Food for thought

[Backinthetxt 0]

I was thinking the other day when a hacker invaded a server I was in and started raining barrels from the sky to crash the server... I know Armaac doesn't work now, cause he rode right in through it. But there may still be a third party way to ban people off of your server. There is a program called Netlimiter 2 pro, and I believe if you install it on your server, it will monitor everyone connected to your server and thus if you could somehow link IP's with ID's or perhaps when the player joined and then match it with what time the IP connected via netlimiter, you could prevent him from joining again to ruin your public server play. Just a thought, I'm thinking I might try it out on my server. Give me some feedback.

[Major Fubar 0]

I think this would be better suited in the ArmA MP section - moving...

[Backinthetxt 0]

k thanks.. anyway, a little update. I tested this theory of mine, and indeed it works. It takes a bit of work to match an IP with a player ID but it is fairly easy.

When you open netlimiter it will give you a list of processes running with expanding pluses once expanded enough you'll see a list of IP's. These IP's are ones that are connected to your server, you can gain a bunch of information off of that person my right clicking and selecting throughout the bunch of options, including WHOIS, PING, TRACE and STATS, I believe the Stats will tell you when the entry was created, as in when the IP connected to the server. Also, while looking on the server's little dialog box that opens, on your server desktop, you can read names and ID's, it will also tell you when that player connected to your server. If you can match that time with an IP on netlimiter, you've probably got your man. Therefore if that man is a hacker. You'll easily go into your filter editor in netlimiter, and create a filter, select which program you want to create the filter for (this being arma_server.exe of course) then add it to the list of applications, following that you want to insert the players IP say his IP was 72.34.45.56, ok well you can enter that number in both slots for range or you can enter 72.34.45.0 in start IP and 72.34.45.255 in end IP to include his whole range.

Once that is complete add the filter. Now whenever you go into your filter editor his information should show up. Finally, going back to your original window you'll notice that whatever you named that filter will show up there (probably down at the bottom) thus you can control his incoming access and outgoing access. If you click on the little bubble you can deny both, and walla he won't be able to connect to your server unless his IP changes completely

PS. sorry for such a long para.. don't get lost... oh and btw, you have to have netlimiter on your server... you. You can find it at netlimiter.com, get a trial version or buy it, how you get it is up to up to you

[Frantic 0]

nice idea, but will be only helpfull for noob cheaters who dont know how to change a IP.

[Backinthetxt 0]

true but, I don't think there are many that can do that really.

[maddogx 13]

I believe someone from this forum (Nutty?) is working on a small program that catches all kinds of data sent to the server (chat, variables, objects etc.). Seems like a more promising idea, as it would be tailored specially for ArmA.

[Nutty_101 0]

Yeah, it does but I think it might cause issues. That has been making my life fun trying to figure out what does what and why cause one packet does not always contain one command. They don't always blend into one packet but they do. Good example is the user list for a server when you join. That tends to have the faces and player id's along with chats. So i'm still working on sorting all that out. I have some of the basic stuff working, createvehicle, createvehicle with init lines and items attached to it. publicvariable and joins,disconnects,loosing connections, and all chats.

[Frantic 0]

nice one Nutty_101...but it would be better if you wont talk too specific about the way how you wanna get rid of the cheaters, cause we need it working!

would be shit if the cheaters already know a way to solve it...

[Backinthetxt 0]

Ok its time to fight back on a faster more advanced level. for those of you willing to help devise a fight back plan, I have several coders waiting to help work something out. come to teamspeak IP 72.55.153.123:8767 (ts.usmsquad.com) look for a guy with the name Muhuja, Madmangs or Highspeed. I was just brainstorming with Mahuja who is an excellent coder, as well as mangs, and they believe with enough developers we could win this war agains these scrubby ass hackers. hit me back. Thanks.

I knew this would happen... as soon as BIS got their money, they'd hit the road with it and leave us hanging... I've really never known a dev company to let the public hang and develop their own strategies for dealing with this crap. Like I said meet up and we'll get something going a bit faster. Whether its combining MaddogX and nutty's ideas combined with our own we'll get something going. Mahuja said there is a possibility of creating a program linked with some sort of firewall device to ban by IP, PID and Name and maybe adjust some type of TKC pattern within the program.

[Backinthetxt 0]

something else to consider, along with your programs, there is a way to get the IP of the person connecting. If you whois that IP you can get ISP. I'm sure 20,000 people emailing an ISP would get that ISP doing something about that person.

[Tactician 0]

Fighting back prolongs a cheater's interest. It gives him a new challenge (which he will likely overcome). Meanwhile, non-cheaters are inconvenienced by the extra security measures. Just thought I'd throw in the pessimistic viewpoint.. I have yet to see a cheater ruin a game (I've only encountered a cheater once and I kicked him on the spot, never to see him again) so it doesn't really affect me.

[Nutty_101 0]

Fighting back prolongs a cheater's interest. It gives him a new challenge (which he will likely overcome). Meanwhile, non-cheaters are inconvenienced by the extra security measures. Just thought I'd throw in the pessimistic viewpoint.. I have yet to see a cheater ruin a game (I've only encountered a cheater once and I kicked him on the spot, never to see him again) so it doesn't really affect me.

Then you have not been playing much. I can join a game and find one on a public server in 20 minutes almost everytime.

[1436 1]

arma already gives u ips with -netlog and a program like blackice or net limiter can do the ip ban or ip range ban.

[Dudester 0]

Whats the point in banning an ip when its easy to get another one? Bis knew all this cheating happened in OFP, so if anything solid could of be done to stop it, surley they would of done it in this game.

I might be wrong, but judging from Ofp, (reason i left) nobody can stop it. How many people in ofp thought they could beat the cheats with a program and failed.

What makes me laugh about cheats in this game, is that its so obvious what they are doing, yet alot of the time its only the server admin that is blind to it. Unless you camp you cannot get 40 kills to 5 deaths, the slow animations of this game cannot allow for this type of score. I say "wake up admins"

[Mobious 0]

Are you kidding dude? Try taking your time in a game I bet with some practice you could get that kinda skill...

[binkster 0]

Most of these cheaters are kids downloading cheat packs from certain websites. Any program that can help ip ban will get rid of these kids.