Some ideas for Cheat prevention / lame players

by DyinggDanny on 04/21/2006 19:40, 8 messages, last message: 04/24/2006 15:50, 1501 views, last view: 05/01/2024 23:41

Hi there,

Even though there are not many cheaters out there at the moment, I have got some ideas for how to prevent cheating and teamkillers etc.

First, prevent cheating could be easy I think. You could create a software similar to Punkbuster or Cheatin Death which checks some of the most important game files before being able to connect to servers. This would be like this: The software contains some MD5 files of, for example the sauerbraten.exe, some important maps and some important textures / models. When people want to play online, they have to start the Anti-Cheat program first, which checks the MD5 sums first and then connects to the Suaerbraten masterserver telling it it's IP and transmitting the MD5 sums as wall as the Windows serial key or something different thats unique for this PC. That program must run all the time and send the server some keep-alive requests every second or so. If everything is correct, the masterserver stores the user's IP and the anti-cheat application starts the sauerbraten exe. When the player connects to a server, the server asks the masterserver if this user is authorized. As soon as Sauerbraten quits, the Anti-Cheat application tells the Masterserver to remove the player from the approved IP list to prevent him from quitting Sauerbraten and loading a cheated version. If he just removes his LAN cable or quits his dial-up connection, his IP will automatically removed since the anti-cheat application does not send anymore keep-alive requests to the masterserver.

Because the application tells the master server the Windows Serial Key or so, you could ban players who are prvoen to be cheaters completely by banning their windows serial.

I think that this is quite secure if the anti-cheat application is NOT!!! open-source. If it's open-source, forget it since everyone can cheat the anti-cheat app then, too. The connection should be encrypted to avoid sniffing, too.

The anti-cheat app could have a more comfortable server browser / config editor using the Windows / Linux GUI, too.

So far.

Additionally, you could add a system for regsitered users who register an account with a verified Email address and a password. Such an account could be made necessary for people to play online, but I prefer the other method since you can get tons of free email addresses on the internet. But you could track player's statistics this way, too.

Programming all this stuff should not be a problem.

Please tell me what you think of this.

Yours

MrMage

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#1: ..

by hampus_ on 04/21/2006 20:06

People not running windows then?

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#2: ..

by makkE on 04/21/2006 21:18

This topic has already been discusse a lot.
The outcome is the mastermode approach.

see: http://www.cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=566

search "cheating" on the boards as well.

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#3: ..

by DyinggDanny on 04/22/2006 12:40

Well, but I think that this approach is much more accurate and secure.

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#4: ..

by pushplay on 04/22/2006 21:23

I stopped reading at "prevent cheating could be easy."

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#5: Re: ..

by CC_machine4 on 04/23/2006 17:26, refers to #3

how many times has this idea been suggested? at least 4.

and we always give the same answer:
someone could hack the client to give the correct binary / file / checksum / whatever information to the server, and the server would see them as ok when they are infact a cheater. all this would do would be to add another stop for hackers to be able to cheat.

maybe we should make a FAQ?

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#6: Re: ..

by kurtis84 on 04/23/2006 23:32, refers to #5

Mastermode will just have to do...people are just going to have to know who they are playing with, or accept that sometimes an asshole will cheat.

I cannot think of a MP game that cannot be exploited in some way...multi-million dollar software corps cannot stop it with all the resources they can use, and I really don't think theres ever going to be a 100% sure way of stoping it.

my 2 cents

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#7: Re

by Death at another P C on 04/24/2006 15:19

I agreee with kurtis84 there will be no fool proof way of stopping the cheating.

I like the porposed windows serial idea and all. For linux and mac and maybe even windows ussers there could be a code program that gave each download for cube and sauer it\'s own special bar code thingy. This way there could be a way to banner cheeaters.

P.S. I myself have not seen any cheats on any servers.

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#8: ..

by makkE on 04/24/2006 15:50

I don´t know what´s in cracker´s minds, but I guess having it extremely easy to hack (like sauer atm) might make some crackers reluctant to even do it.
I don´t think a cheat for sauer would get you much kudos in their world.

Anti cheat software is a war between crackers and the people making the software, with the crackers always one step ahead. And the devs need to devote their lives to it I guess.

Plus I believe it´s about a weird sort of fame and recognition, so they prolly prefer to make cheats for games more popular anyways.
Of course we have cheaters too, but I think the mastermode thing is enough for such a relatively small playerbase as we have here.

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