hack. This guy plays mainly team games so honestly I don't even see how it's that useful haha. He seems really confident that he won't get banned though.
The thing that I tell him though, I know you can still get banned if people notice that you're map hacking, even if Blizz can't detect it. I think he's able to get away with it because he's like gold-plat league. I think even if I hacked, and I'm only high diamond, it would be more noticeable to my opponents and I'd probably get banned one day.
You can design the game in such a way that map hacking is 100% impossible. It's pretty simple axiom: if game server sends the whole game state to client, this information can be intercepted and used.
Some games (like HoN as some pointed out) designed in such a way that client doesn't get 100% game information, instead it gets only the information on units he can see.
Blizzard has chosen against that. There are notable differences between HoN and SC2. SC2 has much more active objects on the map than HoN (especially since it suppports not just 1v1 but 4v4 as well), visibility state can change very fast due to fast movement of some units, XelNaga Towers and availability of scans. Game client also needs the whole gamestate info to record replays, but this obviously can be solved by server-side replay recording.
Now before you start shouting "STOOPID BLIZZ Y U DESIGN SC2 WRONG U COULD AVOID MAP HAX BLAHDY BLAHDY BLAAAAAAAAARGH", I want to remind you about one peculiar unit... known as mothership.
Do you remember the time when game started lagging when mothership gotten built? Note that it lagged for both players. That is the case of when gamestate of a hundred objects can change very fast. It sounds simple to just go over list of objects and change their stealth status -- yet in the end Blizzard had to patch in the cap of amount of units that can be stealthed by a mothership in a game second.
Now consider that if your client wouldn't have the whole game state available, the scans would lag you much more badly than mothership cloaking nearby units. Either that -- or enemy units would get into vision not at the same time, but gradually. Have that picture in mind? Now imagine how two maxed players start trading the control of a XelNaga Tower.
That study linked above is very interesting and it states that providing partial vision to game clients can be done without big perfomance hits. But that's theory, in practice we have the mothership case, which shows why exactly Blizzard did design SC2 in such a way that both clients have whole game information.
Now when it comes to mentioned above blink hack, this is an entirely different case. This is not a passive hack, it needs an interaction with game engine, so the only possible way of opposing it is tools like Warden. Sure, Blizzard can try to obfuscate game data in memory (making the game slower in process), but it's just a cat and mouse game with hackers. You can't reliably build the 100% protection against things like these. However blink hack can be easily spotted in replays
This guy's post is much more detailed and eloquent than mine on why Blizzard doesn't make a 100% maphack proof game.
You can design the game in such a way that map hacking is 100% impossible. It's pretty simple axiom: if game server sends the whole game state to client, this information can be intercepted and used.
Some games (like HoN as some pointed out) designed in such a way that client doesn't get 100% game information, instead it gets only the information on units he can see.
Blizzard has chosen against that. There are notable differences between HoN and SC2. SC2 has much more active objects on the map than HoN (especially since it suppports not just 1v1 but 4v4 as well), visibility state can change very fast due to fast movement of some units, XelNaga Towers and availability of scans. Game client also needs the whole gamestate info to record replays, but this obviously can be solved by server-side replay recording.
Now before you start shouting "STOOPID BLIZZ Y U DESIGN SC2 WRONG U COULD AVOID MAP HAX BLAHDY BLAHDY BLAAAAAAAAARGH", I want to remind you about one peculiar unit... known as mothership.
Do you remember the time when game started lagging when mothership gotten built? Note that it lagged for both players. That is the case of when gamestate of a hundred objects can change very fast. It sounds simple to just go over list of objects and change their stealth status -- yet in the end Blizzard had to patch in the cap of amount of units that can be stealthed by a mothership in a game second.
Now consider that if your client wouldn't have the whole game state available, the scans would lag you much more badly than mothership cloaking nearby units. Either that -- or enemy units would get into vision not at the same time, but gradually. Have that picture in mind? Now imagine how two maxed players start trading the control of a XelNaga Tower.
That study linked above is very interesting and it states that providing partial vision to game clients can be done without big perfomance hits. But that's theory, in practice we have the mothership case, which shows why exactly Blizzard did design SC2 in such a way that both clients have whole game information.
Now when it comes to mentioned above blink hack, this is an entirely different case. This is not a passive hack, it needs an interaction with game engine, so the only possible way of opposing it is tools like Warden. Sure, Blizzard can try to obfuscate game data in memory (making the game slower in process), but it's just a cat and mouse game with hackers. You can't reliably build the 100% protection against things like these. However blink hack can be easily spotted in replays
Interesting post, thanks a lot.
When it comes to maphack, which I regard as the hack that gives you the biggest advantage in SC2, your client needs to know when to render which units... If the Blizzard servers resolves when the enemy units are in your FoV (field of view), then your client only receives data about enemy units, when they're in your FoV - so actually disabling FoW (fog of war) won't be useful at all.
Great example of how game design can prevent some hacks from being implemented. Thank you
What is/can Blizzard do to stop hackers? They're doing everything they can. They are using Warden and they're suing the people developing/distributing the hacks. A few months ago the biggest game-hacking community site was taken down by Blizzard.
That is complete bullshit. If this is the best Blizzard can do then they need to start firing some of their employee's. They have nearly UNLIMITED recources compared to every other company due to WoW. And there are 13 (That are AMERICAN) that can make a maphack that bests warden. Benidik made so much money off selling a TieHack that wasn't banned for 2 years for wc3. I dont know who is making the Maphacks now for sc2 nor do i care but there are people paying $30-40 for undetecable ones that are constantly updated. Just ask Manubot.
You can design the game in such a way that map hacking is 100% impossible. It's pretty simple axiom: if game server sends the whole game state to client, this information can be intercepted and used.
Some games (like HoN as some pointed out) designed in such a way that client doesn't get 100% game information, instead it gets only the information on units he can see.
Blizzard has chosen against that. There are notable differences between HoN and SC2. SC2 has much more active objects on the map than HoN (especially since it suppports not just 1v1 but 4v4 as well), visibility state can change very fast due to fast movement of some units, XelNaga Towers and availability of scans. Game client also needs the whole gamestate info to record replays, but this obviously can be solved by server-side replay recording.
Now before you start shouting "STOOPID BLIZZ Y U DESIGN SC2 WRONG U COULD AVOID MAP HAX BLAHDY BLAHDY BLAAAAAAAAARGH", I want to remind you about one peculiar unit... known as mothership.
Do you remember the time when game started lagging when mothership gotten built? Note that it lagged for both players. That is the case of when gamestate of a hundred objects can change very fast. It sounds simple to just go over list of objects and change their stealth status -- yet in the end Blizzard had to patch in the cap of amount of units that can be stealthed by a mothership in a game second.
Now consider that if your client wouldn't have the whole game state available, the scans would lag you much more badly than mothership cloaking nearby units. Either that -- or enemy units would get into vision not at the same time, but gradually. Have that picture in mind? Now imagine how two maxed players start trading the control of a XelNaga Tower.
That study linked above is very interesting and it states that providing partial vision to game clients can be done without big perfomance hits. But that's theory, in practice we have the mothership case, which shows why exactly Blizzard did design SC2 in such a way that both clients have whole game information.
Now when it comes to mentioned above blink hack, this is an entirely different case. This is not a passive hack, it needs an interaction with game engine, so the only possible way of opposing it is tools like Warden. Sure, Blizzard can try to obfuscate game data in memory (making the game slower in process), but it's just a cat and mouse game with hackers. You can't reliably build the 100% protection against things like these. However blink hack can be easily spotted in replays
A game, say HoN or LoL, with a significantly lower cap to the number of entities, can use a simulation model similar to FPS games where the client fires their commands to the server which has the final say about the state of the world and sends back 'real' gamestates to the client.
There are reasons to choose one simulation model over the other, it's not an arbitrary choice made to have a less secure game.
What is/can Blizzard do to stop hackers? They're doing everything they can. They are using Warden and they're suing the people developing/distributing the hacks. A few months ago the biggest game-hacking community site was taken down by Blizzard.
That is complete bullshit. If this is the best Blizzard can do then they need to start firing some of their employee's. They have nearly UNLIMITED recources compared to every other company due to WoW. And there are 13 (That are AMERICAN) that can make a maphack that bests warden. Benidik made so much money off selling a TieHack that wasn't banned for 2 years for wc3. I dont know who is making the Maphacks now for sc2 nor do i care but there are people paying $30-40 for undetecable ones that are constantly updated. Just ask Manubot.
Out of curiousity, what would you suggest they go and do? Hire a bunch of people to look at random memory dumps of people playing the game to see if they may be hacking? Have a more invasive protection mechanism in warden? Rewrite their networking stack?
I hate hackers and cheaters, get rid of them please Blizzard T_T, Thanks for this though, I enjoyed gaining a lot of knowledge about the terrible maphacks / hackers , just to understand what is truthfully going on, it is crazy , and unfortunate SC2 isn't 100% hack proof....sometimes I play people that just don't scout and I wonder if they hack .. T_T
You really have no idea how bad the security on all blizzard games is. Most of the functions used are internal commands from SC2 that just need to be called. Changing one number in a memory field isnt exactly l33t hacking. Seriously blizzard have for a long time never gave two damns about security, they prefer to get their legal department to do the work not the hacking department.
I honestly don't get why people think hacking is this HUGE problem. I've played 600 games and I haven't played against a single person whom I could say was hacking. And even if some of them were hacking, either I won anyway because I had better macro or unit control, or they might have won either way because they were better than me. Very rarely will you play against someone where their maphacks were the sole reason that they won the game.
And when you consider how skilled the top players are, it's inevitable that map hackers eventually hit the MMR where they're playing against people who are so much better than them that their map hacks won't even make a difference, and they'll get stomped either way.
I just think people need to stop saying that hacking is a huge problem that Blizz needs to devote millions and millions of dollars to fix. It's a relatively small-scale problem, and anyone who uses them for long enough will eventually play against someone who can tell that they're hacking, and report them.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
As I explained hacks which uses .dll injections are all but undetectable.
So if they are all but undetectable, doesn't that mean they are everything except undetectable, in other words easy to detect? I think you used that phrase incorrectly.
Just trying to clear up some confusion.
the usage of the phrase is correct
the phrase itself has always been a little bit weird, but he used it correctly. the phrase "all but x" means "very close to x"
But he didn't mean that it was nearly undetectable. He meant the opposite, that it was very detectable. That's what it looks like to me, anyway, and in that case he didn't use it correctly.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
The point your missing is that almost all maphacks for SC2 use the exact same function, which is this
It has been untouched since release other than the offset moving around a bit and is painfully easy to exploit, like, a guy learns hello world in C++, 4 days later they can write a hack to exploit this easily.
There are a few other hacks but for the most part fixing this would stop 90%+ of sc2 maphacks. However blizzard choose not to. The majority of things like blink hacks etc also heavily exploit the various commands listed here
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
The point your missing is that almost all maphacks for SC2 use the exact same function, which is this
It has been untouched since release other than the offset moving around a bit and is painfully easy to exploit, like, a guy learns hello world in C++, 4 days later they can write a hack to exploit this easily.
There are a few other hacks but for the most part fixing this would stop 90%+ of sc2 maphacks. However blizzard choose not to. The majority of things like blink hacks etc also heavily exploit the various commands listed here
Basically blizzard are giving hackers all the tools they need on a platter and doing 0 about protecting them.
Blizzard don't have basement programmers who make hot fixes on production code. They need to prioritize this task, estimate it, redesign it, review the redesign, recode it, review the code, make test cases, test it, deploy the hot fix to their patch servers, etc. etc. Ohh I forgot to mention documentation, release notes...
Basically they need to go through all the things that hackers would have to go through if they were being micromanaged
So although it's easy for you, for me and anyone else whose comfortable coding in C++ to find ressources online and compile our own hacks, it's not a simple task for Blizzard to redesign their game to counter hacks, not only isn't it simple, it's expensive and it won't permanently fix any issues.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
Actually its a grey area: You cant read the licence agreement before you buy the game, and once you bought it you cant return it to a store (at least in spain its a 100% no-go). I guess you could find those if you search online, but thats like the "small letters" in a contract, of the fast sliding letters in a tv add. Basicly you agree to the terms before you get to read them :D.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
The point your missing is that almost all maphacks for SC2 use the exact same function, which is this
It has been untouched since release other than the offset moving around a bit and is painfully easy to exploit, like, a guy learns hello world in C++, 4 days later they can write a hack to exploit this easily.
There are a few other hacks but for the most part fixing this would stop 90%+ of sc2 maphacks. However blizzard choose not to. The majority of things like blink hacks etc also heavily exploit the various commands listed here
Basically blizzard are giving hackers all the tools they need on a platter and doing 0 about protecting them.
Blizzard don't have basement programmers who make hot fixes on production code. They need to prioritize this task, estimate it, redesign it, review the redesign, recode it, review the code, make test cases, test it, deploy the hot fix to their patch servers, etc. etc. Ohh I forgot to mention documentation, release notes...
Basically they need to go through all the things that hackers would have to go through if they were being micromanaged
So although it's easy for you, for me and anyone else whose comfortable coding in C++ to find ressources online and compile our own hacks, it's not a simple task for Blizzard to redesign their game to counter hacks, not only isn't it simple, it's expensive and it won't permanently fix any issues.
You gotta be kidding. They dont solve the problem because they dont see/care about it.
Have you heard of hacks in games like WoW? or Maybe Guild Wars? Sure, there might be some, but they last 2-3 days. Warden is a great way to get information about a users PC after all. See all you have running is usefull indeed. Thats about it.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
Actually its a grey area: You cant read the licence agreement before you buy the game, and once you bought it you cant return it to a store (at least in spain its a 100% no-go). I guess you could find those if you search online, but thats like the "small letters" in a contract, of the fast sliding letters in a tv add. Basicly you agree to the terms before you get to read them :D.
Warning: the below assumes you have a computer which can access the internet and that you know how to navigate the internet and that you know the title of the game whos EULA you are searching for.
step 1: open your favourite web-browser
step 2: go to "www.google.com"
step 3: search for "<gamename> EULA", where <gamename> is to be substituted by the name of the game.
step 4: click on top result
congratulations, you did not need to buy the game to read the EULA of the appropriate game.
if you can read this post that means you have access to a computer as well as access to internet and thus "I did not have access to the EULA until it was too late" is not an acceptable excuse.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
Actually its a grey area: You cant read the licence agreement before you buy the game, and once you bought it you cant return it to a store (at least in spain its a 100% no-go). I guess you could find those if you search online, but thats like the "small letters" in a contract, of the fast sliding letters in a tv add. Basicly you agree to the terms before you get to read them :D.
Warning: the below assumes you have a computer which can access the internet and that you know how to navigate the internet and that you know the title of the game whos EULA you are searching for.
step 1: open your favourite web-browser
step 2: go to "www.google.com"
step 3: search for "<gamename> EULA", where <gamename> is to be substituted by the name of the game.
step 4: click on top result
congratulations, you did not need to buy the game to read the EULA of the appropriate game.
if you can read this post that means you have access to a computer as well as access to internet and thus "I did not have access to the EULA until it was too late" is not an acceptable excuse.
And? How exactly did the seller show it to you if you find it on your own? Because by law, thats what he have to do BEFORE the deal. And who say that the eula i find is the eula they will come up with. Why write any contract? People could just google random contracts and take the one they like.
You can not change a deal after the deal is done. And by accepting the money and the product the deal is done. So eula by installation is like 99% of this "agree here". Just an click and nothing worth. Why do they inculde it then? because many people dont know.Most contracts are not legal and the once who write it know that. But most of the time you dont end up by curt so you can foul people with less intelligence.
BTW: Even when the eula was shown and signed before the contract, this does not mean they can write in it what they want. Many people think if you sign something you have to follow it but thats only the case if the conctract is not against the law. I could agree that i dont have any guarantee. Still i have it by law.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
The point your missing is that almost all maphacks for SC2 use the exact same function, which is this
It has been untouched since release other than the offset moving around a bit and is painfully easy to exploit, like, a guy learns hello world in C++, 4 days later they can write a hack to exploit this easily.
There are a few other hacks but for the most part fixing this would stop 90%+ of sc2 maphacks. However blizzard choose not to. The majority of things like blink hacks etc also heavily exploit the various commands listed here
Basically blizzard are giving hackers all the tools they need on a platter and doing 0 about protecting them.
Blizzard don't have basement programmers who make hot fixes on production code. They need to prioritize this task, estimate it, redesign it, review the redesign, recode it, review the code, make test cases, test it, deploy the hot fix to their patch servers, etc. etc. Ohh I forgot to mention documentation, release notes...
Basically they need to go through all the things that hackers would have to go through if they were being micromanaged
So although it's easy for you, for me and anyone else whose comfortable coding in C++ to find ressources online and compile our own hacks, it's not a simple task for Blizzard to redesign their game to counter hacks, not only isn't it simple, it's expensive and it won't permanently fix any issues.
You gotta be kidding.
Nope.
Edit: Let me elaborate. Every single software company has a developing process. Those that don't usually consist of 2 teenage HTML coders in their early teenage years... Nobody "last minute - hot fixes" production code unless the main "BOSS" is threatning to unleash the dogs.
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
Actually its a grey area: You cant read the licence agreement before you buy the game, and once you bought it you cant return it to a store (at least in spain its a 100% no-go). I guess you could find those if you search online, but thats like the "small letters" in a contract, of the fast sliding letters in a tv add. Basicly you agree to the terms before you get to read them :D.
Warning: the below assumes you have a computer which can access the internet and that you know how to navigate the internet and that you know the title of the game whos EULA you are searching for.
step 1: open your favourite web-browser
step 2: go to "www.google.com"
step 3: search for "<gamename> EULA", where <gamename> is to be substituted by the name of the game.
step 4: click on top result
congratulations, you did not need to buy the game to read the EULA of the appropriate game.
if you can read this post that means you have access to a computer as well as access to internet and thus "I did not have access to the EULA until it was too late" is not an acceptable excuse.
And? How exactly did the seller show it to you if you find it on your own? Because by law, thats what he have to do BEFORE the deal. And who say that the eula i find is the eula they will come up with. Why write any contract? People could just google random contracts and take the one they like. You logic is .... normaly not worth my time to awnser it...
You can not change a deal after the deal is done. And by accepting the money and the product the deal is done. So eula by installation is like 99% of this "agree here". Just an click and nothing worth. Why do they inculde it then? because many people dont know.Most contracts are not legal and the once who write it know that. But most of the time you dont end up by curt so you can foul people with less intelligence.
The seller has no obligation to have you read the EULA before you use the merchandise, he is only the middle hand much like a messenger. Companies which produce a product does however have an obligation to give you the knowledge required to not screw up while handling the product, and if they do not, they can be sued for it. the following examples are all rumors and I have not confirmed them to be either true or false, but technically speaking they can be true since none of the examples contradict the law of the time.
someone buys a cover which is used to protect the front windshield from snow, the next morning that individual is in a car accident, later he/she sues the company who made the windshield cover since it never said that you should not drive the car while the cover is still on, he/she wins and since that day all such windshield covers have a note which tells you not to drive while its still on the front windshield.
once upon a time someone buys a microwave,aftr months of using it correctly, he/she thinks that his/her dog seems to be very cold, and decides to put the dog in the microwave to warm it up, obviously the dog dies, later he/she sues the microwave company because it never said you shouldn't put live animals in it, since then the microwaves have several notes either on the microwave itself or in an instruction booklet which comes with it which tells you a number of things which should not be put into the microwave.
this is true for the software companies as well, the difference is that software companies use EULAs, the role that these EULA fulfill is to tell you what you can expect to happen legally if you do something regarding the product. if you do not agree with the EULA then you do not have the right to use the software because the company does not have any gaurantee that you will use it correctly.
my point is that everything legally asked by every party is indeed fulfilled:
the seller sells merchandise, he has no obligation to make sure that you use the merchandise correctly, for such troubles you are always directed to the company which produced the product.
this is done by selling the product in their stores.
the producer must give you the opportunity to learn about all consequences which can happen if you use the product incorrectly, if they do, they have no obligation to make sure that you do use it correctly, and if you use it in a way which you have been told you should not, they are legally allowed to do the appropriate action described by them.
this is done by EULAs which can be found in several locations, such as the internet and at least in the case of SC2 in the instruction booklet (with the EULA of the time of writing the book), as well as in a message which you must agree with before being able to use the product.
there is absolutely nothing wrong going on around here, the seller gives you opportunities (buying the game), which you can choose to ignore, the product gives you opportunities (installing the game), which you can choose to ignore.
p.s. it is very clearly stated in the SC2 EULA that it can be changed by blizzard at any time for any reason, however, if they do change it, every consumer must agree to the new one before being allowed to play the game.
oh, and also heres some parts of the EULA you might be interested in, the below in quotation marks (" ") is copy/pasted:
"THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE GAME (DEFINED BELOW), YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE GAME. IF YOU REJECT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER YOUR PURCHASE, YOU MAY CALL (800) 757-7707 TO REQUEST A FULL REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE."
"Changes to the Agreement and/or Game. Blizzard may replace this Agreement with new versions (each a “New EULA”) over time as the Game and the law evolve. This Agreement will terminate immediately upon the introduction of a New EULA, and you will be given an opportunity to review and accept the New EULA. If you accept the New EULA, and if the Account registered to you remains in good standing, you will be able to continue playing the Game subject to the terms of the New EULA. If you decline to accept the New EULA, or if you cannot comply with the terms of the New EULA for any reason, you will no longer be permitted to play the Game. New EULAs will not be applied retroactively. Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Game at any time. Blizzard may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Game without notice or liability."
source: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/sc2eula.html in english: these are things you have agreed upon, when you bought the game you had a 30-day time period where you could choose to reject your purchase, this is not related to the purchase at a store, but instead you contact blizzard whom probably invalidates the key-code in your product and sends you the money. if you do not reject this, then you instead agree that they may change the EULA however much they want and you will not get a refund after the 30 daytime period.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: This is where you are ENTIRELY wrong.
It's all about profits, man. It honestly wouldn't be too hard to patch the exploit that EVERY PUBLIC MAPHACK has been using since it was first discovered.
And your evidence for either claim is? To support your first statement, please show evidence that banning SC 1, WC3, and Diablo II hackers was profitable for Blizzard, even seven+ years after the games were released. In addition, you also have to provide evidence that the motive behind Blizzard's banwaves is for re-sale purposes.
On February 20 2012 02:30 PR4Y wrote: Like I said before, if they spent 1/10th the time actually FIXING the exploits instead of the "ban all hackers" method, they would also become less profitable. Hackers will ALWAYS come back after a ban wave. Why would they want to just cut out an ongoing revenue source from their game? SC2 isn't based on a monthly subscription model, so these ban waves actually should be viewed for what they really are instead of "blizzard being the good-guy"... A ban wave is no more then a way to temporarily boost revenue streams.
Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
The point your missing is that almost all maphacks for SC2 use the exact same function, which is this
It has been untouched since release other than the offset moving around a bit and is painfully easy to exploit, like, a guy learns hello world in C++, 4 days later they can write a hack to exploit this easily.
There are a few other hacks but for the most part fixing this would stop 90%+ of sc2 maphacks. However blizzard choose not to. The majority of things like blink hacks etc also heavily exploit the various commands listed here
Basically blizzard are giving hackers all the tools they need on a platter and doing 0 about protecting them.
There is simply no way how you can "fix" this. It is virtually impossible to isolate the code and data of the SC2 process from modification from external programs. If they changed the currently exploited function then 90% of the SC2 maphacks would indeed not work anymore ... for approximately one week when somebody finds out a new way to achieve the same thing. You will never get rid of things like maphacks unless you invest an absurd amount of effort in doing. And even then somebody will break your code. I'm happy with the fact Blizzard doesnt not waste its resources tilting at windmills.
player known as SpaceJamZ... made it painfully obvious and then he was like "add me and see if I get banned baddie" "eZ gg no re" and blaaaaaaa bla bla
Nice OP you have made, I read the one where you said blizzard used VAC, and was gonna comment that they used Warden instead so you could change it, but the thread got closed while I was writing Well anyway, as this is a thread about hacks, I was wondering if bots = hacks? and if they are detected the in the same way?
Just because warden scans your computer doesn't make it perfect.
Warden is an anti-hack tool blizzard has been using for years, and guess what? It's not successful. It still catches the idiots, but over the past decade it has been proven time and time again that you can get around warden (quite easily in fact).
Hell, even in WoW when warden was supposed to be the strictest/catch anything etc you still had thousands upon thousands of players botting using Glider without warden having a clue. Hell, I did (fuck leveling in WoW... one of the most frustrating wastes of time in a video game ever), and I never got caught despite just using a program I downloaded off the internet and configuring it rather than programming my own bot/hack or something.
tl;dr: Warden isn't perfect, hackers will ALWAYS get around it. This thread has no purpose and is misguided in the first place
On February 21 2012 02:34 -orb- wrote: What's the purpose of this thread?
Just because warden scans your computer doesn't make it perfect.
Warden is an anti-hack tool blizzard has been using for years, and guess what? It's not successful. It still catches the idiots, but over the past decade it has been proven time and time again that you can get around warden (quite easily in fact).
Hell, even in WoW when warden was supposed to be the strictest/catch anything etc you still had thousands upon thousands of players botting using Glider without warden having a clue. Hell, I did (fuck leveling in WoW... one of the most frustrating wastes of time in a video game ever), and I never got caught despite just using a program I downloaded off the internet and configuring it rather than programming my own bot/hack or something.
tl;dr: Warden isn't perfect, hackers will ALWAYS get around it. This thread has no purpose and is misguided in the first place
I think the purpose is to convince hackers not to hack, a noble but quixotic task.
Just because you think leveling in WoW is a frustrating waste of time, doesn't mean it's ok to hack to automate it. By that logic, isn't getting good at SC2 a "frustrating waste of time"?
Don't hack in any game. If a game has parts that are a "frustrating waste of time," then play a better game.
On February 21 2012 02:34 -orb- wrote: What's the purpose of this thread?
Just because warden scans your computer doesn't make it perfect.
Warden is an anti-hack tool blizzard has been using for years, and guess what? It's not successful. It still catches the idiots, but over the past decade it has been proven time and time again that you can get around warden (quite easily in fact).
Hell, even in WoW when warden was supposed to be the strictest/catch anything etc you still had thousands upon thousands of players botting using Glider without warden having a clue. Hell, I did (fuck leveling in WoW... one of the most frustrating wastes of time in a video game ever), and I never got caught despite just using a program I downloaded off the internet and configuring it rather than programming my own bot/hack or something.
tl;dr: Warden isn't perfect, hackers will ALWAYS get around it. This thread has no purpose and is misguided in the first place
You know the difference between a bot and a hack, right? Not to mention how many glider-user were in fact banned (maybe try and check their forum).
But i agree to your TL;DR. Warden isnt perfect (far from it), but it gets the job done good enough. Hackers will always get around everything they would throw at us, so.. yeah. Live with it or stop playing, these are actually the only two options.
On February 21 2012 02:32 Pusekatten wrote: Nice OP you have made, I read the one where you said blizzard used VAC, and was gonna comment that they used Warden instead so you could change it, but the thread got closed while I was writing Well anyway, as this is a thread about hacks, I was wondering if bots = hacks? and if they are detected the in the same way?
Depends on how you develop your bot. I spent 2-3 weeks developing a bot for Aion, which was basically just a statemachine, which changed according to pixelchanges on the screen. By purely basing all logic in my bot on pixelsearching I knew for a fact it would be undetectable. Whenever a player would whisper me or an admin, the font colour would be "unique" and "Welcome to the jungle" would play with max volume, so I could rush to my computer and answer Later I learned others had implemented the same, but were using SMS gateways to notify the player instead of playing music :D I implemented a lot of small cool features and kept tweaking my bot to the point, where I could just leave it for hours without worrying about it being stuck or unable to recover from dying. I finally realised paying for a game that I'm letting a bot play might be an indication that I'm - excuse my language - piss bored with the game. So I quit. I also realised that developing the bot was a lot more fun than actually playing
On February 20 2012 19:45 MayorITC wrote: Your entire argument is purely speculation. I can make equally baseless conjectures in Blizzard's defense. No matter how many hacks you fix, new hacks will arise. So why bother fixing hacks when it's far more efficient to ban hackers and actually deter them from hacking? After all, fixing hacks will only challenge hackers to try even harder.
that's a bad argument. Why fixing windows' protection bugs if there are firewalls\antivirus that helps the user?
On February 21 2012 02:32 Pusekatten wrote: Nice OP you have made, I read the one where you said blizzard used VAC, and was gonna comment that they used Warden instead so you could change it, but the thread got closed while I was writing Well anyway, as this is a thread about hacks, I was wondering if bots = hacks? and if they are detected the in the same way?
Depends on how you develop your bot. I spent 2-3 weeks developing a bot for Aion, which was basically just a statemachine, which changed according to pixelchanges on the screen. By purely basing all logic in my bot on pixelsearching I knew for a fact it would be undetectable. Whenever a player would whisper me or an admin, the font colour would be "unique" and "Welcome to the jungle" would play with max volume, so I could rush to my computer and answer Later I learned others had implemented the same, but were using SMS gateways to notify the player instead of playing music :D I implemented a lot of small cool features and kept tweaking my bot to the point, where I could just leave it for hours without worrying about it being stuck or unable to recover from dying. I finally realised paying for a game that I'm letting a bot play might be an indication that I'm - excuse my language - piss bored with the game. So I quit. I also realised that developing the bot was a lot more fun than actually playing
wow, it sounds complicated, at least for someone like me who doesn't have any programming experience. I did however use a bot on wow, for farming herbs and mining like most do, but I also quit when I figured out I payed for logging inn a raiding once or twice a week, wasn't really worth it anymore. Was just wondering how much programming experience do you need to make something like the bot program you made? Sounds like a fun experience
On February 20 2012 00:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote: also sc2 is allowed by law now (in the new user agreement) to perdoically scan the pc ram to see what processes are in use
Really?!?
Why hasn't this been a huge topic if correct?
Blizzard has no right in knowing what processes I run..
This was huge topic before. And Blizzard has right to do anything you have agreed with. And since this is in the EULA which you acknowledged (else you couldn't play), they can do it. And they do it.
Actually its a grey area: You cant read the licence agreement before you buy the game, and once you bought it you cant return it to a store (at least in spain its a 100% no-go). I guess you could find those if you search online, but thats like the "small letters" in a contract, of the fast sliding letters in a tv add. Basicly you agree to the terms before you get to read them :D.
Warning: the below assumes you have a computer which can access the internet and that you know how to navigate the internet and that you know the title of the game whos EULA you are searching for.
step 1: open your favourite web-browser
step 2: go to "www.google.com"
step 3: search for "<gamename> EULA", where <gamename> is to be substituted by the name of the game.
step 4: click on top result
congratulations, you did not need to buy the game to read the EULA of the appropriate game.
if you can read this post that means you have access to a computer as well as access to internet and thus "I did not have access to the EULA until it was too late" is not an acceptable excuse.
And? How exactly did the seller show it to you if you find it on your own? Because by law, thats what he have to do BEFORE the deal. And who say that the eula i find is the eula they will come up with. Why write any contract? People could just google random contracts and take the one they like. You logic is .... normaly not worth my time to awnser it...
You can not change a deal after the deal is done. And by accepting the money and the product the deal is done. So eula by installation is like 99% of this "agree here". Just an click and nothing worth. Why do they inculde it then? because many people dont know.Most contracts are not legal and the once who write it know that. But most of the time you dont end up by curt so you can foul people with less intelligence.
The seller has no obligation to have you read the EULA before you use the merchandise, he is only the middle hand much like a messenger. Companies which produce a product does however have an obligation to give you the knowledge required to not screw up while handling the product, and if they do not, they can be sued for it. the following examples are all rumors and I have not confirmed them to be either true or false, but technically speaking they can be true since none of the examples contradict the law of the time.
someone buys a cover which is used to protect the front windshield from snow, the next morning that individual is in a car accident, later he/she sues the company who made the windshield cover since it never said that you should not drive the car while the cover is still on, he/she wins and since that day all such windshield covers have a note which tells you not to drive while its still on the front windshield.
once upon a time someone buys a microwave,aftr months of using it correctly, he/she thinks that his/her dog seems to be very cold, and decides to put the dog in the microwave to warm it up, obviously the dog dies, later he/she sues the microwave company because it never said you shouldn't put live animals in it, since then the microwaves have several notes either on the microwave itself or in an instruction booklet which comes with it which tells you a number of things which should not be put into the microwave.
this is true for the software companies as well, the difference is that software companies use EULAs, the role that these EULA fulfill is to tell you what you can expect to happen legally if you do something regarding the product. if you do not agree with the EULA then you do not have the right to use the software because the company does not have any gaurantee that you will use it correctly.
my point is that everything legally asked by every party is indeed fulfilled:
the seller sells merchandise, he has no obligation to make sure that you use the merchandise correctly, for such troubles you are always directed to the company which produced the product.
this is done by selling the product in their stores.
the producer must give you the opportunity to learn about all consequences which can happen if you use the product incorrectly, if they do, they have no obligation to make sure that you do use it correctly, and if you use it in a way which you have been told you should not, they are legally allowed to do the appropriate action described by them.
this is done by EULAs which can be found in several locations, such as the internet and at least in the case of SC2 in the instruction booklet (with the EULA of the time of writing the book), as well as in a message which you must agree with before being able to use the product.
there is absolutely nothing wrong going on around here, the seller gives you opportunities (buying the game), which you can choose to ignore, the product gives you opportunities (installing the game), which you can choose to ignore.
p.s. it is very clearly stated in the SC2 EULA that it can be changed by blizzard at any time for any reason, however, if they do change it, every consumer must agree to the new one before being allowed to play the game.
oh, and also heres some parts of the EULA you might be interested in, the below in quotation marks (" ") is copy/pasted:
"THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE GAME (DEFINED BELOW), YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE GAME. IF YOU REJECT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER YOUR PURCHASE, YOU MAY CALL (800) 757-7707 TO REQUEST A FULL REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE."
"Changes to the Agreement and/or Game. Blizzard may replace this Agreement with new versions (each a “New EULA”) over time as the Game and the law evolve. This Agreement will terminate immediately upon the introduction of a New EULA, and you will be given an opportunity to review and accept the New EULA. If you accept the New EULA, and if the Account registered to you remains in good standing, you will be able to continue playing the Game subject to the terms of the New EULA. If you decline to accept the New EULA, or if you cannot comply with the terms of the New EULA for any reason, you will no longer be permitted to play the Game. New EULAs will not be applied retroactively. Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Game at any time. Blizzard may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Game without notice or liability."
source: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/sc2eula.html in english: these are things you have agreed upon, when you bought the game you had a 30-day time period where you could choose to reject your purchase, this is not related to the purchase at a store, but instead you contact blizzard whom probably invalidates the key-code in your product and sends you the money. if you do not reject this, then you instead agree that they may change the EULA however much they want and you will not get a refund after the 30 daytime period.
Different countries. Different consumer protection laws. Different validy of EULAs. But hey - you generalized everything - so simply: You're wrong.
Edit: More ontopic: Listen to Ashur. He knows what he's talking about.
How is Warden a new topic? Years ago people figured out that blizzard had stated in teh EULA that they have the right to scan your running processes to check for hacks/bots in WoW. Warden is ooooooold. And yes (decent) hacks auto-disable so they avoid warden detection. Most people i know who hack have done so for years without getting caught except when they get caught by admins. (Considering it was wow, they actually already profitted enough from hacking at that point that they just made a new account and continued hacking/botting). . And Warden is like having a network encryption that can be broken in 5 minutes by someone who knows what he's doing, on a network that everyone is using. It only prevents the most basic hacking/botting.
This is blizzards standard procedure for everything, lowest effort for maximum profit. Give the illusion of preventing hacking but not really doing anything more than basic protection.
On February 21 2012 02:34 -orb- wrote: What's the purpose of this thread?
Just because warden scans your computer doesn't make it perfect.
Warden is an anti-hack tool blizzard has been using for years, and guess what? It's not successful. It still catches the idiots, but over the past decade it has been proven time and time again that you can get around warden (quite easily in fact).
Hell, even in WoW when warden was supposed to be the strictest/catch anything etc you still had thousands upon thousands of players botting using Glider without warden having a clue. Hell, I did (fuck leveling in WoW... one of the most frustrating wastes of time in a video game ever), and I never got caught despite just using a program I downloaded off the internet and configuring it rather than programming my own bot/hack or something.
tl;dr: Warden isn't perfect, hackers will ALWAYS get around it. This thread has no purpose and is misguided in the first place
I think the purpose is to convince hackers not to hack, a noble but quixotic task.
Just because you think leveling in WoW is a frustrating waste of time, doesn't mean it's ok to hack to automate it. By that logic, isn't getting good at SC2 a "frustrating waste of time"?
Don't hack in any game. If a game has parts that are a "frustrating waste of time," then play a better game.
The two are not even comparable. Leveling in WoW was a process that you 100% HAD to do to play the game. You couldn't just start at max level to PvP if you wanted to play, you had to spend the hundreds of hours it would take to level yourself. Leveling was a process that didn't do anything beneficial for you outside the game (whereas improving at sc2 improves YOUR personal skill, as opposed to the stats on an in-game fictional character). It was a process that was widely regarded as horribly designed and frustrating to bother with. Thus, powerleveling services from slave labor in china boomed. Bots popped up all over the place.
Imagine this: in order to play WoW at a competitive level both at PvE (end-game raiding against bosses with a large group of people working together) and at PvP (arena 2v3/3v3/5v5), you had to invest a RIDICULOUS amount of time into the game. Some of it was completely wasted time. Grinding for the sake of grinding is just stupid, plain and simple. In SC2 it is completely different. Taking the time to improve helps you personally because your brain gets the knowledge it needs and improves. Grinding in WoW doesn't do anything for your brain at all... it is literally worse than working a job. Why the fuck would I pay to work a job? You may ask why I played at all, but you have to understand PvP and end-game PvE were fun, while there was nothing fun at all about grinding levels
I really wonder how widespread hacking is in sc2. I remember in early WC3 when ALOT of top players would get banned and stats swiped ect. The only such thing I have noticed so far in sc2 is the sorcery/iGWare thing when sorcery only admitted to hacking. I dont even know if the account was suspended or just got a 2week ban. Possibly it was not banned at all.
If a number of top level WC3 players (as in doing well in offline turneys) got caught, it would not be suprising if a bunch of known names would be hacking in SC2. But scandals of known players hacking are extremely low unless I missed some of them.
Anyone got examples of GMs getting banned, suspended or otherwise caught hacking?
Yeah, I'm wondering how often this happens, too. I don't really see the point - I guess you could get some thrill out of doing it and not getting caught, but after a while, wouldn't it get boring? You're not actually getting any better.
On February 21 2012 14:07 PlateCaptain wrote: Yeah, I'm wondering how often this happens, too. I don't really see the point - I guess you could get some thrill out of doing it and not getting caught, but after a while, wouldn't it get boring? You're not actually getting any better.
People 6 pool to masters. Other people cannon rush all day long. It's not particularly fun, it's not making them better players, all that matters is winning. For some people, that's enough. Winning is everything.
On February 21 2012 10:01 rOse_PedaL wrote: why would you hack in a RTS doesnt make any sense
Some players like to take whatever edge they can get to win. See instances of stream cheaters like CombatEX and Deezer, same concept imo. I suppose other people simply want to test their hacking abilities...? I have no idea, I've never done anything like this but that's my take on the matter.
On February 21 2012 02:32 Pusekatten wrote: Nice OP you have made, I read the one where you said blizzard used VAC, and was gonna comment that they used Warden instead so you could change it, but the thread got closed while I was writing Well anyway, as this is a thread about hacks, I was wondering if bots = hacks? and if they are detected the in the same way?
Depends on how you develop your bot. I spent 2-3 weeks developing a bot for Aion, which was basically just a statemachine, which changed according to pixelchanges on the screen. By purely basing all logic in my bot on pixelsearching I knew for a fact it would be undetectable. Whenever a player would whisper me or an admin, the font colour would be "unique" and "Welcome to the jungle" would play with max volume, so I could rush to my computer and answer Later I learned others had implemented the same, but were using SMS gateways to notify the player instead of playing music :D I implemented a lot of small cool features and kept tweaking my bot to the point, where I could just leave it for hours without worrying about it being stuck or unable to recover from dying. I finally realised paying for a game that I'm letting a bot play might be an indication that I'm - excuse my language - piss bored with the game. So I quit. I also realised that developing the bot was a lot more fun than actually playing
wow, it sounds complicated, at least for someone like me who doesn't have any programming experience. I did however use a bot on wow, for farming herbs and mining like most do, but I also quit when I figured out I payed for logging inn a raiding once or twice a week, wasn't really worth it anymore. Was just wondering how much programming experience do you need to make something like the bot program you made? Sounds like a fun experience
If you are genuinely interested/curious, then I have no doubt you can make your own bot.
The easiest thing to do would be to first understand the basic programming operations and flow control mechanisms(google): +, =, ==, !=, ++, for, while, do, if, else...
This will take you 2-3 days.
Then you could use a program like AutoIt to make your own bot. There are plenty of code examples that you could use, and there is a huge community where you can get help - stackoverflow.com for instance.
If you need a list of exactly what to learn, where to learn it, where to find bot examples, then I'll compile a list for you whne I'm home... which reminds me, I'm at work! What am I doing here
On February 21 2012 14:07 PlateCaptain wrote: Yeah, I'm wondering how often this happens, too. I don't really see the point - I guess you could get some thrill out of doing it and not getting caught, but after a while, wouldn't it get boring? You're not actually getting any better.
People 6 pool to masters. Other people cannon rush all day long. It's not particularly fun, it's not making them better players, all that matters is winning. For some people, that's enough. Winning is everything.
There has been some debate here during the BW days that hacking could help with learning timing ect. I have never tried hacks so I dont know if that is true. I do consider hackers to be really sad people. Also it's really annoying to win a close game and when you watch the replay it's obvious that your opponent was hacking. It kinda destroys the epicness of the game/replay. Like a good movie ruined by a twist at the end.
On February 21 2012 11:23 Eatme wrote: I really wonder how widespread hacking is in sc2. I remember in early WC3 when ALOT of top players would get banned and stats swiped ect. The only such thing I have noticed so far in sc2 is the sorcery/iGWare thing when sorcery only admitted to hacking. I dont even know if the account was suspended or just got a 2week ban. Possibly it was not banned at all.
If a number of top level WC3 players (as in doing well in offline turneys) got caught, it would not be suprising if a bunch of known names would be hacking in SC2. But scandals of known players hacking are extremely low unless I missed some of them.
Anyone got examples of GMs getting banned, suspended or otherwise caught hacking?
In fact I was wondering about the same question too: How many top-notch players actually cheat? I used to play Counterstrike on quite a high-level long ago. There were times when the entire scene was extremely plagued with wallhackers/aimbots. I know that several high-class players back then (including national team members) hacked in almost every online league match. Also it later turned out that several people I played with for months in a clan were actually wallhacking in most of our games (which we didn't know back then). This all led me to the conclusion that a lot of people will use every advantage (legal or not) they can get as long as they're quite sure they can't be caught - very similar to doping in sports.
On other hand, I never had this impression with the SC2 scene and I'm somehow pretty confident that the percentage of hacker on a high-level is very low. I guess this mainly results from the fact that hacking isn't that much beneficial in an RTS and that the scene in general is far more "mature" than the FPS scene.
On February 22 2012 11:08 EtherealDeath wrote: There is research on a new rts coding method to make map hacking impossible.
Do you have a name or link for it? Not that there would be a ton of information on the intricacies of the system but it might be interesting to see a general concept.
I have discovered a lot of hackers on the ladder! many many masters on EU and NA. Less on KR tho! which i don't know! But its actually many games i discover them hacking too. Some people have actually told me they hacked just for "the fun" i guess and when i checked the replay it was clearly hack.
Just don't understand why people does it. They are just destroying for everyone else enjoying this game. But whatever i may post about hackers in this thread they wont stop so...
It appears that whoever is contributing to this thread with factual knowledge are immediately under the accusation of being a hacker. This is very, very sad.
Anyway, I did a bit of research and if you Google "StarCraft 2 Hack" one of the first hits will be "StarCraft 2 Simple Hack" or something. It appears that this so-called "Simple Hack" is and has been a working maphack since the StarCraft 2 Beta, and it has thus far been undetectable and nobody has ever reported that they have been banned for using it. Note again that this hack has been around since beta and is still undetected.
To all of you who "defend" Blizzard's enthusiastic anti-hack system, you're wrong.
PS: part of my research is provided by a friend of mine, a friend who's been hacking for a long time. He's been using this particular hack for around a year now, he says, and has never been banned or warned. I've seen this hack being used it person and I got to admit, it's quite impressive. It appears that you can use the Observer-Panel in-game and know of everything that's going on: production, APM, ressources, units lost, etc., etc.
Of course this is sad but let's face it, we can't do anything about it.
On February 22 2012 11:08 EtherealDeath wrote: There is research on a new rts coding method to make map hacking impossible.
Do you have a name or link for it? Not that there would be a ton of information on the intricacies of the system but it might be interesting to see a general concept.
It's a PDF that was linked earlier in this thread. The researchers call it OpenConflict. The basic idea is that it uses cryptographic techniques to hide information in memory that shouldn't be visible.
The current model of SC2 (and many other RTS games) is that both clients have full information about the game state (map, units, production, etc...). It is then up to the client to only display the information that should be accessible to the player. This means that hacks that show you this information are extremely easy: Just read the relevant parts of memory and print it out as a 2D picture. You can make it pretty and all, but the basic functionality is straightforward.
It's not very viable to use a model where the clients only have partial information and then have the server (Battle.net in our case) compute what happens and transmit that. It requires a ton of processing power on the Battle.net servers and it would create additional latency (imagine a player scanning or claiming a Xel'naga tower: suddenly a burst of new information has to be transfered).
The OpenConflict system that was presented in the PDF that I mentioned earlier still has both clients having all the information, but in an encrypted form. The client is only able to decrypt the parts that the player is supposed to see/know.
The downside of this system is that it's still a p2p system where clients broadcast their moves to the other. These broadcasts can still be intercepted by a 3rd party program and displayed. It's not a full maphack, but still rather powerful ("<Player> starts construction of Dark Shrine").
On February 22 2012 11:12 Frozne wrote: The cheats that never get detected are the ones never released to the community and kept in a small circle for enjoyment purposes.
Any code monkeys savvy enough can do it.
Sorry =(
Stop calling us code monkeys! I prefer System Engineer or Application Developer...
Typical software development process:
* Business Analyst / Product Owner chit chats with customers, sends requirements * Micro-Management starts walking in a circle * Chief Architect draws several UML diagrams in the dark * Micro-Management still walks in a circle * Developers start estimating * Micro-Management still walks in a circle * Developers raises issues with the architecture * Micro-Management still walks in a circle * Application Architect does Chief Architect's job after input from developers * Micro...
No matter how you twist and turn it, the developers and the application architects are the most important part of a team! Management think "code monkeys" are easy to replace, but this isn't a sausage factory, "code monkeys" are actually intelligent creatures who thrive on applying new knowledge, developing elegant solutions and being creative 1 developer gets sick, buffer time is gone. 2 developers get sick... no weekend for anyone. 3 developers get sick, micro-manage will start spinning... and the release will be delayed.
Ok that was off topic. The term "code monkey" annoys me I agree 100 percent with what you said though.
On February 22 2012 11:08 EtherealDeath wrote: There is research on a new rts coding method to make map hacking impossible.
Do you have a name or link for it? Not that there would be a ton of information on the intricacies of the system but it might be interesting to see a general concept.
It's a PDF that was linked earlier in this thread. The researchers call it OpenConflict. The basic idea is that it uses cryptographic techniques to hide information in memory that shouldn't be visible.
The current model of SC2 (and many other RTS games) is that both clients have full information about the game state (map, units, production, etc...). It is then up to the client to only display the information that should be accessible to the player. This means that hacks that show you this information are extremely easy: Just read the relevant parts of memory and print it out as a 2D picture. You can make it pretty and all, but the basic functionality is straightforward.
It's not very viable to use a model where the clients only have partial information and then have the server (Battle.net in our case) compute what happens and transmit that. It requires a ton of processing power on the Battle.net servers and it would create additional latency (imagine a player scanning or claiming a Xel'naga tower: suddenly a burst of new information has to be transfered).
The OpenConflict system that was presented in the PDF that I mentioned earlier still has both clients having all the information, but in an encrypted form. The client is only able to decrypt the parts that the player is supposed to see/know.
The downside of this system is that it's still a p2p system where clients broadcast their moves to the other. These broadcasts can still be intercepted by a 3rd party program and displayed. It's not a full maphack, but still rather powerful ("<Player> starts construction of Dark Shrine").
The concept is far from new, I think I've even seen in discussed by blizzard devs around the WoW beta.
From reading about these things for many years I'm not sure it has to use enough bandwidth and server cpu resources to really matter. To be honest I've gotten the impression it can often be done to save resources and to increase various performance aspects. Getting smaller parts over time instead of huge chunks can make client performance more consistent/fluid(depending on what the data is used for) for example.
Would be fun to hear blizzards thoughts on it. That the game is the way it is and would have to be changed isn't very interesting since sc2 is a pretty new game, they must have made decisions about it during the development. Unless no one at the sc2 team thought about these aspects, which isn't completely impossible I guess.
The ladder basically shows that blizzard doesnt give a fuck about hackers. On EU you can already make some of them out just by their clantags. For 5 years.
EPT
- C#.NET (WCF, WPF, ASP.NET/PHP, etc. etc.). I do have what I consider a healthy interest for hacking though, but to make this short, if you have a problem please be direct and argue instead of these ignorant one-line insults... Also if you have the answer to how Blizzard can elminate all hacking with little to no effort, I suggest you immediately contact them... if not for the sake of the online gaming community, then at least for your own selfish reason, I'm sure you'll be compensated well 
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