EPTHacking - an Analysis
Preamble
It's been a while since we (Quint and me) came up with the idea of writing an article about hackers, hacking and cheaters. It has been over a year and we made no real progress at all, due to the fact that we rarely speak to each other, due to the fact that none of us really had enough time we could spend for such a huge project and due to the fact the we stumbled upon great barriers of silence on many parts. Nonetheless I'm finishing that article now after a long time, simply because I harassed too much people in the progress of researching the background. I've talked to hackers, the ICCup developer Yello-Ant, the CAT (Counter Abuse Team) of ICCup and the project leaders and staff of the German project EkaS (something similar to the CAT Staff though for regular battle.net and less known). It would've been very impolite to throw away all their information and their support they gave me.
Introduction
This article will mostly be about map hackers, cheaters, counter measures that have been taken and the community's reaction on being betrayed over many years. It is a topic that may offend people, especially the interviews and statements given by more or less known hackers. It's also very interesting (at least for me) to have an inside on what actually exists, what mindset cheaters have and how strange the reaction of the community are sometimes. We tried to give an accurate history of hacking, the uproars and tried to get interviews of more known hackers. That was impossible – the barriers and the silence were simply way too big to break it.
A Few Definitions
First off: there is a huge difference in the variety of hacks. You can not imagine how many ways there are to cheat on your opponent. There are exploits you can use to get more minerals by canceling production (the egg exploit), by placing down several buildings in combination with slight engine abuses (nuke bug), you can make drones fly over cliffs (flying drone bug), pack SCVs together tight enough to kill any unit with one shot (SCV bug) or use rigged maps. And you don't even need to use a third-party software for that. The casual player that only plays in the official realms such as West, East or Europe will face such things more often than any „regular“ player that uses The Abyss. That is the reason why we kept on focusing on map hacks only, since they are the real threat for the people that read this forum.
A maphack is a hack that changes the engine. It allows the cheater to press a button that reveals the entire map. With this a skilled player can completely read the build order of his opponent, react to any change in strategy, completely crush any harass that is made and foresee any movement whatsoever. The crucial thing is that a maphack doesn't come alone, it's mostly offered with additional features such as multi command (a macro ability that is very similar to the MBS in SCII) and more. That being horrible enough – maphacks are very, very hard to detect. In the last years there was literally no way to be 100% sure if you caught a hacker or not.
Counters
As stated before: since the dawn of time there have been maphacks. Before the time of patch 1.08 there was no way you could be sure if your opponent used hacks or not. You couldn't watch a replay for confirmation. With the introduction of the patch replays were brought into the equation. That changed everything.
The Early Days
Imagine there was a really good and known player back in the days. He played very well, adapted perfectly to his opponent’s behavior and nearly lost no game at all. Whatever his opponent did, trying to harass with drops, going for an all-in or a hidden expansion, he countered. That was pretty obvious. You could simply open up the replay and switch out your own vision. You watched the entire replay very carefully. If he had no vision of your secret drop, your hidden expo or didn't scout your tech switch – you could be sure that there was a hack in the background. To confirm that you simply had to gather more replays. This ''method'' still works today if a hacker is stupid enough to never scout at all. Sadly, the more skilled players pretend they scout when they're supposed to do it. So a skilled player can argue that he was simply lucky, and is good enough, and you are simply no match for him.
The Invention Of BWChart
With the invention of BWChart the hard times for hackers and cheaters started. As you might know, a replay is a simple list of commands that is replayed by Starcraft. I won't go into detail here, since it takes pages to explain everything. With that information, that any command done by a player – selecting, producing, rallying units and so on – is recorded, and put in combination with a tool that could read out that list, you had a fool proof evidence of hack. Any good player will select the tech buildings of his opponent whenever he can, simply to see how long it will take until that building is finished. You do that automatically when you scout – if you don't believe me watch your scouting behavior or the way you watch replays (clicking around, he?). Furthermore: the hacks mostly allowed you to see which unit was produced when you selected the producing building, just like in replays.
That put into perspective: anytime your opponent selects a building that was out of his vision range he was proven to be a hacker. That was 100% safe. You just opened up BWChart, selected the option ''show actions that are impossible'' (suspicious actions – remember that one, it will get important), note down the time when they have been made, open up the replay and compare the warning (the suspicious action) and the vision range of your opponent. Had the opponent made a selection that was straight impossible you had caught him.
Penguin Plug - A New Era
It didn't take long for the hackers (the people who code such software) to change that. They suppressed the selections. Don't get me wrong, you could still select units and buildings, even when they were out of range, but those selections weren't recorded in the replay. Again, there was no solid proof. The Anti-Hackers countered that with a real easy move.
Any maphack makes changes in the Starcraft software engine and allows illegal movements and actions (like selecting things you can’t see) that aren't given by the engine itself. Penguin Plug was a hack by technical definition. It ran in the background but didn't do anything besides scanning your opponent’s engine. When there was a tool besides Penguin Plug running it gave a warning. The warning itself was pretty funny though, since it destroyed the opponent’s units immediately. That again was a real easy way to defend yourself against hackers. Sadly, Blizzard patched a lot back in the days and the developers of Penguin Plug weren't able to update the tool every time a new patch was thrown out.
OP3 - The Ultimative Tool
I can't recall if it was shortly after or shortly before the invention of Penguin Plug. Anyhow there was a tool that was really great: OP3. Any of you know FPVODs which are simply VODs recorded with the player’s vision. That's why it is called First Person VOD.
We know that a replay is just a list of commands. Some really smart coder put this information together. He developed a tool that, when activated, made any given replay into a first person replay. If you started the replay you could activate the camera of your own or the camera of your opponent. Again, you could easily spot any maphack activity. You simply watched the game, paused it when you made a serious strategy change (tech switch, hidden expo, drops...) and turned on the vision of your opponent. When he reacted before he had seen it, or if he scrolled upon your hidden expo / dropship / tech he was busted. There was no way around it.
I still don't know why that tool wasn't updated every time a patch came out, or why so many people ignored it – somehow it got lost in time.
Auto Gather - A Lucky Catch
In the introduction I explained that map hacks don't come alone but bring a lot of friends with them. A cheater doesn't just install the maphack, he installs some features with them. One of the features that was given with the map hack in a very famous „hack pack“ was the function auto gather. It was turned on by default, a detail that now gets very important.
This feature made all workers gather minerals right from the start of the game. It should make the split for the players easier. So, when a hacker didn't turn off that function, the very first workers were sent to mine with the command „gather“ by the CPU in the first seconds. If you think about it, this makes 8 commands: (select the worker – send it to gather) * 4. That performed within under a second. Try it out, you won't be able to do so, not even Flash or any other pro could do that. It was a perfect split. Furthermore no worker stood idle after being built the entire game. That was such a minor flaw in the hack, but enabled the community to spot hackers very easy. If you opened up BWChart you could see whether a player used that kind of hack or not. Again, you had a 100% proof of a running hack. That little flaw got patched by the hack coders very fast, so it was a „one time bust“ only. It still caused a major uproar.
Suspicious Actions - Fail Coding
When you remember what I described in the „First Steps” clause, you may have recognized that hack coders suppressed the suspicious action. Such an action is generated when a player clicks on a building / unit / neutral building / critter / mineral / gas out of his sight. And it allowed BWChart to generate a command that was marked as „suspicious“ and could be used to unmask any hacker. Now the hackers worked sloppy when they fixed it years ago.
They simply took a look at BWChart, used its definition of a „suspicious action“ and put in their list of commands which were to be suppressed by the hack. That was really stupid, though it was discovered very late. The thing is: BWChart also marks actions as suspicious that are not suspicious at all. As stated before, any good player (above ~100 APM) clicks on his foes units whenever he can, to either see their HP, their upgrades and so on. Same goes for buildings while you scout. If such a building is selected and gets deselected when it vanishes in the fog of war it will be marked as suspicious action although it is legit. The BWChart definition is just a bit blurry here. The hack, that has the same definition suppresses even such legit actions.
If you combine that, the definition of BWChart and the suppressed actions of the hacks, you can see that hackers can not have any suspicious action. So all you had to do was open up some replays of the person you think hacks, and watch for suspicious actions. If he has never any suspicious action he is a hacker.
Again this was fixed by the hack coders within hours, but the damage for the cheater scene was done. It was again a „one time bust” but lead to a lot of big names being caught after all.
The Re-Invention Of Anti Hack
There was only one way left you could be sure your opponent didn't hack. The ICCup Anti Hack on the Abyss. It works very much like the Penguin Plugin, it just doesn't destroy your opponents units. It generates a warning that proofs your opponent to be a hacker whenever it sees that the engine is abused by another software running. There was a way to work around the anti hack with the help of a bypass tool. That tool was discovered very soon by the ICCup developers/tech crew and was therefore useless. ICCup, Teamliquid and GG.net were aware of that hack, and together they decided to pretend they didn't know about it. After collecting the data of users that had that bypass tool running, they published the information in form of a HUGE list, banned all of those hackers and the ICCup server was 'hack free' again.
The Situation Today
The Abyss is now pretty much the best place to play your games when you don't want to face hackers. But still there are some hacks that work there, especially disc hack. I won't say if there was another way to work around the anti hack for I don't want to advertise hacks or lure players into cheating (if there was a way). The disc hacks are annoying like shit when they're used against you, but they are no real menace since the CAT Staff works like shit to ban any cheater that uses this crap. Overall ICCup is very effective and pretty nice.
Nonetheless the real victims are the casual players that either have no clue if they've been cheated on or not. They use the „normal” Battle.Net, that has never been real hack safe and never will due to the lack of Blizzards support.
The Community And Its Reactions
Hacks have been there since the dawn of time and will be there until the last server is shut down. There is no way a player can be hacksafe all the time. This is not only annoying but frustrating, especially for those who keep the scene alive. Any player that played more than 2000 games will have at least meet one cheater or more. The rate for the moment is very low, but you can never say whenever you lost legit or you've been betrayed.
What is described in the „Counter” part arouse very much discussion. Everytime a hacker was caught, especially due to those „one time busts“, a major uproar started. I remember being a moderator at www.instarcraft.de when the „bypass tool” was discovered. You saw many „big names” that have been caught hacking before. There are really negative legends such as ToT)Selector( who has been caught so often, that I literally forgot the number. It could be been 8, 10 or even 15 times. I also remember a news that listed all his achievements as „Caugt hacking 2005, Caught hacking 2006, Caught hacking 2007“ when he was going to WCG in that year.
The funny thing is that every time a hacker is unmasked he is the middle of the discussion. There are allies left behind who claim to „not knowing what he was up to“, which say „he was a pretty nice guy“ and can't understand the players action at all. Moreover any clan that had a hacker in their roster tried their best to keep a distance, now that the hacker was unmasked. I have no doubt that they haven't had any clue, for I had two allies who hacked and were caught after all. What I want to point out is the major mix of consternation, wrath and amusement (in case of a known hacker caught yet again) that always follows that discussion. The hacker(s) are always put against a wall and got shot – metaphorically speaking. It was always their spot to be in the pillory. There was no one, and I say no one, not even their closest allies, that would take the spot to defend them when they got caught.
Until know everyone understands the reaction. It's ok to be surprised when a good ally is caught hacking, it is ok to be angry at hackers, and it is more or less ok to make fun of them, and eventually exclude them from the community in a not too polite way.
But, excluding them from the community is not what happens permanently. When a hacker is caught, he gets all the blame for the next weeks, maybe three or four months. After that he is forgiven and may return as if nothing happened. He may even return to his old clan, he may participate in clan leagues and ladders. There is no real line stated that says „if you hack, you're out for exactly 2 months” or something. This policy is ok, since even lifelong exclusions aren't made in official sports like cycling (the Tour de France would be empty then) either.
The real strange thing that happens is that even an ex-hacker can gain trust and his reputation back very fast. There have been numerous examples of good players cheating and returning to scene shortly afterwards. Still, they are persons who get admired for their skillful play, their style and their achievements. Replays, interviews and live streams are popular as if they hadn't cheated at all. This is not a phenomenon related to time somehow. There seems to be a period of time, with more or less blurry borders, that must strictly be adhered to by the hacker. After that, if nothing happened, he may return. And he is popular again over night, with his first appearance in a tourney, a national war or in a major event. With that the fanboys return.
That's another thing I'm always wondering about. The number of fanboys and the hype behind one person. The perfect example was ToT)Selector( in the German community. He has been caught not only hacking but flaming and cheating in many ways so often. When he was put in the roster of the Templars he gained mass fame. Many fanboys followed his steps and were up to no good when his past became topic of any discussion. There was a time when someone proposed to put Selector back in the national team roster, due to his skill. For the background information: the national team was part of instarcraft.de (broodwar.de) at that time. The webmaster and the page staff (who weren't related to the national team) simply refused to write any news about Selector or any event of the national team because of his past. Mondragon threatened to part from the team and many more fanboys (actually people who were new to the scene or didn't know Selector at all) started flaming and trolling. This is a thing I still can’t understand at all. And I still have the utmost of respect for bw.de's reaction towards this hacker and no understanding for the former team leader that moved away (from bw.de) with the team and started to talk pretty badly about the webmaster and his staff, rather than leave Selector behind. It took only a few weeks until Selector was caught yet again. For like the 12th time in a row.
Selector wasn't the only case of a person of a „higher“ skill caught hacking multiple times and still being allowed to participate in other events. There is a big thing that still stands out for a reflected discussion: the point when and if a maphacker should be allowed to participate again within any community event whatsoever. History shows that a hacker is more likely to hack again than quitting the game or going on without using the hack. But more about that point later.
There seems to be some strange trend that when a hacker is caught the community immediately splits up in two groups: the community page's staff on one side that have to make a hard decision on the players future at that pages and the other part being the community (users) itself. The community is more likely to 'forgive' or 'oversee' the hack early while the page staff is more likely to have that player banned if it is not a way too big name that did much for the community. Where should a line be drawn? If it is a first time hacker, do we grant him a second chance, even if he used the worst possible way of cheating? Is there a difference between a hacker that admits his guilt and one that is still in denial? Does it matter if he only cheated one time and got caught or when he was doing it in multiple games? Is there a second or even a third chance possible?
Keep in mind that there are more ways to cheat. The TSL was a very good example: numerous known players tried to play more games than they were allowed to, or tried to get points from their allies. In my opinion this is way easier to excuse than a maphack. Still they got hard punishment, not only from TL.net. I want to make that point clear: I agree with this decision. With that in mind, it seems strange that maphackers get punished softer (throughout ALL community pages) than a player like Dimaga who admitetly did very much for the scene and still does. Just to put it in perspective.
High Skill And Hack?
I really do like thoerycrafting though I'm a pretty low skiller. I like the game and its strategical depth. I always wondered how you can be around the B ranks and still use hacks. There has to be a point when hacks should get useless. But obviously they don't.
With the knowledge we gathered in the „Counter“ part, we know that an obviously used maphack is spotted easy, sometimes without the need of BWChart or Anti Hack software. If you kill off any harassment, if you adapt to any change within the tactical flow you are more likely to get caught hacking. So there still is the question, why does a really good player need a maphack? He scouts well enough, and there must be a point when the attention is drawn away from his multitasking by the hack.
Sadly, we do only have one interview by a hacker that is around the B ranks. He wants to stay anonymous and got caught right away due to his inability to use the hack in a not so obvious manner. But what we learned was following: a really good player doesn't need the hack to run all the time. He will switch the hack on and off only on some points in the game. He so makes sure he scouts well enough, and therefore makes no „dumb“ moves that are too obvious. At some level you don't need the hack to run all the time. But when you activate it for just about 1 minute all in all, you can see tech switches and drops soon enough. You don't need to know where a player drops to be prepared for it. The simple knowledge that THERE IS a dropship is enough. Your overall scouting should help you out, you won't be surprised as much. For a high level player a maphack simply supports and supplements his overview. It helps him to watch for signs that could be hidden, it helps him to focus his attention. It would be highly interesting to get an interview with a „good ex-hacker“, even without mentioning his aka. Sadly no one wanted to speak with us.
A Hacker's Mindset
You will find hackers everywhere. We wondered if there is any statistical (significant) connection between the game mode (mucho vs. low), the skill and the rate of hackers that can be found. We have no absolute numbers due to the lack of sources here, but tried to get some hackers to talk. We only found two hackers while doing our research that were willing to give statements and interviews on their motivation and where they hacked. In the following we try to give a definition of the different types of hackers.
The Troll
It doesn't matter where you look at, there is a form of user that stands out from the rest. The troll. It's really easy to describe them since anyone had been trolled somewhere at least one time. The usual troll just posts stupid shit for fun, just to provoke others. Some don't stop spamming/flooding/flaming in ordinary forums, behaving in a bad mannered way in games (floating buildings as terran for example) – they go on and use hacks not to win but to make sure no one else has fun playing a game. That is annoying like hell, but no real problem for players that play outside the normal realms. Note: those players tend to use more than the „ordinary“ map hack but hacks like spoof hack and/or mineral hacks. They don't care if they're caught or not, they don't care for their allies reaction since they have none, or just hacking allies. If they're up to, they even try to destroy single players by using spoof hacks (a spoof hack fakes nicknames in battle.net) to put others in miscredit.
Profile Neurotic
There is just a blurry line that divides the neurotic hacker from the troll. Both have much in common: they want to have a lot of attention. While the troll doesn't care whether he has negative attention or not the neurotic wants to be worshipped. The troll's motto could be „any news is good news“, the neurotic's would be „there is no god besides me“.
A neurotic acts more carefully when he hacks. He is convinced that he is among the top players when he wins against better players, he would lose to if he hadn't had his hacks working. Selector, sys and the one interviewed below (though he is partly a big troll) are in that category. They're imagination is really amazing, Selector claims to be „better than Mondragon“ when he is asked in RL, pB]Chobo really thinks he had played the „real“ Yellow in Battle.net. They tend to create a reality of their own where they simply rule. This is an ideal mostly found in the lower skilled ranks and among the mucho scene. If they're admired by their allies, and if they win little tourneys or leagues they're happy. All they want is to draw attention on their internet alter ego, they have an everlasting fight for the biggest E-Penis (to say it with Day9's words). There are other neurotics that don't hack, persons like Combat-Ex- for example. You can find them in RL too, take a look at the whole „IT-Girls“ like Paris Hilton & co. I suggest – though I can't deliver any proof – that neurotics are the most endagendered group that is most likely to hack right from the start. A neurotic caught will do anything to regain his status as good player, he will be in denial as long as possible. If he is forced to, he will create another internet alter ego on a smurf basis then accept his punishment and excuse.
Here is an interview with a hacker who is hard to classify. He could either be “just” a troll or even a profile neurotic. He mainly played mucho games and has obviously no clue about the international low community.
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Hi. First off: do you want to be interviewed anonymously, or do you have no problem to reveal your real AKA?
I am neji]bk[ aka pB]Chobo.
Note: he sent me a very long list of AKAs. Around 50 or more. None of them are known though.
Tell us something about your BW-Career. When did you start? How many clans did you have? Did you participate in any Leagues/Ladders? Are you still playing today?
I started around 2000. I have been in low and mucho clans. I've been playing BWCL for around 3 years, played 2 years in mucho leagues (note: the German FLE and PGL) and won over 30 titles. I started to play SCII in February and after that completely stopped playing BW.
Which servers did you use?
All of them, EU, WEST, EAST, ASIA, PGT, ICC.
When and by whom were you caught?
I never 'really' got caught. There never was any evidence against me, only suspicions. I got 'caught' by the betrayal from one of my allies. At that point I spoofed and hacked some clan, which he told them. That was the proof for everyone that I know about hacks. Besides that EkaS worked very hard to gather all my AKAs.
Is it hard to use hacks?
Very uncomplicated. There is no way to hack on The Abyss though. There has been a time the hacking tool „Penguin Plug“ was very popular over at the EUROPE Server, which caught almost all the hackers. Besides that no problems occured when I tried to use hacks.
You are part of the mucho community. There has always been a sort of conflict between mucho and low players. Most of the people that switch from mucho to low say that there is a great number of hackers in the mucho scene. Do you think that the mucho scene is more likely to suffer from hackers, or do you think that this is just a sort of stereotype?
The tendency is higher, of course. But since ICCup was founded and published their Anti-Hack-Tools the hacking rate sunk quite to a marginal level for the low scene.
Why is that so?
On mucho maps drops play an important role. If you have a hack activated you see where you can drop, where the weak spots are, and can dodge the opponent's drops quite easy. Same for the build order. If the opponent isn't going for FE you can adapt like going for FE yourself. You always have the perfect counter for any enemy BO used.
Which sorts of Hacks did you use? Mineral exploits, multicommand, spoof- or maphacks? A combination or only one of them?
The newer hacks have all those functions. I personally used all of them, sometimes in combination. Like spoof and map hack. If you really disliked someone you simply spoofed and hacked and made sure you got caught. In that way the person was banned from all leagues.
Many new rookies find the skill way to hard when they first start the game. Do you think this could be a motivation to start hacking?
Yes of course. You're always looking to get some possibility to improve your game as fast as possible. That's a high risk for one to get dragged into the hacking scene.
What was your history like? Did you start to hack right from the start, or did you play a number of games 'clean'? Did you start as casual gamer, or did you start when you first participated in ladders and leagues?
Right from the start. I played Diablo 2 – hacks were standard there. I just knew them and that was the normal way to play.
The big question for all of us is, what exactly is your motivation to hack? Are there any key factors? Are you afraid of losing games in important league wars? Do you want to show off with your good stats, or do you just hate losing at all?
I believe it is all of that. Who likes to play over 15 minutes just to lose? Furthermore it's amazing to be worshipped by your allies. Stats don't matter anymore, they get better automatically.
I understand the frustration after a hard defeat. It doesn't matter if you play as casual or as turbo-nerd, a defeat always gets to you. But if you hack 'successful' you should be able to maintain a win ratio around 100% - which means you never really lose. Isn't that boring? Isn't the game lacking of the thrill somehow?
That was the case for mucho maps. But in the low scene I was among the best Germans, almost among the best in Europe. That was amazing. I even lost against Yellow once although I used map hack. It wasn't really getting boring after all because the skill level of your opponent's got better over time.
Did you always hack, only in leagues, or only against the people you really disliked?
I think who hacks one time always hacks. It doesn't matter who the opponent is or which modus you use.
Did you ever feel regret, or did it feel wrong to hack people you've known for a long time?
No, I never felt bad about it.
Have you ever been afraid of getting caught? Is this maybe a thrill, not to get caught, to be invisible?
I have never been afraid, and I frankly don't care.
When you got caught, how did your allies react?
Some were in denial, some left, some stayed.
Could you understand the rages of those unknown gamers when it was published that you hacked?
Yep, but I don't care.
The list of AKAs you gave me shows that you got caught numerous times. Is the barrier to use hacks sinking over time with the number of one getting caught?
I'd say yes. Every time you use a hack the belief that no one is able to catch you grows bigger.
How much is the reputation as „good“ player worth to you? Is the prestige more important than winning games?
Prestige is everything. The reputation is worth a lot.
Does it bother you when the people say hackers or Ex-hackers have no talent and no skill at all? Do you think you could play as good without using hacks?
I don't think someone can say a hacker has no skill. I really think I could play as good without hacks, but I had to train a lot more.
Did you even try to play without hack, or were you too 'lazy'?
With every new patch you had to play without hack – and it worked very well. You're just easier to beat, that's all.
Do you want to say something to the community?
I don't think anyone should hack. If you want to stay hacksafe use ICCup and Chaoslauncher.
Thanks for the interview, and the courage to answer those questions.
The Frustrated
Those again have a bit in common with the neurotic ones: they use maphacks to win. They don't really care for fame though. Rookies that start now face a really hard skill gap that often seems to be too high to overcome. Losing too much is hard for everyone. Sooner or later they discover, that there are other ways to achieve some wins. They use maphacks or other hacks to have an easier life. Winning is everything. This is most times the reason for lower skilled players, who want to skip the learning curve due to their sloth and lack of motivation. In contrast to the neurotics they're not very likely to hack again after getting caught, but to quit the game forever.
The Fast And The Curious
This last group is the only group I personally can understand to some extent. Anyone who has to do a lot with the developing and the use of Anti-Hacks or any 3rd party software somewhen feels the call of the „dark side“. I have worked with some hacks for movies. It's way easier to throw on the „high resolution hack” than simply pasting them together with Sony Vegas or another software. Somewhen there is the point when you come to think „why don't I use them in a game?” I was lucky since none of the hacks I used would've given me a real advantage in an actual game. Try to micro on a 1600*780 screen in a game that is only for 640*480 – it crashes all the time, and it lags like hell. But some try that hacks out just to see whether they can improve with them or not. Many more „skilled” players try to advance their scouting routines or their strategical understanding. That of cause brings dangers with it. It doesn't stop with simply experimentating. The win ratio gets better for all players that hack, which again is positive for ones motivation. As Chobo said: „who likes to lose?” Those players are the only group that admits that they did wrong, and they often play again without any hack or resign after getting caught. They are the only group that somehow cares for their opponents feeling, and don't lose the understanding for the rule „fair play first” too fast. They get dragged into the hacking scene deeper every time they use a hack. Still they cheat in the worst way. Though my understanding and the text that almost seems like an apology – it should be put into perspective. They are the only group that may be offered a second change, but should still be punished very hard.
The next interview was made with an older ally of mine. I knew him from several community projects in which he worked with/or against me (in case of competitions). I thought him to be one of the more kind and helpful people. My surprise was pretty big when I found him in the BWCL blacklist of the past seasons.
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Please tell us something about your Broodwar „career“. When did you start playing? How much clans did you have? Did you participate in leagues / ladders? Are you still playing?
That must have been around 2001. I have been in a great number of clans, the most known ones should be XdT, ash., DiE] and DA]. I played BWCL, ICCup Clan League and ICCup 1on1 ladder. In the old days I participated at stammkneipe.de (a former German league). I don't play anymore since SCII is out and that game is no fun for me.
Which servers did you use?
Europe and The Abyss
When and why were you caught?
It was in some BWCL-3 league game. That should've been around two years ago.
When you worked for the community you came in touch with Hacks. Was that the first contact you had, or did they cross your way earlier?
There is no connection between my work for the community and me having used hacks. When I started my work for the community the affair about me cheating was already over.
I don't know much about your career as gamer. I just know you as pretty fair competitor outside StarCraft, and was pretty surprised that you hacked. How was the reaction of your allies, when it became public?
Most of them were really angry of course, and had trouble to understand why I hacked at all. I admitted that I hacked shortly after it became public, and most of my allies were comfortable with me playing on when I assured I would stop using hacks.
What was your motivation? Were you afraid of losing, did you want to advance your gameplay?
I just wanted to give hacking a try. I always had trouble to scout well enough...
Did you regret your actions? Did you have any pity with your opponents? Is there a difference when you play anonymous players and when you play people you know better? Was there no conflict with the work you did for the community?
To be honest, there was no time for regret during the game. I was caught in my first game. The work for the community and my career as gamer were always two different issues for me.
You have reached quite a high level of skill (ICCup B-/B). Looking back, was it really worth to use a hack, or was it a really dumb and useless decision?
To be clear about that one: I have reached those ranks without touching a hack at all. For the gaming part: it really did help. My scouting got a lot better since I learned when I had to send my scouts out to see tech switches and so on. About my feelings: I now really regret doing that, because I believe in fair play.
You played on The Abyss. Did you use hacks there, or didn't you even try that?
I once tried to, but that wasn't that easy due to the Anti Hack. You could only play when the AH was deactivated, and when „AH: NO” is printed in the lobby no one really joins.
Is it difficult to use a hack, or is it as easy as using tools like LanLatency?
It's very easy. I used google, found, installed and hacked.
Did you use the hack very carefully to not get caught? Or were you stupid enough to use it very obviously?
No, I was really stupid. I dropped when he got of his base, never took anti-air measures when he went ground units only and so on. That was quite stupid in retroperspective.
Did you activate the map hack only on key events? Or did it run the whole time?
The whole Time. Press button, it's on.
It's quite easy to see that any hack destroys the balance on lower skill levels. But there is an urban legend, that once before a time Nada played a Bo5 against a maphacker and won without any problems. Do you think that a hack gets useless the higher the skill level of one hacker is, or do you think a hack always gives advantages for the hacker?
That's a tough one. I really think there is an advantage, and it doesn't matter how good you are. It is possible that at some point a hack gets more useless. Really hard to say since there are so many standart builds everyone uses nowadays.
Are there any situations in which a hack has a negative impact on the game play? Does it draw ones attention from the important things to unimportant ones? Do you sometimes forget to scout?
I don't think you lose skill when you haven't have the hack running. You are just used to have all that information and you'll be annoyed not to have them. It trains you to scout, literally, because there is simply no way not to know what's going on at the mini map.
Hacking is good for the skill then?
To be honest: yes it is, at least in my case. It supported my scouting behavior really hard. It teaches you were to put your attention. You lose credibility and any normal human being gets a bad consciousness over time on the other hand.
After you got caught hacking, you stopped using hacks. Is this caused by you feeling sorry or do you simply stop playing at all?
No, it wasn't that I just stopped. I had the best ICC season ever after I stopped using hacks. I reached B, won against players I never thought I stood a chance and had just an overall good play. I simply stopped playing because of SCII. As said, I didn't feel too sorry for my opponents, because I didn't hack in „important” games.
Do you want to say anything to the community?
Nope, but SC>>SCII.
Thanks for your patience, and thanks for being brave enough to give me an interview.
Good vs. Evil
Most people wonder who the hell invents all these hacks. It's been not even half a year since SCII was released and yet there are hacks. When auto-gather was found it only took hours until that was fixed. Every time a new patch comes out it takes only a day the new hacks are working. There seem to be restless coders that never sleep, and that don't stop until the damage is done. We haven't had contact with any real hack coder that was willing to answer to us. That group of coders is hard to find and even harder to contact. We simply assume that they on one side have the same motivation than the trolls, and the other side a strong and odd understanding of competition. They don't really care for the game itself but for the game against the community. Beating anti hacks is the game, manipulating the engine the difficulty. I don't think they know how that fucks up the fair play, they simply code for fun, to advance their understanding or to beat the anti hackers. It's way easier to create a map hack than to stop people using them.
With that in mind, read the interview with Yello-Ant who faces such threats all the time. That is really frustrating since he has not only a lot of stress managing one of the biggest community pages, but has also a hard time keeping his server hacksafe. If there is a „next time“ or another „one time bust“ keep in mind how hard it is for the people in the scene, that keep leagues / ladders alive to catch those people, and put it into perspective what great idiots hackers are, before you defend them. Try to understand the line that they draw and why they draw such a line.
To give you an impression how the work is done behind ICCup and how much effort is spend: read what the project leader of iCCup Yello-Ant has to say:
+ Show Spoiler +
You are one of those people that have a huge impact on the current scene. Many of the players don't know your name though. So could you introduce yourself to the community?
Andrey (Yello-Ant) Zhbankov. I'm ICCup manager and actually founder.
StarCraft is obviously an important issue in your (virtual) life. Can you explain why?
StarCraft is best RTS ever, and it is hard to not love this game and with such unique and active community I always wanna be involved. So yeah, it’s better than sex, sometimes ^^
Fair play is the motto of any sport. Do you think that E-Sport suffers more from cheating than any other sport or game?
I think situation is pretty much the same, but for the E-Sport you always have a choice, if you stay on regular Bnet for example you always have a high risk to play against hackers, but if you play on iCCup the chances are way lower. But since it’s internet based mostly, cheating is one of the main problems for E-Sport and for some reason game developers ignore it.
Have you any sympathy at all for hackers, do you understand their motivation? (Note: I mean the coders here, not the Users!)
I never hacked myself, and I really do not understand why people with such a developer potential waste their talent to create something which can destroy the game, not improve it.
Given the amount of time you spend working on making ICCup possible: do you ever go into nerd-rage-mode whenever you find a cheater that abuses your system or a hacker that publishes a tool that can outsmart your antihack?
I try to be proactive and for the most part. I accept the fact more or less calm, but in 3 years of iCCup existing there was only a couple of times when nerd-rage-mode was ON for me^^
How much time is spent on making ICCup hacksafe? How big is the CAT (Count Abuse Team) Staff at ICCup?
Most of the work is done on the Anti-Hack side, and to create, support and improve such powerful tool takes a lot of time and all regards come to Python_Max who all this years shared his own time just to keep our game hacksafe. So with the Anti-Hack we don't need to have a huge CAT team, right now its 5-10 people, max.
Do you think that it is possible to generate the ultimate anti-hack-tool which would detect every hacker that is out there?
Yes, the Policeman standing in front of every gamer. That’s the ultimate solution ^^
Do you feel left alone by Blizzard or do you think they done enough to provide you with tools to do make anti-hacking easier?
Quite frankly, they don't care. So we are all alone.
Which kind of hack bothers you the most and why?
The drop hack, of course, because people who use it, not just got an advantage, they completely ruin the gameplay itself.
Almost a year ago your page released a list of caught hackers. You caused a real uproar in the scene. Did you feel happy about that big bust? Was there a bitter feeling that there were so many hackers on the Abyss Server?
I will feel happy when such list will be only with 1 or 2 in it. So, yeah, I feel sad about this whole thing. Fair play and good morality should be so worthy that we don't need Anti-Hacks. That’s what we need most I think.
Do you want to say something to the community? Are there more people players should give a huge thanks to?
We have such a wonderful community and I'm glad to be part of it. But, there are names not listed often who must be mention, such as:
Unk (Technical director), Python_Max (Anti-Hack creator), CoolFaer and baddan (StarCraft server developers), Fire)Slim (Designer), x64 (servers developer), Mai-K, 2easy, Messer (Head-Admins) and special thanks to Cheloman, who did SO many goods for iCCup and the community, who build the Admin Team.
Hey, you - stay active, don't be lazy! ^^
Thanks for your time for this interview, for ICCup and all the rest!
Blizzard
When you read the interview you will see that the Starcraft Broodwar scene was left alone in the dark for some time. Blizzard never had a really strict policy against hackers. They didn't offer any help whatsoever for people that actually cared enough to develop working anti hack tools, or that keep community servers running. Broodwar is simply too old to support. This is a policy that is just not a slap in the face for the Starcraft fans, but also for those who play Diablo. To be fair, in the older days Blizzard locked accounts that were using 3rd party programs such as hacks and win bots. But due the fact that it was quite easy to create just another account this measure was quite useless. One could simply register another account and get his stats back within hours by using win bots. That ruined the “old” battle.net ladder for no normal player could keep up with the win bots. Furthermore players got banned because they used things like penguin plug.
It seems that Blizzard implemented a lot of possibilities to discover hacks in Starcraft II. The replay function enables options as provided by OP3. Maphacking will be definitely a lot harder there, since even the camera movement is recorded. Observers now have the ability to watch the camera of one player. This allows referees to be more precise and renders the chances of cheating in official league/ladder/tournament games almost to zero. Nonetheless there are already hacks out. Now it's Blizzards turn to show if their policy changed for the new scene and how hard they will punish anyone who breaks the rules of „fair play“. I tend to say that hacks will be less devastating and if they're used only annoying. Until now it is the best RTS that provides counter measures.
Update: Blizzard now gave a statement in which they told the community that hackers now get their accounts permanently banned when they use 3rd party software. The statement is shown below:
+ Show Spoiler +
Blizzard Entertainment has always taken cheating in any form in Blizzard games very seriously, and that's no different for StarCraft II. If a StarCraft II player is found to be cheating or using hacks or modifications in any form, then as outlined in our end user license agreement, that player can be permanently banned from the game. This means that the player will be permanently unable to log in to Battle.net to play StarCraft II with his or her account.
Playing StarCraft II legitimately means playing with an unaltered game client. Doing otherwise violates our policies for Battle.net, and it goes against the spirit of fair play that all of our games are based on. We strongly recommend that you avoid using any hacks, cheats, or exploits. Suspensions and bans of players that have used or start using cheats and hacks will begin in the near future.
With that cheating gets really dangerous and I highly appreciate that move Blizzard made.
Conclusion
Hacking has been a topic that always interested me. The methods and the working conditions behind the scene, knowing why an admin team made decisions and how that afflicts the leagues. I really wondered about the mindset of hackers and thought it to be interesting to others. I hope we haven't wasted your time, and that we were able to tell you a bit more than you knew before.
Thanks & Greetings
I really do have to thank Quint for giving me the idea to write this guide, supporting me with contacts, and helping me out in researching issues. Thanks to the TL.net crew to give me the „go ahead“ when we asked if we could post that topic here or not. Thanks go out to those who were willing to be interviewed, especially to Yello-Ant who responds EVERYTIME I message him within under two minutes. Further thanks go out to Dragon[Light], Schlabb0r, the ICCup Cat Crew and Max who helped me getting more information.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/images/usericons/nuke.gif)
clazziquai i'm reminded of the people i know who got banned from the iccup ordeal (and clazz, ofc)
