MonkeyFiend

yeah and sadly I can see some of the usual suspects now confirming viable hacks for the BC2 PC beta. bollox :*(

am quite saddened to hear about the lack of pbbans streaming support for BC2. The =SM= clan was an old BF2 clan, who finally closed up our servers because of the cheats and namehacking. We would probably left much sooner if it wasn't for the streaming. By locking the server files down, it appears Dice are trying the time-honoured fail of security through obscurity.

I see no problem with this - bf2 was originally intended to adjust the latency comp, interpolations/extrapolation times automatically just like this - but never made it into the finished version (along with many things) I don't use it myself as my pings are stable around 20ms to my clans servers and others in the UK. You can adjust the settings manually by editing the config files - by default its set as 100ms. However you can also do this in-game using the console (~) - so the reality is you don't need to modify config files, you can simply change the values using console commands, just the same as entering a renderer.drawhud type command or similar The only difference between this small app and either editing configs or using console commands is that the app polls the ping values and updates it repeatedly. The only benefit this would have is for players with unstable pings (as the values update) - whereas for people like me, whose ping always sits around 20ms, there is no benefit in using the tool. Ultimately it uses options that are available as in-game commands. Its functionality was origianlly intended in bf2 (if any of you still have the beta copy). It's not a cheat and does not give an advantage over those of us lucky enough to already have decent pings and as such is not a cheat

I've personally found the protect tags thing fairly pointless - everyone in my clan knows each other, so if a random person joins the server using our clan tags they tend not to stay on very long. I've only come across a handful of servers that bother to include such lines in their configs and a large proportion of those only include their own clans tags in their configs. Of more use would be the ability to prevent people maliciously joining other servers using our clan tag (as has happened before) however this relies on the server using (and keeping up to date) a protected.cfg as seen above - to be honest since the list changes so often I probably wouldn't be bothered to maintain this myself :s Surely this would be a candidate for inclusion into the hub - that when a player connects if there is a flag e.g. 'protect tags' ticked in accounts then hub can compare the player against a central protected.cfg repository rather than individual ones on the local servers (whose content will almost certainly be out of date or vary)? Kind of like a master ban list - only a master protected tags list :)

I've had this happen if something has been thrashing the ports... for example a bit torrent client.

I assume one of your other admins would make a new streaming account application and it would go through the same review process

welcome and gratz on the streaming - its the single best thing you can do with a server :)

As previously mentioned the guid is a direct product of the cd key used. While Hardware ID's exist for PB they are not part of the guid. Multiple guids linked to aliases mean that the alias has been used on copies of battlefield that contain different cd-keys and hence guids. For example I have two legitimate guids - my computer and my girlfriends. The setup of the OS etc., doesn't make a difference. However there is another point - someone using a name spoofer to spoof your alias (usually for the purpose of getting your stats reset etc.,) - since they are using their own cd-key they would have their own guid. By name spoofing your alias it will link you alias to their guid too. In my case I have two legit guids - looking at the details all the connection info is from my (UK) IP, then I have a 3rd guid where someone tried to namespoof me and statspad - this guid belongs to someone that I banned from my server, who threatened to hunt me down kill me and wipe my account. The IP of this individual is from a US IP.

Point 1: Name spoofing check - when a player joins a server their guid is calculated, would it not be possible to store a known guid of a player here and when that player connects to a streaming server, check whether it matches the one stored here and kick them if it doesn't? e.g. If a player called monkeyfiend joins a PBbans streaming server and their GUID doesn't match the one I have stored here then a kick is issued? I know you can do similar locally on a server and can do something like this if you pay subscriptions to EB, but something that works accross all pbbans streaming servers would be good. Point 2: Account linking where guids are linked by IP and by alias are useful, however just because a clean guid is linked to a caught guid does not neccessarily prove guilt. 1. it could be a cheater that has acquired a new cd key and generated a new guid 2. A noob could be using a name spoofer to incriminate an innoncent player, so just because they have a linked caught guid, does not necessarily prove them guilty of anything. To differentiate the two, would it be possible to add specific highlighting when a caught & clean guid are linked AND they contain the same aliases/IP range? I believe this would also address a similar post above :) If someone is spoofed they will almost certainly be spoofed by someone on a different IP range (different provider/geographic location) - so this would make it easier to tell whether they are the victim of spoofing or a noob thats been caught and has got themselves a new guid to carry on their mischief. Cheers, MonkeyFiend (sneakymonkeys.com)

we have battlerecorder running 24/7 (sneakymonkeys.com) - it does put a bit of a strain on the server so I wouldn't recommend it for 64 player, 64 size maps :P It runs nicely on multiplay but caused a lot of lag on killercreation when we set it there, so its best just to experiment.

two things, to take control of the server and kick you they need to either have in-game admin or control over bf2cc or similar. Change your bf2cc admin passwords and make sure only your trusted admins have them. I'll assume that the problem is actually in-game admin. It is usually authenticated by alias/PID which is spoofable, something like this in your configs: mm_iga.addAdmin "43649948:all" Change the PID/Alias to the players GUID. It will help prevent hackers from taking over in-game admin accounts by spoofing PID/Name.

really - I was under the impression this created a local file but there was no way of transferring it to a REMOTE site?

If he's coming on with different GUID's you may want to make a local ban based on his IP range.

indeed - now globally banned by evenbalance this means all paparas_on_dope accounts are banned in one way or another. So long, loser.

Hi, Sorry to chip in here: the ban for LameR.NoOb.Gr (http://www.pbbans.com/mbi.php?action=5&ban_id=43005) came as a GUID ban from my server the other day. It listed the =]DH[= Paparas_On_Dope as an alias. Since I know the dirtyheroes, I let them know about this ban, as the player name was familiar. I also did a search for "=]DH[= Paparas_On_Dope" in the master player list - which only returned the banned GUID (ends in 7eb) There is however another account for "Paparas_On_Dope" (guid ends in 89f) which is clean - if this is you then please accept my apologies for the mixup. However I was under the impression that the person playing on the dirtyheroes server was the person with the =]DH[= tags and therefore the person linked to the banned guid, especially since it lists the clean guid as last seen on the *Mine* (193.93.47.158:16568) server on Oct 06, 2007 at 7:25 am. p.s. The DH server was not streaming at the time, which is why I let jagged know So if you are the Paparas_On_Dope with guid that ends in 89f, please accept my apologies for the mixup. thanks, =SM= MonkeyFiend