Gamehack Violation (UPDATE)

UPDATE This now effects Call of Duty - If you are a Call of Duty player who did not read this, make sure you do!

As many of you have seen nC have today unleashed their latest weapon and this is how it works.

The source of their new found ability comes from "pnkbsra / b .exe" - basically they've isolated that what this does is scan the entire virtual memory for vm signatures and they find certain vm signatures that PB will kick for. That pnkbsra scans the entire virtual memory, so if you've MSN or iRC open at the time, and you get sent this message when you're connected to PB then it will show up in your VM and you will get kicked.

The method they used to get to this conclusion was reverse engineering - their justification for claiming that is legal is because 3 different virus scanners pick PB up as a trojan and thus is a threat and its legal to reverse engineer a threat (apparently).

This has been explained further by Fried Fish Tail;

QuoteAnyway, the way GAMEHACK bans done is the following: PB detects that specific file (aimbot1.menu) and its contents, so all they had to do is paste some lines from the file to and IRC channel you're idling on and when PB scans mIRC.exe's memory - it finds the pattern and you're getting kicked.

An example of a string PB is looking for: *removed by admin* (with quotes)

*removed by admin*"

And everyone who will play anytime whilst that mIRC session is running will get kicked.

What they posted all over the irc:
*removed by admin*


This information was all forwarded to Clanbase earlier this week, aswell as punkbuster being kept in the loop of todays activities courtesy of SplashDamge.

Addition information
IRC or MSN Logs have nothing to do with the Gamehack kicks! People are already saying "delete logs and dont do this", but thats not necescary, closing irc should terminate the string from memory, and this string on the memory is the only problem. (tnx2meez)

THIS INCLUDES READING ARTICLES, JOURNALS AND NEWS ON CROSSFIRE with the strings!

***UPDATE***
Another string has been circulated which results in people being kicked for '(MULTIHACK) #70476'. It's likely that there's an endless amount of strings which will result in people being banned for all kinds of reasons.
Comments
289
Sorry if im a touch late on this, we prepared this earlier ready for posting as soon as it happened and ive been a touch busy today.
Why not post it before to warn people?

Edit: I understand you've been busy btw, and awesome Casting, especially for Call of Duty 4!

Edit 2: I saw you on tv!
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all that matters is that chelsea won, thats all! everyone can get kicked but most important is that chelsea win
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liverpool lost *EMOTIME*
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the jew saved you ;-E
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football < rugby
football = game for girls
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ummm what all girls school did you go to dear ?
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uhm where did u learn engrish ?
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at a very posh private school where we talk like that what what.

Jeaves, pack the car we're oofff to the cuntry.
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ooff ? right ...
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Sounds logical. So well, what a gay thing. Fuck PB!!
GAMEHACK for life!
so we'll be kicked if just anybody posts this line in irc? no matter if its a query or a message in a channel?
HOLY SHIT! WE'RE ALL DOOMED! :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
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:DD:D:D:D:D:XXXXXXXXXXXX
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soooo we just have to turn off mirc/msn etc and gamehacks wont bother us?
ruined my fuckin cup man :<
Any usefull solutions?
punkbuster killing spree
won't say dead but dieing fast!:(
Bans! UPDATE 16 is gonna be massive....
sarcasm? :P
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those nC guys must have miserable lives
Now we will have to come up with an idea how to solve this bug.. It would be bitty if game died because of such a stupid thing..
sticky it
That's such a fucking retarded way to search for cheats and so insanely easy to exploit :|
I'm really disappointed with PB..
Then what about lio & alexl ? have they received any pms or how else could they just choose those 2 guys when it would get everyone kicked who is in a certain channel ?
Tonga Bartichello on 24/03/08, 00:30:29 PM | Reply
__________________________________________________

working on that...

pbbans will erase all of these bans and yes lio and alexl will get unabanned asap...
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but whats the explanation of just those 2 getting kicked, have they received a pm or ..?
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Dno about that. Maybe some1 sent them in irc things like "aimbot" accidentally without knowing where it would lead?
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*my wild guess* some nC guy sent it (only) to them in the beginning.
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just close irc man that'S all
so is there anything gonna happen?
prob. everyone is gonna be banned but that's not that big off a deal for you cause you still have winterbells! :DDD
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im wondering if it would work also for cod4
If COD4 runs the pnkbsra.exe it should
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I've been playing ET:QW today on a pb enabled server while some people were spamming the message on IRC and I didnt get kickzored
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Well, i guess they're only spamming ET cheat signatures, not ETQW cheat signatures. How very nice of them..
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Yah, me too =o
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Addition information
IRC or MSN Logs have nothing to do with the Gamehack kicks! People are already saying "delete logs and dont do this", but thats not necescary, closing irc should terminate the string from memory, and this string on the memory is the only problem. (tnx2meez)

My irc was closed and I still got kicked.
This is right. I have no irc or msn since the last 2 years. I just played a little Pub for fun and got kicked for this "gamehack".

It´s got nothing to do with irc or msn. They must have done something to PB in general.
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iy you had xfire or a similar site open where the code lines stand you can get kicked too...
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i also got kicked for a gamehack violation some time ago and those pb-pussies just dont care about the fact that there almighty-uber-pb could cause some wrong kicks.

in the end this here is just funny cause now i see that im not the only one with this problem.


a big HAHA to you punkbuster-pussies


fo
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this can not be true as i did not have irc or msn running and still got kicked for gamehack 2min ago.
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online only gets a different meaning now
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Closing IRC doesn't guarantee that the string ain't there anymore. To be sure about that you have to actually overwrite the memory where it was before, which means you have to run a program that eats all your ram..
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Or just run ramboost.exe, and you might even experince less ingame lagg, np.
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This might fuck all games using punk buster, unless the detection rules are unique and outdated for ET. If not, this will spread.

Just get source code from an detected hack and off you go :(
is this working only in ET or in every game using pb?
this -> sticky
QuoteAddition information
IRC or MSN Logs have nothing to do with the Gamehack kicks! People are already saying "delete logs and dont do this", but thats not necescary, closing irc should terminate the string from memory, and this string on the memory is the only problem. (tnx2meez)


bullshit, I stopped getting kicked only after I deleted my logs.

Also could thank me for being first who posted these strings @ pub-chans. 8D
irc logs? and if i dont have logs in my logs folder? :D
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then you are lucky!
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it hasnt to do anything with your logs, sorry
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Can you just kill the speculation/tension and let us know what you've done [if you have done anything :P]! :o
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theoretically yes, but it fixed my case somehow oO
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either coincidence, or, more likely, deleting all your logs required a lot of ram to get rewritten, which erased the string from your ram
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well i guess it's my case since the logs were huge.
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it does, with logs disabled I didn't get kicked and as soon I enabled them I got kicked for the fucked up gamehack.
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I have no irc or msn installed since the last 2 years. I just played a little Pub for fun and got kicked for this "gamehack".

Edit: I don´t even had IRC or MSN installed on my new computer :(


It´s got nothing to do with irc or msn. They must have done something to PB in general.
reading crossfire with strings like that on the particular page your reading, might trigger a kick in ET as well.
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indeed

i shut down firefox, and it went all good :)
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lol that's retarded by punkbuster.. i'm wondering why we have to find it out like this instead of punkbuster warning us for the huge gap in the their codec which is being exploited
may god be with us now
Cause PB isn'T supporting ET anymore.
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Reverse engineered my arse.

More like they were copy/pasting code (ripping little shites) with ET open and got kicked.
cmon this is all what "nc" can do? nc has nothing to do with this tbh. it's just that pb sux.
IF U CAN DO IT BETTER, DO IT YOURSELF. THEY ARENT MAKING ANY MONEY OUT OF ET WHY WOULD THEY WASTE THEIR TIME WHEN THEY CAN DO OTHER THINGS WHICH WOULD GIVE THEM MONEY ? THEY WONT WASTE TIME FOR THE PLEASURE OF WHINING AND IMMATURE KIDS WHO HAVE NEVER RESPECTED ANYTHING PB DID.
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advertising = money
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USE XCHAT and u will be fine... ohnoes I singlehandedly fucked up the nC back... bow meh , ktnxbibuy
actually this is applicable to all IRC clients...
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and pretty much any application that handles text, already tested it with teamspeak, vent, skype, icq etc.
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you have time to waste
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it's about the most interesting thing happening on this Sunday evening, so yes.. yes I do :)
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Ode to "The string"

String, the string, what mysterious you bring.
Are you unicode, ascii or some other thing.
String, the string, to kill you is my thing.
But protection by locking makes you king.
lol nice one :p
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I dunno if posting it all was a good idea if it is true, its like a "How to" for the e-terrorist/angrykid :f
so nC is behind it again for fucking up a free game don't those nerds have anythin better to do?

if this keeps on going i'm gonna go out and get wasted.

laterz and cheers m8's
Anybody can go online and send you messages in a wide variety of ways, causing the offending strings to appear in your memory, ultimately crashing your ET client.

Anybody can go online and blame nC for finding/doing it.
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If they wanted to fucking up ET, than they had never published this bug...
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haha BrCh!
you and going to get wasted, cant quite imagine that one, but call me and i will join in, if its actually gonna happen. :DDD
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oke meet me in 5 minuts and let's test out all belgium beers =)
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okidoki, come pick me up in Germany munich!
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that's more then 5 minuts :) anyway going off bb
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what can pb for that ?...its not nc's fault ²


its the fault of some idiots who knew that if u post on msn or irc this aimbot shit that u get banned then...
Is this proven to be the reason, or just speculation?
try it, it works
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doesn't mean its the only reason?
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Me, .X.!, snail, nordan & isEN got kickt and also some guys from FiF.Green while we were palying our cup game :C


ps. http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8039/shot0001qd3.jpg
I cant be kicked lolz0r, i beat them!
me too :) WE ARE IMMORTAL!!11 yee!
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Linux seems to be immune btw...
because punkbuster on linux does not do any cheat detection
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nothing good came out of irc, ever
QuoteIts already being addressed, have a little patience.


by a PBBANS admin
freedom for Lio and all other belgium players who ever got banned ! danke bitte :o
Like to see PB with an official statement. This is fuckin retarded for the guys who got kicked before the massa kick. I really think its good that they kicked everyone so they see it isn't a real hack, like much guys think (hi2u kiewan)
I said official :P not something from a retard who said that to leave pb as it is :P
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I closed mIRC and still got kicked
strings of crossfire.nu like in this newspost are included aswell + if the string appeared before closing irc it is still in your memory
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while I'm reading this ET is open and I'm not getting kicked
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however some get kicked some not... i cant explain it^^
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Dont know, I closed mIRC and got kicked, then I erased logs and the problem was gone :P
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i'd like to erase logs too but i did not have logs on... how do you erase logs anyway? :D
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this famous string has been deleted by admins imo. I don't see it on this page at least :P
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yup seems like, but it was there some mins ago :D eigentor^^
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anyway, maybe you had to wait a moment untill pnkbstr a reached that part of memory where the message was settled.
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you are using linux?
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nope, xp sp2
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i wonder what evenbalance sais to this
i was reading xfire ingame for half an hour while everybody was getting kicked and nothing happened to me.
cuz we're better than rest ;O)!
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"so i could get laik banned for being on crossfire"



U SIR IZ RIGHT
It's all got to do with strings in your memory, for the ppl who are unable to get it sorted, try to reboot or shutdown/power on your pc.. since your memory should be clean by then.
Idem i tried without MSN/IRC kick.
yes but they were talking about the same thing ( same kick ) :]
so what's happening now?
i fixed it with format c:\ -r
using TheSGL now?
Easter eggs :x
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"This information was all forwarded to Clanbase earlier this week,"

so why wasnt there any statement, like, that gamehack-thingy IS a bug... i dont mean that someone should have posted the stings earlier, but why didnt anyone posted a single note, that the problem is recognized at cb & pb and there will be an update soon...!?

i really would like to know, what comes next... maybe you can tell me?
they were too busy to come up with a damage control plan. Stay tuned.
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Tried saying this on IRC many times, but it seems smoke signals ain't a reliable internet connection..

Do we know if PB scans the entire memory, or just the allocated memory? If it only scans the allocated memory then closing mIRC saves you, but if not, then you'll have to overwrite the memory (that is, reboot, memory defrag, or open a huge thingy and close it again).

and /me forgot about swap persisting over reboot. See the posts below.
actually, no, you don't have to overwrite your memory by putting huge things in it :) read my comment below

RAM is cleared the moment it loses power. Virtual memory, swap memory/pagefile is the problem, but you have info on how to clear it on shutdown in my comment
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My post lacked an "or" ;)
But true, I didn't think of that swap is preserved over reboots
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After talking to kaiz, we've remembered that there is also virtual memory used, called swap.

So here's a little update to meez' solution: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/community/columns/tipsfortechs/dlpgfile.mspx?mfr=true

After enabling this option in registry, it will be cleared whenever you restart computer.

To make sure everything is clean, reboot it and join an ET server without irc running.

Unfortunately, there is no other real solution to this because the next time someone posts it anywhere, you will have to reboot again. :(
Haha people are going to spam that in every journal for the next few days \0/
ET = fucked until this is fixed
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so basically the only solution is to not go on IRC/MSN/ICQ/Crossfire or any other form of intrawebs communications anymore?
Is it possible it even comes from vent comments?
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yes, it's possible
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doesn't work @ vent imo

just block all contacts @ msn icq that send you this :x
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w8ing for [NC] Gamehack CLEAN cheats
good morning watson!
he wants to take over your spot :) as cf spammer
well done netcoders... waiting for your next weapon to destroy ET
so if i can get it correct then u can kick player u dislike by copying eg aimbot commandline and he can also get kick by pb and reason would be aimbot? or multihack?
Yep, but noone would believe it was an aimbot or multihack anymore.
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geimhak maittaa
it this kick only et based ?
Not sure, but if the PB for other games has about the same nature then theoretically no. But afaik they're only spamming ET cheat signatures (for now), but this can easily spread to other games.
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i really really hope so
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This particular kick, yes, but they can use different strings for different games and thus get people banned in other games as well.
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The people behind Netcodes are kids. The people behind Punkbuster are dumb. Combine the two and you get... what currently is going on.

Punkbuster has been going about it the wrong way. They didn't ban players for actual cheats anymore and that's where they went wrong. They started banning players based on suspected cheating since they knew they were one step behind the hackers/cheaters. Punkbuster tried to make a shortcut. They were lazy and that backfired. Badly. They opened up a giant door for hackers to enter and really mess things up.

Thank god for evolution. Punkbuster will probably be extinct now. Yay!

Someone up for setting up a good anti cheating company with proper tools? :)

Netcoders... they are little children. Look mommy at what I can do! I pity them. I really do.

Cash is right though. It sucks right now. The way it happened wasn't necessary but evolution is a good thing. Something better will come out of this. Probably not for ET but future games will benefit from this. Even though, I'm repeating myself now, this could have been handled better.
QuoteThey started banning players based on suspected cheating


That's true, but it's also what the community itself chose to do with the MD5 tool (banning for cvars and pk3 files).
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True, but what do you think virus scanners do? Do you think they only look for known viruses?
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I believe they have more advanced heuristics compared to the sweatshop job that Evenbalance has managed to do with PB.
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True, but the same principle applies :)
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Heh I've shut down mIRC but still getting kicked, only reboot works, or maybe restarting the pb service? :x

edit: nvm @ meez :>
I am proud that of all the games supported by punkbuster, the enemy territory community was the first one to run into this exploit :D
PB really screwed up on this one. It can be done outside of the methods mentioned above, using only an IP address.
i think pbbbans.com stopped adding these types of kicks
I think so too :)
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BANS UPDATE 16 )))) 90% of community DDDD
im @ the 10% side!
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u r the Legend :D
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So no firefox.exe / mIRC.exe / msn.exe @ taskmanager is no kick?
what actually happend?
but if you knew it before...what was causing it?
Wow, simple as?! Shouldn't be that problem to get rid of this problem for pb?!

P.S.: Sadly to see that tons of people are falling for nC's propaganda shit. It's a group, which earns money with destroying "our" game and who has simply no moral.

That pb is shit was known before and they found a bug, while they were trying to make their private cheats undetectable again. Instead to publish it instantly or to tell it evenbalance they have kicked innoncents and planned to use it for some propaganda shit...
Simple to resolve this particular issue yes, but now they have to go back and find a way to detect the cheats properly.
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Yes, true. But some guys of the community should think now again about their reactions to projects, such as anti3 or etace...and the statement of nC is even worse than any statements of Goebbels or Sahhaf.
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hmm did evenbalance disable the scanning?
guess so, im not getting kicked anymore? ;x
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me neither
and it also doesnt say anything about scanning in the console anymore
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we should use hello kitty adventure anti cheat software instead of pb. flurry kitties could tear apart lil kids like raskl and stuff.

so kitty for the win.
QuoteThat exploit ... no let's call it by it's real name: GIGANTIC STUPIDITY of Evenbalance was asking to be exploited. As such we started looking into almost any Punkbuster game and found similar strings.
Of course we could not resist to try this on a couple of servers and different games - with surprising results: We were able to kick players from almost any Punkbuster game for different violations.


any evidence available that this is working also for other games? :)
heh while reading this my mate just told me someone got kicked in cod for it lol :x
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netcoders SUXX
keep it up retards, keep killing ur own bussiness
Do I sense some sympathy?
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WHERE IS THE APOCALYPSE?????
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?
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WHERE IS THE APOCALYPSE?
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well this actually makes donex officially a dick (and dont start about "he had no choice" please. so hereby i offer him my congratulations!

also, the nC people are absolutely hilarious and absolutely pathetic at the same time. this has been proven a lot of times before but it keeps on amazing me how they seem to have no life at all =(


EDIT: also pretty funny, are those who thought this was actually not a bug and who thought lio actually was a cheater. if possible, those idiots are even bigger idiots than nC are
I detest the fact that that group are mentioned by name here and are given such attention. It's a good thing that Crossfire inform the community about cheating and such, but you're giving these people the attention that they crave; and you're making them proud of their work and there's nothing more their petty egos want more.
HOW COME NO-ONE FROM MASCULINE MANS GOT KICKED (except mind when we tried if that message thing works)

WHO'S CLEAN NOW??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We share the same vent as you ;C
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Revolution Aftermath , the channel under Masculine Mans :CC
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Forget about crashing the server like in the old days. We have struck the asshattery's goldmine!

HIGH FIVE
Get rid of PB (or switch to linux) and live happy! \o/
and why doesnt pb checks for cheat at linux???
if the half of players move to linux systems they will; without that its imposible to doing much work for few hackers only.
when i try to join a server my virus scan says punkbusterB is a trojan :x
does it help being in priv chans only? :X
yes, though you could get pmed.
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noone pm's me :<
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when someone pm's you, act like you've not seen it ;P it could work
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Thank you nC for proving that your e-penis is bigger than ours, it was truly worth it. Don't try to impress chicks with mysterious strings, she won't like it...
feel free to create one =)
and you still play this game..
its way of life for most ppls here
Addition information
IRC or MSN Logs have nothing to do with the Gamehack kicks! People are already saying "delete logs and dont do this", but thats not necescary, closing irc should terminate the string from memory, and this string on the memory is the only problem. (tnx2meez)


actually my first gamehack kick yesterday happened when i had nothing opened but the game itself? :(
hes claiming that closing irc would empty the memory, but it doesnt. You completely have to restart your computer.
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does pb update fix this problem?
some people say so
without offense, this whole misery is only good for 2 ppl, alexL & lio. they just want to clear themselves =p
Ngrs plz stop using the cheats ! I knew 90% of this community is only paper-ownat0rs! Just a bunch'o'cheaters !!

No tolerance policy plz, kick/ban 4 all ! kkthx, bye


p.s. I want to congratulate DoneX aswell for a banning job well done(X) ! Keep it up mr. superAdmin with great all around attitude (#NOT) !
i like the way they say im crying in bed :D I dont even do ET Anti-cheat since before CDC4 :P
I know my first reaction after lio's kick was somewhat pretty hard to believe but i was sure something fishy was going on...

Now you all know why :)
Want to thank meez for the greet JPG he made the other day!

Go pwn Lio & cya @ CDC5
Shut down ET and start playing rtcw! PLZ!
most constructive comment so far!
<3 lelle :D
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agree. Just don't bring your cheats.
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Using short, human readable strings as cheat signatures is so stupid that I have to laugh! :D

So everyone who types three specific words in sequence is now creating a cheat, and everyone receiving the text is using it.

lol
The interview somehow surprises me. How can someone make himself so much worse than he actually is? Lio and Team EDiT, the most hated by the community? Guess he didn't read the news and columns with all the comments related to his story. Maybe 20 % of random retards were happy about this bust. 30 % were just supporting the anti cheater policy which ofcourse had to be sticked to if you don't want this community to become a whole joke. But those 30 % didn't made a festival out of it, as well as the other 50% which hoped for a unban in the near future. Thought you were smart lio but this is just poor.
worth -> worse

[don't mind me, i'm in such mood today :P and no offence of course]
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Me silly boy x)
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lol i never got kicked by pb >.< u r just all hacking pricks
http://bani.anime.net/banimod/forums/viewtopic.php?p=66253&highlight=#66253
could someone contact him and menace him untill he starts coding a new etpro :o) ?
you mean bani ? :l
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L3lle <3
ok so if you have a laptop you could run irc / msn on there whilst gaming on your pc then nothing is in your memory, alternative is to use a virtual irc thus never in your memory.
im gonna play et now, im syked:D
so all they did is spam some line....
Anyone who got kicked was playing with Vista?
i guess not.. ;]
still unbusted, np4me :O)
Thats real shit :D
PB is the worst thing that happened to ET... and that is just an other good reason to leave ET and start to life or play an othergame (COD4! :D)
start life and play other games? are you retarded?
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QuoteJoin Date: Jul 2007
Location: Yorkshire, chap
Age: 17
Posts: 201
Groans: 3
Groaned at 2 Times in 2 Posts
Thanks: 89
Thanked 68 Times in 46 Posts
Don't stop now!
Find another vulnerability and finish them!

The best anti-cheat would be that created by coders such as the staff/vendors here and other legit sites!

Just be expecting job applications from punkbuster.
__________________
can be detective but pb musnt kick cuz multihack or other stuff



rofl
nothing special!
this is madness.
(waiting for someone to shout: this is punkbustaaa)
THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Is this just for ET, or all PB games?
only for ET. not anymore though -_-
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nC just posted a new string, so seems this wont end anytime soon :(

(screen in killerboys post)
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all PB games, just need the right string to get people kicked
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TosspoT what is happening to our second love ET :< (I asume our first love was RTCW)
ye happens
imo the most funny thing is that, there are some ret4rds who also spam it in mirc channels only for watch people getting busted..
I think the most worrying about this is that PB is able to scan ( access!!! ) files to look for certain strings. Best spyware there is tbh.
It isnt accessing files. Its accessing memory. HUGE difference.

It is however as stated above considered a threat by many AV engines =)
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Quote[...]
Licensee further acknowledges and accepts that PunkBuster software may be considered invasive. Licensee understands that PunkBuster software inspects and reports information about the computer on which it is installed to other connected computers and Licensee agrees to allow PunkBuster software to inspect and report such information about the computer on which Licensee installs PunkBuster software. Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by PunkBuster software includes, but is not limited to, devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer on which PunkBuster software is installed. (...) Licensee agrees that any harm or lack of privacy resulting from the installation and use of PunkBuster software is not as valuable to Licensee as the potential ability to play interactive online games with the benefits afforded by using PunkBuster software.
[...]

Spyware.
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will any action be taken by pb ?
think not
cuz they dont get paid by sd anyomore :<
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I aint a whizz in this stuff but if i block pb for accessing my pc's memory, will it cause ET not to work at all?
Your ET will would work but PB wouldn't start and you would get kicked from any PB enabled server straight away.
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something like that i was aware of. I guess everybody would be cheating (like they werent already) if they could block pb's access to memory and still play
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use sandbox for everything other than ET
Indeed, use the sandboxie software for stuff like Internet, mIRC and MSN. Sandboxie creates a so-called Transient Storage where the info from I-net, mIRC etc are stored and when you close it that info dissapears or is not saved in your memory (afaik). That way the strings cannot be detected by PB cause it has never been on your pc.

Sandboxie Homepage
iv never heard of such a tool looks handy.
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make a newspost or something :O
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thats lame i dont understand why were nC making so big case of it.
This only proves how big nubs they are when they are happy from such a small coding shit
lold bout the update :<
Hmmm... Maybe it's now a good time to change to ET:QW.
Yeah, the AC software used by QW is superior to the one used by ET!
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ET:QW also uses PB, so kk thnx bb(q)
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Kinda failed.
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no, it's not.
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nothing works for me. getting kicked every 10 mins. i can delete everything i want and close irc, msn n stuff...but it doesnt work.


seems like its a good time for me to quit et.
Seems to be removed
Ah, that's why we have to learn how to make proper testsets for our applications @ college
I'd say targeting a game still under licence for PB to provide anticheat is a huge mistake by nC. Hope EvenBalance come down on them like a ton of bricks, we'll see...
What are they supposed to do? Develope an AC that works? :D
Parent
I suspect nC are involved in a lot of illegal and dubiously legal practices (I'd be surprised if they're not evading taxes, violating copyright, etc and I know they've broken half the terms in the near-worthless EULAs for games and for PB). If someone with enough clout to actually go after them decided they were good targets, they probably wouldn't be laughing.

Having said that, I don't think EB think they're more than dirty little grubs stuck to the sole of gaming's proverbial shoe, and thus not worth the effort.
Parent
Statement from even balance:
QuoteMarch 25, 2008

We rarely announce anything regarding commercial cheats and hacks. However, we are aware of the numerous "You Tube" type videos and posts on various sites where hackers who sell cheats make claims that are false but sound believable about PunkBuster and hack detection status. We receive numerous emails daily by concerned honest players regarding advertisements for undetectable hacks, etc. The truth is that via recent enhancements to PunkBuster's detection capabilities, we have cracked down hard on cheaters who pay for hacks in the games we support. Some commercial cheat sites have closed down due to our new methods and others have private forums where punks routinely complain about getting caught with the "undetectable" hacks, demanding refunds, etc. We have always maintained a strict policy of not giving money to punks, but thanks to community volunteer moles who have helped us obtain access to private hacks via donations of their time, etc., PunkBuster has been catching hacks from virtually all commercial cheat sites in recent weeks and months.

One of the recent enhancements involves our memory scanner which aggressively scans for patterns included in known cheats (public and private). A commercial hack site where we have had recent success catching their subscribers has recently staged a few demonstrations of inserting text-based patterns via certain chat-related systems such as IRC, Instant Messaging, etc. directly into the memory of computers. These are specific text patterns that we have deployed in some supported games in the recent past. It is clear that many of the demonstrators are cheat-supporters willingly participating in the demonstration, but there is evidence that some innocent players had PunkBuster violations triggered during the past few days by the hackers who sent specific text patterns into the chat programs that were open during gameplay. We are removing these text based patterns from our system and encourage admins to not ban for PB violations that occurred during the past few days.

Online gamers who play with other programs running should always enable security features in their messaging and chat programs to deny auto-download of files and only accept downloads from people they know and trust. As always, from PunkBuster's standpoint, if a known cheat pattern is in the memory of the computer during gameplay, then a violation will be triggered. We have always suggested closing other programs while you are playing multiplayer games on PunkBuster servers and that remains the safest policy. Leagues that require chat room usage for competitive play should take steps to ensure that only league participants have access and suspicious activity should be reported to us when there are concerns about manipulating the system.
So the million dollar question:

How effective can the memory scanner be without searching for text strings that can occur without a person cheating.
Parent
yup had this last night on ET, Americas Army, COD4 AND for the love of god, Quake 3.

So lets all be happy and do the gogo dance and go IRL, no matter what i did i could not get it away.
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