SWG EMU Is your character really safe?

tvalentine · July 2006

ok honestly knowing hackers, and server runners/admins have access to our accounts is really disturbing ..... i mean imagine being in a PVP battle, and all of a sudden some guy comes up with a CDEF pistol and does 1000000 dmg to you? i mean is it really worth the time and effort to build up your character, to get him hacked or have other players being hacked?

Obraik · July 2006

The wonders of Emus and people who think they know how to run an MMO

tvalentine · July 2006

***DELETED***

milton1970 · July 2006

I had my main toon on an SWG server.

He had a doc tkm template, a perfect crafting station, a 12 point suit, bags of goodies and nice resources, some super low med use meds that I especially crafted for guildmates. I had just run off a hundred or so buffpacks for pvp , hunting and general purpose to help out players (never was a buffbot) some really nice vk's as well as all the assorted loot I'd spent 2 years accumulating, not to mention my dancer/musician alt who had just finished all his grinding.

Then one day I logged on and it was all totally fucking worthless.

Nothing is safe from deletion or change, I'd trust an emu server over $OE any day given their current record.

hope this answers your question.

tvalentine · July 2006

yu had your money, you had your skills, you had your respec, its alot better then someone getting on my character and /selling all my gear and /unlearn all my skills.

Fignar · July 2006

Again i wouldn't worry too much, just make sure that you decided to play on a server where you have some mature adults in-charge of its day to day up keep. Alas you never quite know what will happen even some SOE CSR's were ignorant when it came to obtaining lost items which you could prove you had and they could see it, some still refused to return lost items.

Darwa · July 2006

I'd say that a decent EMU server would be as safe as an official one.

Remember maintenance bugs where everything you'd stored went 'poof'?

Remember people using accelerators so they could hit you x amount of times per second?

The list goes on, but you're basically a troll and I can't be bothered.

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

The wonders of Emus and people who think they know how to run an MMO

Uh, as if SOE has proven any ability at all to professionally run SWG?

My character has TWICE been ripped to shreds and equipment made useless by SOE. If the emu only does it to me once I'm still ahead...

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by darwa

I'd say that a decent EMU server would be as safe as an official one.
Remember maintenance bugs where everything you'd stored went 'poof'?
Remember people using accelerators so they could hit you x amount of times per second?
The list goes on, but you're basically a troll and I can't be bothered.

The servers run by people who play favorites, who fuck around with people's characters, etc will fail very quickly because they won't attract or hold a community.

The good servers will likely end up being BETTER run than any SOE server.

kefkah · July 2006

And imagine one more thing - reporting the hacker, the Operator banning him and wait for it....wait for it....them actually being able to open your account and make things right without a terribly long wait for a cut and paste answer. I am willing to bet I still have tickets on my SOE account waiting to be solved or perhaps by now they may have posted in broken English - Known Bug. SOrry we are unable to do anything at this time.

Simple rule - Emu's are like anything else. You take them with a grain of salt, only go to the reputable ones or ones hosted by someone you know. What amazes me is this sudden screaming that they shouldn't be trusted. Like SOE can? Please.

1. They are free (no monetary risk). This is quite unlike the money I wasted to pay SOE to build the NGE behind my back.

2. People playing EMU's know the risk of it going up or coming down. They play for the experience of PreCU and should that server go down - they atleast got a taste of what they have been begging for for over a year that some ungrateful company not only took away but refuse due to pride to offer again.

Distopia · July 2006

Meh , Using a Team speak server is a lot more dangerous . Atleast when hackers come into play .

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by kefkah

And imagine one more thing - reporting the hacker, the Operator banning him and wait for it....wait for it....them actually being able to open your account and make things right without a terribly long wait for a cut and paste answer. I am willing to bet I still have tickets on my SOE account waiting to be solved or perhaps by now they may have posted in broken English - Known Bug. SOrry we are unable to do anything at this time.
Simple rule - Emu's are like anything else. You take them with a grain of salt, only go to the reputable ones or ones hosted by someone you know. What amazes me is this sudden screaming that they shouldn't be trusted. Like SOE can? Please.
1. They are free (no monetary risk). This is quite unlike the money I wasted to pay SOE to build the NGE behind my back.
2. People playing EMU's know the risk of it going up or coming down. They play for the experience of PreCU and should that server go down - they atleast got a taste of what they have been begging for for over a year that some ungrateful company not only took away but refuse due to pride to offer again.

As I said, the good servers will seperate themselves from the pack pretty quickly. And no, it's not going to be free, if you want to play on a good server, expect to donate (you will want to, trust me, you will get a better server out of it).

I'd rather play on a server run by hobbyist amateurs than conniving, evil corporate "professionals" like SOE.

And yep, I expect people who get out of line on the good servers to be dealt with harshly and qucikly. The server operators won't be motivated by "if I permaban this person I lose money". They will be motivated by "if I don't permanan this asshole I lose my community to servers that won't put up with that kind of shit".

tvalentine · July 2006

Originally posted by darwa

I'd say that a decent EMU server would be as safe as an official one.
Remember maintenance bugs where everything you'd stored went 'poof'?
Remember people using accelerators so they could hit you x amount of times per second?
The list goes on, but you're basically a troll and I can't be bothered.

a troll ?? dude this is a real problem for someone who wants to play, Makeing it OPEN SOURCE and allowing people with some expirience with codes, getting their hands on it, i mean people hack into stuff just to have fun, thats there hobby, and honestly screwein around with the EMU Fanbois and listening to them cry could be a plus

Fignar · July 2006

if you knew anything about opensource programming and the EMU you would know they vet anyone who will potentially be involved. Also that when vunerabilties arise in open source software fixes are often implemented alot faster then non-open source software because you have a direct means to communicate with developers which essentially could involve X amount of people.

This is essentially how linux came into existence, it started off with one person who gave his code to a small community and gradually it grew from there. There is a very interesting article about the story of linux which gives you a better insight in to open source programming (do a search on google.

Rekrul · July 2006

DO NOT POST LINKS.

kefkah · July 2006

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by darwa

I'd say that a decent EMU server would be as safe as an official one.
Remember maintenance bugs where everything you'd stored went 'poof'?
Remember people using accelerators so they could hit you x amount of times per second?
The list goes on, but you're basically a troll and I can't be bothered.

a troll ?? dude this is a real problem for someone who wants to play, Makeing it OPEN SOURCE and allowing people with some expirience with codes, getting their hands on it, i mean people hack into stuff just to have fun, thats there hobby, and honestly screwein around with the EMU Fanbois and listening to them cry could be a plus

No offense meant but there is something here you must see. I remember when I learne HTML and got hired by this one company to do some webwork. They would tell me what they wanted and to them it was like telling someone to part a red sea. To me, it was this section of code and that. To them, it was magic, to me it was smoke and mirrors...

This whole hacker mindset is like that. Sure there are hackers out there. Perhaps a few of them will run some servers but there are a few things lining up against them.

1. Running extra programs on the server would draw notice by many a protected gamer not to mention cause lag. Rep gets out and they lose their audience.

2. Hackers aren't known to post a legit location for any given amount of time. Standing still makes the vulnerable.

3. If your pc is not protected with the adequate software, you are more likely to be hacked by viewing your friendly neighborhood skin pic site. If you are unprotected on the web - you are going to and deserve to get hacked.

4. Hackers still have to obey certain laws of physics. Their ghost and lich rep is part hollywood and part urban myth. some of them are damn good but those tend to be working on hacks that generate profit or notoriety. I doubt hacking fake accounts that have no financial info counts as such an endeavor.

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by kefkah

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by darwa

I'd say that a decent EMU server would be as safe as an official one.
Remember maintenance bugs where everything you'd stored went 'poof'?
Remember people using accelerators so they could hit you x amount of times per second?
The list goes on, but you're basically a troll and I can't be bothered.

a troll ?? dude this is a real problem for someone who wants to play, Makeing it OPEN SOURCE and allowing people with some expirience with codes, getting their hands on it, i mean people hack into stuff just to have fun, thats there hobby, and honestly screwein around with the EMU Fanbois and listening to them cry could be a plus

No offense meant but there is something here you must see. I remember when I learne HTML and got hired by this one company to do some webwork. They would tell me what they wanted and to them it was like telling someone to part a red sea. To me, it was this section of code and that. To them, it was magic, to me it was smoke and mirrors...

This whole hacker mindset is like that. Sure there are hackers out there. Perhaps a few of them will run some servers but there are a few things lining up against them.

1. Running extra programs on the server would draw notice by many a protected gamer not to mention cause lag. Rep gets out and they lose their audience.

2. Hackers aren't known to post a legit location for any given amount of time. Standing still makes the vulnerable.

3. If your pc is not protected with the adequate software, you are more likely to be hacked by viewing your friendly neighborhood skin pic site. If you are unprotected on the web - you are going to and deserve to get hacked.

4. Hackers still have to obey certain laws of physics. Their ghost and lich rep is part hollywood and part urban myth. some of them are damn good but those tend to be working on hacks that generate profit or notoriety. I doubt hacking fake accounts that have no financial info counts as such an endeavor.

I also find it funny that people consider emu operators to somehow be more prone to being "hackers" when we are comparing them to Sony, a corporation that deliberately (and secretly) illegally put a Windows rootkit onto thousands of computers...

I guess they aren't hackers because they are listed on the stock exchange?

Every nefarious thing that people are throwing out there to discredit the emulator servers (characters vanishing, items becoming useless, untrustworthiness, hackers, etc) are things that SONY HAS ALREADY DONE!

maxanto · July 2006

Originally posted by Wildcat84I also find it funny that people consider emu operators to somehow be more prone to being "hackers" when we are comparing them to Sony, a corporation that deliberately (and secretly) illegally put a Windows rootkit onto thousands of computers...

I guess they aren't hackers because they are listed on the stock exchange?

Every nefarious thing that people are throwing out there to discredit the emulator servers (characters vanishing, items becoming useless, untrustworthiness, hackers, etc) are things that SONY HAS ALREADY DONE!

Definition of a rootkit

A rootkit is a program or set of programs that an intruder uses to hide
her presence on a computer system and to allow access to the computer
system in the future. To accomplish its goal, a rootkit will alter the
execution flow of the operating system or manipulate the data set that
the operating system relies upon for auditing and bookkeeping.

A rootkit is not an exploit; rather, it is what an attacker uses after
the initial exploit. In many ways, a rootkit is more interesting than
an exploit, even a 0-day exploit. Most of us have reluctantly embraced
the fact that vulnerabilities in our computer systems will continue to
be discovered. Computer security is all about managing risk. A 0-day
exploit is a bullet, but the rootkit can tell a lot about the attacker,
such as what her motivation was for pulling the trigger. By analyzing
what the rootkit does, we can ascertain what the intruder is looking to
steal, who the intruder is communicating with, and the level of
sophistication of the intruder. Before we analyze the "why" however,
let's first discuss the "how".

Mind backing up your accusation of SOE putting a root kit on 1000's of pc's? I do security for a living and I never heard of this happening.

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by maxanto

Originally posted by Wildcat84I also find it funny that people consider emu operators to somehow be more prone to being "hackers" when we are comparing them to Sony, a corporation that deliberately (and secretly) illegally put a Windows rootkit onto thousands of computers...

I guess they aren't hackers because they are listed on the stock exchange?

Every nefarious thing that people are throwing out there to discredit the emulator servers (characters vanishing, items becoming useless, untrustworthiness, hackers, etc) are things that SONY HAS ALREADY DONE!

Definition of a rootkit

A rootkit is a program or set of programs that an intruder uses to hide
her presence on a computer system and to allow access to the computer
system in the future. To accomplish its goal, a rootkit will alter the
execution flow of the operating system or manipulate the data set that
the operating system relies upon for auditing and bookkeeping.

A rootkit is not an exploit; rather, it is what an attacker uses after
the initial exploit. In many ways, a rootkit is more interesting than
an exploit, even a 0-day exploit. Most of us have reluctantly embraced
the fact that vulnerabilities in our computer systems will continue to
be discovered. Computer security is all about managing risk. A 0-day
exploit is a bullet, but the rootkit can tell a lot about the attacker,
such as what her motivation was for pulling the trigger. By analyzing
what the rootkit does, we can ascertain what the intruder is looking to
steal, who the intruder is communicating with, and the level of
sophistication of the intruder. Before we analyze the "why" however,
let's first discuss the "how".

Mind backing up your accusation of SOE putting a root kit on 1000's of pc's? I do security for a living and I never heard of this happening.

Lots of backup here:

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69601,00.html

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+will+wipe+Sonys+rootkit/2100-1002_3-5949041.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_CD_copy_protection_controversy

That's worse behavior than any "hacker" in my book.

tvalentine · July 2006

im not calling the server operater hackers, what i mean is, like what someone said earlier, you got server admins and ect playing favorites, and again when one of those administrator favorites come along in a PVP battle with 1000-2000 dmg weapon, it kinda ruins the fun for you, the hackers, i guess wont be a problem, but what happens when you become enemys with a friend of the administrator?

Obraik · July 2006

Sony Music put rootkits on PCs when you inserted certain music CD's in your computer. Sony Online Entertainment hasn't put rootkits on computers with any of their games.

Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or not, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

Sony Music put rootkits on PCs when you inserted certain music CD's in your computer. Sony Online Entertainment hasn't put rootkits on computers with any of their games.
Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or know, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

Some irony here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/187215

The Sony rootkit bypassed Blizzard's anti cheat spyware.

Blizzard's anti cheat program isn't a rootkit. However I classify it as spyware, which is one reason why I don't play WoW, I don't like their intrusion into my PC in that way. However, on the plus side, people can't get away with speed hacking there like they do with impunity on SWG.

tvalentine · July 2006

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Originally posted by Obraik

Sony Music put rootkits on PCs when you inserted certain music CD's in your computer. Sony Online Entertainment hasn't put rootkits on computers with any of their games.
Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or know, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

Some irony here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/187215

The Sony rootkit bypassed Blizzard's anti cheat spyware.

Blizzard's anti cheat program isn't a rootkit. However I classify it as spyware, which is one reason why I don't play WoW, I don't like their intrusion into my PC in that way. However, on the plus side, people can't get away with speed hacking there like they do with impunity on SWG.

ive got a few friends in my guild who i know have used the speed hack, about 4 people to be exact, and only 1 got their account perma banned

(In WoW)

Wildcat84 · July 2006

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Originally posted by Obraik

Sony Music put rootkits on PCs when you inserted certain music CD's in your computer. Sony Online Entertainment hasn't put rootkits on computers with any of their games.
Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or know, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

Some irony here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/187215

The Sony rootkit bypassed Blizzard's anti cheat spyware.

Blizzard's anti cheat program isn't a rootkit. However I classify it as spyware, which is one reason why I don't play WoW, I don't like their intrusion into my PC in that way. However, on the plus side, people can't get away with speed hacking there like they do with impunity on SWG.

ive got a few friends in my guild who i know have used the speed hack, about 4 people to be exact, and only 1 got their account perma banned

In SWG, I've reported people for speed hacking (how else can a non Jedi outrun a force running Jedi?!) double profession exploiting (ie: a medic that cloaked), and for cooldown bypassing on cyber arms (being able to continually apply the effect). Action taken by the CSRs? None.

Players are better at spotting this stuff than any program is, because players know the game better than the people who make/run it. But it takes customer service that gives a shit for it to work.

Rekrul · July 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or not, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

rootkit = root + kit = kit for gaining root access.

It stems from unix/linux world, where such tools use one of several techniques, to trick system into giving the running process root (admin) priviliges.

Simply put, when you execute some application, it does something with the system, and from then on, that application is logged in as root, even if it was started as user process. During time the methods of doing this have changed, and while the hacks that did this were mostly stopped, there are still methods that work easily on badly administrated or unpatched systems.

Rootkit under windows is different. It works by starting a low level process, which is hidden from Windows' own diagnostics. The methods are becoming extremly sofisticated, mostly due to inherent complexity of windows and extremly poor separation between security layers. Unlike Linux/Unix, where the authentication is highly localized, in Windows it's a mess.

WoW uses simple spyware, which scans the running processes for illegal software and probably third-party interaction with wow executable files. The method is obviously completely pointless, since such checks can be incredibly easily bypassed, and they only serve to stop the script kiddies.

tvalentine · July 2006

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Originally posted by Obraik

Sony Music put rootkits on PCs when you inserted certain music CD's in your computer. Sony Online Entertainment hasn't put rootkits on computers with any of their games.
Blizzard does something simillar with WoW, not sure it's called a rootkit or know, but it checks to see if you have anything on your computer that could potentially allow you to exploit in the game. That's what they say anyway :P

Some irony here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/03/187215

The Sony rootkit bypassed Blizzard's anti cheat spyware.

Blizzard's anti cheat program isn't a rootkit. However I classify it as spyware, which is one reason why I don't play WoW, I don't like their intrusion into my PC in that way. However, on the plus side, people can't get away with speed hacking there like they do with impunity on SWG.

ive got a few friends in my guild who i know have used the speed hack, about 4 people to be exact, and only 1 got their account perma banned

In SWG, I've reported people for speed hacking (how else can a non Jedi outrun a force running Jedi?!) double profession exploiting (ie: a medic that cloaked), and for cooldown bypassing on cyber arms (being able to continually apply the effect). Action taken by the CSRs? None.

Players are better at spotting this stuff than any program is, because players know the game better than the people who make/run it. But it takes customer service that gives a shit for it to work.

ok youve solved the bugs/hackers problem, now what about the playing favorites part? the fact that players are the admins brings up this problem.

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Definition of a rootkit

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