Proctecting a BC2 Server

[feeblemedic]

I post the following to try and help anyone that is unlucky enough to have the job of providing anti-cheat protection to a bc2 server. Its just a basic outline of my understanding of the process with questions where my limited knowledge of the issues end.

 

I start with the following statments which I belive to be true.

 

A.) Its impossible to catch all players who cheat/hack in your bc2 server.

 

B.) With the proper precautions its possible to catch some of the hackers that play on your bc2 server and prevent some known hackers from playing on your server altogether.

 

Based on the above I ask...

 

What is the best course of action to prevent/catch hackers in your bc2 server?

 

The following is my very basic understanding of this process.

 

Basic Anti-Cheat Protection:

 

1. Basic protection is provided by Even Balance's punkbuster software which is included in every bc2 installation and only requires a bc2 server admin to turn punkbuster on for the most basic anti-cheat protection. (Punkbuster is required to run on ranked servers).

 

 

Moderate Anti-Cheat Protection:

 

2. Modify the punkbuster config files running on your bc2 server to include MD5 checks. Info on doing this can be found on pbbans under the Master Config Index. Subscribe to the thread that announces new MD5 checks for bc2 and update your files as necessary.

 

a. Are there other sources for MD5 checks besides PBbans? If so, how do they differ from those at pbbans?

b. Are there different methods of using MD5 checks or even an alternate type of check?

c. Why doesn't punkbuster automatically include these checks?

 

Advanced Anti-Cheat Protection

 

3. Make your bc2 server stream to a MBI such as that offered by pbbans. Streaming your server to a MBI allows you to prevent cheaters caught in other streaming servers from even entering your server and allows cheaters caught in your server to be automatically banned in other streaming servers.

 

a. There are alternate steaming MBI providers such as:

1. Punksbusted

2. GGC-Stream

3. GV

 

What are there advantages/disadvantages to streaming to these alternate providers specifically? (are there streaming providers besides the ones i mentioned above?)

b. Should I stream to all of them? some of them? Does steaming to more than one provider increase the anti-cheat protection of my bc2 server?

 

4. Screen shots on Bc2 are virtually useless because they can often be returned totally black by non-cheating players.

 

Please evaluate each of my statements (A & B); (1-4) for accuracy. Additionally, please fill in my lettered questions (a,b,c) under each number if you can increase my understanding of those areas. Any additional information that may help me or others in this endeavour is greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[feeblemedic]

any chance of getting some feedback on the issues i have above? Anything more that can be done?

[Gutshot]

any chance of getting some feedback on the issues i have above? Anything more that can be done?

 

Welp, I didn't realize that PB didn't automatically include the MD5 updates for BC2. I guess I should pay attention more. Good advice.

[Everson]

Things to be cautious of are the number of checks and the frequency of those checks. Our MCi config's are optimized for the checks that we do, however, adding mass additional checks, or incorrectly coded checks could result in lag, or false kicks.

 

We only have verified known cheats within our config's - we can't really comment on the integrity of other checks (you should update your server with new MCi config's regularly). MD5 checks are the only type of automated checks as the Battlefield series does not support CVAR checks.

 

PunkBuster doesn't automatically include the checks as they first need to obtain cheat files in order to be able to code up the detection system to catch them. However, EB does update it's detections every now and again which is why new violation numbers appear out of the blue.

 

While we won't comment on other AC organisations and their operations in depth but in general - PBBans has the most stringent application requirements in order to protect the integrity of the community. Those that don't have such stringent requirements, in the very least, are likely to have a ban list which doesn't hold complete integrity.

 

As to whether or not people stream to other AC organisations that's their choice. One could argue it increases protection however another could argue that it reduces the integrity of your team's anti-cheat effort.

[Pisi-Deff]

A.) Its impossible to catch all players who cheat/hack in your bc2 server.

 

B.) With the proper precautions its possible to catch some of the hackers that play on your bc2 server and prevent some known hackers from playing on your server altogether.

A: Technically not true... you could kick everybody who's even just a bit suspicious... so: "Its impossible to catch all players who cheat/hack in your bc2 server without sacrificing legit players."

B: True

 

Moderate Anti-Cheat Protection:

Advanced Anti-Cheat Protection

Except that getting access to our MCi requires streaming to us.

a. Are there other sources for MD5 checks besides PBbans? If so, how do they differ from those at pbbans?

Most AC streaming sites offer MD5tool checks and they probably differ from eachother quite a lot. Take this as biased but my opinion is that our checks are the best around.

b. Are there different methods of using MD5 checks or even an alternate type of check?

No.

c. Why doesn't punkbuster automatically include these checks?

Because we are not punkbuster, nor are we EvenBalance. They can code checks directly into PB, we cannot.

 

4. Screen shots on Bc2 are virtually useless because they can often be returned totally black by non-cheating players.

Fun fact, some cheats require DirectX 9 to run, therefore no anti-aliasing to stop PBSS. Some of those use PBSS blockers though... so...

 

Welp, I didn't realize that PB didn't automatically include the MD5 updates for BC2. I guess I should pay attention more. Good advice.

It doesn't do that for any game...

 

~

/*Pisi*/

[Gutshot]

It doesn't do that for any game...

 

~

/*Pisi*/

 

Dam, thought the PB Update in the servers CP did that. I learn more here by accident, then elsewhere by design. Thanks Gents, I will pay more attention to details now. Maybe explains why my servers have such a low number of bans, despite having decent traffic. I thought cheaters were just afraid of hacking on my servers, haha! (J.K.)

[feeblemedic]

thank you gentlemen for your information, very helpful; i hope this thread helps others understand and implement these steps as needed.