Hacks being distributed in an addon, what to do?

[Scerius 10]

I played a mod the other day, and enjoyed it a bit. For whatever reason I decided to un-pbo the downloaded mission file, and was really quite surprised at what I found. Hacks were being included in the pbo file. Some of them could be considered 'admin tools', sure. But some of them, such as ESP, I doubt have any reason for being there.

So, what steps does one take from there? Is there anything in particular I should be doing, or more important, anyone who should be notified that hacks are being distributed in these mission files?

[das attorney 858]

If the mod is on this forum, or on Armaholic then report it to the moderators here. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much. There's nothing inherently wrong in making god mode, ESP and all those sort of things for use at home. It's only a problem if it's masquerading as something else. (For example: Downloading an MP artillery mod to find it has cheaty scripts stashed inside it).

Really, it's down to the server admin as to what he/she lets on their server, so more fool them if they are unwittingly letting "hacks" on their server. If they know exactly what they're doing though, just choose not to play on those servers.

[giorgygr 61]

Sorry i cannot imagine what "ESP" stands for /or what is it's purpose.

(You have me a bit confused referring to an "addon" -in your topic title -and as "mission" later though..)

A developer of a mission can use some extreme measures for testing purposes (as you already said) aka Teleports/god mode..and after that

(especially if he is not 'seasoned' mission maker) maybe forgot to remove the "extra" scripts before publish the mission.

Of course the above assumption is only the 1 side of the coin. :)

Edited October 2, 2013 by GiorgyGR

[Harbinger2456 10]

ESP - cheat to show where all the enemy are.

Had two pretty trusted coders do this to us in the UT1 mod Infiltration. They wrote some weapon scripts for new weapons. People even used them in tournaments. What no one knew for a while, is that they had loaded them to the hilt with cheats! They were finally caught by other programmers and thrown out of the community. Funny how they were always winning!

[marker 1]

Possibly talking about wasteland...

If he is, then it probably uses the guid to initiate the admin script. If the guid isn't within say admin.sqf then it sits dormant.

[bhaz 0]

Out of interest, is it just a few sqf scripts included with the mission, or did they actually pack an executable file in the mission .pbo? The latter sounds a bit more serious, and you could probably forward the cheat privately to BattlEye so they can do what's needed to detect it. http://battleye.com/support.html

[Harbinger2456 10]

Nah, they would have hid it in the scripts. In the INF game, it was pretty obvious when we ran across a strange looking function called "Demon Egg".

[Scerius 10]

Yes it is just hidden scripts inside the automatically downloaded pbo mission file.

[Deadfast 43]

Well, the mission designer can put anything he wants to in his mission. The only recommendation is to only host missions from trusted sources (to make sure there isn't a backdoor that would allow its creator from cheating) and play on trusted servers (to make sure the admins aren't cheating). Considering there is no difference between hax scripts and actual scripts there will be nothing BattlEye can do.

[iceman77 18]

Considering there is no difference between hax scripts and actual scripts there will be nothing BattlEye can do.

^ This. Also, could the OP please elaborate more or post some code? For testing purposes, mission designers use all sorts of "cheats" when making a mission. Anything from spawning UIs, to teleporting, to invincibility etc etc.

[Scerius 10]

No I am not posting them, sorry.

I was just wondering if this was more or less common practice to see something like this included, I am not experienced with running a server myself (in Arma atleast, I guess I had fun some in the past for other games). You pretty much has gave me the answer I was lookign for though Iceman, thanks, and I hope that is why they are there.

[dmarkwick 261]

I guess if they're just normal scripts with normal scripting commands then strictly speaking they're not hacks.

[iceman77 18]

No I am not posting them, sorry.

I was just wondering if this was more or less common practice to see something like this included, I am not experienced with running a server myself (in Arma atleast, I guess I had fun some in the past for other games). You pretty much has gave me the answer I was lookign for though Iceman, thanks, and I hope that is why they are there.

Hi! There are thousand upon thousands of posts containing code here on the forum. Most of which could technically be used for bad intentions in some way or another. In any case, I wouldn't worry too much about the mission you're playing. While I'm not saying there are no ill intentions with the mission, but it's highly unlikely & without posting any additional information, it's certainly hard for anyone to tell. Even then it would be really hard to say for sure.

Regards,

Iceman

[tortuosit 486]

I guess if they're just normal scripts with normal scripting commands then strictly speaking they're not hacks.

I tend to agree.

[rundll.exe 12]

A mission file is not an addon, can a mod please change the topic title to make it less confusing?

If a server admin puts (knowingly) a modified mission on the server for his benifit, I'd report it to the current players and never visit that server again.

If it's done by the mission designer, that's his choice.