BF3: Confessions of a hacker...

[Dankk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3J6UXqvxts

Not the same hack this guy was using, but still, it was posted in the comments.

That's pretty damn sleazy.

 

[Ns1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3J6UXqvxts

Not the same hack this guy was using, but still, it was posted in the comments.

That's pretty damn sleazy.

srsly, why even bother playing?

you're not playing anymore, just griefing.

 

[Rinaun]

srsly, why even bother playing?

you're not playing anymore, just griefing.

 

[reallyscrued]

Can we stop calling them hackers?

They aren't "hacking" anything, they are using code that is prewritten.

They are cheaters. There is an elusive, bad-ass, geeky entitlement to being called a hacker, and I bet that fuels the egos of a lot of these kids. They are cheaters and liars.

Same goes for people who download pirated software and apply cracks; you are not a 'cracker.' Unless, you know, you're white...but even that doesn't make you cool.


+1 for missing dedicated servers. This is obviously a restriction so they can sell us DLC and crap.

+1 for not banning cheaters but instead, only put them in servers with other cheaters. I would give them an extra $15 if they could implement this. (Oh no, now I'm encouraging broken games...)

+1 for missing mod-tools...their reasoning was, "It could give people the power to cheat", why not cut the bullshit, be truthful, and tell us, "It could take away our power to internally molest your wallet with DLC"

People take this shit way too seriously. LOL!

Do you pay a monthly fee for BF3? No? Then deal with the hacks. It's a "best-effort" service. You want premium? Pay for it.

Or don't take it so seriously and just go to a different server.

I hope bad things happen to you.

 

[M0RPH]

Sad thing is the coverage of this article will just lead to more people seeking out the hacks and cheating.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

There is no point of playing modern FPS's online on public servers due to rampant cheating IMHO.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

After reading the capability of the hack it became apparent that dice do not care about hacks at all. The game implicitly trusts everything the client tells it, up to and including that it was possible to kill the entire team instantly all over the map all at once. As if the overuse of client side hit detection wasn't bad enough it is clear that if any sanity checks are ever done at all they are completely insufficient. You can never make hacking go away entirely but they pretty much rolled out the welcome wagons with that code design.

I was on a BF3 server where several people were basically killing people on both sides via a hack that allowed something similar to what was mentioned. They just sat there and killed players over and over again who were on the other side of the map. It took a while before the admin could do anything to ensure they were finally perma banned on that server.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

It does not matter to what degree one is hacking, merely the fact that they are doing it is the problem.

 

[Capt Caveman]

People take this shit way too seriously. LOL!

Do you pay a monthly fee for BF3? No? Then deal with the hacks. It's a "best-effort" service. You want premium? Pay for it.

Or don't take it so seriously and just go to a different server.

Another day, another stupid post by you.

Unfortunately, there will always be hackers. You just need to play on well admin'd servers.

As someone who's been game server admin for years, it's fairly easy to catch hackers. If someone is performing abnormally well in a round or during their stay on a server, you can quickly research their stats to look for abnormally high SPM, KDR, Accuracy, Headshot %, etc. You can also take PB screenshots and stream metabans and pbbans.

When caught, I usually admin kill them til they leave then ban their GUID and report them.

 

[IGemini]

It's always disappointing to read this stuff. Sure, cheating/hacking/scripting--whatever term you want to use--has been around for a long time, but there's always new games and new ways of screwing people out of enjoying it in what should be a group of equals. What's worse is these who ruin it for everyone else feel the need to take it a step further by threatening those who expose it, as is the case with the author.

It does not matter to what degree one is hacking, merely the fact that they are doing it is the problem.

The truly ironic part is that sometimes a person actually needs to be using the same tools to figure out who cheats, if they intend to do anything about it. Some are extremely good at hiding the fact. Platitudes along the line of "two wrongs don't make a right" don't always apply as cleanly as people might think and are even less helpful.

 

[zerogear]

I'll never understand hackers, unless there's money behind it (and note that I'm saying understand, no agreeing). I do know that some hackers "hack" (creators/authors of hacks I mean, not the users per se) because they are actually PAID to hack 'x' software or game, so they do it since there's money to be had if they do it, not because they actually "like to do it just because they can".

Although some do it just because they can and those are the ones I don't understand. I especially don't get why someone would BUY a game legitimately only to use a hack later in its multi-player mode. If you want to or care to "hack" or cheat in off-line games or modes, go ahead, no one gives a damn... but why in multi-player? Is it really ONLY because they would really, really suck otherwise? For all we know, the people using hacks (not the ones creating them, I'm talking about the ones USING them) might actually be good legitimate players if they cared to try playing legitimately.

Anyway, I'll never get the whole scheme of things regarding hacks and cheating in on-line games. The whole mentality behind it is beyond me. I can "understand" the reasoning behind... say... cracking something like Windows because you're too poor to buy it. I don't agree with it, but I understand the reason behind it (money). But I just can't understand the reason(s) behind going on-line in a game and holding a 100% perfect aim on some random Joe's toon's head to get 1-hit kills all the time only to get bored of it after 'x' time. What do someone get FROM doing that? Do they save money? Time? Is it really JUST for virtual "pride"? I just don't get it.

If there's ANY "advantage" coming from that specific case that the guy talks about in that post, is that he himself used the hack to specifically kill another hacker (not at first as he said but eventually he went full hunting mode on that other hacker). Now if all hackers could only kill other hackers on-line we might be on to something. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if a hacker would KNOWN that I'm not hacking and would therefor AVOID me exactly because I'm legitimate. That would mean that hackers would start developing a certain sense of honor out of their misery. I think I'm starting have delusions now.

maybe for the lulz of it all? I mean, what is the mentality behind trolls?

 

[JamesV]

I always err on the side of caution.

Was this an actual ranked online server, or an unranked server these cheats are being used on? The reason I mention this, is because the same shit was posted back in the BF2 days (bright red and blue players, wallhacks, etc) - which were all on private servers; the reason I was able to play 1,000 hours without ever seeing those hacks.

I do want to want to watch the world burn, if it includes CoDBF3. BF3 isn't Battlefield; see the newest rat-maze expansion as proof - since when was BF a corner-hugging kill ratio boost game?

Don't care unless a new game comes out with an actual Batttlefield, not a BattleChokePoint. /rant over

 

[coloumb]

eh - reminds me of when upper division hockey players play in lower level divisions to showboat [show off] and then celebrate each goal as if it was actually a challenge for them.

 

[atticus14]

coming from Quake 3, which had its more then fair share of hacks in the day...Punkbuster while not great, does do some part to keep the floodgates closed, but the only real way to stop hackers is to find a solid server with a great admin...

Unfortunately i haven't seen a great one in years, in current days we have multitudes of power tripping admins and for-profit admins

 

[zerogear]

Bad admins is worse than hackers. I've been kicked banned from a server because I killed admin one too many times on one of the maps in BFBC2.. Oh well.

 

[reallyscrued]

Bad admins is worse than hackers. I've been kicked banned from a server because I killed admin one too many times on one of the maps in BFBC2.. Oh well.

...was his name Redemption or something like that?

 

[StrangerGuy]

...And people are complaining why D3 didn't have an offline mode when it will make reverse-engineering the client-server security much much easier. I take the far lesser evil option thanks.

 

[thespyder]

What it boils down to for me is, know who you are playing with. It is no different than picking up a pool game in a bar with some stranger. You don't know who they are or what their skills are. You don't know if they are going to play fair or if they are going to cheat or rob you. Hopefully they won't but due to the anonymous nature of the internet, people feel free to do as they please in even a higher degree than in real life.

It is yet another reason why I prefer single player over multi player (and local or peer to peer multi-player to pick up games). I have nothing to prove to someone else. I don't need to bolster my own self worth by beating some total stranger.

As for hacking, by and large, so long as you are only helping/harming yourself, who cares? I don't do it, but I do use mods in my single player game. Since Mods "Modify" the game from it's original intended state, some could argue that it is a form of cheating, particularly if it changes the difficulty in some way. But don't do it to take advantage of another player. Pure and simple.

Beyond that, the more coverage we give that blog, the more legitimacy people will place on it and the more they will seek out a way to 'Be the best' out there. Call it insecurity. Call it bad manners. Call it just plain selfishness. people do it. I kind of feel sorry that their world is such that they have to seek validation through cheating, but that is their life.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

A developer honestly needs to release a game where in order to unlock the DRM you have to give them your true identity and it has to be verified. The best way to do it would be to have them mail to a physical address a key that unlocks the game for you.

Then if you are caught hacking they send their lawyers after you for breaking the Terms of Use. If the lawsuits were in the realm of what the RIAA and MPAA are getting from people hacking would cease to be a problem in short order.

Taking the anonymity out of online game would truly put an end to hacking. It would be tricky to deal with when it comes to minors, but for most games they shouldn't be able to buy them based on their rating anyways. That's where their parents would benefit from this type of system.

 

[gorcorps]

Bad admins is worse than hackers. I've been kicked banned from a server because I killed admin one too many times on one of the maps in BFBC2.. Oh well.

That used to happen to me all the time in CS during my glory days. When I was on I would get vote-kicked out of servers if they were nicer, or banned entirely.

 

[bfdd]

Too be honest I gave up on FPS online shooters a number of years ago. Being 35 I remember when we really didn't have any type of software to block hackers other than the "kick player" option. To this day I have no idea why someone would cheat in an online FPS game. If those who hack don't like challenges then perhaps they need a new hobby, and the ones who think that hacking is a challenge are even more pathetic.

Hackers have ruined the fun for anyone who is actually decent at FPS.

Can we stop calling them hackers?

They aren't "hacking" anything, they are using code that is prewritten.

They are cheaters. There is an elusive, bad-ass, geeky entitlement to being called a hacker, and I bet that fuels the egos of a lot of these kids. They are cheaters and liars.

Same goes for people who download pirated software and apply cracks; you are not a 'cracker.' Unless, you know, you're white...but even that doesn't make you cool.


+1 for missing dedicated servers. This is obviously a restriction so they can sell us DLC and crap.

+1 for not banning cheaters but instead, only put them in servers with other cheaters. I would give them an extra $15 if they could implement this. (Oh no, now I'm encouraging broken games...)

+1 for missing mod-tools...their reasoning was, "It could give people the power to cheat", why not cut the bullshit, be truthful, and tell us, "It could take away our power to internally molest your wallet with DLC"



I hope bad things happen to you.

also this

 

[blastingcap]

Bad admins is worse than hackers. I've been kicked banned from a server because I killed admin one too many times on one of the maps in BFBC2.. Oh well.

I hate immature admins. I was once banned on a DODS server for killing the admin (legitimately--I never cheat) one too many times. I've also gotten kicked before for (legitimately--I never cheat) using the railgun too well against admins. Petty admins suck.

 

[JTsyo]

Why doesn't Dice/PB do what this guy did to find hackers? When someone plays much better than they usually do or much better than anyone else on a server or some other flag, then look at the person's aim and check if it's be assisted. See if they are tracking people through walls, check if they are getting OHK when they shouldn't or are taking shots at pople from extermme distances. Looking for the effects will be a lot harder to hide than a cheat check on the files.

 

[Arsinek]

People take this shit way too seriously. LOL!

Do you pay a monthly fee for BF3? No? Then deal with the hacks. It's a "best-effort" service. You want premium? Pay for it.

Or don't take it so seriously and just go to a different server.

You dont understand why people dont like spending $60 for a game full of cheaters? Weird.

 

[thespyder]

A developer honestly needs to release a game where in order to unlock the DRM you have to give them your true identity and it has to be verified. The best way to do it would be to have them mail to a physical address a key that unlocks the game for you.

Then if you are caught hacking they send their lawyers after you for breaking the Terms of Use. If the lawsuits were in the realm of what the RIAA and MPAA are getting from people hacking would cease to be a problem in short order.

Taking the anonymity out of online game would truly put an end to hacking. It would be tricky to deal with when it comes to minors, but for most games they shouldn't be able to buy them based on their rating anyways. That's where their parents would benefit from this type of system.

In the first place, this scenario would be HIDEOUSLY labor intensive and simply unmanageable, not to mention prohibitively expensive to implement. You can bet your horse that they would pass that cost on to the consumer.

In the second place, there are lots more reasons to want anonymity than the desire to cheat or steal. I choose to remain anonymous for the very simple reason that I don't want the production companies to then take my information and use it to further market me.

And finally, people would absolutely balk about any process that slowed down delivery (i.e. having to "Prove" identity) prior to use. Considering how easy it is to get false credentials today, the process would have to be significant and thorough and not quick. Consumers wouldn't stand for it.

Not to mention that this would very probably go against privacy laws.