The big advantage people get from decoding the zone information is the name, and to some extent, the position of monsters all over the zone. If Sony changed EQ to only send data about monsters that are near you (within a reasonable distance) there would no longer be a big reason to decode the zone data. 99% of what you'd be seeing you could also see by turning in place, and clicking on each monster.
Due to how the servers are setup however, it seems to be more efficient for them to send out all the monsters, rather than do the range calculations and just send the nearby ones.
My prediction, if a Windows version is released and becomes widespread (and I consider the latter likely if the former occurs), is that Sony will, finally, bite the bullet and change the code. It's not quite as straight forward as I may have made it sound, as there are some other systems (such as tracking) that will have to be significantly rewritten as well. However, if they really want to stop people getting at this data, really the only way to do it is to stop sending the parts that aren't needed.:)
Brief Plot Description
on
War of Honor
·
· Score: 2, Informative
**Spoiler**
Basically, the main idea in this book is that the government is in the hands of inept politicians who go too far to try and take advantage of their recently won peace.
The two main manticore fleets survive because Honor was in charge of one, and had extra ships from Grayson (sent as a training exercise), and the other was reinforced by the Grayson home fleet right as the attack begins.
With that said, there's so much going on in the book, I've hardly spoiled anything.:) I highly recommend going to read it.:)
Re:Anyone read the short story?
on
Minority Report
·
· Score: 1
This is where I disagree. While perhaps PKD wanted the reader to question Precrime, and the ethical ideas behind it, my view is that he thought it was good in the end, mainly because he has his hero, Anderton, commit murder and accept exile, in order to keep the system alive.
Maybe I should just go re-read it again though.:)
Re:Anyone read the short story?
on
Minority Report
·
· Score: 1
I read the book before I saw the movie. The adaptation is not faithful at all, there's really just a few similarities, between two different stories.
Personally, it was the ending that bothered me the most... In the book, we basically end up with the hero making a sacrifice to preserve pre-crime, a system that prevents all murders. In the movie, we lose the system and it's benefits, and all the "criminals" go free.
Or to put it more briefly, the book argues that precrime is good, and the movie argues that precrime is bad. A total reversal, and given that I like the idea of precrime, a bad one.
Yes, those are the main three cards available in this area right now. I got the Telemann card for christmas, works well enough (interface isn't perfect) and the picture looks really great when I get an HD signal.
As I recall, AccessDTV's big thing is they try and get you to pay a monthly fee for their subscription service channel guide, which I didn't really want to get in to.
Also, I don't recall which, but there's some issues with some of the cards encrypting any saved signals so it can only be played back by your card...
While I agree it's not a high end DVD player, your "one simple reason" is totally wrong. Both Sony and multiple other companies make optional component video cables for the PS2. So, while it comes with a composite cable, for just a little bit more, you can get the component video cable you need to make it look better.
When my PS2 arrived, before I went to hook it up, I went out and bought the component video cable. If you've got a TV than can handle it, it's the only way to go.:)
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
jerrith@jerrith.com
I got my PS2 for gaming, not movies. (I've already got a nice normal DVD player with 16x9 mode.) I started up The Matrix, and noticed it wasn't in 16x9... I looked around in all the system menus. There's an option in the main system configuration screen that lets you select what aspect ratio you want... I set this to 16x9. Tried the DVD player again after this, still no good. Looked at the DVD's menu system, and found there's an option there too for the aspect ratio, but it's locked to the standard value, and you can't change it!:( It almost seems like this was a feature they were going to have, and then it was cut or pulled out, for some reason.:(
Oh well... Just need to hook up the player when I want to watch DVDs, I guess.
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
jerrith@jerrith.com
I'm not familiar with any specific ones, but in discussing them, the trend seems to be this:
First someone will create an aimbot that grants perfect aim. In response, the server will be changed to call anyone who has perfect or "very good" aim a cheater. The cheaters will then modify their bot so their shots are just barely under the "you're a cheater" level. Good players will frequently be just slightly better than the "you're a cheater" level, and be unfairly called cheaters.
Ok, so let's say we have a high processing power, high bandwidth, low latency enviornment, and a Quake-like game. If there's darkness or fog, or even walls which can make it difficult to see a target, you can create some sort of image analyzer which looks at each frame being sent by the server, and says things like "ah ha! There's part of a player sticking out from behind that wall, let me aim at him and fire, because my user probably wouldn't notice that small part." I don't think that this can be avoided...
Now, let's say you can do that, and have the required latency....
Most games have darkness or fog in the distance, making it hard to see. Yet a program monitoring the datastream would see that player, and be able to alert you to his presence. How do you deal with foggy situations, where you have a poor view of the target? Having him pop into view when the server decides you can see him? Not a very nice looking solution... Displaying an indistinct figure? Might work if you have allies, but if everyone is an enemy?
Really, if you think about it, isn't cheating in this way just defeating some security through obscurity the developer created? After all, the information about what's hidden behind the walls is there, these drivers don't create it... It's just that it's been in too obscure a format to read before now.
So those who seek to powergame and "be the best" will have another tool which helps them to do so more easily. Those of us who play for our own enjoyment (isn't that the point of games?) will ignore them, and continue to enjoy the games. Will the two groups meet? Unhappily? Of course. They do so now even without this.
Now, the question really worth discussing here is, is it possible to create a multiplayer game where there's no advantage to be gained by examining memory, or intercepting the data stream? What would such a game be like, and would it still be able to attract a wide audience?
Should there be such a push? Sure. Will there be? I doubt it. Consumers equate the odd or large packaging as containing something special are therefore better. If a seller can provide an interesting box it will increase sales, and can offset the added cost.
In a sea of many choices it's a way to make your product stand out. Theoretically, the better products should be more likely to be able to afford such packaging, but in truth, it can only be used as a very minor factor in determining quality.
Removed at 9:17 PM Eastern.... I got part one, tried to go to part 2, and it was replaced with a this file has been removed message... Reloaded part 1 and it was gone too. *sigh*
If you haven't already, be sure to read the readme that's linked from the story, it's actually kinda neat to see.
I mean, while obviously every is going to find it now that it has been mentioned on Slashdot and likely other sites, it's still neat to find something thats sorta hidden like that.:)
Perhaps I should upgrade my Linux test box, (Stuck on Windows for my main machines, sadly), it looks like it could be neat.:)
Though I work on it no longer, when UOX was first GPL'ed, I became involved and coded a huge amount of stuff for it.
Yes, OSI's official UO servers have about 6 or 7 subservers (about to double, as they double the world) controlling specific pieces of the map.
The key difference between UO and EQ here is that EQ sends you position info for everything in your zone. UO sends you position info for all dynamic objects within about 20 tiles (for mobiles and dynamic items) and about 32 tiles (for multis (aka houses)). As almost all of that fits on screen, the advantage to looking at the information before it appears on screen is virtually zero.
As for the protocol, I've studied it in quite a bit of detail and have worked out all but a few parts which are simply uninteresting (to me) now. The few things which were present originally that would give an advantage have been removed. Examples: The server used to send information about people who were hidden / invisible (no longer). The server used to send the exact hp/max hp info for character (gone, now it sends max hp as 25, and hp scaled to that range).
Of course, they still have insanely inefficient messages present. For example, if you press the help button, the client sends a message that is an identifier byte, followed by 256 null bytes. (That's unimportant because it's used infrequently, you say? Take a look at how much is sent any time a character other than yourself walks / moves on your screen. A bunch of stuff that isn't likely to change every step...)
Yes, the key is to do everything important server side.
There was a linux version of UO. It simply isn't updated frequently. It's currently too old a version to use... It may be updated at some point though.:)
Online games, such as Ultima Online, and Everquest, have this same sort of community problem, and in many ways, it is even worse. These sorts of games attract the sort of people that cause these problems, and even worse, tend to reward them for their actions.
The true growth of a more friendly community is what will eventually make these games great, and I can't help but think that there will be lessons learned there that can be applied to the rest of the Internet in general.
OWO (Origin Worlds Online) the group of Origin who makes games like UO (Ultima Online) actually uses most of these... Just try various virtue.owo.com hosts.:)
Someone made a list of a big number of what they had there once and it was quite amusing to read.:)
At Northwestern University, the systems in the main computer science lab are named after Godzilla and various related characters (like mothra, etc). However, at some point last year, I believe we were sent a cease and desist type letter from company that owns godzilla asking us to change the name of our servers.
Nothing came of it as I recall, and godzilla.cs.nwu.edu [129.105.99.240] still exists.:)
Still, it's interesting to see what some companies will do.
Well, I liked Northwestern as an Undergraduate. Just left this past June. None of the graduate students I knew ever complained so strongly about things...
Anyone know of anything in particular that's bad?
AR Schleicher ars@iag.net (ars@nwu.edu is still active)
Northwestern University has sone...
on
Robotic Dogs
·
· Score: 1
I'm a senior Computer Science major at Northwestern University, and I know we've got some of these around and being used in our department, in the robot lab...
While I didn't take the course track that led to them this year (two C95 special topics classes, one fall, one winter quarter), a good number of people have.
This of course means they're programming them, and doing some rather complicated things with them. Sadly, I'm not sure what exactly, but I'll see if I can find anything else out.:)
Slashdot Mirror
The big advantage people get from decoding the zone information is the name, and to some extent, the position of monsters all over the zone. If Sony changed EQ to only send data about monsters that are near you (within a reasonable distance) there would no longer be a big reason to decode the zone data. 99% of what you'd be seeing you could also see by turning in place, and clicking on each monster.
:)
Due to how the servers are setup however, it seems to be more efficient for them to send out all the monsters, rather than do the range calculations and just send the nearby ones.
My prediction, if a Windows version is released and becomes widespread (and I consider the latter likely if the former occurs), is that Sony will, finally, bite the bullet and change the code. It's not quite as straight forward as I may have made it sound, as there are some other systems (such as tracking) that will have to be significantly rewritten as well. However, if they really want to stop people getting at this data, really the only way to do it is to stop sending the parts that aren't needed.
**Spoiler**
:) I highly recommend going to read it. :)
Basically, the main idea in this book is that the government is in the hands of inept politicians who go too far to try and take advantage of their recently won peace.
The two main manticore fleets survive because Honor was in charge of one, and had extra ships from Grayson (sent as a training exercise), and the other was reinforced by the Grayson home fleet right as the attack begins.
With that said, there's so much going on in the book, I've hardly spoiled anything.
This is where I disagree. While perhaps PKD wanted the reader to question Precrime, and the ethical ideas behind it, my view is that he thought it was good in the end, mainly because he has his hero, Anderton, commit murder and accept exile, in order to keep the system alive.
:)
Maybe I should just go re-read it again though.
I read the book before I saw the movie. The adaptation is not faithful at all, there's really just a few similarities, between two different stories.
Personally, it was the ending that bothered me the most... In the book, we basically end up with the hero making a sacrifice to preserve pre-crime, a system that prevents all murders. In the movie, we lose the system and it's benefits, and all the "criminals" go free.
Or to put it more briefly, the book argues that precrime is good, and the movie argues that precrime is bad. A total reversal, and given that I like the idea of precrime, a bad one.
Yes, those are the main three cards available in this area right now. I got the Telemann card for christmas, works well enough (interface isn't perfect) and the picture looks really great when I get an HD signal.
As I recall, AccessDTV's big thing is they try and get you to pay a monthly fee for their subscription service channel guide, which I didn't really want to get in to.
Also, I don't recall which, but there's some issues with some of the cards encrypting any saved signals so it can only be played back by your card...
While I agree it's not a high end DVD player, your "one simple reason" is totally wrong. Both Sony and multiple other companies make optional component video cables for the PS2. So, while it comes with a composite cable, for just a little bit more, you can get the component video cable you need to make it look better.
:)
When my PS2 arrived, before I went to hook it up, I went out and bought the component video cable. If you've got a TV than can handle it, it's the only way to go.
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
jerrith@jerrith.com
I got my PS2 for gaming, not movies. (I've already got a nice normal DVD player with 16x9 mode.) I started up The Matrix, and noticed it wasn't in 16x9... I looked around in all the system menus. There's an option in the main system configuration screen that lets you select what aspect ratio you want... I set this to 16x9. Tried the DVD player again after this, still no good. Looked at the DVD's menu system, and found there's an option there too for the aspect ratio, but it's locked to the standard value, and you can't change it! :( It almost seems like this was a feature they were going to have, and then it was cut or pulled out, for some reason. :(
Oh well... Just need to hook up the player when I want to watch DVDs, I guess.
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
jerrith@jerrith.com
I'm not familiar with any specific ones, but in discussing them, the trend seems to be this:
First someone will create an aimbot that grants perfect aim. In response, the server will be changed to call anyone who has perfect or "very good" aim a cheater. The cheaters will then modify their bot so their shots are just barely under the "you're a cheater" level. Good players will frequently be just slightly better than the "you're a cheater" level, and be unfairly called cheaters.
Ok, so let's say we have a high processing power, high bandwidth, low latency enviornment, and a Quake-like game. If there's darkness or fog, or even walls which can make it difficult to see a target, you can create some sort of image analyzer which looks at each frame being sent by the server, and says things like "ah ha! There's part of a player sticking out from behind that wall, let me aim at him and fire, because my user probably wouldn't notice that small part." I don't think that this can be avoided...
Jerrith
Now, let's say you can do that, and have the required latency....
Most games have darkness or fog in the distance, making it hard to see. Yet a program monitoring the datastream would see that player, and be able to alert you to his presence. How do you deal with foggy situations, where you have a poor view of the target? Having him pop into view when the server decides you can see him? Not a very nice looking solution... Displaying an indistinct figure? Might work if you have allies, but if everyone is an enemy?
Jerrith
Right, anything with twitch is a problem, because you can always write a program that will twitch faster than than you could normally react.
:)
Still, I'm thinking something that's turn based, with fairly short turns could work well.
A *craft style game where it takes time for your orders to be relayed to the units might work. I think.
Jerrith
Really, if you think about it, isn't cheating in this way just defeating some security through obscurity the developer created? After all, the information about what's hidden behind the walls is there, these drivers don't create it... It's just that it's been in too obscure a format to read before now.
So those who seek to powergame and "be the best" will have another tool which helps them to do so more easily. Those of us who play for our own enjoyment (isn't that the point of games?) will ignore them, and continue to enjoy the games. Will the two groups meet? Unhappily? Of course. They do so now even without this.
Now, the question really worth discussing here is, is it possible to create a multiplayer game where there's no advantage to be gained by examining memory, or intercepting the data stream? What would such a game be like, and would it still be able to attract a wide audience?
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
Should there be such a push? Sure. Will there be? I doubt it. Consumers equate the odd or large packaging as containing something special are therefore better. If a seller can provide an interesting box it will increase sales, and can offset the added cost.
In a sea of many choices it's a way to make your product stand out. Theoretically, the better products should be more likely to be able to afford such packaging, but in truth, it can only be used as a very minor factor in determining quality.
Jerrith
ars@iag.net
Removed at 9:17 PM Eastern.... I got part one, tried to go to part 2, and it was replaced with a this file has been removed message... Reloaded part 1 and it was gone too. *sigh*
If you haven't already, be sure to read the readme that's linked from the story, it's actually kinda neat to see.
:)
:)
I mean, while obviously every is going to find it now that it has been mentioned on Slashdot and likely other sites, it's still neat to find something thats sorta hidden like that.
Perhaps I should upgrade my Linux test box, (Stuck on Windows for my main machines, sadly), it looks like it could be neat.
Jerrith
Though I work on it no longer, when UOX was first GPL'ed, I became involved and coded a huge amount of stuff for it.
:)
Yes, OSI's official UO servers have about 6 or 7 subservers (about to double, as they double the world) controlling specific pieces of the map.
The key difference between UO and EQ here is that EQ sends you position info for everything in your zone. UO sends you position info for all dynamic objects within about 20 tiles (for mobiles and dynamic items) and about 32 tiles (for multis (aka houses)). As almost all of that fits on screen, the advantage to looking at the information before it appears on screen is virtually zero.
As for the protocol, I've studied it in quite a bit of detail and have worked out all but a few parts which are simply uninteresting (to me) now. The few things which were present originally that would give an advantage have been removed. Examples: The server used to send information about people who were hidden / invisible (no longer). The server used to send the exact hp/max hp info for character (gone, now it sends max hp as 25, and hp scaled to that range).
Of course, they still have insanely inefficient messages present. For example, if you press the help button, the client sends a message that is an identifier byte, followed by 256 null bytes. (That's unimportant because it's used infrequently, you say? Take a look at how much is sent any time a character other than yourself walks / moves on your screen. A bunch of stuff that isn't likely to change every step...)
Yes, the key is to do everything important server side.
There was a linux version of UO. It simply isn't updated frequently. It's currently too old a version to use... It may be updated at some point though.
Jerrith (AR Schleicher)
ars@iag.net
Online games, such as Ultima Online, and Everquest, have this same sort of community problem, and in many ways, it is even worse. These sorts of games attract the sort of people that cause these problems, and even worse, tend to reward them for their actions.
The true growth of a more friendly community is what will eventually make these games great, and I can't help but think that there will be lessons learned there that can be applied to the rest of the Internet in general.
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@iag.net
OWO (Origin Worlds Online) the group of Origin who makes games like UO (Ultima Online) actually uses most of these... Just try various virtue.owo.com hosts. :)
:)
Someone made a list of a big number of what they had there once and it was quite amusing to read.
At Northwestern University, the systems in the main computer science lab are named after Godzilla and various related characters (like mothra, etc). However, at some point last year, I believe we were sent a cease and desist type letter from company that owns godzilla asking us to change the name of our servers.
:)
Nothing came of it as I recall, and godzilla.cs.nwu.edu [129.105.99.240] still exists.
Still, it's interesting to see what some companies will do.
AR Schleicher
ars@iag.net
Well, I liked Northwestern as an Undergraduate. Just left this past June. None of the graduate students I knew ever complained so strongly about things...
Anyone know of anything in particular that's bad?
AR Schleicher
ars@iag.net (ars@nwu.edu is still active)
I'm a senior Computer Science major at Northwestern University, and I know we've got some of these around and being used in our department, in the robot lab...
:)
While I didn't take the course track that led to them this year (two C95 special topics classes, one fall, one winter quarter), a good number of people have.
This of course means they're programming them, and doing some rather complicated things with them. Sadly, I'm not sure what exactly, but I'll see if I can find anything else out.
AR Schleicher (Jerrith)
ars@nwu.edu