Slashdot Mirror
An Interview with a Cheater
Dan writes to mention a post at the Aeropause site. Author Richard was recently given the rare opportunity to interview a cheater, shining a light into the dark recesses of a conflicted mind. The article explores why the cheater cheats, and the great excuses they use to be able to look themselves in the mirror. From the article: "Aeropause: What made you decide to mod your Xbox to gain an unfair advantage in games like Halo 2? Schmuck5000: Modding is not an unfair advantage. There is just as much chance that there will be a modder on the other team. I am there to even things out. Halo 2 is beginning to get old, us modders are just making it more funner."
Cheaters never win. Okay, well, they always win, but that's what makes them losers.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater...... PPPPPPTTTT!
Exactly. This is why I carry $1000 in Monopoly money in my underpants at all times.
People who say "more funner" are asshats.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
"Speak Easy 2: Haxxing"
You to can make ur games much more funner then before! Plug in yer haxx and away yous go! Cal Now!
Here come the Slashdot Spelling and Grammar Police..
"I am there to even things out. Halo 2 is beginning to get old, us modders are just making it more funner."
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I thought a person who acts unsportingly was a cheat. Whereas a cheater's sort of like a leopard.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Boh the interviewer and interviewee appear to be relatively idiotic. This interview might have been marginally interesting if they had interviewed someone more on the cutting edge of cheating -- someone who actually creates the mods, or develops new cheating modalities.
Athletes often use the same excuse, that since there will be "other" players on drugs, they need to use the same drugs to stay competitive. However, this should only be the case if the drugs are allowed, because any given cheater could be exposed and stripped of their titles, video game or otherwise. That's the ultimate slap-down, because anyone after that will assume you're cheating even if you're not.
stuff |
I haven't read this article. But from that last sentence of grammar stumbling, I'm not interested in this interview at all. I don't know what Xbox modding is but I'd imagine that Schmuck5000 didn't invent this 'modding' procedure. A lot of times, they just follow some process online and then run around killing people saying "1337 h4Xx00rs pwn you n00bz0rs." I consider these people much less than 'cheaters' although I don't think the names I have for them are for public display.
What about the people who write the code or make the hardware for the mods? You know, the people that actually do all the work? I want to talk to these people who probably don't even use it all that much but just consider it a challenge and then get bored after the challenge is overcome. Game Genie & Game Shark are popularized commercial versions of this but it's not online play. I wish I could talk to the people that reverse engineer the packets sent out using something like Burp or a networking tool that gives them speed hacks. These people work for it while I don't even think their end goal is really to cheat. I kind of have the feeling that they enjoy the cat and mouse game that appearantly Blizzard has won (after rounds of losing) but Xbox Live has lost.
I investigated writing a program that read the memory from video and tried to interpret it using heuristics on what to do in casewise instances. While it might work for some games (like Tetris), 3D emersion worlds like WoW or online play are much much more difficult. If people are out there and writing these 'bots' that are pretty highly sophisticated, I'd love to hear from them and ask them real questions (not "Do you have a girlfriend?").
By the way, the article has a picture of Steve Martin as "The Jerk" and it's pretty obvious they were interviewing an idiot and doing a radio talk show host job of making him look like a poser.
My work here is dung.
"more funner"
There are people who are selfish, destructive, and otherwise
screwed up. Don't see any short term fixes for this one.
he cannot "mod" the English language as easily as he can his XBox.
Monstar L
I think he has a great future in front of him. As we are continually told, life
is a competition. The point is to win and not to winge about how it wasn't fair
when you loose.
Besides which, it is only a game that we are talking about. If you are worried about people cheating, I would suggest chess or scrabble. Much harder to cheat at these.
Phil
Man that guy's got balls! None can stop our XBox-modding overlords.
Thanks
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Let's face it, the reason people cheat at games is to get a rise out of people. They revel in the annoyance they cause. The responses this 'modder' gives are just further examples of this flamebaiting. I'm sure some armchair psychologist somehwere can postulate as to exactly why cheaters want to cause such aggravation, but this interview is not an amazing exposé into the mind of a cheater -- it's just another platform he can use to piss people off.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Cheaters on Online games piss me off the most.
It is not about if you win or loose. But when cheaters are in the game then it is about you just loosing, with out a chance to win.
His observations I would consider all wrong.
People are jelious at the cheater because they don't know how to cheat. Maybe a couple of people but most of the Pissed off people can do it if they wanted to. It doesn't take that much skill to copy what is on the internet.
Second assuming other people are cheating means you have to cheat too. This is saying other people are breaking laws so I should too.
Third calling people who complain about cheaters winers. The people who report cheaters and get them banned are heros in gaming (And gaming companies should give them a month a free service for each cheater they sucesfully report). These are people who want to play and enjoy the game. If they loose fairly they may be annoyed but it is the nature of the game. But having a cheater beat you is just a wast of your time. When going against a cheater your skills will not improve because no mater what you do you fail.
I have been called a cheater before but that was just because I was playing a team game (StarCraft) and I worked will with my team and the other side didn't so the other side lose a painful death while my team won. (Of course after we one the kid said he will get us banned off the internet because his dad owns the internet)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The worst part of cheating is that it forever creates doubt, mistrust and skepticism about the skills of others online, meaning that if you play well, you are labeled a cheater. Respect goes out the window.
The summary calls this a "rare opportunity to interview a cheater". Cheaters are hardly rare and it isn't difficult to talk to them. Granted, you're likely to get "OMGSTFUONTEHBBQ!!!11!1!one!eleven" than a real conversation, but...
Regardless, the amount of cheating that exists online now is the reason I only play online with people I know, on locked servers. The rest of the time it is single player stuff. When I play a game I play to have fun, and cheaters make games very UN-fun.
Catching them can be a problem. I'm happy the some companies are taking steps towards anti-cheating measures, but ultimately the cheaters are going to win. They control the software running on their hardware and they can modify it as they see fit.
PunkBuster was a good example of this. A server with PunkBuster running required all client connecting to be running a PunkBuster client, which reported to the server various bits of information such as video drivers, what processes are running, if something might be modifying the game's memory, etc. But, after a while, it was useless because the client software was hacked to make the cheater player seem legitimate.
Anti-cheat software is like a lock on a door: It only keeps the honest people out.
Love sees no species.
later...
ResidntGeek
So you can get an interesting look into my mindset if you want. I expect heavy critisism but I'll continue anyway: Halo 2 is a fun game. I'm not gamer, and Halo 2 is one of the only games I actually play, besides the ones on my old Megadrive! I played online for quite some time until I experienced a cheater on a matchmade game. I became interested. I'd been using linux for 6 months and the idea of putting it on my xbox - to cheat - appealed to me. It took me a lot of getting to grips with the text talk used by all the "modders" as they prefer to be known on Halo 2. Eventually I managed it, and got banned in 6 hours on my subscription account! I guess that taught me a lesson. For a few months I cheated offline with friends. Some of the less destructive hacks (such as the new-ish 0 gravity hack) can make some interesting playing, and I agree with said cheater that it can bring a different edge on a game which can become repetitive! I decided to mod online one day. Not for glory, just to see if I could. It actually takes 2 people to mod online, and 4 hours of fussing around with that meant I totally screwed it up, and didn't have a single sucessful game! Heres my excuse: I'm a bit of a documenter/tutorial maker myself. Hacking Halo 2 isn't that simple. A lot of newbies get stuck, I was one. A lot of cheaters are fools and pre-teens (including mental age here), but not all of us! Much like the OSS community have their shared ideas, "modders" do too. I'm not demonising OSS here either. I actually wrote a rather lengthy and detailed tutorial, the only of its kind, on this topic (Halo 2 Softmodding, google it). Thats my excuse. I haven't played halo 2 in 6 months now, but cheaters don't always cheat to win. A lot do, but try and bare this point in mind! And please comment on this =) I just wrote a blog post on my second slashdot comment. Ah, such a newbie.
The Kid must be a Liberal Democrat, because everytime one of their politicians get caught stealing or in some other scandal they all stand up and say: 'But they all do it! So my guy should too!'
/. in the last month?)
(And for all those who will mod this down, be honest: how many times have you seen that response here in
I hope I spelled that right...
But man, it's amazing this guy can't put two of his responses together:
Ok, ignoring for the moment that they did do that (they put it on a freakin' console, for one), even ignoring that banning cheaters is an "anti-cheating engine" of sorts, when asked how game designers should stop cheaters (since he suggested that they do), he says:
So, damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Still, this has got to be my favorite quote:
Funny, I think this guy cheats (not hard!) because he's a jealous pussy who wishes he had the ability to play fairly.
I call BS. The people I know who can play a game "very well" -- some of them could be tournament-level if they practiced just a bit more -- would all much rather play fair. Oh, they have fun with new cheats and exploits, for about 10 seconds, and we're talking about things like Warthog jumping. The rest of the time, they are the ones who will be winning anyway, by knifing the aimbotter in the back.
But I suppose it's like trying to teach a Ferengi about honor, or a Klingon about restraint, or a Trekkie about the Real World. He'll always cheat, and he'll always suck, and nothing I say will change that.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Schmuck5000: Modding is not an unfair advantage. There is just as much chance that there will be a modder on the other team. I am there to even things out. Halo 2 is beginning to get old, us modders are just making it more funner.
Bad grammar, immaturity, poor spelling...Quick Taco! You've found a new Slashdot editor!
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Thanks for the hint but Blizzard has some kind of root kit thingy that monitors which applications are altering WoW's memory space. My point is that I know people who did this and got their accounts banned so they knew Blizzard was somehow hip to the fact that they were just editing the values in memory.
Final option is to just read the video and use AI algorithms to interpret it. Computationally very expensive (pattern recognition and what not) but that's the fun part.
We need to get a group of hackers who are willing to come up with mods for cheaters which get them reported as a cheater or perminatly screws up their system they try to mod. If they could get enough of these people perhaps a smaller numer who can come up with these mods and then a larger amount to advertise them on the game mod sites, and have enough of them saying how will it works. Perhaps we could start putting a dent in this.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I tried reading this, but the grammar center of my brain imploded. This would have been a far more intellegible interview had they actually interviewed The Cheat.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
All this interview does is feed that guys ego, which probably why he cheats in the first place. I never understood the reason for cheating other than to boost your own childish ego. No matter how much this guy wants to say it, it gives you an unfair advantage. Its not part of the original game design. The people he is playing with are playing by the games rules, not his hacked xbox rules.
Besides, I never saw the point in cheating. If I can cheat, say Auto Aim, why not see through walls? While I'm at it, why not have unlimited ammo? Why not have a bot control my character for me? Before you know it, I'm not even playing the game anymore.
The principles the cheater presents are remarkably similar to arguments for twinking in WoW. Players claim they do it for a variety of reasons, but a very common one is to "even things out" since the other side probably has twinks.
Also interesting is the similarity in attitude. Anyone posting anti-twink messages generally gets called a "loser" and more offensive terms and is labeled as jealous because they can't get the funds to twink. The cheater says the equivalent, calling people who complain about cheaters some nasty things while saying they are envious because they can't cheat or aren't "smart" enough to.
There's also the classic "If they (being the game creators) didn't want me to cheat (or twink) they would have built an anti-cheat engine (equipment based team selector)" argument. As well as the "I have 1337 skills and even without cheats I'll pwn you" argument.
While there are certainly mature people who do things like twinking because they are bored or because they enjoy fighting other twinks, I think it's obvious (especially if you've ever fought them) that the vast majority are without skill and make up for it with whatever advantage can be afforded to an unskilled moron. If everyone actually cheated, they'd stop playing because they wouldn't be able to win.
The fact that the cheater is 24, lacks a girlfriend (quite defensive about it too), and quotes a hideous translation from a dub of a mainstream cartoon show doesn't lend us to have faith in his intelligence.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Even Kirk was a cheater!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
More funner? More funner? sigh... I hate being reminded that English is now a dead language...
Obviously, his cheating in English, which rendered him unable to communicate in a meaningful manner, didn't teach him anything.
Sadly, the results of cheating in Halo are even less drastic, so he won't learn his lesson there either.
You're welcome.
Of course after we one the kid said he will get us banned off the internet because his dad owns the internet
Worst typo I've ever seen around here lately!
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Anyone else think this "interview" seems entirely too stereotypical to be true? Maybe I'm not playing online enough or something.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
"us modders are just making it more funner."
It's obvious he cheats on his English tests, too. Most foreigners I know speak English better than he does.
Guy claims he cheats because there will be modders on the other team
Guy claims he wont stop cheating if no one else does and he is evening out the playing field
Guy claims he can own the battlefield without cheating
Guy claims that people who whine about him cheating should mod their own xbox
Guy claims that everyone wants to cheat and he just had the nuts to do it
Guy is a whiny little bitch who cant play for shit. He makes up excuses to why he should cheat, claiming the otheres are , and therefore they are against him. He is deluding himself that he is skilled because he can cheat and applies his ill gotten success to when he played normally without success. He deludes himself that he is somehow being fair by restoring an even playing field. Essentially the reason to cheat ultimately remains the same - someone sucks at the game or has a perverse need to be number 1 without accquiring the skill to earn that position, and in either case the person needs a slap in the face and to be told that its just a game and it doesn't matter if you lose. Grow up.
We had a simple way of dealing with people who cheated in school - we'd not play with them. If its obvious someone is cheating quit and join a different game.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Schmuck5000: ...The people at Bungie are the worst. How can they complain about people like me. They should have built a anti-cheating engine in the game to prevent it.
Aeropause: ...What advice would you give game designers to help discourage cheaters?
Schmuck5000: Give Up! There is no way to stop us. Everyone wants to cheat and we will always find a way to do it.
... as if millions of grammar nazies cried out in terror, and were silenced.
"more funner" indeed.
I thought the exact same thing when I read it...
/.ers) what with all the public misuse of the term "hacker".
It also got me thinking about what an anti-cheating engine would look like...
Honestly why don't companies like bungie simply run a CRC on any downloaded content, or record the downloaded date server side and compare it with the modified date client side. I honestly don't know much about cheating online but as someone who has modded Xbox consoles I would imagine the cheating comes from modifying the extra content that was downloaded from Xbox live and sits on the hard drive (extra maps, etc.). Since you can't modify the disc content (if you did you'd need to run a modchip and if you're running a modchip when you log into Xbox Live MS can detect that and ban your sorry ass).
I would think something as simple as a CRC or date check would be simple enough, once you download the content it shouldn't ever change so the CRC should always pass and the modified date should never change.
I'd also like to point out that there IS a LARGE distinction between modders and cheaters. I'm a modder, I make changes to the console that allow me to run Linux, Xbox Media Center and other homebrew apps, I'm currently working on an HTPC based around an Xbox console. There are even game modders that create new levels, weapons, and other content for Halo and other games... these don't let you cheat but they give you new things to play with just like user mods in PC games... I would think the nerdy gaming community should be able to recognize this difference (particularly
Collector's Edition
I didn't say that
Wow, that post reminds me of soo many issues I have seen playing Counter-Strike: Source. Most of the time, hackers are immature losers who can't compete well, though yeah, some people like to try them out for fun. I try not to get mad anymore, I just log on to my server's IRC channel, contact an admin and then proceed to give the cheater what he deserves: a brutal verbal owning after every time he gets killed. If you hack, then you should never die. If you die, then you are a f***tard and should be shot. I am one of those players who knife's the aimbotter in the back, and I enjoy every last death of a cheater. The most cheating I have ever done is single player: IDDQD, IDKFA, IDSPISPOPD... anyone who NEEDS to cheat with other people to have a good time is NEVER a good player with out the hacks.
With a name like NosTROLLdamus, I'm sure your sole objective is to add to the conversation.
Bravo, well done.
*claps sarcastically*
It hurt me to read your posting - not to be a huge *hole (more of a medium *hole), but here is an edited version of your post:
... resist ... posting ...
Cheaters on Online games piss me off the most.
It is not about if you win or lose(loose). But when cheaters are in the game then it is about you just losing(loosing), without a chance to win.
I consider his observations all wrong.(His observations I would consider all wrong.) Too much Yoda
People are jealous(jelious) at the cheater because they don't know how to cheat. Maybe a couple of people but most of the Pissed off people can do it if they wanted to. It doesn't take that much skill to copy what is on the internet.
Second, assuming other people are cheating means you have to cheat too. This is saying other people are breaking laws so I should too.
Third, calling people who complain about cheaters whiners(winers). The people who report cheaters and get them banned are heros in gaming (And gaming companies should give them a month of(a) free service for each cheater they succesfully report). These are people who want to play and enjoy the game. If they lose(loose) fairly they may be annoyed but it is the nature of the game. But having a cheater beat you is just a waste of your(correct use of 'your') time. When going against a cheater your skills will not improve because no matter what you do you fail.
I have been called a cheater before but that was just because I was playing a team game (StarCraft) and I worked will with my team and the other side didn't so the other side lose a painful death while my team won. (Of course after we won(one) the kid said he will get us banned off the internet because his dad owns the internet)
God, why did I do this? I wasted a lot of people's time here. Can't
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
I used to cheat a bit back in the days of CS, when it was still in one of the betas and there was an exploit that allowed you to switch teams in the middle of a round without any visible indicator of the change, so you would be playing along with your teammates, hit your custom-bound key, and instantly you'd be able to start blasting their brains out. This infuriated them to no end and usually it got to the point where your whole team would surround you and start shooting you at the beginning of the round...except at that point you'd be invulnerable because you were still on their team. This continued until the other team showed up and your team was forced to turn around to fight them...at which point you hit the button again and began shooting them in the back. This was an unbelievably hilarious process, made more so when you did it with a friend. I never cheated in a serious game, however. It was only for fun on pub servers in the interest of irritating total strangers. The various wallhacks available for CS back in the day were a ton of fun, too.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
[2F05] Lisa on Ice
Skinner: All right, first academic alert: Wiggum, Ralph.
Ralph: I won, I won! [walks on stage]
Skinner: No no, Ralph, this means you're failing English.
Ralph: Me fail English? That's unpossible!
"If you mess with us, we're going to take you on, even to our utter destruction, whatever occurs." - Ralph Yarro (SCO)
Honestly why don't companies like bungie simply run a CRC on any downloaded content, or record the downloaded date server side and compare it with the modified date client side.
Because it's not that simple. Think of the code that gets run.
Calculate CRC
check CRC to answer
if not equal jump to OMG_HACKER
if equal jmp to PLAY_GAME_PLEASE
All a hacker has to do is find any location in 'Calculate CRC' and put a single instruction 'JMP PLAY_GAME_PLEASE', and he's bypassed your CRC check. So now you have to put in a check to make sure that code hasn't been screwed with, etc, etc. To be totally secure, it would need to be "turtles, all the way down".
I must say, I hardly play FPS's online anymore as I can't spare the time and today's FPS's just aren't what they used to be. I have been #1 on ngWorldStats for UT/CTF a few times. I have written (non-cheater)mods for a game or two, and an ANTIcheating tool for another (all very well received by their communities). Cheating pisses me off. Yes I used to be real good at some FPS's, and I spent a LOT of time becoming it, playing several hours a day (so call me sad, whatever). What the hell is fun in cheating? If I go into a server and own everybody in there, do I feel good? No. It sucks! I leave and find a server with people who are up to par with my skills. Sometimes they're way above you, then you find a server that is only a little bit above your own skills. And if you get really good in a game, you get to know the other good players. You know who cheats and who doesn't. You don't play with cheaters in general, though sometimes it is fun to kick their scrawny girlfriendless hinies. If you cheat, where's the challenge? What is fun in winning all the time? Ok, I may have actually written a few cheats, but that is because I love coding - it's not like I ever used them 'in the wild'.
Online cheaters are below contempt. I don't care what their motivation is. You don't go and purposely ruin others people's fun. It's just "not done". I don't care if your retarded, doing it for kicks, have some half decent self invented excuse or whatever, you just don't. Hell, I've ended real life friendships when I learned they were cheating (in various ways) and couldn't convince them it's just not done.
The arguments presented in the article are just beyond sanity. "I tend to ignore those people, they bitch and morn about how I cheated but they could have modded their box just like mine.", "How can they complain about people like me. They should have built a anti-cheating engine in the game to prevent it.", "Anyone reading this is simply jealous of the fact that I have enough nuts to cheat and play the game the way I want to.", "why should I stop if no one else does"
It's all about the morals and values. Hell, I could've been fairly rich if I didn't hang on to it. Many players of various games have used tools (mods, extensions, cheater-finding, etc) I've made daily. I could've taken most of their accounts if I wanted, selling them on ebay, and in some cases just exchanging it for real world cash (in case of real-cash-economy games). And believe me, there's lots and lots of cash in that. Morals and values...
Saddest thing is, we are most likely to see this guy grow up to be president of some company that earns millions by ripping other people of or otherwise cheating them (spammers anyone?). Fuck that.
My eyes! Horrible...acid...flashback!
I think this guy is great!! He's honest and real. In every competition there is a drive to secure every competitive edge. Steroids in pro sports? Sure!! Insider estimates suggest at least 30% of all NFL players cheat. Yet the public watches the games, bets on the games, and supports the cheating by buying into team propaganda. Where is your outrage for this? Most of the posters here are naive and hypocritical. If modding were as easy as entering "cheat codes at the start screen", EVERYONE would do it.
Error: No error occurred
no one wants to work for things anymore. they want the quickest way to the top. instant gratification. it's the bane of american society.
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
It is not a mystery. It is very simple. Our brains are the products of evolution in a competitive environment. In the good old days, the losers got eaten (or starved to death or what have you). So, those who used all their resources to give themselves every advantage they could tended to be the winners.
We, therefore, are instinctually driven to use all resources available to us to give ourselves every advantage we can. Hence, the "temptation" to cheat is an ever-present behavioral drive.
Good sportsmanship is an arbitrary social construct. There is nothing natural about it. It takes an act of self-denial to be a good sport, and to not cheat. Now, this may be ethically and socially superior...it may be the more enlightened path...but it is not natural and as such most people don't walk it.
this is pretty much what most online games do, lookig for unmodified content, but again you're relying on the client to tell you that it hasn't been modified, which is pretty much impossible to trust.
punkbuster et al rely on a seperate executable checking the state of another executable, which is a slightly better situation, but it ends up in a situation like bf2 where the 'validating client data' stage of loading a game takes as long as loading the content & connecting to a server, if not longer.
modders like this person have pretty much ruined online gaming and should be dragged into the streets and shot.
if he's just 'evening up the odds', it's an arms race that can never be won by the modders, so if this is their actual motivation, you'd think they'd be supportive of developers that DO successfully provide counter measures to cheating.
at least with BF2 anyone that mods content are forced to play on non-punkbuster servers - on xbox live, there is no such 'alternate' network that we can throw the cheaters onto.
the worst part is that doing any kind of LEGITIMATE mods of games falls afoul of the anti-cheat systems which has a negative impact on the game's lifecycle as well - you can't mod anything in BF2 without getting rejected from punkbuster servers for 'modifying your game content'.
Gekido's Lair
This is a timely article for me since Saturday evening on Battlefield 2 I ran upon an entire squad/clan of cheaters.
8 8840786715
It was around 4am with no admins on the server, so they were being quite blatant about their cheating. I believe they were using the wallhacks and aimbots offered from MSXSecurity
Check out the videos:
http://media.putfile.com/MSX-Aimbot
http://media.putfile.com/MSX-Video2222
http://media.putfile.com/pwnage5580
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-36491411
Unfortunately, I must be honest, these hacks actually DO make cheating look kind of fun. Like you are a mutant with super-human powers.
I would like to see a team of cheaters going up against another team of cheaters though - that would be strange and pointless gameplay I would think.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
I would think something as simple as a CRC or date check would be simple enough, once you download the content it shouldn't ever change so the CRC should always pass and the modified date should never change.
I bet the code that computes the CRC and date to send to the server will also be changed to send in the expected values.
I'm sure there are plenty of rationalizations, but cheaters ruin the game for me. I used to love Counterstrike, but stopped playing when so many cheaters appeared. Same with BF2, now loaded with cheaters despite PunkBuster. There is a company dedicated to cheaters (MSX Security) making money off the desire(we caught someone on our server once by seeing his ID on the site as a member). I can't really blame them, they're just filling a market demand, but the members who go there and pay for cheats/hacks should be banned from any game server that notices them.
Your corrections were likely already apparant to the OP.
you've got to go further than that - it's simple to alter file modification dates back to the original ones, and munge data until crc32 matches (it's not a cryptographically-secure hash at all).
what i would do is, every time you sign in to the online service a custom bit of code is downloaded (and i mean you need thousands of variations, probably not too difficult with multiple programmers and polymorphic compilers). this custom bit of code, among other things, checks the kernel for evidence of malicious api-hooking, scans and hashes the entire game binary while it's in memory, salts that hash with a session-unique variable, and sends it back server-side. because every one of the custom code chunks will generate a different set of hashes for the game data (since every custom code chunk is salting the hash differently, or using different hash combinations), modders will either have to take complete hardware control of the machine (not easy with hardware drm) or create a workaround for each of the thousands of custom code fragments that can be downloaded.
as an extension, you could even have the custom code chunk patch the game in-memory, so that as part of the game's normal processing, a binary check is performed once every 4 seconds or something, and if the server doesn't keep getting the right hashes back it knows something's amiss with the client.
nothing's foolproof of course, but there are certain thresholds of difficulty you can create for copy protection or cheat detection that greatly discourage most attempts.
In some weird way I'm glad there are cheaters out there. It fills me pride when someone accuses me of cheating on the Call of Duty 2 server I frequent. The server regulars know I don't use cheating mods or bots. Indeed, I don't even know enough to make my player name have all the pretty colors. So when someone thinks my actual game playing abilities are too good to be real, it's a high compliment. Hell, I have to play with a trackball (repetitive stress injury), which most people consider a handicap. In my experience, a cheater that visits a close-knit and adult open community server will be watched and banned in about fifteen minutes-- certainly not enough time for me to get my panties in a twist.
This sig is exempt from disclosure under the privacy Act of 1974.
I set up a network connection for my friend's 360 and we hopped on Halo 2 to test it. I am admittedly inexperienced with Halo 2 but had a respectable body count with Halo 1. After joining 5 different games I got so annoyed with posers lagging the game and fragging you during lag I wanted to toss the box out the window. At first I thought it may have been my own connection but my ping times proved otherwise. I was pulling full 3Mb and everyone in the game was getting the same lag. Then there were the guys who were in essence un-hitable. I remember sighting them in with the scope for a perfect head shot and not getting a kill. Cheaters are like the flambaiters here, incapable of playing by the rules they decide to muck it up for those with talent, or in the slashdot case an actual point. At least here we can set a threshold.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
You're right that he will succeed in life by using that mentality. However, he will have to keep from getting caught. Then, he will be killed or end up in jail. Perhaps, killed while in jail. If he cheats on his wife he better have a prenup.
In the unedited interview, schmuck5000 pronounced the word "nuclear" as "noo-cue-lur".
Prima facie evidence that George W. Bush cheats on his XBox. Case closed.
Cause I'm crap at them - and I still paid the same money... and after all how else can I come second last.
.... then you are a cheat. ... then you are a cheat. ... then you are a cheat. .... then you are a cheat.
.... most people have no issues with cheating.
Anyone playing World of Warcraft ever looked up thottbot.com
Anyone playing World of Warcraft ever had a 60 show their 40 through a tough area
Anyone playing World of Warcraft install mods to allow them to heal better in raids
Anyone playing World of Warcraft go into battle grounds against noob 60s in full epic regalia and pretend it's a level playing field
See
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Ok, so...
Any anti-cheat technology that relies on a check occurring client side is untrustworthy. So why isn't more being done to prevent this on the server side? I mean, all data has to pass through the server, right?
What's wrong with server-side auditing? How much load does your average game server carry? Does anyone with industry experience have an estimate as to how much load this auditing would add? What data is the server receiving from each client? What data does it generate? What data does it pass back to a client? How does multiplayer fps cheating work?
Would it really be that hard to check if any given attack attempted to pass through a wall, if the client's movement path was interrupted (teleportation), or if the client had an extroradinary hit ratio? You wouldn't even need to check for all of these continuously. If you meet certain parameters, you're promoted to a "pro-league". If you exceed certain parameters, your IP is kick/banned for X number of hours.
Seriously, there needs to be some server side sanity checking of data.
"I am a pathetic human being who needs desperately to feel good about myself, so I use hacks to 'pwn' people! I'm the man! ...
It's kinda like the saying about flaming on net forums... even if you do "get the last word", you're still retarded...
By the way, don't know if the guy who wrote the original article will ever read this, but kudos to you for doin it, and more kudos for pointing out the fact that he's probably just a guy who can't seem to get laid.
Sniper's Motto: One shot, One kill- If you run, you'll only die tired.
In sony land, since all the online play is free, it's somewhat upsetting to walk into land of the klans whenever you fireup Rainbow 6 or Soccom online but it's free. (seems like those games have about 9 months before people kind of clear out and it's just the super hard core gamers left) Since I pay for xbox live, I'd like to have an enjoyable experience. I'm not a professional halo player, I simply don't have the time, I just want to have some fun. It's the sad part of gaming. I know guys that have logged hundreds of hours on BF2, climbed their ranking up a bit and then they start throwing games because people won't play them with a high ranking (or they start up a new account) It's a lot more fun when it's competitive; unfortunately that means you'll lose some too and certain sociopaths can't deal with that.
I'd totally pay for a premium service if someone came up with a good way to solve this problem.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
making it more funner'
He obviously cheats at more than just games, in this case the English language. Zing!
But on a serious note, cheating for me (and I'm sure quite a few of you slashdotters) takes the fun out of the game pretty quickly. For non-multiplayer games I ALWAYS finish the game without cheats as it was meant to be played before I go looking for cheats. Afterwards, if a game doesn't have much replay ability I will use cheats just to mess around. I don't cheat in multiplayer games because, for the same reason I don't do it in non-multiplayer games, it takes all the fun and challenge out of the game. More so the challenge for multiplayer games though. No longer are you just outwitting the AI, but you are actually outwitting other people or at least trying. This is where the thrill and adrenaline come from, not from cheating.
I will forever be a student.
public bool Cheat(bool multiPlayer, bool reward, bool beatGameAlready)
{
bool result = false;
if (multiPlayer)
{
if (reward)
{
result = AnalyzeRisk();
}
}
else
{
result = beatGameAlready
}
return result;
}
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
The Kid must be a Conservative Republican, because everytime one of their politicians get caught stealing or in some other scandal they all stand up and say: 'But they all do it! So my guy should too!'
This is all I have to say about cheaters :
http://oppressed.net/aimbot.gif
Me neither, but I agree.
Except that it's not funny . . . it's hilarious.
everything in moderation
Putting security in the client is foolish. Client side security is no security.
You're comparing cheating to twinking? Cheating involves breaking the rules, twinking involves playing within the rules to gain the best advantage. What next? Ferrari F1 team is cheating because they have a better car than the Williams-Coswort team?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Instead of d/loading and compiling from source, I download RPMs and install the prebuilt binaries with --force --nodeps, and cross my fingers. Live on the edge, man!
THen I go to bars and brag about how I left my box installing Gentoo...
Modding is not an unfair advantage. There is just as much chance that there will be a modder on the other team
What if there isn't?
Now that was pretty short sighted.
But of course, that's how cheaters are.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Indeed, the only thing that annoys me more than cheaters are the whiners. If you play with any skill, then in their mind you *must* automatically be a cheater. I tend to play a lot of FPS's like Warcraft III etc, and the namecalling, whining types seem to be there en-masse.
The last game I played one player whined for the latter part of the game about map hacks. I'd assumed he was accusing the other players but at the end apparently it was I that he believed was hacking. The reason... every time he left his base I'd saunter in and wreck it a bit, then get out before he could come back and tune me. It's easy enough when you use scouting units (invisible) etc, but even after explaining that he still found it easier to believe I was cheating... and I didn't even win the game (it was FFA, another player tuned us both, and I'm fairly sure the he did so without cheating).
Since you can't modify the disc content (if you did you'd need to run a modchip and if you're running a modchip when you log into Xbox Live MS can detect that and ban your sorry ass).
You don't know what you're talking about.
I don't cheat because I don't play online games because I can't stand f-ing cheaters, okay?
That said, you're just wrong. I've modded about a dozen Xboxes. None of them using a modchip, all done in software. When I am finished modding an Xbox:
1) You can connect and play on Xbox live. The SOFTWARE mod, no modchip, creates a virtual disc that looks to MS like an unmodded box. HARDWARE modchips usually come with kill switches so you can flip in a regular BIOS just like that. You can play on Xbox Live with either a hardware or software mod. Period.
2) You run all the games from copies on your Xbox hard drive. Modifying those bits is as easy as writing to a hard disc... which ain't hard.
You *can* play a game off a disc, but you wouldn't want to. Load times playing off the hard disc are WAY faster. Loading times for games played off the disc frustrate the hell out of me. It's why I've copied all my LEGITIMATELY PURCHASED games onto my Xbox HDD. It makes things like Fable or Jade empire actually playable.
I would think something as simple as a CRC or date check would be simple enough, once you download the content it shouldn't ever change so the CRC should always pass and the modified date should never change.
All you do is change the code to respond with the appropriate CRC instead of the real CRC. You can't stop people like this. You wrote a nice post, you got modded informative, but you're just plain wrong.
For those of you saying, "What kind of crack is he smoking -- the Xbox HDD is only 8-10G" let me be clear... even when doing a software mod, I still put in a larger HDD.
Ok, reading this conversation, I realised that I need to get a couple of things off my chest. I'll start with an explaination that will let you know better where I'm coming from.
I was part of a rather large group of players that insanely played Tribes 1. In it's hayday, it was a fantastic FPS game, and had quite a loyal following. During the time that we had our "Clan" in this game, we discovered several "ways to cheat" some of which you will think are quite funny, and some are just mean.
There was a map (CTF) where the forcefield was the only thing separating the flags. We had a good time exploiting the fact that if you placed an acceleration grenade behind you, the game engine couldn't create the collision fast enough and you would end up on the enemy side. Cap out the game in 60 seconds. This irritated the opposing team, until we taught them how to do it.
There was another instance, after I started dabbling with map making, where we came up with the idea to create a cave. It had not really been done before in this game, as all the outdoor areas were skies, and anything with a roof was part of a static structure. What we did was take a secondary terrain, invert it upside down and lower it over the top of the existing terrain to create a cave-like area with caverns and tunnels.
Now, heres the tricky part. Both bases are represented inside the cave, at opposite ends. On one team, (the one we all made sure we were on before hand) there was a small hole in the upper part of the terrain, which allowed players to go outside of it. After leaving out there, we noticed an interesting thing. The upper terrain, when viewed from the other side, had no back texture (it was see-through). Additionally, it didn't present a collision surface for lobbed projectiles, people or vehicles. So, I did what any borderline sociopath would do, and constructed an elaborate base, complete with ramps, turrets, generators, vehicle pads, command stations and buildings...above the ceiling of the enemy base. After spending a 45 minute match up there with a few team mates chuckling at the enemies who can't figure out where the mortar shells are coming from (they would appear to fall from the ceiling), you'll understand how fun cheating would be.
But, to my point I must go. Every single person who ever came on the server and played that map with us was always FURIOUS after about 5 minutes. Point? 90% of the time, after being shown what was actually happening, the people, who minutes before were the victims of the cheating, were thrilled- laughing and joking about how neat it was, and before you know it, they were camping up there with us waiting for more people to join the server on the other team. Moral of this story? I don't suppose there really is one. Cheating is a part of everything that humans do, in life, as a condition of being human. People lie. People steal. People cheat. There isn't a single person reading this who hasnt told at least one lie today. Face it, it's part of the human condition. Most people dont like being the victim of a cheat simply because they don't like feeling like the subject of a joke. Once you become the person meteing out the joke on others, the whole dynamic changes.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Create a game that flat out allows cheating (then it wouldn't be 'cheating' I suppose).
Hell, even publish an API for them.... may the best hack win!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
You can not believe in God all you want.
He still loves you anyway!
"Boh the interviewer and interviewee appear to be relatively idiotic. This interview might have been marginally interesting if they had interviewed someone more on the cutting edge of cheating -- someone who actually creates the mods, or develops new cheating modalities."
Welcome to the internet, where people barely qualified to pass a grade 12 English class can become "writers" and "journalists" for "respected" websites publishing "news". This will only get worse before it gets better.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
My biggest encounter with cheaters was in simple online Chess. I was really getting into playing games online until I found out that there is a significant number of people who are simply entering in moves suggested by a computer program. I knew this was a possibility, was surprised by the number of people choosing to waste both their own time as well as others by cheating in such a way. So most generic games (cards, chess, checkers, backgammon) are pretty much ruined online, as there is no way to prevent people from getting significant advantage from computer programs. Proprietary games, such as new gaming title might have a better chance to preventing cheating, but even then it is simply yet another hacking exercise. Heck even the latest DRM schemes have been cracked quickly. I think maybe one method of deterence is to make sure all online games have the ability to set player handicaps. If there is an official, explicit method of letting poor players have more fun, then perhaps there will be less effort expended on true cheating.
There's no justification for it, and calling a petty sociopath a "griefer" doesn't make him less of a person with problems that he needs to sort out.
"The people at Bungie are the worst. How can they complain about people like me. They should have built a anti-cheating engine in the game to prevent it."
If God didn't want us to kill other people, he'd have built a anti-murder engine in the world to prevent it!
Since one of my friends plays Halo and explained it to me one day, I'll try to explain this. I believe modding is done by using a PC as a proxy between the Xbox and the internet. The PC detects values and changes them at your whim, based on what you want. It works almost like a gameshark for Xbox live. IIRC, the trick is that you have to host the game.
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
IANAP, but what you described sounds a bit like sociopathic behavior.
O RLY?!?
Most new players would like to be at the level of the "god-like" players, or be able to hold
.exe's were not allowed but could be worked around with setup, swap exe's, get on with life, to the thing became so slow and annoying as it checked every startup/game launch.
their own in game but not put in the time.
Take Descent 2, for instance: some hacks were subtle such as shields > 200 (max, IIRC).
I'd asked someone who should have been "dead" if he had 1000 shields or something. His reply was "no, 10,000".
Oye.
Yeah, he got ganged up on, but did not seem to mind, and he wasn't kicked, IIRC.
The blatant one's were those that attached "earthshaker" missles to the "machinegun"... in the days of 56K, made it
like a 300 baud connection. Kick/ban was the order of the day.
Many fans were put at arm's lenghts by the expense of the game and online play was viable via "Kali", but the game enabler (IPX to IP) soon fell to disuse (In my, and several other cases) because in an attempt to curb cheating no cd
Heck, most had moved on/back to FPS's like Kingpin where cheaters were banned w/o mercy and usually (just like in the mob, i'd wager) your skills/status/referrences meant more than any thing else.
Heck, even with *less than min specs* I could still hold my own.
Example one:
I'd invited to medium skill players to a 2v1 match, they agreed, and after they'd had enough, I was asked my
system specs. The one who got the worst beating, was taunted by his friend on the same lan because they
were both running dual p3's 1/2G of mem and TNT cards. I was running a p200 (p2 233/266 was min spec) with a whopping 64M of mem and an 8M voodoo2.
Tables turned when one particular player out of a group of a dozen was quite the challenge for me and *repeatedly*
would get the better of me 90% of the time. What was even funnier was a heated battle where other players *watched for about a minute or more* while we slugged it out. I'd died, and did not bother respawning while taking a break, and sat the round out while watching stats as he owned the map.
System specs thing came up in conversation, as usual and after reading what I wrote "Dude, you need a better computer and vid card. You could wipe the floor with me if you did".
Poetic justice was having a few of that group around when one called me a cheater, and would not shut up about
it until the dude above said, and I quote:
"he's not a cheater, he's just *that* good. Don't make me embarass you (other player) by telling you his system
specs, then you'll truely feel sorry!
My reply: Uh, thanks, I think.
People are gonna cheat. Brazenly if they don't care, subtley if the do (being caught/admitting is another issue) because they don't have the time, skill or respect for other players.
Ah, well, same in life, eh?
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I'd like to add to this that the most commonly used techniques for cheating don't involve changing anything in the code, but rather using some tricks (look 'em up) to ensure that your Xbox is chosen as the server for the game, at which point you can do all kinds of fun things with the traffic routing through your network (like delaying packets for all your opponents). Again, nothing mucking about with CRCs is going to help.
"run a CRC on any downloaded content"
Mod returns the CRC of the unmodified content, appearing legit.
"Record the downloaded date server side and compare it with the modified date client side. "
Mod returns the download date, appearing legit.
And you can modify content that originated from the disc. Just do it in memory.
On a hidden partition on the disc, store the modified version of whatever you want (player models with massive spikes, anyone (you Q1 players know what I mean)?), or semi-transparent terrain (shader mods), etc. When you read a request to load those off the disc as part of a normal load procedure, load them from the hidden partition. When you get a request for its CRC, send the real one off the disc.
Not all modders are cheaters, but all cheaters are modders, I believe it goes.
The mods support the ability for cheaters to exist.
simple solutions that work for nearly all cheaters that are currently used: 1) IP address ban for those who are detected by cheat engine, let people call up Microsoft and get the IP unbanned for honest mistakes 2) Have a small staff of moderators who you can report cheating to, they can observe the player in question and ban them if it looks like cheating 3) Block the users unique serial number and not let them connect if detected This will pretty much weed out almost all of the cheaters. This is pretty much the norm for PC's, but I suppose game consoles aren't used to handling this kind of cheating
thats XBONICS for ya!
You are correct, you don't need a modchip, you simply need to replace the bios with a hacked one (through shitty softmods or a modchip, tsop flash or whatever)... but as I understand it you can't use a hacked bios while connected to the Xbox Live server or you will get banned.
The only way to play a game with modified game code (excluding downloaded content) is if you play it from the hard drive or from a backup disc. The only way to play a game from one of those mediums is if your running a hacked bios and if you're running a hacked bios you will be banned from Xbox Live sometime after you connect.
So explain to me again how you can play a backup on Xbox Live? I've been modding Xbox consoles for quite some time and I've never once known anyone who didn't get their console banned from Xbox Live when connecting while running a backup. I'm not trying to be an ass but I'm just skeptical because I have never once heard of this being done.
Collector's Edition
this was about men cheating on women.
slashdot... duh!
HAHA pwned ^^
oh, great, so what if everyone cheated? then the aimbot with the lowest ping would win... so gaming would basically be competing in the game called "who can buy the most bandwith"... thats real skill...
but it's his fault that HE cheats... and there IS an anti-cheating engine - thats why you have to modify the hardware to cheat...
so why doesn't he do it then? that doesn't make sense...
I don't want to cheat - tried it, was no fun anymore - honesty might be one reason, why I DO have a girlfriend *LOL*
so you need to have nuts to play a game where you can't lose? I'd say this is exactly what you need to be missing... you wouldn't say it's heroic to stab someone in the back, would you?
really guys - don't call this "slownewsday" because this is a really delightful read ^^ although I spoiled everything now
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The solution to cheating is exclusion from the community.
The two problems that need to be solved are Authentification and Activity rating and publishing.
Authentification: Cheaters should not be able to get around a ban by simply making a new account or changing their name.
Activity Rating: People should be able to report cheaters to a central player rating service.
Publishing: The central player rating service should give out scores for anyone to anyone that asks.
Exclusion from the community: The game should be set up to not accept anyone below a certain score.
It should also be possible to subscribe to additional external ban lists, server set ban lists, and player set ban lists.
With these features in a game any repeated cheating caught by players results in a permanent exclusion from the community. Cheaters will give up in frustration and move on to another game that is easier to cheat at. Some thought will need to be put into making sure that false reports of cheating result in lower scores for the (fraudulent) reporter. I consider it a compliment to be accused of cheating, having never cheated at an online game to gain an advantage over another player.
Think of it as a handicapping hack instead.
:)
I used to love first person shooters. LOVED them. Played all the time. When I would get a LAN game going with friends it was always a bloodbath. I ruled, they all died. It wasn't because I was a great player, it was because they were really BAD players.
I enabled cheats on all of their systems, none for me. The playing field was even, we had fun.
Cheating does have it's advantages.
Yes they our.[1]
[1] "Is our children learning?" is thought to be a misquotation. President Bush actually said, "is^W are children learning?" where the ^W represents a pause for self-correction.
That's because "Wii modders" don't mod X-Square or X-Square-Circle systems.
I thought he was always made at everyone actually.. At least if you go by the old testament.
Okay, so-- this is a joke, right?
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
It's the Slashdot trifecta!
I totally get the notion of a griefer (and frequently enjoy doing it), but I am very much against cheating (specifically aimbotting and wallhacking). I get my fun by pissing off people within the bounds of the game. This includes getting into map holes/defects, using nothing but the "lame" weapons, team killing, wasting vehicles\weapons (or giving them to the other team), camping, spawn killing, etc. There is at least some skill in doing it this way. The reason people (including myself) hate real cheating like bots is because they COMPLETELY ruin the game. In a game of UT2k4 onslaught recently somebody was using a bot and killing all our guys with a shock rifle from the other side of the map (we couldn't even see him); not a single one of our players managed to make it to the first node. I might piss a few people off, but I'm not going to totally shutdown a game doing what I do. Occasionally there will be another griefer or two online and we will go at it, which is actually much more fun than normal play.
That being said, I also totally understand why someone would want to create a bot or whatever for the technical challenge of doing it. I actually considered doing that for a while, but now I just don't have the time or energy for it.
Winning an online game by cheating is just like winning the special olympics. You win, but youre still retarded.
HTTP/1.1 400
What I hate the most about the interview was the last remark:
"(Please keep remarks at about a fifth grade level so he can read them, and please be tactful)". You can't make a personally bashing interview followed by a personally insulting remark and then say "please be tactful". If you want people to be tactful then you had better be tactful yourself, or you can expect nothing but heated, biased opinions.
I hate cheaters as much as the next guy, but if you're going to attempt to interview one of them could you at least TRY to act professional? The last thing we need is more "OMG U SUX" comments disguised as "insightful" interviews.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
It's just childish, pure and simple. Humans cooperate in social networks by trusting each other in various unspoken ways. It's easy to abuse that trust. People who think that they've achieved something by abusing that trust are either children, still experimenting with social limits, or mentally defective in some way, whether sociopathic, desperately insecure, or whatever. That's all there is to it.
Exactly. Instead of
"They bitch and morn about how I cheated but they could have modded their box just like mine."
How about "They bitch and moan about how I broke into their houses and stole their stuff, but they could have lots of stuff too if they just broke into other people's houses and stole theirs." [insert random grammatical mistakes for added authenticity]
This is about the basic trust and respect for other people that makes society a decent place to live. Saying "it's OK that I'm an asshole because everyone else could just be an asshole too if they wanted" gives me no sympathy for his views. Yes, if everyone was a sociopath and took every opportunity to take advantage of others in betrayal of the accepted rules, everyone would be on equal footing, and the world would suck. If this guy got mugged, do you think his opinion would be "that's OK, I could have mugged other people too?"
Unfortunately, I'm afraid his reaction probably would be "Hey, that's a great idea! I could mug other people too!"
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Bullshit. You're only a sociopath if you abuse the trust for the action itself, to hurt others. There's nothing wrong with abusing the trust to gain something else, if the gain outweights the risk of being caught times the consequences of being caught. Simple cost-benefit analysis.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Interviews where once carried out by United Admins on System, My self(ReDucTor) and Vasily Pumpkin, these interviews have been removed, this was a couple of years ago. At the beginning of cheats becoming very extreme in Counter-Strike, all 3 of us played a big part in teaching people how cheats work and how people would develop them on what was the Client Bot boards.
p xa spx (me)n .aspx (Can't remember this one but found a link to it)
Try and find a cache of
http://www.unitedadmins.com/QA_20020607_System.as
http://www.unitedadmins.com/QA_20020607_ReDucTor.
http://www.unitedadmins.com/QA_20020606_Absolutio
The old vasily one i can't find a link to but the top two of those you should find interesting if you can find a cache
Figuring out how to modify, and bend the rules of a MPORPG, or a FPS, is a fun, and interesting endeavor.
How actually using it in a 'competition', is fun in the least--- is totally beyond me.
Something tells me this guy didn't participate in the process of designing, and implementing this mod, and finding clever ways to exploit Xbox Live,
but purchased some kit (probably no-solder).
"People just WISH they could purchase a kit like me, and be a living, breathing, douche."
Hey, I didn't mean to be such a jerk about it. The latest versions of Nknave's Ndure go to some pretty impressive lengths to fool XBL.
I'm sure you know how to find out more from there. "The usual places" and all.
Clinically, the two words are used interchangeably.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Like most bullies these guys also usually turn out to be inveterate cowards, they'll stab/shoot you in the back without a thought as long as there's no risk to them, but face up to them, they snivel and whine about how unfair it all is.
There's a good description here, it fits a couple of people I know.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm
Deleted
Um, nope. if it's for personal gain; money, status, admiration etc. Applying a "Simple cost-benefit analysis" to interpersonal relationships is a good indication of a personality disorder.
Deleted
+1 RvB reference
asshats. recursive. funner!
Asshats. Recursive. Funner!!
ASSHATS! RECURSIVE! FUNNERER!!!
</M-5>
*puff of smoke*
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Today is apparently the day for the word "funner," which also showed up in this story about the new movie, "Jesus Camp."
Said one of the campers, "We're kinda being trained to be warriors," said another, "only in a funner way."
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Well... not all cheats involve altering the program code. Some are sophisticated standalone beasts that sit between the console and the network line all proxy-like sniffing and altering the network traffic in real time. So CRC checks and the like won't detect these approaches. They're sophisticated enough to be aware of the game environment at the same time, so a wild miss in an FPS is in fact changed to a hit by first inserting the appropriate movement commands into the keystroke stream. In fact, I believe most account terminations are done after the fact - the cases when the termination is done as a result of detected 'suspicious behaviour' usually involves saying 'screw you but thanks for the cash' to the player or having to prove intent, which, though IANAL, I understand is really difficult.
The world is the real game, and all other 'games' are just subsets which exist within that main system, and are therefore subject to whatever forces can be applied against them.
It's fun to learn how to manipulate reality, and closed 'locked off' systems present a wonderful opportunity to test your abilities.
But when people have collectively agreed to put all of that fun stuff on hold in order to enjoy a game together, it's really annoying when somebody comes along intent on ruining things. It's about learning appropriate behavior. The kid in the article is annoying, to be certain. His real lesson will be one of how to fit socially with the rest of the world. The impulses within him which cause him to annoy people through his approach to gaming are going to naturally map on to the rest of his life patterns. He was probably the kid with no friends in school. A girlfriend? Forget it.
Guys like that have a long, long way to go in the game of life. Wish him luck. He'll need all he can get.
-FL
It never mattered to me if I won or lost, just as long as I pissed someone off, and got a laugh out of it.
You don't belong out here with the rest of us. You belong in prison.
You have clearly demonstrated that you enjoy abusing other people. For now, it's just on line games. What's next? Will you do it in real life? Will you walk through a crowd of senior citizens and shoot them with paintballs, just to know that it pissed them off? Would you get a laugh out of that, too?
And after that, what degree of suffering will you create in order to get another laugh?
I agree with others here. You are the very definition of a sociopath. Rather than following the generally accepted rule that you do not initiate force with other people, you instead not only flaunt that rule but gain sadistic pleasure in doing so.
I sincerely hope something kills you before you hurt someone else. With a dangerous tendency like yours, you don't deserve to have human contact.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
That's all well and good, but where do you draw the line between tweaking/modding and cheating? Back when I was playing UT2004, I'd say that my client was tweaked to its limits. By changing some parameters in the configuration files and stringing together some uScript, I automated numerous tricks that would take a bit more time and a fair bit more skill for a player using a "standard" installation -- one-key weapon-boosted jumps, instant 180-degree turns, tricky weapon-swapping macros, fast key rebinding "exec" commands (quickly change a dozen settings to make flying a vehicle easier, for example), three levels of chat macros, a quick mouse sensitivity adjustment, and several other things that wouldn't make sense outside of UT circles. Additionally, I played with the graphics configuration, forcing most foliage to vanish, forcing only one easily-visible standard player model to load for all players, and "correcting" the game lighting to be more efficient and to look "brighter" (think "fullbright"). I also employed a couple tweaks to decrease my load times; on some servers, I could get to a weapon spawn while most people were still spawning -- and all of that on a crummy old 1.7 ghz box! Now, given that much, I tripped anti-cheat programs exactly twice in about a year and a half of playing, and both times, I was able to temporarily disable the relevant tweak through the game console within 15-30 seconds and get back to playing.
Now, I do NOT see myself as a cheater. Everything I did, I did through the game's own configuration system and scripting language. I didn't use tricky graphics card settings, I didn't modify game content, I didn't use outside software, and I still had to move, drive, and aim like any other player. Even so, I WAS better-armed than the average person playing the game, and more tweaked out than all but a few of the clan gamers I was playing with. I never made any bones about the fact that I had some unusual tricks up my sleeve, and I was always happy to explain how I did them if anyone cared. I would also contend that I was a very good, if not quite exceptional UT player -- not quite tourney quality, but not too far behind either. I was in the top 10 on a couple DM ladders at one time and I participated in squads that hit the top 5 in several team game ladders. Could I have done as well as I did without using tweaks? I honestly don't know. Obviously, I did derive pleasure from employing such modifications; it was gratifying to sense someone behind me, whack the 180 spin key, hit the slow mouse key to correct my aim, then double-tag the bloke almost simultaneously with two hitscan weapons. Go figure. My argument is this: client-side game configuration files are there for the benefit of the player, and as such, any changes to gameplay that can be enabled through the game's own initialization and configuration routines or console-available scripting calls are fair for use.
So tell me: was I a cheater or was I just an enthusiastic player? If that question seems pointless or OT, answer me this: would tweaking init/config files to a similar degree on a console game -- say, Halo 2 -- constitute cheating? Honestly, since my last console was an 8-bit Nintendo, I am a bit fuzzy on some of the finer points of console netiquette...
Of course he _had_ a girlfriend until he CHEATED on her :P
Cheater is like a guy in a movie theater who has seen the movie before and loudly narrates what is going to happen next. He gets enjoyment for ruining the experience for others. Of course, in a real movie theater he would be hushed to silence, forced to leave, or worse.
"There's nothing wrong with abusing the trust to gain something else, if the gain outweights the risk of being caught times the consequences of being caught. Simple cost-benefit analysis."
What you just said was: There's nothing wrong with stealing or killing anyone, if at any point in time it is determined there is no risk of getting caught. Gains: Penny in their pocket Risk (0) * Consequences = 0 $0.01 > 0 = Dead prostitute on the side of the highway And you think there would be nothing wrong with that?If you play obscure games, the cheater-to-regular player ratio is astronomically lower than in more popular games. This is probably because, 1) smaller games have more tightly knit communities, and cheaters have very few servers to toy with before they find themselves entirely banned from the game 2) there are less people that are skilled enough to code, immoral enough to cheat and care about said obscure game 3) cheaters are naturally attracted to large games, because for whatever reason they might cheat, it wouldn't be as enjoyable against a smaller number of people I've been playing C&C Renegade (its an FPS; but I'm sure there are lots of RPGs, MMOs or strats that are as good and as obscure) for a few years now, and the anti-cheating program for it only works because the exploits are found slowly enough that the anti-cheat program can keep up.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_d own
Actually, it's a little older than Pratchett. Besides, Pratchett's turtle doesn't stand on another turtle - it swims. That's what turtles do.
In accordance with E.O. 12958, this post is marked Unclassified.
What a schmuck.
Thanks, didn't know he hadn't come up with it himself. While his turle swims, I think he used the phrase "turtles all the way down" in one of the books.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
You missed something. Feelings of guilt and remorse result in lost productivity, which can easily tild the inequality.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
IMNHO, playing the online games is a waste of time (unless you do it professionally) so one starts out cheating oneself of the time expended. The whole idea that there's anything there worth morally defending against a 'cheater' is therefore inane.
The best that could happen would be if everybody got disgusted, quit the game and went for a walk in the woods.
Respecfully submitted by
KillJoy
Feelings of guilt and remorse are consequences. It doesn't matter what the consequences are, because that is being multiplied by 0. We could assume lost productivity modifies gains: Even if you normally make $100 an hour and it'll take you 5 minutes to snuff them out, you only need your victim to have $10 in their pocket or some jewelry to square it up for a positive CBA.