What If?

[Atrocities]

I am sure PBW does have checks in place to keep an eye out on this. I did a search for simular topics and found one were a player was Banned from PBW for hacking a file and then posting about it.

So they are watching for it. This pleases me to no end.

[Roanon]

If - big IF - the game designer has not relied on his encoded .plr files to be unbreakable (yes, designers tend to overestimate their skills ) he could have easily made cheating impossible. Let players only submit orders, execute everything on host while error-checking as the SE programm checks where you only can enter valid orders. Hacking the strength of DUCs - impossible, should be stored in the host data file and accessed new for every combat for every ship. Hacking the number of components on a ship design - detectable if the designs are also stored in host data and applied fresh every turn, and error-checked when created. Hacking ship positions - futile if only move orders are transmitted and not final ship positions (move fleet X to system Y sector Z - ok, will take 500 gazillion turns but I'll start moving them... )

So, if proper design decidions have been made, cheating vie turn submision should be next to impossible. Of course, if the SE programm already executes the orders and then only sends the results, not the orders, to the host, hacking is possible and how easy it is only depends on the quality of the encryption of the .plr file. But the pricipal flaw of this kind of design is known for years. On the other hand, SE is very old...

Another thing is the .gam and log files that all players get. As all players get the same file and the info contained is only filtered by the SE programm, there is a lot of info in the results that should not be seen by a player. Only individual result files for each player would make this 100% safe, but also complicate the hosting process. All that remains here between cheating hackers and their success is the quality of the encryption. I hope it is good. But as the decrypting programm (SE) is available, hacking is possible and I am sure a lot of people - including myself - would theoretically be able to do it. It is not easy and will cost a lot of time - and I just don't consider it worth my time. Let's hope we don't get too many kiddies with too much time at their hands as players...

[Roanon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
there are ways to get around it if the person is skilled enough and dedicated to teh task. There are always ways, and the cheaters always have the advantage in this arms race.

Not really. It depends on the design. The problem here is a client that actually executes most of the commands and sends the RESULTS to the host. 100% unbreakable is a design that only sends the commands to the host and does NO final data changes on client side. Host then does the usual checking if the command is possible, like the client does on the players side. Host has all data and does all data changes. If you hack data on client side, be happy but game data is not affected as you only can access a copy of the actual data, not the data itself. If you hack the client, you may be able to enter commands that are invalid, but they are not really executed but ignored by the host. Hackers problem if he can enter commands and his game goes boom because most of them are ignored. A matter of basic design philosopy. Only way to cheat here: host hacking, and that can be prevented easily.

The one guarantee I can give you is that it will ALWAYS be possible to verify if someone is cheating.

Not always. "Cheating light", only looking at the complete game data, CANNOT be proven. You just see a player who seems to have an incredible amount of luck when making decisions. The only way to prevent that is to send only the needed data to a player, data that the player is allowed to access completely. Can make programming a lot more difficult though as you need different data (.gam) files for different players. Sending unnecessary data is a common mistake and easy source for most hacks in many multiplayer games, especially Online games.

[ September 18, 2003, 14:26: Message edited by: Roanon ]

[Slynky]

"Not always. "Cheating light", only looking at the complete game data, CANNOT be proven. You just see a player who seems to have an incredible amount of luck when making decisions. The only way to prevent that is to send only the needed data to a player, data that the player is allowed to access completely. Can make programming a lot more difficult though as you need different data (.gam) files for different players. Sending unnecessary data is a common mistake and easy source for most hacks in many multiplayer games, especially Online games."

Sounds like what I was saying, Roanon.

[Fyron]

Not really. It depends on the design. The problem here is a client that actually executes most of the commands and sends the RESULTS to the host. 100% unbreakable is a design that only sends the commands to the host and does NO final data changes on client side.

And this is what SE4 does. The plr file contains ONLY orders issued, nothing else. All data files are read from the host's set when processing the turns. All game code is read from the host when processing. The player can only issue orders, not do any processing of anything. Unless he gets ahold of the game master password, in which case he can process turns on his own and see what will happen down the line, but the can not make changes to the "real" game the host sends out. The game detects even changes to descriptions of componetns and such and declares the data files invalid.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, that lays my concerns to rest.

[geoschmo]

PBW itself does no file checking, but Se4 does. We had concerns about this very problem and so have been working with Malfador from the start to identify and eliminate possible sources of cheating. Se4 does check to verify that the .plr file was created using the same executable that the .gam file was, and it also does some math checks to make sure there is no hinkiness with design costs and stuff. There are other things it does, but I don't want to give away to much information.

While it checks all these things I am sure that there are ways to get around it if the person is skilled enough and dedicated to teh task. There are always ways, and the cheaters always have the advantage in this arms race. But as new ways to cheat are brough to light we will try to get Malfador to fix them.

The one guarantee I can give you is that it will ALWAYS be possible to verify if someone is cheating. Because all we have to do is go back over the turn files and see if everything that happened should have happened the way it did. It's not always easy to do, it can take a lot of time and effort, but it's always possible to do.

Geoschmo

[Atrocities]

Thanks for the replies.

[Slynky]

Not so much worried about altering turns or weapons or moves. The hardest kind of cheating to detect would be decrypting the log file and/or the game file or learning other player's passwords. How could that be detected with complete assurance?