Guest Pham Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Most of the posts I read on a search for cheating were regarding the PBEM files that are generated, and it seems that the encryption is generally assumed to stop tampering. But, what's to stop someone for actually editing the program and fudging the numbers that are crunched in the turn completion mode(whatever it's called... the one right before the movie is generated). Wouldn't this give someone a decisive edge on 1/2 the turns in a game? Or, am I mistaken in how the game figures results. I'm going on the assumption that the computations for the turn results are done on an alternating basis between both opponents computers. So, if I have control of the game results for 1/2 the game and I can mess around with those results, how could I lose? If for half the game my infantry has twice the moral, only takes damage on 1 out of four hits, and my tanks are 4 times as accurate, then I win. The problem seems to be that you can't tell if it happened. I'm assuming the PBEM files that are generated only hold turn info for the other side and not the actual numbers used to figure the results, which means there's nothing to compare the file against because the hacked program keeps all the evidence and doesn't mess with the PBEM. And, more importantly, if it can be done, it will probably become common knowledge because hackers can't keep from bragging. Then it'll be that anyone with a hex editor and a set of instructions pulled from a search engine can ensure victory with a couple minutes work. And once it becomes apparent that you can cheat, the accusations start flying and any ladder system or the like becomes impossible. I'm basing the end results on battlenet's fiasco with multiplayer Diablo, and similar tales(like Ultima Online "the cheat-proof game" that kept having to have exploits and cheat plugged left and right after it went gold.) Granted, the average person playing CM isn't going to want to cheat, but if one person wants to it seems like they could do it transparently. And I'm willing to bet that at least one person out there will want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Pham, 1. You cannot see the movies after generating them SO how would you know what to edit? You don't even know what happened in the game so how would you know what to edit? Editing requires knowing what normally happens and then changing itr. In CM you can't know what happens so cheating etc goes out the window. In any case, anyone who is sad enough to edit EVERY pBEM turn they generate likely has much bigger problems than just wanting to win the game ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knaust Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 lol@bigger problems Fionn..he he Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest titan Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 All that work just to win a game wow,now who would want to go through all that drama i think id rather lose.Anyway once you cheat you've not only lost but you've cheated yourself.So if anyone wants to go through all that to win,well all i could say is good on you.just dont offer to play me. Now imagine if they also had 3-4games on the trot at once.mental hospital anyone ------------------ AUCK New Zealand Superpower waiting to happen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Pham, don't forget that the critical data and such are encrypted. Encryption can be broken, of course, but doing so might well cause the broken game to be incompatible with standard versions, similar to the compatibility issues in the CC3 mods bonanza. Hacker screws up the way his copy of CM "looks" and no other copy of CM will wanna play with his. Or do I miss something somewhere? DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pham Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Well, my main concern with what I wrote is that if someone does do it that it will seriously damage the ability to do ladders, or whatnot. Fionn, I understand your skepticism at the work involved, but when searching on cheating here I read an older post of yours that mentioned someone you suspected of generating each turn repeatedly and doing fly-overs(I believe) of the entire map step by step to reveal your positions. Consider the work and mindset involved with that. Using a hex editor to alter a program wouldn't take much more time and would be undetectable(unlike shelling hidden opponents), and effortless after program was altered. It also requires no knowledge of what happens in the PBEM round at all to accomplish. I'll email you more info on this, Fionn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Pham, That was in Steel Panthers. Quite literally 5 minutes work would allow him to spot every one of my units by moving his. Then he simply reloaded the turn and made his moves in perfect knowledgeof where I was. It is PRECISELY what this guy did that CM does NOT allow . See, in CM you can't recon by movement and then replot in the light of what you discover since you don't get to see the results of your recon before sending the movie. As for the hex-editing thing.. Well given that the data is encrypted etc it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble. Of course no-one can ever prevent cheating you can just make it really tough. In CM they'd need to hack to see what happened in the movie they are sending off, then they'd need to figure out the encryption THEN they'd need to figure out what to edit to change the results seamlessly. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hough Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 There are good ways of making sure both copies of cm are using the same unit data. I would assume they're being used. Now, perhaps the email data could be messed with, to change it around so email data from a hacked cm looks like normal, but I would think it would be quite hard. If you're seriously concerned about being cheated, you can just play tcp/ip. The data stays in cm's control, and there should be no problems. -John Hough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 I don't think cheating will be much of a problem with CM because of it's supporters. Somehow I don't think wargamers like to cheat like players in games like Diablo and that kind of games. What's the point in cheating in wargames anyway? It's no glory except the glory for yourself as I see it and if you cheat you cheat yourself. You'll get low self esteem because you didn't vanquish your enemy without cheating. Deep inside you will know that YOU didn't beat him, YOU weren't good enough. I'm not trying to show superior morale here only stating a fact. I must admit I've used cheats for all the weapons or full ammo etc on action games but never on multiplayer, it would be the ultimate disgrace being taken in cheating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest L Tankersley Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 I think BTS mentioned at some point that checksums were used to verify the applications were using consistent data. It is possible to edit data in memory to cheat, so TCP/IP play isn't in and of itself secure. I think this was one of the problems with the online RPGs like UO. Leland J. Tankersley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hough Posted December 3, 1999 Share Posted December 3, 1999 Well, yes, but it does make it harder to tamper with the security features that are in place... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumbo Posted December 4, 1999 Share Posted December 4, 1999 Cheating is something I know a fair bit about having spent many months combating it. FWIW without a verifying source (such as each cleint being forced to log into a live server at the same time) and a realtime packet analyzer, cheating can happen. Actually even with these safeguards cheating can happen. We can go over the details if ya like (although I dont want to give anybody ideas) but the truth of the matter is that given time you will be able to cheat even with encrypted data (coz yu bust/poke the EXE not the savegame file). The best you can get is the ability to stop casual cheating then go on trust. I think CM's current system is about as good as you can do with a boxed game. Thankfully the little boys who think cheating in games is somehow hard (a medium sized housecat could hack a computer game) dont plague wargames as much as other genres so I wouldnt expect it to be too much of a problem. _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pham Posted December 4, 1999 Share Posted December 4, 1999 A PBEM file(no password) that vindicates my suspicions: PBEM File. What's wrong with this picture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxm2 Posted December 4, 1999 Share Posted December 4, 1999 I know! I know! Look what I spotted, about 3/4's of the way down: wmvW1x5E7?UihoI01BeS2FmdUDj0PT5uWk3UT60Y8ME3k1JbqyibjI'm=a=big=fat=cheater9igTfxFA986QCnZF : ) Sorry. Couldn't resist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mikeman Posted December 4, 1999 Share Posted December 4, 1999 Well Pham, you've intrigued me with the PBEM file. Can you explain the point to someone like me who finds reloading Windows98 a totally challenging and rewarding experience. Mikeman out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pham Posted December 4, 1999 Share Posted December 4, 1999 Mikeman: Possibly. The point is that using an altered program for the German side, I managed to radically and obviously change how the Tiger tank in Last Defense behaved on both sides of the PBEM. It doesn't matter that I'm the only one with a hacked file. This isn't supposed to happen, which is why the PBEM file is encrypted; to prevent tampering with the generated movie. Well, I can't alter the movie, but I could certainly control it's outcome. BTW, just noticed that the link doesn't work right. You need to right click and choose "save as", or "save link as", or something similar or it will just open the PBEM file in your browser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mikeman Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 Thanks Pham! How long did it take you to do the necessary hacking? I hope a long time. That way not many people will do it, even if they have the skills required. It is very interesting though. Mikeman out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold Jones Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 The really annoying thing about this sort of hacking is that sooner or later somebody makes a tool to make it easier and then they or one of their friends decides to distribute it on the web. They will do this for several reasons the most common one being the "fame" they get from writing the program. ------------------ If something cannot be fixed by hitting it or by swearing at it, it wasn't worth saving anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pham Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 Mikeman: The time spent on the demo was very short indeed. Under 5 minutes to take an educated guess, change a couple things, and then load the game and see that it worked. Then less than an hour to poke around and find specifically what does what and I could now change stats in under a minute. I was told that the final has an encrypted executable, which should discourage casual attempts at changing things around. Harold Jones: Yep, it would be very easy to make a utility for that(for the demo at least). While I disagree with some others on the notion that no wargamers will cheat, I'm hoping that it's true that making a front end editor for CM wouldn't bring much fame. Probably would bring a certain degree of shame for anyone who also plays CM, I imagine. People who play Quake, or Unreal Tournament(good game, btw) would spare no praise for someone who let them cheat, but judging from the people who post on this board I don't think the reaction would be the same over CM. However, that dosn't mean I think nobody at all would use an editor if one came out. I just don't think they'd be real keen on discussing it. It's better to make editing the game harder, and to make using a edited copy of the game against an unsuspecting opponent harder still. This has nothing to do with the post above: Why is it that I can just delete the [This message has been edited..] note that's tacked on when I edit a message? This is my third revision(spelling errors, and forgot one thing) and it only has one Has been edited by message now. Not very important, but just found it odd. Also, why does the system here thank me for editing my message? I would think if anything it should berate me for messing up in the first place. "Thank you for screwing up" seems wrong to me somehow. [This message has been edited by Pham (edited 12-08-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 Pham has been good enough to pass on the hacks etc to me and I've passed them on too. FWIW what he did would be, at the least, much more difficult in the released version and, hopefully, any workarounds he can find will also be tackled. One nice thing about nice hackers like Pham is that he came to me with the files since he was worried about hacking since all he wanted was to have them fixed. Bet he wishes he'd hacked our PBEM now though LOL ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold Jones Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 Pham, I agree that most of the people who play CM will not have any praise or respect for the hacker who posts the cheat utility, but the thing to remember is that the guy who does this sort of thing will probably be quite delighted with any attention he receives positive or negative. ------------------ If something cannot be fixed by hitting it or by swearing at it, it wasn't worth saving anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted December 8, 1999 Share Posted December 8, 1999 The ability to apply your personal energy on a project and, with time, get results is an accomplishment. The results, such as a hacked product, may be regarded by most people as immoral. Since morality varies from creative person to creative person it is inevitable that the two worlds will collide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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