Dealing with Hackers

[bambam_ofc]

ED has relatively few hackers/exploiters, mainly because the game isn't predominantly a rapid fire first-person-shooter and doesn't particularly appeal to the short-attention-span anti-social element. But ED hackers definitely exist and if you're unlucky enough to get destroyed by one it will seem to you the problem is severe.

Currently the only known hacks require the hacker to be in the same system at the same time as you, in the same instance, hence the element of chance. The current hacking attempts mostly (i) increase the ammo or shields of the hacker and/or (ii) increase the damage dealt by their weapons (there are others, but these are the griefers choice).

(1) There is no point screaming "hacker" with no evidence of any kind - these reports are so unreliable that even though *your* claim is certain to be 100% genuine it is buried in the noise of a hundred other claims with maybe an 80% error rate (if FPS claims are anything to go by).

(2) The best response is to report the player via the game menu, backed up with a video recording, so *before* you get nailed by a hacker install either ShadowPlay (for Nvidia) or Raptr (for AMD). Both of these products provide a 'loop' video recording of your past 5 mins (say) gameplay, which you can save with a hotkey *after* you've decided something is worth recording. A 5 min buffer will require something like 2GB of storage, and the recording can cost you 10% of your framerate.

To get the hacker CMDR info in the video stream I'm sure there are a few key-presses you should quickly do as soon as you think you are in the presence of a hacker, so maybe someone else can comment, e.g. bring up the contacts or comms panel. There's an issue in ED that 'death' kicks you out of any engagement with the game so you might not even know who killed you, with what weapon. If we get an API this would be an obvious add-on (your chat would scroll "Attacker: CMDR Bambam, Pulse lasers")

(* these comments are mainly based on experience gained during the development and use of an admin tool for the Battlefield series over many years, which has been significantly used in detecting and dealing with hackers in that game - the ED hackers are currently amateur in comparison *)

 

[Gogster]

ED has relatively few hackers/exploiters, mainly because the game isn't predominantly a rapid fire first-person-shooter and doesn't particularly appeal to the short-attention-span anti-social element. But ED hackers definitely exist and if you're unlucky enough to get destroyed by one it will seem to you the problem is severe.

Currently the only known hacks require the hacker to be in the same system at the same time as you, in the same instance, hence the element of chance. The current hacking attempts mostly (i) increase the ammo or shields of the hacker and/or (ii) increase the damage dealt by their weapons (there are others, but these are the griefers choice).

(1) There is no point screaming "hacker" with no evidence of any kind - these reports are so unreliable that even though *your* claim is certain to be 100% genuine it is buried in the noise of a hundred other claims with maybe an 80% error rate (if FPS claims are anything to go by).

(2) The best response is to report the player via the game menu, backed up with a video recording, so *before* you get nailed by a hacker install either ShadowPlay (for Nvidia) or Raptr (for AMD). Both of these products provide a 'loop' video recording of your past 5 mins (say) gameplay, which you can save with a hotkey *after* you've decided something is worth recording. A 5 min buffer will require something like 2GB of storage, and the recording can cost you 10% of your framerate.

To get the hacker CMDR info in the video stream I'm sure there are a few key-presses you should quickly do as soon as you think you are in the presence of a hacker, so maybe someone else can comment, e.g. bring up the contacts or comms panel. There's an issue in ED that 'death' kicks you out of any engagement with the game so you might not even know who killed you, with what weapon. If we get an API this would be an obvious add-on (your chat would scroll "Attacker: CMDR Bambam, Pulse lasers")

(* these comments are mainly based on experience gained during the development and use of an admin tool for the Battlefield series over many years, which has been significantly used in detecting and dealing with hackers in that game - the ED hackers are currently amateur in comparison *)

"In comparison, ED hackers are amateur"

How we miss PB now.

 

[Flappers]

In any online game, you will get hackusations, left, right and center.

A recent one was for the community goal. Someone saw that there was an impossible amount of goods being handed in for a community goal by 2 players. Immediately hackusations and the likes were being thrown around.

I mentioned that it could well be just a display bug, but got "told off" (for lack of better words) because it seems that these people want there to be hackers.

Then in a recent thread, someone reported the same issue, but it was his amount that was reported incorrectly, not someone elses. Proving that it was indeed a display bug.

What tends to happen here is that people will explain the unexplainable by throwing out these hackusations.
Getting 1-shotted back in beta... people shouted hacks. Just turned out that missiles were incredibly OP.

There can always be a logical explanation for something that doesn't make sense. And instead of immediately pointing fingers and assuming foul play, people should start looking at these logical explanations before raging on the forums about cheaters.

 

[Gogster]

In any online game, you will get hackusations, left, right and center.

A recent one was for the community goal. Someone saw that there was an impossible amount of goods being handed in for a community goal by 2 players. Immediately hackusations and the likes were being thrown around.

I mentioned that it could well be just a display bug, but got "told off" (for lack of better words) because it seems that these people want there to be hackers.

Then in a recent thread, someone reported the same issue, but it was his amount that was reported incorrectly, not someone elses. Proving that it was indeed a display bug.

What tends to happen here is that people will explain the unexplainable by throwing out these hackusations.
Getting 1-shotted back in beta... people shouted hacks. Just turned out that missiles were incredibly OP.

There can always be a logical explanation for something that doesn't make sense. And instead of immediately pointing fingers and assuming foul play, people should start looking at these logical explanations before raging on the forums about cheaters.

My comment about PB was referring to MD5 scans of game files, there's no ambiguity. If your game files do not match the server scan then you're kicked off the server. Cheat files were even better, but you'd have to be particularly stupid person to leave known cheat files within the game scan.

 

[Flappers]

My comment about PB was referring to MD5 scans of game files, there's no ambiguity. If your game files do not match the server scan then you're kicked off the server. Cheat files were even better, but you'd have to be particularly stupid person to leave known cheat files within the game scan.

Ok... but I didn't quote you or direct my post towards you. I wrote it before your post appeared.

Not sure if this response is relevant to mine :S

 

[Gogster]

Ok... but I didn't quote you or direct my post towards you. I wrote it before your post appeared.

Not sure if this response is relevant to mine :S

It's relevant because you're talking about circumstantial evidence, when the ability to gather irrefutable evidence exists, it just costs money.

 

[Flappers]

It's relevant because you're talking about circumstantial evidence, when the ability to gather irrefutable evidence exists, it just costs money.

Dude... I'm talking about this game in general and what we have experienced on the forum.

I am saying, instead of jumping to conclusions, as people do here, to take a chill pill and think about logical explanations.

As mentioned, my post was in writing before yours appeared, I don't care for PB for this game (it's a terrible AC) or how they deal with cheats in the game.
My post is directed towards players automatically accusing players of cheating when there is no substantial evidence other than something that they cannot explain themselves.

 

[Sotapeikko]

You mean:
"I think there is a bug in community goals"
Answer:
"Hackers must be destroyed!"

 

[dungeonseeker]

Ive looked into hacking quite extensively because of some of the users here swear they've seen them, let's be clear here, HACKERS and not EXPLOITERS.

My findings were quite surprising, I've seen no evidence of large scale 'pay2win' hacks being available at all. Things like aimbots are non existent.

A few sites claim they can do ESP/Wallhack type stuff.

One guy claims he has a 'bot' which he can leave playing his game while he's away, again no evidence, just a claim.

By far the most prolific is XML cheating, I've seen instructions on how to increase weapon strength and hull strength by intercepting data in memory and changing it.

Honestly I'd wager most of the claimed hackers are simply bugs and glitches which look like hackers.

 

[Gogster]

Dude... I'm talking about this game in general and what we have experienced on the forum.

I am saying, instead of jumping to conclusions, as people do here, to take a chill pill and think about logical explanations.

As mentioned, my post was in writing before yours appeared, I don't care for PB for this game (it's a terrible AC) or how they deal with cheats in the game.
My post is directed towards players automatically accusing players of cheating when there is no substantial evidence other than something that they cannot explain themselves.

I agree.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Ive looked into hacking quite extensively because of some of the users here swear they've seen them, let's be clear here, HACKERS and not EXPLOITERS.

My findings were quite surprising, I've seen no evidence of large scale 'pay2win' hacks being available at all. Things like aimbots are non existent.

A few sites claim they can do ESP/Wallhack type stuff.

One guy claims he has a 'bot' which he can leave playing his game while he's away, again no evidence, just a claim.

By far the most prolific is XML cheating, I've seen instructions on how to increase weapon strength and hull strength by intercepting data in memory and changing it.

Honestly I'd wager most of the claimed hackers are simply bugs and glitches which look like hackers.

This has often been the case, many sites will attempt to get players looking for cheats to part with money for a simple EXE that does very little or is an already detected cheat. It's tough to enlighten people that those that write cheats are not the most trustworthy people and will rip you off, given the chance.

 

[bambam_ofc]

Honestly I'd wager most of the claimed hackers are simply bugs and glitches which look like hackers.

yeah - reducing the noise level was mostly the point I wanted to make.

But so long as hackers can't create new ED accounts, bans are the most effective because the banned hack users will cry on the hacking forums.

 

[Skip Intro]

Perhaps a quick Google will lead you to the 40+page thread that shows that there are some very clever people reverse engineering the game to successfully do things you probably wouldn't like should I describe them to you.

 

[bambam_ofc]

Perhaps a quick Google will lead you to the 40+page thread that shows that there are some very clever people reverse engineering the game to successfully do things you probably wouldn't like should I describe them to you.

Not sure who the 'you' is there but I don't think anyone's denying the existence of ED hacks. They're at an early stage though. Luckily most hack *users* are a lot dumber than the couple of guys currently working on the hack mods.

 

[Skip Intro]

... I don't think anyone's denying the existence of ED hacks. They're at an early stage though.

I would love to disabuse you of that opinion with a link to the complexity of what's being done, but that is a strict no-no. I can only refer you to the loving arms of Google, who will help you with some of the "Unknowns".

 

[nosscar]

I use raptr, works fine on my single monitor setup.
As in the OP, i find the quickest way to get your attacker info shown, is to a target nearest hostile. (if he is red) otherwise select next target. i have these bound to my joystick.

 

[Abil Midena]

In any online game, you will get hackusations, left, right and center....

That's because there is so much cheating in every online game, left, right, and center.

Then you get the cheaters (I'm not accusing anyone here of cheating) coming onto the forums to say anything to make people think there's no cheating...."you're just bad"..."it's a game flaw"..."you can't prove it"...and on and on.

I'll wait to see how FD reacts to the cheaters, but the developers in other games largely ignore it. Punkbuster? Laughable. Player reporting? Goes into black hole.

The only way to stop it is for devs to go after the top cheat sites by legal means. And that won't happen because it's not profitable for them to do so.

What we have is an endemic cheat problem with online gamers. It's so bad, people will show up to defend cheaters saying "they're not hurting anyone" or "why do you care" or "it's just a game", etc, etc. It's sickening.

For me, cheating is the primary reason I avoid Open. If some dude is a better pilot, or catches me with my pants down refueling at a star, so be it. But when he can download crap to take away fairness, that's when I'm out.

edit* BTW, the way to deal with hackers is to play Solo and pray they don't muck up the economy.

 

[Briarée]

In any online game, you will get hackusations, left, right and center.

A recent one was for the community goal. Someone saw that there was an impossible amount of goods being handed in for a community goal by 2 players. Immediately hackusations and the likes were being thrown around.

I mentioned that it could well be just a display bug, but got "told off" (for lack of better words) because it seems that these people want there to be hackers.

Then in a recent thread, someone reported the same issue, but it was his amount that was reported incorrectly, not someone elses. Proving that it was indeed a display bug.

What tends to happen here is that people will explain the unexplainable by throwing out these hackusations.
Getting 1-shotted back in beta... people shouted hacks. Just turned out that missiles were incredibly OP.

There can always be a logical explanation for something that doesn't make sense. And instead of immediately pointing fingers and assuming foul play, people should start looking at these logical explanations before raging on the forums about cheaters.

while there ARE bugs, and some, like you described very well btw, could be wrongly reported as such, there is ALSO real hacks going on.

it has been reported (strange, can't find the relevant thread anymore on this forum, were they deleted?), with many proof mainly videos.

also, a simple google search with "elite dangerous" plus a very simple word bring a very active forum detailing what can be hacked, with a LOT of technical details on how they do it, describing the methods FDEV used to "counter" it etc...

notably, they are thrilled because of the FDEV implementation:

fdev obfuscated only the critical value, making them really easy to find, and used a 3 layer obfuscation process, the external one being a google compression method.

also, while they are unable to freeze the actual values, they can however freeze the updating process of said value.

while there are several method to give money, they advise not to do it because it is easy to get caught and advise to use a bot (which they also made available it seems) to generate CR.

among other things, they can "freeze" fuel, hull, shield, increase weapon damage/hit, jump distance up to 2000LY, give insta jump bypassing mass lock.
so far they failed to maniupulate modules health value, but i guess it's matter of time before they can.

they also managed to modify the xml in order to change ships modules:

----this will change the FSD from and D2 to an A6, this comes in realy handy if you just got that shiny new annie or T9


* a few lines of code to do the above *


---- 7D to 7A Thrusters

* a few lines of code to do the above *

and

The below script does the following so far:
1) print out all offsets
2) LogOffSky
3) Nullify Hull Damage
4) Recover Fuel Consumption
5) Nullify Energy Consumption
6) Disable station timer (landing/Take-Off)
7) multiply enemy damage by x100
8) Freez Ammo (including heat sinks, cell banks..etc
9)Shield Freeze and deny enemy from recovering shield
10) Update Shield pointer by triggering silent running

is this detailed enought for you?

there IS hacking going on, granted it might not be widespread yet, but as time passes, the more fishy thing happen, the more ppl encounter such players. it's a matter of time before this game turn into a massive hackfest, really time for FDEV to step in hard.

edit:

just today, the following was posted right here:

So I was half way through my first rares run in my new kitted Asp... and I got interdicted in anarchy space by a sidewinder coming at me with pulse lasers. Took my shields down in under one second (yeah, they went down really fast, and I know A3 shields aren't great... but that wasn't what worried me), and then single shot killed my hull. I didn't even go from 100, to 50, or nothing. 100% straight to 0% in a single hit. Good job hackers, you've ruined the game for yet another player.

Can I open a ticket? This is unfortunate, as I would vastly prefer to play in open as I like playing with players. But I only get a couple hours a night to play, and this guy just cost me 600k and my entire night. I'm done

from this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=118129

 

[Flappers]

while there ARE bugs, and some, like you described very well btw, could be wrongly reported as such, there is ALSO real hacks going on.

it has been reported (strange, can't find the relevant thread anymore on this forum, were they deleted?), with many proof mainly videos.

also, a simple google search with "elite dangerous" plus a very simple word bring a very active forum detailing what can be hacked, with a LOT of technical details on how they do it, describing the methods FDEV used to "counter" it etc...

notably, they are thrilled because of the FDEV implementation:

fdev obfuscated only the critical value, making them really easy to find, and used a 3 layer obfuscation process, the external one being a google encryption method.

also, while they are unable to freeze the actual values, they can however freeze the updating process of said value.

while there are several method to give money, they advise not to do it because it is easy to get caught and advise to use a bot (which they also made available it seems) to generate CR.

among other things, they can "freeze" fuel, hull, shield, increase weapon damage/hit, jump distance up to 2000LY, give insta jump bypassing mass lock.
so far they failed to maniupulate modules health value, but i guess it's matter of time before they can.

is this detailed enought for you?

there IS hacking going on, granted it might not be widespread yet, but as time passes, the more fishy thing happen, the more ppl encounter such players. it's a matter of time before this game turn into a massive hackfest, really time for FDEV to step in hard.

Take a chill pill...

I'm not denying the existence of cheats in the game... never said that.
Instead of reading between the lines and assuming the worst, read what is written.

I'm merely stating that there are a lot of hackusations on this forum, which later turn out to be bugs.
I know that cheats do exist, but they are far from widespread as people make them out to be.

Take a step back and chill out.

If you keep encountering cheaters in the game, then either
1. I'm very very lucky not to have come across any yet (and yes, I play open)
2. They may not be cheating, and are being accused with no valid evidence.

As mentioned, there are cheaters, but there are not as many as everyone makes out.

 

[Phier]

In any online game, you will get hackusations, left, right and center.

A recent one was for the community goal. Someone saw that there was an impossible amount of goods being handed in for a community goal by 2 players. Immediately hackusations and the likes were being thrown around.

I mentioned that it could well be just a display bug, but got "told off" (for lack of better words) because it seems that these people want there to be hackers.

Then in a recent thread, someone reported the same issue, but it was his amount that was reported incorrectly, not someone elses. Proving that it was indeed a display bug.

What tends to happen here is that people will explain the unexplainable by throwing out these hackusations.
Getting 1-shotted back in beta... people shouted hacks. Just turned out that missiles were incredibly OP.

There can always be a logical explanation for something that doesn't make sense. And instead of immediately pointing fingers and assuming foul play, people should start looking at these logical explanations before raging on the forums about cheaters.

Thats not how proof works. I've been accused of hacking when I was not in online games back when hacking was just becoming a "thing" so I agree the accusations can be wrong, but just as people throw hack around a lot, people try to make up scenarios where its not a hack as well. There can be a legitimate bug, "I was under attack by 10 ships and my shields never went down" and that doesn't mean that there is no shield hack and that its always the bug.

 

[Vandyl]

Take a chill pill...

I'm not denying the existence of cheats in the game... never said that.
Instead of reading between the lines and assuming the worst, read what is written.

I'm merely stating that there are a lot of hackusations on this forum, which later turn out to be bugs.
I know that cheats do exist, but they are far from widespread as people make them out to be.

Take a step back and chill out.

If you keep encountering cheaters in the game, then either
1. I'm very very lucky not to have come across any yet (and yes, I play open)
2. They may not be cheating, and are being accused with no valid evidence.

As mentioned, there are cheaters, but there are not as many as everyone makes out.

You are being very naive here. What draws the hackers to this game, in droves, is the ease at which it can be hacked. That in turn brings in those that get their jollies using what others have created to play in "god mode". The problem is far more widespread than you think.