People act like there is some guy rumaging through the files looking for p[ron and anything else at some game company and it just isnt so.
Think how long it takes to do a virus scan. That is how long it would take to scan your entire computer of every single file and even longer then that to make a report on it and upload it. You would never get into game then. No game would ever succeed if it made its players wait 30 minutes to an hour to get in game.
If anything the scanner would have a list of specific malware and it would go down the list. If the file isnt part of that list then it would move on to the next.
It is kinda odd that people will actually trust a company to run the game's code on the computer but not a filescan. They will trust them with credit card info and personal info but not a filescan. A little hypocritcal if you ask me.
well, in reply to the Topic, i'd be more than happy for my computer to be scanned, if it means there's an improvement to the game (even if it's only one griefer banned from the game)
its no more than what happens during a patch, your client is checked against what it should look like and if there are any discrepancies they're fixed,
to me, it's no problem, i don't particularly care that i use this computer for internet banking or anything, the fact is, that i don't want some of these power gamers with custom modded UI's, bots, hacks or anything else giving them anymore of an advantage that i could have,
Originally posted by kaibigan34 People act like there is some guy rumaging through the files looking for p[ron and anything else at some game company and it just isnt so. Think how long it takes to do a virus scan. That is how long it would take to scan your entire computer of every single file and even longer then that to make a report on it and upload it. You would never get into game then. No game would ever succeed if it made its players wait 30 minutes to an hour to get in game. If anything the scanner would have a list of specific malware and it would go down the list. If the file isnt part of that list then it would move on to the next. It is kinda odd that people will actually trust a company to run the game's code on the computer but not a filescan. They will trust them with credit card info and personal info but not a filescan. A little hypocritcal if you ask me. Kai
I'm not an expert on this, but my guess is that they'd target a few things in specific, just a full-blown hard drive scan.
1) Game files. They'd want to make sure nothing was modified for any reason on the clients side. Anything checks out of whack = ban, because someone's been messing around...
2) 3rd party programs. These are definitely not hard to find on the internet, and I'd imagine it'd be even easier to find on the computer. Scan for things such as a different UI's, windowers, etc
3) Scan for other .exe files, in order to find things like bots and such running.
I for one think it's a fantastic idea, and also the next step in catching cheaters. Since there's not really an easy way to determine if anyone's botting anymore (since, for some unknown reason, people sit by their computer with a bot on, instead of playing the game themselves, just to ensure they aren't caught botting. WTF mate?) and it's definitely become more accessible to everyone since the days of Diablo 2, I think this is a neccesary step as well. The way I see it, there's only a few things that will hapen as a result anyway.
1) It'll work, and it'll work wonderfully. Less cheaters, less hackers, less botters, a better game for everyone. No more random idiots randomly googling for their hacks/bots and running them with a tutorial, only the smartest computers geeks could figure out a way around it.
2) It'll work, but lead to the development of more complex and intricate hackers/botters/cheaters.
3) It won't work very well, and it will end up doing nothing but causing some players to lag some more. It will also prove to have been a waste of time and resources.
4) It will fail miserably, and never be tried again.
Personally, I think it would be a combination of 1 and 2. I've always thought that the problem nowadays is that any idiot can find a bot/hacking guide with ease. Get rid of the simple, popular hacks and bots, and you get rid of the idiot majority. I don't think it'll ever be possible to completely stop cheating, but damn, I'd love to see a 99% mark some day
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Since Blizzard was mentioned, Diablo II does this also as of patch 1.11, it actively follows what dll files are injected to work with the game exe file, if there's something that doesn't belong to the game, you're flagged for ban from battle.net service immediately.
Originally posted by Tannayr Personally, I think it is a great idea. And to those who disagree, and scream about privacy. Does the murder not scream of privacy when a cop busts into their house to search and find a murder weapon. Is it not the criminals who scream out about their rights. I believe reference to it should be in EULA. And I highly doubt that they would open files or even read anything, it would basically be just to see what programs are being run simultaneously with the game. And I highly doubt a multi-million dollar company would risk it all to get a customer's bank account information. I vote for it, better gaming experience for us all.
Very poor example, Cops cannot invade a home without credible evidence to bring before a judge to get a Search warrant. They cannot simply seach based on a hunch without going through the proper channels.
To allow this would be on par with them Assuming by default you are already guilty of cheating, personally I find this assumption offensive. I have played my entire life of gaming without ever using a single cheat code, hack or exploit including console games. I do not believe in them, I think anyone who uses them defeats the entire purpose of the game to begin with. I however have been in the IT industry for many years now and I find the prospect of a game attempting to scan my computer appalling to say the least. As such I honestly do not care what is in the EULA, they can scan any packet they want once it has left my network, until then however they have no rights to it. As such I have and have had for a long time every port that is not immeditally required blocked and fowarded. I have tons of dummy ports set in place to bounce packets attempting to data mine. As well I also have a couple of monitors running on my server that light up like the 4th of july should anything attempt to scan a PC on my network, I know of which game company attempts to do this and Thus far I have bounced every attempt. I have also recorded it and the moment they do something so stupid as to try to bypass my system is the moment I land them in court.
Originally posted by Tannayr Personally, I think it is a great idea. And to those who disagree, and scream about privacy. Does the murder not scream of privacy when a cop busts into their house to search and find a murder weapon. Is it not the criminals who scream out about their rights. I believe reference to it should be in EULA. And I highly doubt that they would open files or even read anything, it would basically be just to see what programs are being run simultaneously with the game. And I highly doubt a multi-million dollar company would risk it all to get a customer's bank account information. I vote for it, better gaming experience for us all.
Very poor example, Cops cannot invade a home without credible evidence to bring before a judge to get a Search warrant. They cannot simply seach based on a hunch without going through the proper channels.
To allow this would be on par with them Assuming by default you are already guilty of cheating, personally I find this assumption offensive. I have played my entire life of gaming without ever using a single cheat code, hack or exploit including console games. I do not believe in them, I think anyone who uses them defeats the entire purpose of the game to begin with. I however have been in the IT industry for many years now and I find the prospect of a game attempting to scan my computer appalling to say the least. As such I honestly do not care what is in the EULA, they can scan any packet they want once it has left my network, until then however they have no rights to it. As such I have and have had for a long time every port that is not immeditally required blocked and fowarded. I have tons of dummy ports set in place to bounce packets attempting to data mine. As well I also have a couple of monitors running on my server that light up like the 4th of july should anything attempt to scan a PC on my network, I know of which game company attempts to do this and Thus far I have bounced every attempt. I have also recorded it and the moment they do something so stupid as to try to bypass my system is the moment I land them in court.
First I love how everyone brings up the cops in this. Well there is in fact one body that can in fact enter anyone's house, including yours, and you can do nothing about it. We are. Us. In pursuit of an escaped felon we all have the right to enter homes.
Also you can try to take em to court but if you pressed that little "yes I agree" button and its in the EULA that they can scan your system then guess what? You will be the one going "Umm well your honor you dont et it......um....well er........" Consider the pressing of that button as the legal search warrant. Now your stuck.
You dont believe in cheats but you refuse to help put even a small script kiddie away. Real nice additude there. You remind me of the NIMBY prinicipal. Not In My Back Yard. "Build more prisons! But not here!".
There is no way in hell I'd ever play any game that tried to scan my system. I have measures in place to prevent such things but if you're using a custom connect client they can open their own doors.
I will *never* play a video *GAME* that wants to scan my system, I don't care what their reasons are. There isn't much on my system that I care that much about but it's the principle of the matter. It's a *GAME* there is no reason at all that any Game company should EVER need to scan your PC. It's a cheap lame way to do business. If they're worried about hackers then they need to build a defense in depth into the game, NOT try to scan their customers' machines.
I find it absurd that any company thinks they should have the right to scan a private citizen's PC. Regardless of the reason. Even the GOVERNMENT can't do that without a warrant. I'll be damned if I'm going to let some 3rd party company do it. God alone knows what they'd do with the in formation.
And for those of you who say: I don't have anything to worry about because I don't have anything important on my PC.
I'm assuming you've never made a credit card purchase online and you don't have quicken or microsoft money loaded? And you've never put your address into a website before? Or your phone number? Or your email address?
Because, my friends, once they HAVE that information there is NOTHING to stop them from using it or selling it to someone else. That type of information (What you buy online, how often, where you live, what your phone number is, what your email address is) is very valuable to companies. They sell lists of this type of information all the time.
Nobody but nobody will ever scan my system without my consent. And no private company will ever get my consent... even the Gov't wouldn't... they'd have to have a court order.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by Sobish Unfortunatly having your PC scanned does seem like an invasion. however many of us give these very game companies our credit card numbers. Your worried bout them scanning your PC!!?? They already got your info.
Wrong. All they have is your name and credit card information and your address. They can get a LOT more off your PC. Even unintentionally.
They could scan: The contents of your RAM (this means anything you were doing prior to launching the game could potentially wind up in their system because even if you close the program remnants will still be in RAM). The running processes on your system (some programs don't kill their processes right away so make sure your banking software has completely shut down before connecting to a game that scans. And if they wanted to they could scan your entire hard drive if you gave them permission to "scan my pc".
AOL completely accidently grabbed the contents of people's RAM when they originally set up their caching engine for AOL subscribers which sped up internet for them. Unfortunately they were accidently grabbing the random bits of memory that hadn't been purged yet as well, thus capturing financial information and other private things. I even know of someone who determined that they'd managed to capture some proprietary data for a project he was working on for his company.
AOL had to totally rewrite their caching engine because of this.
Personally I have nothing to hide. But I still won't allow any program to scan my system. I carefully read the EULA on every game and I *NEVER* let game companies "gather data" on my system for any reason. In EQ2 it's optional and I disable it. I have heard that WoW doesn't give you the ability to turn off the data collection. I don't know if it's true because I haven't played it since Beta. But if it is I certainly wouldn't play it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by kaibigan34 First I love how everyone brings up the cops in this. Well there is in fact one body that can in fact enter anyone's house, including yours, and you can do nothing about it. We are. Us. In pursuit of an escaped felon we all have the right to enter homes. Also you can try to take em to court but if you pressed that little "yes I agree" button and its in the EULA that they can scan your system then guess what? You will be the one going "Umm well your honor you dont et it......um....well er........" Consider the pressing of that button as the legal search warrant. Now your stuck. You dont believe in cheats but you refuse to help put even a small script kiddie away. Real nice additude there. You remind me of the NIMBY prinicipal. Not In My Back Yard. "Build more prisons! But not here!". Kai
Wrong.
EULA's have already been ruled as not legally binding by several courts of law. However, if you don't read the fine print and you agree to an EULA then it's your own fault, I'll agree to that. On the other hand if a company CHANGES it's EULA and does not notify the players that they changed it then the company is in serious danger of legal reprecussions.
Might want to know your legal precedents before you start claiming EULA's are legally binding. They aren't.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by kaibigan34 First I love how everyone brings up the cops in this. Well there is in fact one body that can in fact enter anyone's house, including yours, and you can do nothing about it. We are. Us. In pursuit of an escaped felon we all have the right to enter homes.
Also you can try to take em to court but if you pressed that little "yes I agree" button and its in the EULA that they can scan your system then guess what? You will be the one going "Umm well your honor you dont et it......um....well er........" Consider the pressing of that button as the legal search warrant. Now your stuck.
You dont believe in cheats but you refuse to help put even a small script kiddie away. Real nice additude there. You remind me of the NIMBY prinicipal. Not In My Back Yard. "Build more prisons! But not here!".
Kai
Script kiddies do not threaten me in any manner. Also its not the Nimby principle as the relation is completely different. Also you are incorrect, EULA's on things of this manner have yet to stand up in court, and they have been put in to legal battles several times. However deliberate hacking through a secure firewall has and will continue to stand up in court. As I said at this point I have it all blocked, they can attempt to passive scan all day and I really do not care as its just going to get bounced back, Also for clarification they can scan their client as that is considered normal communication, I have no objections to them scanning their client. I however object completely to them scanning anything outside of their specific client. Now for the record and for definition purpose's a script kiddy is going to be experienced enough to download a hack that affects the client and I am all for putting them away.
There is a stark difference in them scanning their client and scanning your PC, and for the record there client is limited to a specific block of memory address's, any scan attempting to go outside of that specific block can be considered a hack attempt and will hold up in a court. Sorry I simply will never support people scanning my machine because they feel its their right.
Originally posted by Elnator even the Gov't wouldn't... they'd have to have a court order.
Usa is scanning all emails that are being sent. Do you think they have a court order for each email? After 9/11 there is a shitload of things Usa/Uk can do without having any court order.
I'm not concerned that Blizzard has nefarious intent with the data being collected. However, I believe there are better methods of obtaining this data, while respecting the customer's private property, and I don't want to provide Blizzard the opportunity in the future to abuse the current system.
Hopefully, this negative publicity will lead to Blizzard making a policy change.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
"Scanning" a computer without authorization means hacking it, and hacking is against the law. Whether you are scanning the CIA computer or your personal computer doesn't make a big diference, except that if you scan the CIA server you will be caught and prosecuted, whilst usually "average Joe" won't find it out or won't be bothered.
Anyway, although a full scan of your hardrive is against the law, a partial scan of particular folders and files releted to that particular game is permitted.
I don't believe that the game in question is scanning your entire hardrive, I believe that they are just checking all the relative files related to the game, and if there is something unusual on those files (like they ve been modified or there are other unknown files reletad to it), then the game company will take actions against your account.
Since the EULA says that the game company can revoke the right to play the game at anytime and at their own discretion, they don't need a solid proof of your cheating, they just need to have a reasonable doubt, and this kind of scanning give them just that.
I think that's the big problem people have with this though.
No company would ever spend the time or personnel scanning an entire computer...imagine how long it would take to sift through what....1 million people's data? If they scanned it everytime someone logged on...oh dear god, whata useless pile of paperwork you've created.
I believe that they would honestly use it to eliminate the common hacks/3rd party programs. Everyone knows which ones we're talking about too, for your game. For example, I'm currently playing FFXI, so I think if say, SE was to try this, they would eliminate the people using the illegal windower, the fish/summoning bots, and the NM provoke bots.
The one thing I particularly like about the idea is that it would provide companies with less needed proof to get rid of "problem players". Don't blow this out of proportion, every game's always got a handful of players that everyone knows is cheating/botting/duping/etc, and they just never seem to get caught. By allowing this, a company which gets multiple reports regarding one player's malicious activities could merely activate a scan and look for even the most miniscule thing (for example, changing the music in the game) to ban them.
I really think people are just letting paranoia and worst-case-scenario's override the good a small thing like this could bring to the MMO community.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Originally posted by Cymdai I think that's the big problem people have with this though. No company would ever spend the time or personnel scanning an entire computer...imagine how long it would take to sift through what....1 million people's data? If they scanned it everytime someone logged on...oh dear god, whata useless pile of paperwork you've created. I believe that they would honestly use it to eliminate the common hacks/3rd party programs. Everyone knows which ones we're talking about too, for your game. For example, I'm currently playing FFXI, so I think if say, SE was to try this, they would eliminate the people using the illegal windower, the fish/summoning bots, and the NM provoke bots. The one thing I particularly like about the idea is that it would provide companies with less needed proof to get rid of "problem players". Don't blow this out of proportion, every game's always got a handful of players that everyone knows is cheating/botting/duping/etc, and they just never seem to get caught. By allowing this, a company which gets multiple reports regarding one player's malicious activities could merely activate a scan and look for even the most miniscule thing (for example, changing the music in the game) to ban them. I really think people are just letting paranoia and worst-case-scenario's override the good a small thing like this could bring to the MMO community.
I know the creators of several of the popular tools such as the Windower and Summoning bots personally. I assure you outside the one plugin that was put in, These operate outside of the Paramaters of the game and would not be detected without SE actually scanning outside the game. Now the plugin's for the windower that should not have been put in at all, do operate within the game and SE is detecting and stopping them.
The following I got from another forum and should finish this discussion.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The key is the affirmation part. If you agree to it then they have every right to do it. Plain and simple and easy to understand.
So if its in the EULA or TOS and you click the "agree" button then you cant say anything. You give them the right and thats that.
Hold on.... Let me put on the old programers hat..... *umf*.... There we go....
Okay, When it comes to anti-cheat technology there's really no reason to scan the HD. Why? because a cheat will be running a thread in active memory at the game's runtime. Yes, you could minimize the game to windows after logging in and then start up the cheat program.... but the script/ program will still have to be running in active memory in order to affect the game. You would of course want to make sure that no alterations had been made to the local game data files but that doesn't really require you to look outside the directory that the game is run from. Basically, you want to scan the game data files at the clients startup and then periodically do a pass through the stack and the heap. Mostly, you'll be looking for any apps that are listening on the same port as your game, any external pointers (programs not associated with your game) to game function calls and of course you'll be watching the stack for overflow conditions. For the most part, you'll be doing a pass through the stack and the heap at random intervals. This is actually a little harder than it seems on the surface since computers usually have several programs running at once so each stack / heap finger print wil be different. You should still be able to detect ative scripts and programs that are interfereing with your game though.
In short, even if you were downloading kiddy porn at the same time you were playing the game, the "punkbuster" wouldn't know about it or care. It's not looking for anything that isn't involved in the smooth operation of the game client. There are several debug programs that can log what the anti-cheat program is doing while it's running so you can tell exactly what it's looking at at any time. Knowledge is power and fear is the mind killer.
i used to be into this stuff ona a low trafic text based mmorpg that some people here might play its called vagabonds quest they had to scan your computer(i found this out when it found my trusty copy of t-search)i had hacked my account on that game scince it was pre-java it was wayy easy it just died out...
"What those players seem to be concerned about is whether the hack scans are ethically appropriate. To address those concerns, wed like to make it clear that the scan does not review or retrieve anything thats personally identifiable."
Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe Hold on.... Let me put on the old programers hat..... *umf*.... There we go.... Okay, When it comes to anti-cheat technology there's really no reason to scan the HD. Why? because a cheat will be running a thread in active memory at the game's runtime. Yes, you could minimize the game to windows after logging in and then start up the cheat program.... but the script/ program will still have to be running in active memory in order to affect the game. You would of course want to make sure that no alterations had been made to the local game data files but that doesn't really require you to look outside the directory that the game is run from. Basically, you want to scan the game data files at the clients startup and then periodically do a pass through the stack and the heap. Mostly, you'll be looking for any apps that are listening on the same port as your game, any external pointers (programs not associated with your game) to game function calls and of course you'll be watching the stack for overflow conditions. For the most part, you'll be doing a pass through the stack and the heap at random intervals. This is actually a little harder than it seems on the surface since computers usually have several programs running at once so each stack / heap finger print wil be different. You should still be able to detect ative scripts and programs that are interfereing with your game though. In short, even if you were downloading kiddy porn at the same time you were playing the game, the "punkbuster" wouldn't know about it or care. It's not looking for anything that isn't involved in the smooth operation of the game client. There are several debug programs that can log what the anti-cheat program is doing while it's running so you can tell exactly what it's looking at at any time. Knowledge is power and fear is the mind killer.
Pretty much a spot on description of a hack, however I want to point out something else. In this instance they are not merely attempting to target hacks, they are as well attempting to target bots and macros.
Now in the case of a bot or macro they have a couple of different ways that they work. as a Note I am going to simply talk about a pure functional bot that imitates allowable ingame actions, not one that takes advantage of hacks/exploits. In this instance you have effectively two types of Bot, you have your Object based bot and your Memory based bot. There is a third but its so tedious to write and maintain its not really worth mentioning. Now your object based bot is in effect an overlay and simply scans your active screen for specific objects defined by the script writer. This without scanning outside the game folder would in effect be completely undetectable since all it really does at a base level is mimic keyboard and mouse clicks. The memory bot does effectively the same thing except it resides in the memory and reads the address's plugged specifically into it and looks for certain keys and reacts to them, again within the parameters of the game imitating mouse and keyboard. The memory resident bot could be detected, however unless the company knew specifically what its signature was they could not detect it without scanning outside their allowable parameters.
However while everyone is up in arms about what blizzard is attempting to do, I want to point out a simple thing. Blizzard made a monumental mistake in wow, one that even though I have always held a dim outlook on Blizzards ability to code network security still suprised me. Blizzard has built into their game a massively powerful programming language in their macro system. It access's the games memory by default, it recognizes any changes and adjust's accordingly. It literally makes it to pathetically easy to code bots within the game using their own code its almost taken all the sport out of it. Honestly to use a third party tool would be simply dumb, since you can use their own code against them, you technically are not cheating since they put it in the game, and honestly they cannot justify banning you as again, Its part of the Game.
Did you click the "I accept these terms" button? If it is stated in the "Terms and Agreement" statement, then you bet... it's something that I agreed to allow them to do. Every time WoW has us Re-approve after a patch, people should actually read what they are accepting. If people are too lazy to actually read what's in the agreement, that is their own fault and/or stupidity.
Comments
People act like there is some guy rumaging through the files looking for p[ron and anything else at some game company and it just isnt so.
Think how long it takes to do a virus scan. That is how long it would take to scan your entire computer of every single file and even longer then that to make a report on it and upload it. You would never get into game then. No game would ever succeed if it made its players wait 30 minutes to an hour to get in game.
If anything the scanner would have a list of specific malware and it would go down the list. If the file isnt part of that list then it would move on to the next.
It is kinda odd that people will actually trust a company to run the game's code on the computer but not a filescan. They will trust them with credit card info and personal info but not a filescan. A little hypocritcal if you ask me.
Kai
well, in reply to the Topic, i'd be more than happy for my computer to be scanned, if it means there's an improvement to the game (even if it's only one griefer banned from the game)
its no more than what happens during a patch, your client is checked against what it should look like and if there are any discrepancies they're fixed,
to me, it's no problem, i don't particularly care that i use this computer for internet banking or anything, the fact is, that i don't want some of these power gamers with custom modded UI's, bots, hacks or anything else giving them anymore of an advantage that i could have,
i think thats about my view
Good point on the hypocritcal part
I'm not an expert on this, but my guess is that they'd target a few things in specific, just a full-blown hard drive scan.
1) Game files. They'd want to make sure nothing was modified for any reason on the clients side. Anything checks out of whack = ban, because someone's been messing around...
2) 3rd party programs. These are definitely not hard to find on the internet, and I'd imagine it'd be even easier to find on the computer. Scan for things such as a different UI's, windowers, etc
3) Scan for other .exe files, in order to find things like bots and such running.
I for one think it's a fantastic idea, and also the next step in catching cheaters. Since there's not really an easy way to determine if anyone's botting anymore (since, for some unknown reason, people sit by their computer with a bot on, instead of playing the game themselves, just to ensure they aren't caught botting. WTF mate?) and it's definitely become more accessible to everyone since the days of Diablo 2, I think this is a neccesary step as well. The way I see it, there's only a few things that will hapen as a result anyway.
1) It'll work, and it'll work wonderfully. Less cheaters, less hackers, less botters, a better game for everyone. No more random idiots randomly googling for their hacks/bots and running them with a tutorial, only the smartest computers geeks could figure out a way around it.
2) It'll work, but lead to the development of more complex and intricate hackers/botters/cheaters.
3) It won't work very well, and it will end up doing nothing but causing some players to lag some more. It will also prove to have been a waste of time and resources.
4) It will fail miserably, and never be tried again.
Personally, I think it would be a combination of 1 and 2. I've always thought that the problem nowadays is that any idiot can find a bot/hacking guide with ease. Get rid of the simple, popular hacks and bots, and you get rid of the idiot majority. I don't think it'll ever be possible to completely stop cheating, but damn, I'd love to see a 99% mark some day
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Since Blizzard was mentioned, Diablo II does this also as of patch 1.11, it actively follows what dll files are injected to work with the game exe file, if there's something that doesn't belong to the game, you're flagged for ban from battle.net service immediately.
Very poor example, Cops cannot invade a home without credible evidence to bring before a judge to get a Search warrant. They cannot simply seach based on a hunch without going through the proper channels.
To allow this would be on par with them Assuming by default you are already guilty of cheating, personally I find this assumption offensive. I have played my entire life of gaming without ever using a single cheat code, hack or exploit including console games. I do not believe in them, I think anyone who uses them defeats the entire purpose of the game to begin with. I however have been in the IT industry for many years now and I find the prospect of a game attempting to scan my computer appalling to say the least. As such I honestly do not care what is in the EULA, they can scan any packet they want once it has left my network, until then however they have no rights to it. As such I have and have had for a long time every port that is not immeditally required blocked and fowarded. I have tons of dummy ports set in place to bounce packets attempting to data mine. As well I also have a couple of monitors running on my server that light up like the 4th of july should anything attempt to scan a PC on my network, I know of which game company attempts to do this and Thus far I have bounced every attempt. I have also recorded it and the moment they do something so stupid as to try to bypass my system is the moment I land them in court.
Very poor example, Cops cannot invade a home without credible evidence to bring before a judge to get a Search warrant. They cannot simply seach based on a hunch without going through the proper channels.
To allow this would be on par with them Assuming by default you are already guilty of cheating, personally I find this assumption offensive. I have played my entire life of gaming without ever using a single cheat code, hack or exploit including console games. I do not believe in them, I think anyone who uses them defeats the entire purpose of the game to begin with. I however have been in the IT industry for many years now and I find the prospect of a game attempting to scan my computer appalling to say the least. As such I honestly do not care what is in the EULA, they can scan any packet they want once it has left my network, until then however they have no rights to it. As such I have and have had for a long time every port that is not immeditally required blocked and fowarded. I have tons of dummy ports set in place to bounce packets attempting to data mine. As well I also have a couple of monitors running on my server that light up like the 4th of july should anything attempt to scan a PC on my network, I know of which game company attempts to do this and Thus far I have bounced every attempt. I have also recorded it and the moment they do something so stupid as to try to bypass my system is the moment I land them in court.
First I love how everyone brings up the cops in this. Well there is in fact one body that can in fact enter anyone's house, including yours, and you can do nothing about it. We are. Us. In pursuit of an escaped felon we all have the right to enter homes.
Also you can try to take em to court but if you pressed that little "yes I agree" button and its in the EULA that they can scan your system then guess what? You will be the one going "Umm well your honor you dont et it......um....well er........" Consider the pressing of that button as the legal search warrant. Now your stuck.
You dont believe in cheats but you refuse to help put even a small script kiddie away. Real nice additude there. You remind me of the NIMBY prinicipal. Not In My Back Yard. "Build more prisons! But not here!".
Kai
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why not call PCs public computers instead.
There is no way in hell I'd ever play any game that tried to scan my system. I have measures in place to prevent such things but if you're using a custom connect client they can open their own doors.
I will *never* play a video *GAME* that wants to scan my system, I don't care what their reasons are. There isn't much on my system that I care that much about but it's the principle of the matter. It's a *GAME* there is no reason at all that any Game company should EVER need to scan your PC. It's a cheap lame way to do business. If they're worried about hackers then they need to build a defense in depth into the game, NOT try to scan their customers' machines.
I find it absurd that any company thinks they should have the right to scan a private citizen's PC. Regardless of the reason. Even the GOVERNMENT can't do that without a warrant. I'll be damned if I'm going to let some 3rd party company do it. God alone knows what they'd do with the in formation.
And for those of you who say: I don't have anything to worry about because I don't have anything important on my PC.
I'm assuming you've never made a credit card purchase online and you don't have quicken or microsoft money loaded? And you've never put your address into a website before? Or your phone number? Or your email address?
Because, my friends, once they HAVE that information there is NOTHING to stop them from using it or selling it to someone else. That type of information (What you buy online, how often, where you live, what your phone number is, what your email address is) is very valuable to companies. They sell lists of this type of information all the time.
Nobody but nobody will ever scan my system without my consent. And no private company will ever get my consent... even the Gov't wouldn't... they'd have to have a court order.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Wrong. All they have is your name and credit card information and your address. They can get a LOT more off your PC. Even unintentionally.
They could scan:
The contents of your RAM (this means anything you were doing prior to launching the game could potentially wind up in their system because even if you close the program remnants will still be in RAM).
The running processes on your system (some programs don't kill their processes right away so make sure your banking software has completely shut down before connecting to a game that scans.
And if they wanted to they could scan your entire hard drive if you gave them permission to "scan my pc".
AOL completely accidently grabbed the contents of people's RAM when they originally set up their caching engine for AOL subscribers which sped up internet for them. Unfortunately they were accidently grabbing the random bits of memory that hadn't been purged yet as well, thus capturing financial information and other private things. I even know of someone who determined that they'd managed to capture some proprietary data for a project he was working on for his company.
AOL had to totally rewrite their caching engine because of this.
Personally I have nothing to hide. But I still won't allow any program to scan my system. I carefully read the EULA on every game and I *NEVER* let game companies "gather data" on my system for any reason. In EQ2 it's optional and I disable it. I have heard that WoW doesn't give you the ability to turn off the data collection. I don't know if it's true because I haven't played it since Beta. But if it is I certainly wouldn't play it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Wrong.
EULA's have already been ruled as not legally binding by several courts of law. However, if you don't read the fine print and you agree to an EULA then it's your own fault, I'll agree to that. On the other hand if a company CHANGES it's EULA and does not notify the players that they changed it then the company is in serious danger of legal reprecussions.
Might want to know your legal precedents before you start claiming EULA's are legally binding. They aren't.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Also you can try to take em to court but if you pressed that little "yes I agree" button and its in the EULA that they can scan your system then guess what? You will be the one going "Umm well your honor you dont et it......um....well er........" Consider the pressing of that button as the legal search warrant. Now your stuck.
You dont believe in cheats but you refuse to help put even a small script kiddie away. Real nice additude there. You remind me of the NIMBY prinicipal. Not In My Back Yard. "Build more prisons! But not here!".
Kai
Script kiddies do not threaten me in any manner. Also its not the Nimby principle as the relation is completely different. Also you are incorrect, EULA's on things of this manner have yet to stand up in court, and they have been put in to legal battles several times. However deliberate hacking through a secure firewall has and will continue to stand up in court. As I said at this point I have it all blocked, they can attempt to passive scan all day and I really do not care as its just going to get bounced back, Also for clarification they can scan their client as that is considered normal communication, I have no objections to them scanning their client. I however object completely to them scanning anything outside of their specific client. Now for the record and for definition purpose's a script kiddy is going to be experienced enough to download a hack that affects the client and I am all for putting them away.
There is a stark difference in them scanning their client and scanning your PC, and for the record there client is limited to a specific block of memory address's, any scan attempting to go outside of that specific block can be considered a hack attempt and will hold up in a court. Sorry I simply will never support people scanning my machine because they feel its their right.
Usa is scanning all emails that are being sent. Do you think they have a court order for each email? After 9/11 there is a shitload of things Usa/Uk can do without having any court order.
I'm not concerned that Blizzard has nefarious intent with the data being collected. However, I believe there are better methods of obtaining this data, while respecting the customer's private property, and I don't want to provide Blizzard the opportunity in the future to abuse the current system.
Hopefully, this negative publicity will lead to Blizzard making a policy change.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Whether you are scanning the CIA computer or your personal computer doesn't make a big diference, except that if you scan the CIA server you will be caught and prosecuted, whilst usually "average Joe" won't find it out or won't be bothered.
Anyway, although a full scan of your hardrive is against the law, a partial scan of particular folders and files releted to that particular game is permitted.
I don't believe that the game in question is scanning your entire hardrive, I believe that they are just checking all the relative files related to the game, and if there is something unusual on those files (like they ve been modified or there are other unknown files reletad to it), then the game company will take actions against your account.
Since the EULA says that the game company can revoke the right to play the game at anytime and at their own discretion, they don't need a solid proof of your cheating, they just need to have a reasonable doubt, and this kind of scanning give them just that.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4439675&p=1&tmp=1#post4439675
Above is a link to the official post from Blizzard concerning the system scans.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
I think that's the big problem people have with this though.
No company would ever spend the time or personnel scanning an entire computer...imagine how long it would take to sift through what....1 million people's data? If they scanned it everytime someone logged on...oh dear god, whata useless pile of paperwork you've created.
I believe that they would honestly use it to eliminate the common hacks/3rd party programs. Everyone knows which ones we're talking about too, for your game. For example, I'm currently playing FFXI, so I think if say, SE was to try this, they would eliminate the people using the illegal windower, the fish/summoning bots, and the NM provoke bots.
The one thing I particularly like about the idea is that it would provide companies with less needed proof to get rid of "problem players". Don't blow this out of proportion, every game's always got a handful of players that everyone knows is cheating/botting/duping/etc, and they just never seem to get caught. By allowing this, a company which gets multiple reports regarding one player's malicious activities could merely activate a scan and look for even the most miniscule thing (for example, changing the music in the game) to ban them.
I really think people are just letting paranoia and worst-case-scenario's override the good a small thing like this could bring to the MMO community.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
The following I got from another forum and should finish this discussion.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The key is the affirmation part. If you agree to it then they have every right to do it. Plain and simple and easy to understand.
So if its in the EULA or TOS and you click the "agree" button then you cant say anything. You give them the right and thats that.
Kai
Hold on.... Let me put on the old programers hat..... *umf*.... There we go....
Okay, When it comes to anti-cheat technology there's really no reason to scan the HD. Why? because a cheat will be running a thread in active memory at the game's runtime. Yes, you could minimize the game to windows after logging in and then start up the cheat program.... but the script/ program will still have to be running in active memory in order to affect the game. You would of course want to make sure that no alterations had been made to the local game data files but that doesn't really require you to look outside the directory that the game is run from. Basically, you want to scan the game data files at the clients startup and then periodically do a pass through the stack and the heap. Mostly, you'll be looking for any apps that are listening on the same port as your game, any external pointers (programs not associated with your game) to game function calls and of course you'll be watching the stack for overflow conditions. For the most part, you'll be doing a pass through the stack and the heap at random intervals. This is actually a little harder than it seems on the surface since computers usually have several programs running at once so each stack / heap finger print wil be different. You should still be able to detect ative scripts and programs that are interfereing with your game though.
In short, even if you were downloading kiddy porn at the same time you were playing the game, the "punkbuster" wouldn't know about it or care. It's not looking for anything that isn't involved in the smooth operation of the game client. There are several debug programs that can log what the anti-cheat program is doing while it's running so you can tell exactly what it's looking at at any time. Knowledge is power and fear is the mind killer.
http://www.wowguru.com/#news_7057
Quote
"What those players seem to be concerned about is whether the hack scans are ethically appropriate. To address those concerns, wed like to make it clear that the scan does not review or retrieve anything thats personally identifiable."
Pretty much a spot on description of a hack, however I want to point out something else. In this instance they are not merely attempting to target hacks, they are as well attempting to target bots and macros.
Now in the case of a bot or macro they have a couple of different ways that they work. as a Note I am going to simply talk about a pure functional bot that imitates allowable ingame actions, not one that takes advantage of hacks/exploits. In this instance you have effectively two types of Bot, you have your Object based bot and your Memory based bot. There is a third but its so tedious to write and maintain its not really worth mentioning. Now your object based bot is in effect an overlay and simply scans your active screen for specific objects defined by the script writer. This without scanning outside the game folder would in effect be completely undetectable since all it really does at a base level is mimic keyboard and mouse clicks. The memory bot does effectively the same thing except it resides in the memory and reads the address's plugged specifically into it and looks for certain keys and reacts to them, again within the parameters of the game imitating mouse and keyboard. The memory resident bot could be detected, however unless the company knew specifically what its signature was they could not detect it without scanning outside their allowable parameters.
However while everyone is up in arms about what blizzard is attempting to do, I want to point out a simple thing. Blizzard made a monumental mistake in wow, one that even though I have always held a dim outlook on Blizzards ability to code network security still suprised me. Blizzard has built into their game a massively powerful programming language in their macro system. It access's the games memory by default, it recognizes any changes and adjust's accordingly. It literally makes it to pathetically easy to code bots within the game using their own code its almost taken all the sport out of it. Honestly to use a third party tool would be simply dumb, since you can use their own code against them, you technically are not cheating since they put it in the game, and honestly they cannot justify banning you as again, Its part of the Game.
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