OK, here is why I have a bad feeling....

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OK, here is why I have a bad feeling....

Post by Hermskii » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:40 pm

So a while back I had a post here about a feeling that some good was about to happen. I was right. It has been happening. As I posted that this site would be branching out it has. I now have great associations with several other groups that I have lots of respect for and I think promoting them here has increased our traffic and daily business.

I still have plenty more to do as far as sprouting out goes and there is lots of work going on here in the back ground with sites I have not mentioned yet.

So you say all of that is good news...where is the bad news? Why the feeling something bad is coming?

The short of it is this: As always, I never have claimed to be a mapper or a modder or a coder. I don't know the ins and outs of UT and never claimed I did. I have enjoyed running servers that for the most part did not attract cheaters and scum-bags. I don't think that has changed either. Most of my servers are on the bottom of the list and that is fine with me. My 2 golden egg gooses are {CG} and {MHM} which again have not attracted the crappy people that many other servers suffer from.

My bad feeling is that I think that is about to change. A remarkable amount of information has become available to people like me about people that are scum-bags within the UT community. People with a long history of causing havoc on the more popular servers that run sniper gametypes and other gametypes that cheating is usually part of. Now, lots of new code has been released to these same people who may or may not use it to either produce better security for UT or to use it to break through any security UT has in the first place.

When the wrong people get the right information bad things can and will happen. I expected this to happen years ago and am thrilled it took so long to occur since I have been behind schedule to do anything about it. Well, I've been catching up. I've been working hard to prepare for these coming days. Just because I never play and have a laid back attitude, it doesn't mean I'm not paying attention to threats heading our way.

In the end, it all boils down to this: Somehow, someone, someday will hack UT so badly that there will be no available protection against them and their ability to ruin our day. There is protection though through privacy and scrutiny. I expect that it won't be long now that UT will become a private server only entity. Clans will gain from this initially I suspect but I'm not going in the direction of making a clan by any means. I am creating a hierarchy however to best handle the future needs of people who really need a place to play and are good trustworthy folks. Inside the next year or so I expect to be forced to produce/deploy/unload/present my final action towards protecting the game and the players of it that I hold so dear.

I sound all end of the world-ish right? LOL. It won't be that bad but certain people suck real bad and I prefer to keep them away from my activities with my friends. I have a mostly complete workable plan to ensure people like me will continue to play UT long past the day that UT will be considered long dead. It will be a sanctuary of sorts for the die-hard UT fans of good UT servers. I will have the only key to the door to get in. I will be the only one who decides who else can get in.

Now that all of this new-found code is in both the right hands and the wrong hands I fear the days of UT as is are truly numbered. I will be a large part of the UT underground that will survive and thrive.
~Peace~

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Re: OK, here is why I have a bad feeling....

Post by player » Mon Mar 05, 2012 12:42 am

so far what they have released are uscript anticheats, which were penetrated long before by hackers (mostly by bytehack), while ACE check for file modifications (direct consequence of bytehack) & decourage them from trying (instead turn to native hack)

So think the other way, hackers knew the code long before & modders deserve the source

unreal engine1 package files are very likely decompilable, afaik the main protection on the .u files is nametable obfuscation
which just replace identifier name (eg. function & variable name) with symbols that human can't understand or decompilers can't handle
but internally their names are stored somewhere which can be hex-edited to readable name like "A001"
(and a program can be written to simplify the process-- nametable deobfuscator)
so knowledgable hackers can always read the codes.
(it would be another story if there was encryption for UE1 .u files)

*uscript anticheat are still needed as uscript hack can bypass native anticheat like ACE, so now both uscript & native anticheat work together safe-guarding UT. have faith in the AntiCheat developers! they know what they are doing! especially after >10 years of UT..

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Re: OK, here is why I have a bad feeling....

Post by Hermskii » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:27 am

Thanks player. I knew I asked you about this on another forum and appreciate you coming here and posting your answer. I do see what you are saying and I am aware that this should be more of a good thing than not. I have to admit though that I am pessimistic when it come to UT related stuff because I have seen so much bad crap happen in the past. I also am aware that anything good can usually be made into something bad much more easily than bad things made into good ones.

I also think the teams are lopsided. The hackers far out weigh the good guys. I'm grateful that people like TNSE, gopo, back4more, anthrax and the like are trying to lock down the security for UT. I just don't have faith they'll ever overcome the odds.

I may use what becomes available to the Admins in the community but in the end what I have projected and prepared for will be a workable solution. I hate the thought of shutting down in a way and going all private but I am almost ready to do so if needed.
~Peace~

Hermskii

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