[Suggestion] A new way to identify hackers!

Then just ignore them, those who need to will surely try to understand both the pros and cons and evaluate. We have awsome staff here that are very factual and to the point who I'm sure will do their best. Perhaps link them in.

 

-1. You can put &7 before ur post and the server considers it an unrecognized symbol so it makes a blank spot. If I did &7.hacktest it would come in global as .hacktest. this works in pm also.

 

To all those this involves please do not post accusatory comments on this thread please. I will start handing out warnings if this continues.

 

Well, how about you learn how to respond to criticism. Also, I've restrained myself from posting bad things on this thread. I stated my opinion and this suggestion is useless.

-2000

 

Okay, will this client have to be coded by us? If so, it isn't really worthwhile given the fact that hacked clients are not a real problem right now.

 

My thought on this suggestion:

Firstly, I strongly dislike the idea of a random server-wide spot check. Practically it would be impossible to implement via man-power. It would be impossible to do by checking off who has said it without checking logs - It couldn't be done in game. Equally an auto-ban plugin is an awful idea. It would a lot people who genuinely are AFK/not watching chat etc. I appreciate that this isn't really what you are suggesting, but thought I would say this anyway.

So your proposal is then to have Staff PM suspected hackers and ask them to use a command beginning with '.'

• This can't be done via PM - /r
• This can't be done in global - /qm ch g .spotcheck (or whatever command you want)
• Even if there was a command which could be done in global, it shouldn't be in global. Lets say a member of staff suspects someone of hacking and asks them to do it and they prove they aren't hacking. The player base will then always be suspicious. Any sign of suspicious activity in SG and the user's past reputation of being asked to do it in global will stick with him. People will accuse them (unfairly) left right and centre based on an earlier false accusation.
• You mention that this would only be done after a member of staff is in conversation with the suspected hacker. Do you not think that people who are genuinely hacking would just ignore staff? It really isn't hard.

I personally think there are too many issues with this to ever be implemented. There was discussion a while ago about spot-checks for users who have previously been banned via taking screenshots with the message requesting it from staff in the screenshot (to avoid logging off). I will try and find that, but the resounding conclusion was a 'no'. It was too invasive and would be a burden on the staff.

 

ch qm is quickmessage, it allows you to chat in a channel with a command.

As for the idea that everyone needs to chat a message starting with a period. lol. Most clients have abolished that system by now. I've seen many that use ~, `, *, #, -, _ and some others. The period is common in only a handful of clients.

This suggestion doesn't work because it relies on hacking clients all using the same system and people being stupid enough to use that system. Not to mention most hacking clients that DO use the periods allow you to the TURN IT OFF. MEANING THE PERIOD KEY DOESN'T WORK. Some hacking clients don't even use chat, they have a separate input box they use for commands.

All in all, this suggestion won't work solely because it relies on hacking clients being EASY TO DETECT (which they're definitely not..)

If you want more info about the rest of your flaws. A similar suggestion was made in the past and it got denied:

 

I personally cannot post pics because of my security settings.

 

I disagree, there are many more. I don't think that this is a good idea and won't implemented for what Kuke said (/qm , /r , '.' not being a universal thing for different hacked clients). But for arguments sake, let just say that using '.' would work and /qm and &7 were removed. There are still issues with this suggestion.

1. Suspected Hacker is afk/ignoring staff.
So, I suspect PlayerX of using a hacked client and I ask him to say .hacktest in global. PlayerX ignores me. Lets say that they are genuinely afk, it is extremely harsh to ban someone for being afk. As for your suggestion that staff would only ask after starting a conversation with them, its very easy to ignore people in PMs. What are my options? Staff have 3 main methods of enforcing rules: Warning, Kicking & Banning.

Warning - What good is a warning? He has just ignored my PM requesting him to say .hacktest in global, why would he listen to my warning? Also, what happens after several warnings, move up the ladder to kicking/banning?

Kicking - This is 100% useless as it legitimises him logging off and removing the hacked client before logging back in.

Banning - We can't ban for ignoring a request to say something in global. If the user is genuinely afk, then it would be unfair to ban for not responding. If we don't ban afk people, doesn't that just make the system pointless as people would always use the excuse they were afk?

2. How public it is
As I said earlier: Lets say a member of staff suspects someone of hacking and asks them to do it and they prove they aren't hacking. The player base will then always be suspicious. Any sign of suspicious activity in SG and the user's past reputation of being asked to do it in global will stick with him. People will accuse them (unfairly) left right and centre based on an earlier false accusation.

Staff would be limited to asking when they had good reason to believe they are hacking, which requires video evidence to be certain of. This shouldn't be something which staff should be able to use regularly as it can have really damaging effects on a innocent person's reputation on the basis of a staff member's gut feeling.
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I want to repeat something that I said in another recent suggestion regarding hacked clients:

I have just searched for 'hacked client' in the Complaints/Appeals forum and gone through all the ban appeals dating back to 1 November 2013, so 6 months. I found 20 successful appeals, of which 18 received a 3 day temp ban or less indicating that they were first time offenders. So it appears that the bit I have underlined in your comment isn't strictly true. The vast majority of people who have been banned for using a hacked client haven't re-offended. If they have, and have been banned, then the fact that they haven't appealed shows that our currently policy is working/that they are no longer an issue. In my opinion having 18 players who have been able to rejoin the community as a result of our policy is worth the 1 or 2 which re-offend.

I disagree that the current situation is as bad as some people make out. It definitely isn't bad enough to warrant such invasive proposals as this.

 

I have about 15 hacking clients installed all for the sake of being up to date with them and knowing what features they offer. only ONE, the one you just named, still relies on periods.
This whole suggestion is flawed in every way possible. Like I said earlier, you're relying on the fact that all clients use periods, while in fact, they do not. (and long ago those that did had a command called .msg which would let you send a message that starts with a period.)

I've been involved with hacking clients for the past 3 years, I know exactly which features the ones I have installed offer and only 1 out of 15 clients I use would get caught with your suggestion. (because that client is missing some functions you'd see in other clients that have been around for longer)

So why would people use the one client that can get caught with this? Why would people not switch clients when they know these spotchecks start happening?

Your suggesting relies on a feature that most clients have abolished, and people will simply stop using the clients that still offer that feature. (Like Huzuni)

 

Okay, so you've consistently demanded that people who reply to this thread provide you with a list of flaws in your suggestion, a list which you mistakenly believe is nonexistent, since you've said that your suggestion is "completely flawless" a number of times. In the interests of mutual understanding, I felt it wise to compile a list of all of the faults with your suggestion already noted, and add a few more of my own.

Firstly, you claim that your suggestion is easier than a video, which is untrue. A global spot check creates, as @nicit6 stated, huge problems for moderators, not to mention your proposed automatic ban after a short period of time. In addition, a user PMing moderators asking them to demand that a user type .hacktest creates more hassle for moderators which is simply unnecessary given the work they already need to do. A video, or screenshots, though perhaps less convenient for the plaintiff involved, is overall more efficient, and if we look at this from a utilitarian perspective, the fact that mods do not have to manually go to all of the effort of gathering evidence is better for everyone, since they have more time to do more useful things.

Secondly, a number of users, myself included, have taken issue with your proposal of an instant ban accorded to any user who fails to complete the hack test, as you put it, either by logging out instantly or not responding at all. An automatic ban system is never a good idea, since it only accounts for people who are active and watching chat. Though users who are afk at any given point in time are a minority, they are a fairly significant minority, and should be accounted for. Your proposal suggests that we (and by we, I mean the moderation team) instantly ban all of these innocent users who have done nothing wrong. You yourself have stated that this remains a major flaw in your case, and yet seem to believe that your suggestion is, to use your words again, "completely flawless". Adding to this, users have every right to ignore moderator communication, especially if not at fault, and furthermore, should have every right to decline, as @nicit6 stated in another similar thread.

Thirdly, users such as @kukelekuuk00 and @Videowiz92 have explained repeatedly that the suggestion wouldn't actually work, whether it be due to bypasses such as & colour codes and /r and /ch qm commands or due to the fact that very few hacked clients actually use full stops to prefix commands. You have stated that you tested this and it did, in fact, act as a bypass, irrespective of whether or not you were actually on a hacked client. Your response to this was that these fairly important commands be disabled to facilitate the implementation of your suggestion, which, as I'm sure someone as intelligent as you can understand, is not only a weak argument but a logistical nightmare. Going on from this, should this suggestion be implemented, what would such a message say? "Please type .hacktest to prove that you are not using a hacked client, except in the event that you do not use a hacked client that requires full stops to prefix commands, in which case please type hacktest prefixed by whatever your client does use"?

Fourthly, ignoring everything above, your suggestion creates an enormous logistical issue that I would argue is far greater than the problem it supposedly solves. Unless you plan to have moderators constantly typing /who in order to see who did and didn't respond to a global broadcast that most people would ignore anyway, and then banning those people, the implementation of your suggestion would require the development, installation and continued updating of a custom plugin solely to enact a draconian auto-ban. This creates unnecessary work for the server's already overworked developers, which, as for moderators, diverts their time from doing other, more useful things.

Finally, it is of my opinion, and the opinion of many others, I am sure, that hacking in SurvivalGames or other PvP outlets is a vey minor issue. ECC is not a PvP server and SurvivalGames is simply a side game where users can have fun, earn a bit of money and support the server via the purchasing of kits. Though there are some users who do utilise hacked clients, they are very much in the minority and the relentless pursuit of their persecution for which you seem to be so passionate and enthusiastic is little more than a glorified witch hunt against users who would be banned regardless of the implementation of your suggestion due to valid complaints made under the status quo.

-1.

 

I'll gladly do that in a PM, but I'd like to keep that out of this suggestion.
If that's all you have as a response to my post then I'll stop trying to convince you, too.

 

Zec, I'm sorry, but it's not going to happen. If you want to prove somebody is hacking, take a video.

 

Nice job adding like 3 download sites for hacked clients as well as a YouTube video on hacked clients. Gg.