Been banned due to an error on EvenBalance's part? Fight Back!

[the_minds_eye]

If you were globally banned by www.evenbalance.com and you know you have never cheated this is the post for you. Were you banned because your GUID was spoofed by a hacker, your key was stolen by spyware, or due to negligence on the part of evenbalance.com? Its time to make yourself heard. Drop and e-mail to evenbalance's generic representatives at [email protected] or representative Glenn Courington <[email protected]>. Below is the e-mail I sent to evenbalance to give you some ideas.

 

 

I have submitted a trouble ticket which was closed without even bothering to notify me. It seems that your company fails to recognize the fact that you exist as a service provider. Du to this fact, I would think customer service would matter to you. Perhaps I'm mistaken, everything I've seen thus far indicates an unwillingness to even attempt to resolve issues which occur with your product. As your product can, in effect, devalue another person's personal property, I would think you would consider your potential liability as powerful motivation to work with consumers when issues arise.

 

Before you provide the canned answer which you have offered to the other individuals who have approached your organization regarding this issue. I AM NOT REQUESTING A NEW CD KEY. I am requesting something which I know FOR A FACT is within your power. Which is to consider for a moment that you may be in error in banning a GUID in the first place, or that the GUID was being spoofed by an individual (it is possible, there are plenty of GUID spoofing utillities, I found several just googling) and therefore whoever was spoofing the GUID has no doubt moved on to an ID which has not yet been banned.

 

Below is an excerpt from my trouble ticket (which was ignored), please read it in its entirety before simply fobbing off some non-sensical garbage on me. In my post I do not insult your intelligence. Do not insult mine in your answer.

 

My problem is regarding your modus operandi with your global ban list. I wonder perhaps why you do not have an appeal process for people who's GUID's have been banned due to an error on your part or due to theft or intentional data-manipulation.

 

You have made statements to an associate of mine that you could not un-ban his GUID because that would allow the cheater to play again; this is ludicrous. If my associate is telling the truth (which I know for a fact that he is) then either you made a mistake (I'm sure that never happens?) or his key was stolen or spoofed. If his key was stolen or someone was spoofing his ID, then as soon as it was banned the offender would no doubt have moved onto another ID. Or are you seriously suggesting that these individuals can spoof an ID once but never again? Or were only able to steal one key? I'm not that naive, are you?

 

The second problem I have is your solution to resolve issues of this nature is basically that a person must replace the game which utilizes your product in order to correct the issue. If the ban is in fact a result of an error on your part then you are in fact liable for replacement. By globally banning a hardware ID or GUID you have materially damaged another person's property and if said damage is the direct result of negligence (or intentional tampering) on your part then you are the responsible party for rectifying this situation. If this has happened significant number of times this could even become an actionable case on a larger scale (can you say class action suit?). From briefly researching; I have found a significant number of forums which contain posts from users who claim to have damages to their software that result from your product (ie they can no longer fully utilize their software due to your global ban list). I know what you're thinking and don't even get me started on the boiler-plate you guys attach to your product to protect yourselves, it doesn't indemnify you against damages resulting from your own negligence. You know as well as I do that in civil actions the juries almost always side with individuals over corporations unless the corporation has Ironclad proof that the person in question was indeed the party at fault. In this case you stated in direct correspondence that you could not prove that he cheated or who had cheated using his GUID. Therefore you have no proof he is the one at fault.

 

Also, I would like to inquire as to how you profit in this arrangement with the software developers. If you are charging the software developers (a cost which they would no doubt pass on to consumers) to include your product, then damaging said product through negligence (or god forbid intentional action on your part) then forcing the person to repurchase the product resulting in net profit to your organization, then the term fraud could easily be applied to this scenario.

 

It seems far more reasonable for you to allow at least one appeal. If the person in question had their GUID banned due to a mistake on your part or due to an individual spoofing their GUID then likely no further issues should occur after the id is un-banned. If they legitimately should be banned they will no doubt be caught again. For that matter just because a person has cheated once doesn't mean they would not learn the error of their ways. If your product is as effective as you claim, giving consumers who claim to have been wrongly accused a second chance should cause no harm. Unless, that is, of course your primary aim is to force consumers to buy new copies of software which results in a profit for you.

 

Again, I would like to request in the interest of fair business practices that you at least consider my request to remove the GUID - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx from your global ban list.

 

 

Spread the word, if you post this message on a couple forums and others do the same perhaps those of us who have been wronged by evenbalance's Draconian tactics may be able to get a fair chance.

[UrGonnaDie]

the game maker contracts Evenbalance to put there software in the game and u as the consumer AGREE to install there product. Plain and simple. Evenbalance does care about there trouble tickets and they investigate for possible flaws in there diffrent violations and only they know what violation means what. I dont see u gaining anything from this post at all there buddy...... if your banned from EB i would expect the same outcome here. ;)

Edited February 24, 2009 by UrGonnaDie

[the_minds_eye]

the game maker contracts Evenbalance to put there software in the game and u as the consumer AGREE to install there product. Plain and simple. Evenbalance does care about there trouble tickets and they investigate for possible flaws in there diffrent violations and only they know what violation means what. I dont see u gaining anything from this post at all there buddy...... if your banned from EB i would expect the same outcome here. ;)

 

Two things, A) I've not been banned. My clan runs a server which runs PB (ludicrously inefective but REQUIRED for RANKED servers) one of our members was banned for no reason. They claim his GUID (based on his cd key) was used to cheat. A, they have no proof of this, B they do not care to resolve the issue as obviously they have closed my trouble tickets w/ NO RESPONSE (it hasn't just been given no respone, they literally closed them). The requests numerous members of our clan have made on our clan-mates behalf have gotten a response which is clearly canned (a pre-prepared response).

 

part B) of my response to your response is that you purchase software w/ the implied assumption that the provider, and by extension any organizations they associate with (evenbalance) will not INTENTIONALLY DAMAGE YOUR PRODUCT and force you to buy another one.

 

Look at this another way, if I lease you a car w/ the provision that you will be the only driver and then someone steals your license plate and puts it on a similar car and runs a redlight. I then impose a penalty on you for violation of our contract, claiming that you let another person drive the vehicle breaching our contract. You did not in fact let another person drive the car, they simply stole the license plate. You would have a legal right to contest any penalties I might impose on you correct? And lemme tell you, you would win said case easily.

 

Come on, think or at least bother to fully read the post.

[RodeoBob]

PBBans is a private anti-cheat site. We are not owned, controlled, or managed by EvenBalance, Inc. Therefore, your comments here are not exactly fitting for the visitors to our site. You obviously are attempting to get your clan mate unbanned...posting here will not get the ban lifted. Also, we cannot condone a post that incites others to spam EvenBalance and demand things beyond our control. While you are correct on some points, your friend needs to thoroughly read the PunkBuster EULA and then take up his issue with EvenBalance, Inc. via their ticket support system.

[UrGonnaDie]

INTENTIONALLY DAMAGE YOUR PRODUCT and force you to buy another one.

 

Thats just plain dumb the person hacking damaged there product....... well not really it is still playable he can play on the non pb servers along with all the other free roaming hackers. And EB proablly dont care about what your saying because either A. they want the ticket from the person banned so they can get the most info available not one of your clan mates. or B. they know he did hack and are not gonna remove it.

 

Honestly i personally think u gain nothing by bringing this to an AC site. Where any of us SGA's will stand behind EB in a common goal to keep our server clean

Edited February 24, 2009 by UrGonnaDie

[Duality]

I stuck the e-mail in spoiler tags, it was a bit massive - so that will collapse it until someone wants to read it in it's entirety.

 

As RodeoBob says, this is probably not the best place to be posting this. We do not have any kind of influence or control over Evenbalance - and the users here are the least likely people to have a global ban they want to contest.

 

I am debating whether I leave your post as it is - it is inciting spam to Evenbalance, which would only make things worse for people wanting to contest their bans.

 

As for the thread, I will take a step back from the discussion for now. As long as participants keep it clean and respectful - I won't have a reason to come back in ;)

[the_minds_eye]

If you please, allow me to address your responses out of order.

 

First, your response that the product has not been damaged. This is incorrect. To be a ranked server one must run PB and tournaments are only held on ranked servers. Also almost all major clans run PB to secure their RANKED status. Thus for participation in clan or tournaments, both of which may be a part of the reason a player would consider purchasing a product, pb is required. By being banned from PB you no longer have this option which for some players makes the game essentially useless. Even setting this aside you have cut the number of available servers and thus the functionality of a player's game. Using the car scenario this is like me stealing your radio, you don't need it to drive but you'd still be angry w/ me for stealing it rt?

 

Next the claim that I am inciting spam. Incorrect. Spam is an unsolicited email, I only asked ppl who feel they have been wronged by evenbalance to voice their concerns to the public representatives of said company. If no one issues complaints regarding a product they feel is faulty or flawed then said issues will never be corrected. In this case my concern is their lack of ANY appeal policy. Does the MBI not have an appeal policy? Why then does evenbalances global ban list not have an appeals policy? It seems to me that we all agree on this point then?

 

Next the implication, though indirectly made, that my clan-mate did in fact cheat. I know this to be incorrect however I can understand your skepticism. I think one should keep in mind that a part of most multi-hack is GUID spoofer. What GUID's do you think that these products spoof? Generally they have broken the algorithm used to generate GUID's and therefore randomly generate valid GUID's. Eventually, by sheer probability, a hacker using said product would stumble upon a GUID which a person validly uses. With me so far? Then that person is banned due to no fault of their own. Another scenario involves spyware known to steal information such as CD keys. These CD keys are what GUID's are based on, again resulting in a person being banned due to no fault of their own. Another scenario could be simply that the system misinterpreted the data being fed to it, erroneously determining that a dropped or corrupted packet was part of an attempt to fake-out PB. Or it could be as simple as an error on PB's server or w/ their software. If you're telling me you think software is always flawless then you must truly be naive.

 

Finally, the idea that this is not the best place for this post. You are correct, unfortunately their is no better forum for issues of this nature. Evenbalance has literally closed problem tickets entered on this issue without bothering to enter a response. The responses they have bothered to provide to our emails have been simple canned responses that don't even attempt to address the issues presented to them. If a small group of wronged individulas are to be ignored then perhaps it is time that they are shown that it isn't just one or two ppl. Perhaps this will encourage them to reconsider their policy regarding offering an appeal policy, much like many ban lists do. If after posting on a number of forums they receive no significant response then apparently issues like I describe are rare. If this is the case then no-harm beyond a clan-mate being required to purchase another copy of a game. If there is a large response then they may begin to rethink their policy. I know I haven't addressed your statement about "why here". The answer to that is far simpler, because I found your forum while trying to find out more information on evenbalance's ban's through a google search. If I encountered your site this way perhaps others in similar situations will do the same.

 

Hope this addresses your primary issues w/ my post.

[EvilJohn]

The whole ranked system is a joke. Just another way to make more money, after the game is purchased. Takes away from team play. Any gamer who supports it. Just adds to the next generation of games doing the same thing. Your attacking the wrong party. Look to the game maker. I see you don't describe how he lost his key. I guess we would not want to take responsibility for any lack in security.

 

Flame on!

[the_minds_eye]

In regards to how the key was lost, we don't even know that it was. Evenbalance only states that the GUID was banned and will provide no other information (it took quite alot to even get a confirmation that it had been banned at all). Its fully possible, as I stated, that the GUID may have been randomly spoofed as part of a multi-hack or that there may be no credible instance of 'cheating' but simply a mistake on the part of PB servers or software. Although I do admit it is certainly possible the CD key may have been stolen by a spyware. I have found numerous posts from ppl stating that they had their cd-key stolen by a spyware application and subsequently banned. I can, of course, offer no assurance that any of these posts were legitimate however. As I stated, we have no access to information (as evenbalance will provide none) on how or why the GUID is globally banned... only that it is banned.

[Ice Man]

simple terms

 

CD key = guid basically

 

we nor evenbalance are responsible if you are irresponsible with the way you use your computer. You decided to use a hack on a non-pb server (which in part steals your key) or some other program (virus) or way your key gets stolen we have nothing to do with it, we ban cheaters. Someone (I really don't care who because in the long run it was most likely the users fault that their computer is not properly protected and if it wasn't you can always take it back to the store for a new one) uses your key and cheats your GUID gets banned, we will not lift it.

 

I mean your telling me that the statement is "ludicrous" then I think your ludicrous...PBBans does not ban and will not ban by IP, that would be even more of a hassle as IPs are dynamic (always changing), Half of germany is linked to 1 guid most of the time... There are "hardware" spoofers so hardware bans do not work and we are left with GUIDs that are based off your key. There is no "guid spoofer" which will ever work in a PB enabled game... not sure where your getting your sources from? A quick google search of guid spoofer brought me to a PBSS guid spoofer, the thing they do not tell you with that is the real guid from the PBSS will show up in the server logs and we would be able to match the information from the header that is extracted by the PBSS (if the file is tampered the header on the PBSS will change, thus no ban is given).

 

Ever wonder how cheat sites get money? BY LYING. and saying their cheat is Undected.

 

If you think its such a problem if we ban by GUID (which in simple terms is an encrypton of your cd key) then why don't you suggest something that we can ban by?

Hardware: no

IP: no

???

 

I would love to hear an alternative!

 

Also with banning by CD key instead of IP or hardware you will simply be unbanned as long as you go and purchase another copy of the game.

 

You might also want to read up about "master servers" and how people cannot connect via a "random guid" without having a valid cd key.

 

just remember a cd key is made up of usually 20 characters long with numbers and letters, its not easy to "spoof" or randomly generate at all.

 

-Dan

[the_minds_eye]

Clearly you've misunderstood my post. First of all, I didn't suggest not using GUID's for bans. For the exact reasons you stated. I simply stated an appeal policy should be in-place for instances where a ban was issued in error. Evenbalance has NO appeal policy, they simply do not make exceptions, or so they state. Are you seriously going to make the claim that no one has ever been banned due to a mistake, either due to human error or design flaw? Are you seriously going to say that a system which rely's on monitoring packets from such a dynamic system is incapable of making mistakes or that the software that monitor's said data is flawless? Listen, I'm a software technician, and I can tell you for a fact, no software is flawless. Ever.

 

Also, it should be noted that the MBi listed on this site has an appeal policy. Why have an appeal policy if mistakes never occur?

 

GUID spoofers don't exist? They claim to, but you're correct I have no interest in trying one. Have you? If not I hardly see how you are qualified to state unequivocally that they don't work.

 

I know for a fact that my clan-mate never used a bot. I also know for a fact that you are wrong that cd-key's are impossible to generate. LOL, you must not know much about encryption algorithyms. Essentially those keys are generated using the same concept as an encryption algorithym, and all algorithyms can be broken given sufficient time and desire to do so. I also know that true key-generators, which do in fact generate real keys using the same algorithyms used by the software developers do exist. If keys can be generated then statistically one would stumble upon a key which is currently in use, by blind chance. Since GUID's are based on CD-Keys, this would result in a person being banned. I am unfamiliar w/ a key-gen for cod4 but, due to my profession, I have seen any number of key-gen's used to create keys on machines for softwares that are much harder to break (you should see the keys used by Adobe's software, if that can be broken anything can). Not something I, or anyone I know would condone, but trust me, it is happening.

[the_minds_eye]

A thought occurs to me. If you are so certain that GUID spoofers do not exist and could not result in a ban, that the algorithm which is used to convert cd-keys to GUID's is unbreakable... then surely you should have no reason to fear posting your GUID here in this open forum for everyone to view. You won't post your GUID, for the simple reason that it would be insane to do so. Because deep down, you know there is a chance someone might be able to use it, and you might get banned. Tell me if I'm wrong.

[Ice Man]

Clearly you've misunderstood my post. First of all, I didn't suggest not using GUID's for bans. For the exact reasons you stated. I simply stated an appeal policy should be in-place for instances where a ban was issued in error. Evenbalance has NO appeal policy, they simply do not make exceptions, or so they state. Are you seriously going to make the claim that no one has ever been banned due to a mistake, either due to human error or design flaw? Are you seriously going to say that a system which rely's on monitoring packets from such a dynamic system is incapable of making mistakes or that the software that monitor's said data is flawless? Listen, I'm a software technician, and I can tell you for a fact, no software is flawless. Ever.

 

Also, it should be noted that the MBi listed on this site has an appeal policy. Why have an appeal policy if mistakes never occur?

In fact PB does research their kicks and we see bans lifted all the time. But in your case you stated someone else used your clan members key and got banned... so kinda voids the issue.

EX: http://www.pbbans.com/mbi-viewban-d3349fb6-vb112210.html

 

GUID spoofers don't exist? They claim to, but you're correct I have no interest in trying one. Have you? If not I hardly see how you are qualified to state unequivocally that they don't work.

On the level that you are talking, No I do not believe there are spoofers.. there are people who will steal your cd key but not GUID spoofers.

 

I know for a fact that my clan-mate never used a bot. I also know for a fact that you are wrong that cd-key's are impossible to generate. LOL, you must not know much about encryption algorithyms. Essentially those keys are generated using the same concept as an encryption algorithym, and all algorithyms can be broken given sufficient time and desire to do so. I also know that true key-generators, which do in fact generate real keys using the same algorithyms used by the software developers do exist. If keys can be generated then statistically one would stumble upon a key which is currently in use, by blind chance. Since GUID's are based on CD-Keys, this would result in a person being banned. I am unfamiliar w/ a key-gen for cod4 but, due to my profession, I have seen any number of key-gen's used to create keys on machines for softwares that are much harder to break (you should see the keys used by Adobe's software, if that can be broken anything can). Not something I, or anyone I know would condone, but trust me, it is happening.

Download a few cod4 keygens. Try them out, im sure you will find that each key is banned. :)

 

A thought occurs to me. If you are so certain that GUID spoofers do not exist and could not result in a ban, that the algorithm which is used to convert cd-keys to GUID's is unbreakable... then surely you should have no reason to fear posting your GUID here in this open forum for everyone to view. You won't post your GUID, for the simple reason that it would be insane to do so. Because deep down, you know there is a chance someone might be able to use it, and you might get banned. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Well if you do a little bit of searching around Im sure you would find it on this site, here are my full guids:

cod4 - 4113ebea0f8cb24152e143ff1543fc69

cod5 - 618044fb3c4eacf037f5fa4cc92ba011

you're wrong. Deep down I think no one can spoof my guid. Now actually spoofing a violation is something totally different that can be detected upon appeal but actually turning my GUID into a cd key? Nope I do not think so. If you can go ahead and post my keys here if your so certain.

 

-Dan

[Lucky_Fr4gg3r]

A, they have no proof of this,

 

Evenbalance's punkbuster software is a finely tuned piece of software. Sure, like any software, it has it's flaws and doesn't always work as it is supposed to, but in most cases it does.

 

If a violation was triggered, this is enough 'evidence' to be quite honest.

 

You'd be better off looking into innocent causes that could've caused the violation for your member then ranting at EB, because it will not make a difference; they are doing exactly what they've been paid to do.

Edited February 24, 2009 by Lucky_Fr4gg3r

[AcE]

PBBans is a private anti-cheat site. We are not owned, controlled, or managed by EvenBalance, Inc. Therefore, your comments here are not exactly fitting for the visitors to our site. You obviously are attempting to get your clan mate unbanned...posting here will not get the ban lifted. Also, we cannot condone a post that incites others to spam EvenBalance and demand things beyond our control. While you are correct on some points, your friend needs to thoroughly read the PunkBuster EULA and then take up his issue with EvenBalance, Inc. via their ticket support system.

 

I couldn't agree more & on that note, Thread closed.