CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

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copojax
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CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by copojax »

I found a very easy way to cheat.... I'm posting it here hopinfg to have this issue solved soon!

You get the turn file from your opponent, you open it once THEN OPEN ANOTHER ISTANCE OF THE GAME and reopen the turn, it says that you opened the turn for the second time, but if you use this second istance as a test(you try attacks, recon and so on) and the first one as your real turn, when you save it NOTHING HAPPENS!!

hope it can be solved,

jacopo
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Barthheart
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Barthheart »

Easy fix.... don't cheat or play with cheaters....[8|]
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"
seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

@copojax
 
And you think it´s a good idea to post this here in the forum ??
I don´t think it is !! Is it that hard to write a PM to the developer or send him a E-Mail ? [:@]
 
If this really works you should do something, Vic.
Maybe it´s possible to allow only one instance ?
 
@Bartheart
Unfortunately it´s not that easy especially when you play laddergames.
Do you know all the guy´s you play with that good ? I play with Vic and tweber now since
a very long time already and i still WANT passwords and PBEM protection activated for ALL games.
And i don´t like the fact that players can manoeuvre around now that easy [:(]
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Barthheart
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Barthheart »

Yeah I know my reply was smartassed... but I just don't get all the excitement over cheating in games. You'd think with all the trouble that you all were playing for BIG money or something.... If it's just bragging rights on a ladder then who cares... if you win without cheating then you should feel very good.. give yourself a pat on the back.

I guess I'm just getting old and in the grand scheme of things someone cheating me to win a game doesn't seem that big a deal.

I think Vic has done a wonderful job with the cheat-blocking he has now and maybe could focus on some of the wonderful ideas for improving this already fantastic game.

PS. If I play any of you all and I catch you cheating I just won't play you again.....[:-][:D]

Signed,
Grumpy Old Man.
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"
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Hertston
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Hertston »

ORIGINAL: seille

And you think it´s a good idea to post this here in the forum ??

I don't know... at least all those serial cheaters out there will have a level playing field. [8|]

I'm with Barthheart on this one; a complete fuss about nothing, IMHO. If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.
SlowHand
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by SlowHand »

Same opinion here. I like the FOW, enjoy seeing an opponent spring dastardly surprises on me. To cheat just cheapens the experience. If someone I'm playing on a ladder does that, and I can detect it somehow, I'd avoid them in the future.
 
However, in general I simply trust people at the outset, whatever the "Anti-cheat" may report: power goes out, computers lock up, kids or pets hit the re-set button, etc.
seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

ORIGINAL: Hertston

If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.

I know why i said this. Vic introduced this protection because he replayed turns himself when he had a bad combat outcome in PBEM´s.
He found that too easy to do. He wrote this himself. [;)]
And yes, i have bigger problems with cheating. It has nothing to do with paranoia or something. It´s simply the fact i don´t like spending much time on a game where
the opponent is not playing fair. And where he can do this without any problems. That´s why i highly appreciated the introduction of the pbem protection.
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Vic
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Vic »

ORIGINAL: seille

ORIGINAL: Hertston

If I ever reached the stage of paranoia where I couldn't trust a game's designer not to cheat in MP it would be time to chuck it in and take up Scrabble.

I know why i said this. Vic introduced this protection because he replayed turns himself when he had a bad combat outcome in PBEM´s.
He found that too easy to do. He wrote this himself. [;)]
And yes, i have bigger problems with cheating. It has nothing to do with paranoia or something. It´s simply the fact i don´t like spending much time on a game where
the opponent is not playing fair. And where he can do this without any problems. That´s why i highly appreciated the introduction of the pbem protection.
good idea to post this here in the forum ??
I don´t think it is !! Is it that hard to write a PM to the developer or send him a E-Mail ?

If this really works you should do something, Vic.
Maybe it´s possible to allow only one instance ?

yes if the first combat result is like realy bad it was realy tempting to start again.

actually i did think about the opening of 2 instances. If not on the same computer (which i did not think off!!) you could do it on two seperate computers (did think of it, but let that one hang).... but it only allows you a small recon advantage. the actual combat you do will still be done and you won't be able to change that.

but i'll see if i can add a Terror Anti-Cheat mode for the hardcore players in patch 1.1.
in the meantime try to do fair play.

kind regards,
vic
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seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

ORIGINAL: Vic
but i'll see if i can add a Terror Anti-Cheat mode for the hardcore players in patch 1.1.
in the meantime try to do fair play.

I vote for destruction of cheaters PC [:)]
That will hit em hard !
maxfra
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Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:37 am

RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by maxfra »

I agree with Vic.
AT is a much better anticheat game then PT1. In PT1 if u did a wrong attack you could replay your turn, in AT you can't.
And the fact that in your "test session" the attack has gone well does not mean that in the "real session" it will.
I' ve tried to use the combat sim described in chapter 5.3.5 of the manual (to understand the power of single subformations) and most of uncertain attacks did succeed at 40%-60% (the game tries the attack 200 times than gives you the average result). With such a result what would you do in the "real session"? If the attack is not uncertain (attacker much stronger than defender according to the value written in the icons) you would not need to make a "test session" for that anyway.

The only thing you can have is a better spotting since you can send a single unit in different hexes to look in more places... but if u have enough spotting units you don't need that anyway.

Since is no way to prevent someone to use a PC for the real turn and another one for tests, opening 2 session on the same PC would be the same thing.

All this just to say that in my opinion Vic has done a great job with the anticheat function and that it works greatly.
Moreover I agree that there is much more fun in winning without cheating. If my opponent cheats as previously described (and NOT as he could do in PT1) he won't get such advantages and when I defeat him I'll have even more fun.

seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

You can do recon, test attacks and some more. I don´t talk about doing the same attack twice.
I talk about doing the attack or NOT. And that´s a big difference.
When i play plane foccussed i could completely check out the position sof enemy planes and their settings.
Same for AA guns.
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Vic
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Vic »

As i said i will probably add a TERROR SECURITY mode. Which will refuse to open a file for the second time. I will make it an OPTION for people who want to play that die hard. The problem of such a mode of course is that there might be a VALID reason you want to open a turn for the second time.
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PDiFolco
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by PDiFolco »

I didn't think there exist a real way to cheatproof any pbem sequential turn game...
Ok you can control file opening, session opening and  so on, but what if I just copy again the attached start of turn file I've received in my mail box- possibly after desinstalling/reinstalling the whole game (takes 5 min) ?
It was and is the same with Toaw, SP series, HPS games etc..

I don't think much time should be spent to chase this on the dev side [:-].

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Vic
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Vic »

@pdi,
 
actually that reinstalling wont work with AT protection. It will notice.
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seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

@Vic
 
And you can´t just forbid a second session same time ?
Or just tell the other player (cheat warning) what the other player did ?
 
You know i would like to see it safe as possible, but completely forbid to open the turn again could
become a problem when someone has PC problems or PC reboot due to a problem.
But i trust in you here. You will find a good way.
 
@PDI
Why Vic should not spend time on features that are already in the game and are
not perfect ? The protection is important for PBEM games. And i´m sure he can (and will)
improve it.
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Vic
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Vic »

You can always open the turn for a second time ON a SECOND pc, seille.
 
And yes the only way to FORBID that is the terror mode explained above.
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seille
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by seille »

Ok, then let the TERROR MODE come. I´ll play with !
rickier65
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by rickier65 »

ORIGINAL: seille

@Vic

And you can´t just forbid a second session same time ?
Or just tell the other player (cheat warning) what the other player did ?

You know i would like to see it safe as possible, but completely forbid to open the turn again could
become a problem when someone has PC problems or PC reboot due to a problem.
But i trust in you here. You will find a good way.

@PDI
Why Vic should not spend time on features that are already in the game and are
not perfect ? The protection is important for PBEM games. And i´m sure he can (and will)
improve it.

Seems like it's almost impossible to fully protect against cheating (I've worked in computer security in the past - not fun). Just making it incovenient to cheat is about as far as i would suggest. I's really unfortuanate at the amount of time that has to be spent by a single developer to address this.

That being said, I'd support simply prohibiting having two simultaneous sessions running on the same computer, recognizing that a hard-core cheater would be able to use a diffrent computer.

I would probably be pretty averse to playing with a mode that flat out would prohibit opening turn more thatn once. I would really unhappy if had a long game going on and and it got terminated, or corrupted by some unfortunate event totally unrelated to cheating.

Rick
PDiFolco
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by PDiFolco »

ORIGINAL: Vic

@pdi,

actually that reinstalling wont work with AT protection. It will notice.

I don't imagine how it can notice if I've made a fresh install *and* copied again the pbem file I've received... unless you tinker with the registry database, but first this is unrecommended and second it's not very hard to edit it.

Seille,
I'm convinced that this kind of effort is useless : see how publishers are trying since 10 years+ to prevent piracy, they spend billions and went nowhere.
Given the limited resources this game has (Vic, and Vic and Vic do the programming I believe..), they'd be much better spent elsewhere (new features, more friendly editor, tutorials and docs ..).

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Awac835
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RE: CHEAT POSSIBLE !!

Post by Awac835 »

I agree that cheats should be issued by email or PM.
When it comes to cheating in these kind of games id like to think that im playing with a different crowd compared to when i play Counter Strike with the 13 year old kids using aimbot and wall hacks.
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