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SOE Files a Lawsuit Against the Web Host of an Hackers' Site
xSSx
Member Posts: 128
Quick background on the current problem with in PlanetSide. There is a huge hacking problem going on with in PlanetSide currently. This has been a issue for about 2 years, but has only risen again in the past few months. The hackers are using some pretty nasty hacks and the player base is pretty upset. Looks like SOE is finally doing something about it
SOE filed a lawsuit against the web host of -----pvp--.-- (I'm not going to show the entire address for obvious reasons). This is for helping the hackers distribute hacks which is against PlanetSide's Terms of Service Agreement.
This is from a moderator on the PS forum's:
"Yeah, I've wanted to tell you guys about this for awhile, but things take time. The mods routinely visit ALL of their sites and feed information back to Raijin, the programming team, and the CSR's.
Raijin let us know about the lawsuit recently, and it's been tough to stay quiet. SOE knows about the other site as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if the owner of that site gets a knock on his/her door soon as well."
This is the only source to back it up for now, but there should be more on in the near future. The hackers' site also has something about it, but I wouldn't recommend visiting it. Who knows what crap they may have on there as far as key loggers and such.
I'm just hoping this will help in some way. If it does there is a good chance I'll resub to see how the game is doing. I personally haven't played in 4 months, but I have been keeping a eye on the official PS forums.
Comments
Despite of i don't play PS, i am really pleased when this scum faces the courts
I'd guess that was cheaper than fixing their code?
And in doing so, the haxxors can just set up a site outside the US or a shell site on a free hosting center or simply put the stuff on the torrent.
It shows SOE's desperation in the matter. Not to mention it will cost SOE a bundle in lawyer's fees. (Fees they likely will not recoup depending on where the perps live.)
I'm assuming they are not charging for the hacks. If they are, then that is a different matter.
However, I've never played planetside, but in reading a couple of brief reviews over a year ago they mentioned rampant hacking.
That was enough for me to scratch it off my list even if it was my cup of tea (which it isn't).
IM all for the company going after hackers. However, I wonder if they have standing to sue the Web Host. Is it the web hosts responsibility for content of its customers? Is the web host even based in the US?
Just wondering
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Considering SoE frauds me in the past.
If they get their ***** handed to them, I would heartfully laugh.
It has nothing to do with whoever they are against, I don't know them. It could be almost anyone and I would wish them to beat SoE.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Lets see here, a bunch of geeks that program hacks vs a corporate lawyer team. I only wonder which would win a court case
.
It almost seems that every time SoE must make a decision they put a bunch of them in pieces of paper, put those pieces of papers in a hat and pick one out randomly.
Why can't they just patch the hacks? They even know where they come from, it can't be too hard. Even if they are successful in the lawsuit, the hackers will just find a new website or simply use different ways of distributing the hacks.
Blizzard goes after people screwing with their game and people say, "YEAH BLIZZARD!!!"
SOE goes after people screwing with their game and people say, "BOO SOE, I HOPE THE HACKERS BEAT YOUR _ _ _ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Get over it people, they only make video games.
picturing the settling out of court offer.....
SoE Lawyer "You have the option of us proceeding with this suit, or you can take a job offer to use your programming skills to help SoE fix issues in their various games and become a SoE Dev."
Hacker001 "I pick the lawsuit."
PlanetSide doesn't have the biggest team to actually handle such measures. Last I heard it only had about 2 devs and one lead one, along with a community manager. They did do a lot of work on it awhile ago but these hacks are different. Besides that this is a statement to hosts that they will go after people if you have such sites. I don't see why such sites couldn't be illegal anyway, most web hosting sites ban porno sites last I knew.
Damn, i assumed SoE being a successful company to use some profit made from the bunch of other games they have on PlanetSide. I still think there are better solutions to hackers though.
Hackers that mess with games, make community's pissed, and Disregard the TOS, which has alot of fancy script about((( LAWSUITS)))) the fact is what SOE did was fine, Have you ever wanetd to just punch the face IRL of some hacking person??? Well why not sew the ass off the creator of the hacks!!! as far as leaving the country, that is halarious! Yaaah lets book a trip to mexico! That is actualy funny thinking of somebody going that far just to secure there "mmo hacks" OH yeah, and the owners of the sites arent notified online and everything is kept hush hush untill its most likely too late to run,... If SOE took another rout, persay "Changing the Code, like i heard some people say on this thread.... Guess what!!!! A couple months later and more hacks are coming out!!!! THATS LIKE KILLING A COCKROACH HALFWAY. If the hackers have not already put there hacks onto bittorrend for sharing, then getting them in court will make sure it doesnt happen at all. I hope those hackers get what they had coming to them. A nice ol' corperate lawsuit.
It's pretty god damn simple.
Cheat sites make cheats. People use those cheats. People using those cheats disrupt online gaming communities. The members of those communities often quit in frustration. This hurts the game maker's business. That's grounds enough for a lawsuit that will have a leg to stand on.
What'd I'd like to see them do is to start suing the cheaters.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.
I don't understand much of what the hacks are, but good for SOE. I hope they nail the hackers.
I assume this is something on a larger scale that disrupts the whole community to warrant a lawsuit? Like the are using a denial of service or hacking into the games database? Anyone give a little insight?
Dis is a great move for SOE if dey can win da case. Shuttin’ down one site won’t make people stop cheatin’ or sharin’ da ’ackz wiv one anotha, so SOE will gain money (for winnin’ da case), da gratitude of da playerbase (for bein’ seen to be takin’ action against ’ackerz) an’ da beauty of it is dat dey’ll be able to do da same fin’ again da next time a cheat site popz up. Instead of fixin’ deir game so dat people CAN’T cheat, SOE is essentially farmin’ da cheaterz for out-of-court settlementz.
Cheaterz is bad, ’corse, an’ it’ll be nice to see dem get a swift kick in da ballz, but SOE should be focusin’ deir effortz on makin’ it impossible to cheat by closin’ whateva ’olez in deir code dat make it possible.
The system that allowed PlanetSide to function is Client Side Hit Detection, basically as far as I understand you're computer figures out where everyone is around to you. You can hack this system to say change your current location and others. For example you can make yourself go under the terrian in order to kill people that way. Another example is that you can make all the players in the area spawn at specific area, then you can just kill them all that way. This is the major one going on right now I think.
Preventing some packets from coming through with a certain program would prevent people from say taking damage and other things. Some of them being able to have unlimited ammo and zero cone of fire.
Some people have complained about aim bots as well. Though I'm not sure in what area that goes into. When I played I can't say I ever experienced seeing one either.
Guess it took them 2 years to figure out that a skeleton crew of devs can't add content, fix bugs AND prevent hacks at the same time...
Tho would have thought that SOE had enough devs to send some of the old PS devs that are now on other games, over to help prevent the hacks.
But what do I know? All I know is that PS is on the lowest position on the SOE "games to work on" list.
I bet however that if someone had done something like this to EQ2 (one of SOE's few remaining games with actual dev teams, and one of their very few cash cows) it would have been dealth with 23 months ago :P
For those wanting the hackers URL, you may want to use your 'Elite' Insight.
Although - be warely of keyloggers, trojans, etc etc.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
Wait, SOE if filing suit against someone for basic gameplay hacking? That doesn't make much sense at all. Just ban the account, fix it so the client side program doesn't make important determinations and move along.
I have to assume this is something more than one person hacking for personal wins. They have to be making a program or doing something a little more widespread right?
Its the source of where most of the hacks are coming from aka the ones who made them. It doesn't matter if you ban the account if they can just make a new one with a free trial to play the game.
Agreed. I mean, I have machines and provide website hosting to people. If one of them does something wrong, I get sued? That's like suing a bus driver because some other guy in the bus ripped off your wallet while you were riding. Most ISPs are as small as a group of people are in regard to legal resources, and they are not the ones committing the contract violation.This is just a big company, finding an easy target, then slapping some PR on it to make themselves look good to their customers. OR the ISP is good size, and SOE sees some easy money to make. In either case, any real motive to stop hacking is probably the furthest from their mind.
IF they were to actually go after the hackers themselves, then I would be impressed.
SOE is being extremely stupid. there are a whole shitload of high level rulings that websites/webhosts are not responsible for the stuff their users do(unless they activly encourage the users to do something).
it's just legal warmongering against an innocent party because they can't(or won't) go after the responsible parties. If it goes to court SOE already knows nothing is going to change, they're relying on the host to go the cheap route of settling(and doing everything SOE wants) to make it look like they're doing something. Not only that SOE never even needed to use their legal department due to the fact that almost every webhost TOS makes it so you can't do anything like what the user is doing, so not only are they being warmongering jackasses they're costing the webhost a whole shitload more cash when sending in the TOS the person aggreed to and a description of what they're hosting would do just fine.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
This is just a big company, finding an easy target, then slapping some PR on it to make themselves look good to their customers. OR the ISP is good size, and SOE sees some easy money to make. In either case, any real motive to stop hacking is probably the furthest from their mind.
IF they were to actually go after the hackers themselves, then I would be impressed.
It's more like the bus driver loosing control of the bus and hitting your $1.5m bugatti veyron.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
This wasn't meant to be another thread so people can moan and groan about SOE. They are doing something about a certain issue with a game, which is good. Then you have the whiners come in and say its bad what they're doing. If this was blizzard doing this people would be all over it saying "YAY GO BLIZZARD, YOU SHOW THEM WHO'S BOSS!"
Blizzard fixez da exploit den banz da exploit usa.
SOE suez da service provida or da webpage dat da exploiterz usez an’ doesn’t botha fixin’ da exploit.
Pretty much ’ighlightz da difference between da two companiez, doesn’t it?
You have to look at it from a corporate point of view. If this was EQ2 SOE would get rid of the hack and possibly sue like they are now. That is because their making a good amount of money from EQ2 to do so. With PlanetSide that is not the case. The game probably is floating between 7,500-10,000 subs right now. SOE is making profit from the game but not to the point where it can do both. The Dev team already is short handed and is working on content for the game currently, so their busy. Instead SOE decided to go the legal system route. Blizzard or any other company would do the same. Corporations don't have the heart to do such tasks if there won't be any pay offs for it.
Therefore your arguement is null. WoW has millions of players as opposed to PS thousands. Blizzard has plently of money to throw around.
I'm still shocked SOE is even bothering to do anything about it to be perfectly honest.