What can we do about "glitch sites"

Was just wondering this morning, as IW have just announced a whole bunch of fixes for MWF2 (including finally fixing the prestige mode + private mode XP glitches)..is there anything we, as a community, can do about the (what i will call) "glitch sites", where people openly discuss, share and promote hacks/cheats/glitches (all are one and the same) for big video games like Call of Duty, CSS etc.

I know that these sites have been around since internet gaming started up (first remember hearing about them when Quakeworld become popular..notably wallhacks at the time), but back then the impact was fairly minimal as the vast majority of gamers didn't know they existed, or couldn't find them if they did. 99.99% were also focussed on PC Gaming then also, which sadly will always have issues as it is so easy to modify game assets and trick all of the anti-cheat systems out there..but now consoles are being targeted. These days however these sites are actively promoted (even appearing on facebook adverts!) and I am encoutering more and more people who seem to think its "OK" to hack their favourite online game to get a mega high rank or an unfair advantage. This is especially a problem in games like the Battlefield and COD series where progress in the multiplayer world means more weapons/benefits. I personally don't really understand the mindset behind these lowlifes that think its OK to do that..but that is not the issue here.

So, is there anything we can do about it - legally I might add. Clearly we could go all vigilante here and start taking them down by various nefarious means..but hexus isn't the place for that :) I am also very concious that "policing the internet" is a very dangerous thing to suggest..but there has to be something we can do about it.

Other than flooding the various boards with anti-cheating-scum posts etc (not the most dignified..but legal) or trying to get hold of domain names when they expire, hunting for any little legal irregularities to get their webhosts to take down the sites themselves, I am kind of out of ideas. Anyone got any ideas? Can't do anything about the private sites where the bigger exploits are traded but maybe something about the publics...

Your wasting your own time worrying about this.

Maybe if a dev can release a game bug/glitch free might help.

then it's mainly down to the PC, where haxerz can get into and change certain files... but i dont think there is sod all you or any1 can do about it... play with your mates have fun and dont worry.

More reasons why game creators prefer consoles these days :(

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Originally Posted by OilSheikh

More reasons why game creators prefer consoles these days :(

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I don't know about that, I'm fairly certain that it's possible to introduce hacks into a console game if you've got a modified console, and you can obviously use glitches to your heart's content. And if anything it's more successful on a console game because there's no barriers to cheating.

The MW2 debacle recently has just proven that, because the PC server admin community was fairly adept at tracking down hackers/glitchers and banning them from the server. With that ability taken away, you're completely at the mercy of IW to stop hackers. And they'll fail.

As for stopping the sites, that's just ridiculous. If it was that easy to stop a website, PirateBay and the like wouldn't exist because an organisation like the RIAA and MPAA would have shut them down inside a fortnight.

If anyone starts talking about how consoles are immune to this...

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/vi...ox-360-225031/

Well you can definitely hack on console games WITHOUT a modified console (which is why I started this thread, as its starting to get on my nerves), but I am not necessarily on a bout taking down the sites. Got to think outside the box to see what can be done about these people..

In any case its not the same as taking down TBP etc, those sites are specifically engineered to be difficult to remove (hosted all over the place with redundancy and specific protection against DOS etc), whereas most of these cheater sites are small time affairs that won't have such protection. Anyway not saying we have to take them down..was just thinking if there is anything that can be done to help limit the impact to to help devs out..there may be no answer, but if you don't ask/discuss you don't know :)

I'm not wasting time worrying on this but i thought it could be interesting to discuss..

edit: format PLEASE can you remove that link..don't want to make it easier for people to hack by giving out direct links..

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Originally Posted by Spud1

In any case its not the same as taking down TBP etc, those sites are specifically engineered to be difficult to remove (hosted all over the place with redundancy and specific protection against DOS etc), whereas most of these cheater sites are small time affairs that won't have such protection. Anyway not saying we have to take them down..was just thinking if there is anything that can be done to help limit the impact to to help devs out..there may be no answer, but if you don't ask/discuss you don't know :)

I'm not wasting time worrying on this but i thought it could be interesting to discuss..

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I didn't so much mean the protection side of things, more the fact that things always find a home. Napster went, so up came torrenting, and then a torrent site was closed, so TPB rose to the top, if TPB closes then isohunt will rise, so on so forth. There's such a demand for it that it will always happen.

Honestly, the best way to combat it is to give people dedicated servers. If you look at somewhere like Punksbusted (please note, completely different to Punkbuster) then you've got a massive community of server admins who have collaborated to find their own community anti-hacking tools, and who maintain a database of hackers based on screenshots and so on. I spent a lot of time when I played BF2 taking remote screenshots of suspicious players on the server, and then you'd see things like fake colouration, or enemies through walls, or you'd see somebody sitting inside a wall. And they'd all be banned. With no dedicated servers, you can't do that - you have to rely on the manufacturers. They are firstly too scared of banning genuine gamers, and secondly don't want to dedicate that kind of time to preventing hackers... it's not conducive to profit-making.

I agree that dedicated servers are definitely the way forward in terms of combatting cheaters, with admins who care about banning those that cheat..and even more so when you get systems that can share ban lists accross servers.

VAC has been relatively successful (although sadly its still simple enough to get around..cat and mouse game there) and there are a bunch of banlists that are around for source based games and the Battlefield series on PC, but as you say this doesn't apply with ad-hoc games such as COD. Publishers don't want to invest in the infrastructure to provide this, as dedicated servers, whilst clearly superior in every single way to ad-hoc, cost them money to provide.

Annoying.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

VAC has been relatively successful (although sadly its still simple enough to get around..cat and mouse game there) and there are a bunch of banlists that are around for source based games and the Battlefield series on PC, but as you say this doesn't apply with ad-hoc games such as COD. Publishers don't want to invest in the infrastructure to provide this, as dedicated servers, whilst clearly superior in every single way to ad-hoc, cost them money to provide.

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Exactly - VAC and Punkbuster are very similar to each other, and both have major issues. PB protects a whole raft of games - America's Army, Battlefield series, CoD (until the evil one), ET, Rainbow Six, etc, and that (I presume) has been funded by the game's providers, in essence they are contracted out to prevent hacking online.

At the end of the day, preventing hacking is important for game publishers because online can be a big deal - if Battlefield and CoD were riddled with hackers, then both of them would've failed by now. A lot of people felt that hacking was a big factor in the failure that Medal of Honor: Airborne became, although how true that is I don't know. Even if it doesn't hurt current sales, it will hurt future sales. However, those systems only go part of the way. They do a fairly decent job, and prevent the game being riddled with hackers - which then means that people won't turn off in disgust. But there'll always be one or two ahead of the game, and they'll succeed in avoiding PB's detection.

The only people who can stop them are the "above and beyond" people - the server admins, and services like Punksbusted and PBBans which expand on Punkbuster and ban with screenshot information and so on - and I thank them for it because even one cheater spoils a night of gaming for me, admittedly not enough to make me chuck the game in the bin, but it spoils my evening. And it ruins competitive tournaments. So they're extremely important, and their sort of setup the publishers will never fund because it isn't essential to the vast majority - however, dedicated servers are vital, because they allow people to restrict access via banlists and and so on which ad-hoc services don't.

wish someone would stop silly buggers on street fighter 4 with there damn lag switchs!! just thought i would add my 2 cents worht :)

what exactly does a lag switch do?

They effectively exploit the games netcode which is design to minimise the effect of lag, by artifically creating lag so you can say, climb a wall or fire off lots of rounds on your end, and all the other players will just see you frozen. Then when you un-lag all the things you have just done will suddenly happen in a split second as the game catches up.

Did you ever play TFC or real counter strike back in the day, on a 56k modem? Similar effect to what happened there when you had a server full of people on broadband, and 1 56ker..you could never hit them as they were lagging so much, but they could still hit you..