Idea for AntiCheat Proggie

[legacy-«pK°»Axxìs]

Obviously the problem with AntiCheat proggies is that some in use are too antiquated and do nothing to deter cheating, while others take seemingly forever to run, which degrades player experience/performance.

For instance, if your'e playing TAM and join a server running AntiTCC (or SafeGame), you can almost count on starting with a -1.

Instead, what if an anticheat mutator were made so that it RANDOMLY checked players connected to a server? That way protection would be in place, but not everyone would be inconvenienced by the checks at the same time. Also, this would preclude someone from enabling cheats AFTER the initial scans had been run.

Wouldn't the fact that somebody could be caught cheating be a deterrent without having to inconvenience every player with anticheat checks every time a new map loads? Maybe the anticheat could temp ban a player until the SysAdmin had time to review the situation whether it be reviewing logs, or a demo (if server-side demos are being performed).

I'm in the military and we have a random drug screening that's a pretty effective deterrent, yet not everyone is inconvenienced by having to be constantly drug tested......this type of anticheat would be a similar approach.

[Wormbo]

The problem is, that deterrence doesn't work against most public cheaters. Many of them cheat because they can, not because they think they won't be caught.
However, I agree that Anti TCC and SafeGame take too long for the initial checks and their age certainly doesn't help either. The problem is, that some checks cannot be spread over several ticks and thus will freeze the client for a second or more.

[legacy-«pK°»Axxìs]

Hey Wormbo!

Wow, I didn't expect to get a reply from the man himself...

Coming from the guy who authored AntiTCC, I'll consider my question answered.....and I can understand how a player's game being paused during a check would be a major turn off.

I guess the only way around that would be to have a client-side proggie that worked in conjunction with a server-side proggie, but I know how people are about allowing things to be installed on their PCs, so again, that would be a major turn off to people.

I personally don't run any anti-cheat proggies on our 2 Clan Servers because I do fulltime server-side demos and if somebody complains, I can simply review the demo and report accordingly. I do, however, have a votable option called "TWL" that puts the server in 4vs4 mode with all the TWL rule specified configs, to include an anti-cheat proggie.

Thanks for your time Wormbo!


Rick

[ProAsm]

I can most certainly sympathize with Wormbo here as many have asked me to go here, but just looking at what needs to be done and how it could be done, is somewhere that I will not be going.
One of the many problems is that the app just gets bigger and bigger as you cannot just dump what you did previous as you update to the latest, and this too is where the lag comes in.
There is only one thing worse than a cheat and that is lag and when your server starts lagging because of an app you are running, the chances are you going to dump the app and put up with the cheater.

[legacy-«pK°»Axxìs]

ProAsm,

I know the whole UT comuninity (including myself) truly appreciates the UT utilities you've created, but I wish I could go back in time and somehow convince you to NOT CREATE THE UBER ANNOYING ZOUNDS.......ha-ha.....

[ProAsm]

LOL, yeah, Zounds was one of those muts that just took off like wildfire.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever emagine that little mut would become so popular, but yeah, depending on what sound file the Admin use, it can be a serious pain in the butt

[legacy-i_doit3d]

I know several server admins who love zounds, including me.

[_Lynx]

then FYI, when client downloads two 3meg packs for zounds and sees the 3rd of the same size starting to download, he leaves.

[Wormbo]

then FYI, when client downloads two 3meg packs for zounds and sees the 3rd of the same size starting to download, he leaves.

Especially without a reasonably fast redirection server or if the client does not have enough bandwidth.

[ProAsm]

then FYI, when client downloads two 3meg packs for zounds and sees the 3rd of the same size starting to download, he leaves.

Yeah the number and size of downloads depends on the Admin.
Zounds itself is only a 270k (190k compressed) download, its the .uax files that the Admin makes that swells the system.

[CVROY]

I posted this in ProAsms' forum... what do you folks think:

Since anticheat in UT2004 is kind of outdated with antitcc the most widely used cheat seems to be radars. Could there be implimented into UT2vote or another server type actor that the server admin can login and then request a screen shot from a client and have it sent to a directory on the server box itself?

I have seen a thingy called punkbuster use this and it's very effective.

Since UT2004 can already take screenshots, would it be difficult to have the client take a shot and send it to the server appending player name and or cd hash to the filename?

[legacy-HornDog_ut2k3]

I posted this in ProAsms' forum... what do you folks think:

Since anticheat in UT2004 is kind of outdated with antitcc the most widely used cheat seems to be radars. Could there be implimented into UT2vote or another server type actor that the server admin can login and then request a screen shot from a client and have it sent to a directory on the server box itself?

I have seen a thingy called punkbuster use this and it's very effective.

Since UT2004 can already take screenshots, would it be difficult to have the client take a shot and send it to the server appending player name and or cd hash to the filename?

... and as with punkbuster just a few lines of code in the right cheat file will disable screen shots. Just like in Quake 4.

[CVROY]

Then set the server that if no screenshot is recieved after X amount of tries they get kicked or session banned... there could be a confirmation message the admin gets or a check by the mutator on the server.

[Wormbo]

I posted this in ProAsms' forum... what do you folks think:

Since anticheat in UT2004 is kind of outdated with antitcc the most widely used cheat seems to be radars. Could there be implimented into UT2vote or another server type actor that the server admin can login and then request a screen shot from a client and have it sent to a directory on the server box itself?

I have seen a thingy called punkbuster use this and it's very effective.

Since UT2004 can already take screenshots, would it be difficult to have the client take a shot and send it to the server appending player name and or cd hash to the filename?

It's not possible to read binary files from UScript. A native anti-cheat tool could do this, though.

[legacy-[SHARP]buzza]

Concerning aimbots mostly, the best anti cheat is "you, me, them, everybody".
I mean detecting an aimbot isn't hard in several cases, and if at least these guys were banned, that would help.
For that, there aren't many solutions, and imho, the best would be that each admin who discovers an aimbotter on his server makes a post about it, with demo, name(s) used on the server and GUID.
A "special commission" (or at least, some trusted admins) may be needed in order to analyse the facts, and take the decision to accept or discard the admin's thoughts, and in case of acceptance, adding his GUID & nick in a public and very clear list.

Then any admins would just have to check that list regulary to update their ban list.

I know UTAN already exists, but that means you have to enable UTAN bans, and I've sometimes seen some wrong bans there, so making a clear list would let any admin choose to ban or not someone from their server.

I'm sure that would really help, but all (most at least) admins have to get involved in it.

(Oh and for that, no need of a server side demorecorder, a simple demo would be enough)

To end it, cvroy's idea is pretty good too imo. Having screenies from each one's computer may be a good way for radars