How is cheating possible?

Demosthenes · #1 August 9th, 2004, 09:57 PM

Yes Sir. Well worth the effort. Cleaning house is good for everyone.

RE: Zap and the topic heading...

I believe that we would all like to know how it was done. I recognize that Gandalf said it would be kept out of public eyes; I'm not sure I want to go wandering into the alley where I will find that answer.

Molog · #2 August 9th, 2004, 10:03 PM

I guess hexedit the 2h file so that your commanders have iligal orders. Would work, if they aren't checked on server

Zapmeister · #3 August 9th, 2004, 10:07 PM

Quote:

I guess hexedit the 2h file so that your commanders have iligal orders. Would work, if they aren't checked on server

Two problems:

1) The 2h file is encrypted and checksummed;
2) The format of the 2h file prior to encryption is not public knowledge.

Evil Dave · #4 August 9th, 2004, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Two problems:

1) The 2h file is encrypted and checksummed;
2) The format of the 2h file prior to encryption is not public knowledge.

While I'm not a cryptanalyst,

I suggest you search the net for "chosen plaintext attack".

Apologies to the Moderators if mentioning this is a no-no.

Zapmeister · #5 August 9th, 2004, 11:44 PM

Quote:

While I'm not a cryptanalyst,

I suggest you search the net for "chosen plaintext attack".

I won't do this, but I will take your word for it that the encryption can be defeated with an appropriate tool.

That being the case, there's no defense short of server checking, and there's a lot of checking to do. The type and quantity of every asset a player apparently holds (gems, items, units etc) in the incoming 2h file has to be reconciled against the ftherlnd file, and that's not easy.

Evil Dave · #6 August 10th, 2004, 12:09 AM

Quote:

That being the case, there's no defense short of server checking, and there's a lot of checking to do. The type and quantity of every asset a player apparently holds (gems, items, units etc) in the incoming 2h file has to be reconciled against the ftherlnd file, and that's not easy.

I'm not sure it's so bad. I think all the server needs to remember is how much stuff each player started with at the beginning of a turn, and then get a list of new stuff each player's moves created. If a list cost more than that player had, something's gone wrong. Alchemy makes the problem a bit harder, but I don't think dramatically so.

Gandalf Parker · #7 August 10th, 2004, 12:10 AM

Well the developers have a way to dismantle a players file and do the comparison. So that information should make us all feel more relaxed. Deep discussion on how the cheating can be accomplished would serve questionable purposes.

Huzurdaddi · #8 August 10th, 2004, 01:16 AM

Quote:

While I'm not a cryptanalyst, I suggest you search the net for "chosen plaintext attack".

You do not attack the cryptography in a suitaion like this. The client has to be able to read the .2h files it has to be able to checksum ( hash ) them. Thus the key and the salt for the checksum ( hash ) are in the executable this is where you look.

The developers can do a little to make it hard to find the keys, but in the end a determined attacker will find them.

Quote:

That being the case, there's no defense short of server checking, and there's a lot of checking to do. The type and quantity of every asset a player apparently holds (gems, items, units etc) in the incoming 2h file has to be reconciled against the ftherlnd file, and that's not easy.

Not really. The server should do all of the checking that the UI does. And this more than likely is the problem. IW has code which does validation in the UI for some operations ( let's say alchemy ) and they do not validate on the server.

Huzurdaddi · #9 August 10th, 2004, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Deep discussion on how the cheating can be accomplished would serve questionable purposes.

I have to say that I disagree with this. *if* there is cheating going on then it is best to have the methods in the open thus everyone knows what can happen and they look for evidence. Further it stimulates patches.

Although *if* there is cheating *and* it is caused by most of the checking being done by the UI and not by the server then that could mean a lot of work for IW.

Zapmeister · #10 August 9th, 2004, 10:05 PM

Quote:

I believe that we would all like to know how it was done. I recognize that Gandalf said it would be kept out of public eyes; I'm not sure I want to go wandering into the alley where I will find that answer.

Sure. But finding that answer is a pre-requisite for closing the vulnerability. And after that vulnerability is closed, it no longer matters if everyone knows the details.

But I have no problem with this happening behind closed doors, if that's the way the Powers That Be want it.