FORMAL SUGGESTION fot CnCnet CREW - ANTI HACK SYSTEM NEEDED

[mysog2014]

THIS POST CONTAINS::

 

--- Important info about CHEATING in Red Alert

--- Important info about TRAINERS and other immoral software used along side Red Alert.

--- Important information you would want to hear before you point anyone as cheater.

--- Important information if you are a cheater and lost your soul.

 

*If you want to the the suggestion just jump to the end.

*bad words used restrain if you are weak of the heart, or have a easy Grammar complaining agenda.

 

First of all just wanted to say HI some of you already know me (SOGRUBEGROJ) but I am here because I got disturbed lately by some chat discussion that happened.

Short to say, people are complaining a lot about so called "CHEAT" and I just wanted to make some information clear for you out there that probably have an idea of how this works, or even to others that don’t have a clue, and maybe make other stop using such things, I must apologize this being so long it has to be, I think is worth it and gives a cool insight on how other people solve this problem before.

 

Just wanted to say that all of this is based on my experience with StarCraft an Programming as I was a so “called” pro player and was an active part of that community way back then, and there was some solutions made not by Blizzard but from external sources, to this day people remember how Blizzard gave us the back when the Blizzard forum was flooding of CHEAT! TRAINER! MACRO! post, but again that’s a discussion for other opportunity and how much companies don’t give a fuck about problems (but there is also an explanation to such a behavior that if you want to know by curiosity is at the end of this post), so thereby the reason of this POST, and my humble L O N G opinion on what should be implement on CnCnet servers, as I really love this game and live there most of the days, yeah live… as most of you readers also XD love because by the way.

 

And also forgive about my grammar, I am not interest no improving my English or anything, think that the “improve your grammatical” is a lame discussion, we immigrants come to change lots of stuff so dig it DIG IT , long live the invasion.

 

Ok, in this POST we will concentrate and explain on one kind of cheating that is called the "MACROS CHEATING", the usage of “TRAINERS” and “EXTERNAL SOFTWARE” of several kind, there are some other kind of cheating but those are really near to impossible to counter-attack and probably not interesting for you, if anyways you are interest on some information about those "hacking" so you know is also at the end, but it might be the lamest of my explains so just bother to read those if you really want to know and giggle.

 

 

Macros “cheating”:

Macros is used all over RTS games (or strategy games lie C&C RA, StarCraft, Civilization) when someone uses keyboard or mouse to make things "automatic", for instance in StarCraft each unit has a Highlighted letter (this is legit build-in macro), like Zealots for instance (basic units of the Protoss in StarCraft) which letter is Z and other deppending on the language, so every time you want to build a zealot you press Z, that simple, other example of macros is that in most of games you can put “rally point” so things that come out of a building move to a certain spot on the map, that is why people like me hate StarCraft II cause all of the gaming has becomes an automatic situation, is all made for the kids to “fell pro”, but that’s a analysis not suited for this post, this overall called Macro Management and is totally legit...if... BUILD IN PROGRAM, and used from external software.

 

Another LEGIT important use of macros is that you can give number to buildings, so for instance (in the case of (StarCraft) you want to build zealots from an specific build, because you can queue in StarCraft (for you out there that don’t know what queue is, is like line of production, or put things in line) just press the number 1 (building) then press Z (Zealot) that simple, not like in Red Alert in which you must do it ALL, I love it the most i have to say, not because of the challenge, but because you need a different set of mind to even overcome error, unique to RA.

 

And something very important we PRO “xD” RA players give for granted that is VERY useful and very much extended on other RTS games, is that if you press a number let’s say 1 your view go straight to the position of the units you grouped with that number 1, it happens the same with building, but not in Red Alert, as it should.

 

Then some other ideas important to know about macros is that macros won’t give you any kind of advantage when both players are the same level and used to work them around, but if someone else is using a MACROS EXTERNAL SOFTWARE and you are not, then is probably comparable to using a Laptop Pad vs someone using a mouse, therefore the strong critique to anyone using any “Extra Macros” on games as Red Alert, you should be ashamed and kill yourself.

 

But to point something else of importance, Red Alert also have Macros, but the beauty of the game is that the macros are old and just VERY basic, for instance Command & Conquer (as far as I know) was the first "popular" game to implement grouping or so that is giving number to a “group” of units added with control or shift, so you can press a number and select previously set groups, Red Alert even implement a number of group under the unit because developers knew how popular this feature was, now this is very common on all games types or RTS games, you can grab a bunch of units and give them a number, but again, in Red Alert you can’t jump to a unit when pressing a number (but you can by pressing Nor M, only really usable at the first stage of the game), but as we will see far in this post it is possible to make code to do this sort of things, also to do some other stuff, but keep in mind this is NOT a cheating tutorial so if you are looking for that GROW UP, you are just harming yourself and the possibility of a great game and "dopamine" effect of winning a so called pro (remember that one day we will play LAN in the same room, and you will be crying –pitty – mark my words ¿aren’t you ashamed?), so don’t learn cheating, this post is only oriented for people to know how cheat works GENERALLY nothing specific.

 

Then to make this post even larger, I want to start explaining what the StarCraft community problems was back there in the days.

 

Around 2004 or so StarCraft was a very popular game especially in Asia (South Korea) and still is, but there where main original servers East, West, Virginia, Asia, and other for free, that where normally back in the days filled with around 3000 players per server each time, long story short it was all fine and beautiful until then disaster striked all of a suden TRAINERS became mainstream, and all around the main ladder crazy unknown people that where playing for only a week or so where getting first places on tournaments, and so back then there was lots of websites blogs and such you can still find that gave information on the so called TRAINERS which I will explain now, and is the main PLOT of this POST.

 

 

TRAINERS:

A TRAINER is a piece of software that can be used to “automatize” things such a clicking, moving, even use internal variables of games etc, it can also sometimes saves “sector of the screen” on its memory, as like when you record a screen sector with twitch or like camatasia, a common use of TRAINERS for instance is in Facebook games as Farmvile in which you download a certain software to build you farms while you are outside NOT PLAYING then when you come back!! You are the fucking Farm Master, it can be also called bot playing if you wish. Another common use of trainers (just giving examples) where the famous Counter Strike TRAINERS, to automatic purchase things (not so problematic but it was thought to be cheat in early versions back in the stone age), and also way before BOTS came people use triggers to make other fake players run like idiots and train shooting, but in Counter Strike 1.14 it was used to shoot just by aiming to and enemy so then it was borne the infamous really easy “360 no scope”, I remember when I was like 14 or so it was so fun people had no idea what happened you where immortal, especially before big sharing sites, another famous use of TRAINER for you to know in video games are for instance being able to play and account while OFFLINE, ¿how this works you ask? There are TONS of services to pay, yeah people pay for this shit, for instance in WOW (World of Warcraft) people paid a certain now closed website to make your character grow automatically and kill a certain monster, buy stuff, give false chat over and over and over again and when you are back!! You are level 30! And you started level 8!, a lot of money and information was lost there also cause kids must not purchase things online EVER, and some proud Russians destroyed they’re professional life forever and almost got to jail, until obviously the government started to use them to build other stuff (topic aside), and to the point TRAINERS where used by a lot of players, companies like Blizzard gave a lot of attention to this problem and “kind” of solve it, and that is at the end of this post.

 

¿So this was important because? …Well you can now stop being a nobot and restrain from not knowing the difference between MACRO and TRAINER, a lot of this error I have been hearing around in the CnCnet main chat, people using the MACRO as if that’s is the worst thing out here, and they assume people doing MACRO are also doing stuff normally you could only do without a TRAINER also installed, hence the error of some people, aside the common idiot that claims !how you can have 4 mcv in 2 minutes CHEAT! Lol I will tell Funky!!, thats just simply lame. So I personally believe that Red Alert should be played “without” any enhancement whatsoever, so if you use MACRO try to mediate on what you are doing, but if you are also using TRAINERS of any kind, kill yourself you are disgusting human being.

 

But then ¿how do you use a macro in Red Alert?, there are several different ways of doing it, not that I tried them myself i enjoy the knowledge not the practical experience (philosophy kinds dont understand), I enjoy playing the game even against cheaters I just see them as hard AI or something, so my heart is in the right place, I stop being 14 a LONG time ago, and know I enjoy a good pro playing from time to time, or even join a NOOB game just to feel the pain of an early MIG, engine humvee, easy tanking on monye maps and so on, and laugh my ass off.. But again back to the point, THIS IS NOT A CHEATING TUTORIAL, nevertheless information must be given, so here it comes the info, if you want you can skip this and jump to the next line ------- there I continue with the FORMAL PETITION aspect of this point, my personal sugestions to CnCnet staff, but now some other explaining regarding MACRO and TRAINING:

 

If you are using Windows you must know there is quite a few software out here that will enhance your keyboard and mouse so you can MACRO stuff (this is NOT legit in Red Alert and it is disgusting), but again that is only like basic macro, like for instance if instead of pressing CTRL + W you just want to press simple SPACE, or if you instead of pressing shift to pick units you can program a certain set of keyboard to “hold shift” so you can pick units faster and avoid those horrible circumstances when you lose your grouping, or you can use the MIDLLE MOUSE BUTTON to do certain stuff like canceling or “upgrading” units so when you build a new factory the new speed is fast giving at one click (some uses that come to my mind by the way I don’t use them),  but in this cases those software’s are not giving people much advantage whatsoever, I must point I am quite sure most of the PRO players pointed that use MACRO probably only use this kind of software, to just make things easier, there is no way to know what are they using, and there is no actual need to know or stop them.

 

You can also help the DROPING, which is a problem in red alert when things build anywhere when you are making things fast, sometimes people have wondered around the internet trying to solve this problem and found software that made this or that etc that problem is made because generally speaking Windows 95, 98, xp and so shared the same mouse behavior, but in the VISTA, window 7, and windows 8 mouse changes just so much, sometimes it just drops, it can easily be fixed with some software, haven't download it yet, it sound crazy but i love when things drop because it the original behavior of the game.

 

Then there are some other software that are a bit more complicated, these can be used sometimes as the so called TRAINERS, which are normally a software programmed to work on an specific “SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS”, thus if certain program is made for Red Alert can only be used for that or it can be adapted to other similar and such, this could be in our example the “Red Alert Environment” (and with environment I mean just the program and everything that loads before, during and after the game is working, especially the VARIABLES used for certain things), this type of program means that the games start to work when the game is launched and are working “inside the game”, this type of program we will call BUILDTRAINERS from now own, and are the worst a filthy cheater can use, and mostly programmed by such a proud cheater and not shared online, so probably you won’t find any online, especially on games so “Underground” as Red Alert, or if you find such programs you won’t be able to run them cause you are missing some parts for it to work good, or need to learn how to compile or how to interpret it, and probably if you find any so called “Red Alert Trainer online” is strongly suggest you DON’T download it, is just online garbage used as backdoor from someone to be able to hack you, or shared for someone else NOT FOR YOU to be able to use it based on some especial directions, probably this last one being a more reasonable explanation.

 

There is something I have to say at this point for some of you out there that don’t know much about computers, when I say that the so called BUILDTRAINER program works inside the SOFTWARE ENVOIREMENT that doesn’t mean it works on every other person playing Red Alert on that specific moment online, I have to say that ITS ALSO possible, and I have seen it that people install certain software or hide software inside other programs such as “launchers” that everybody downloads and give privilege to, or even some pro hacking Chinese mafia hide them inside the updates of certain servers to change the behavior of your program (StarCraft have this problems and now is worse cause no update), but almost 99% of the time when you are playing against a cheater using BUILDTRAINERS (and I haven’t seen any that makes me feel otherwise on CnCnet Red Alert so far, or at least no other than what it seems harmless sniffing) you do NOT have ANYTHING installed on your computer, YOUR COMPUTER IS CLEAN SO DONT UNISTALL CNCNET!!!, the one that has the program is the CHEATER and not you, just wanted to clear that out of the way. So just to say again cause letters don’t cost nothing, you have NOTHING INSTALLED, just the one that uses the cheat has the trainer installed is NOT A VIRUS.

 

¿How a Trainer is made or works, is my program secured?

 

Normally someone grabs the Red Alert source code and changes it to will, so it can load things that are not normal, it sometimes for instance take advantage of how AI does things, or you can build stuff that are not shown in the building panel, you can build a Red Alert custom version that changes sprites, or even shows some statistic like the number or power plants and some control point based on your energy supply, and even enemy information, this is not controlled by CnCnet cause you can almost load any version of Red Alert from the setting menu, then if the update service would find that you game is NON LEGIT wont update it, but you can also download the updates on a LEGIT version and then install them in yours manually, is not quite easy but I know is possible, I haven’t try it so far but is not rocket science.

 

now this paragraph was hidden and its a clue for you that read this far, i have heard that the main cheating aspect people uses for they're MACRO is the use of E, yeah so it will ONLY select units of one kind, THERE I SAID IT, i have never use it, but it is probably very easy to implement, i will point you to learn LUA script it can be done easy, but dont use it.

 

But continuing with the original line, there are other set of programs that might seams that work like TRAINERS but probably are not trainers perse, and those are the automatic programs, and there are THOUSAND out there for several things from pressing refresh always used in servers to restart whole computers over and over again, or even bots that install uninstall things even whole operative systems  (very hardcore firmware programming if you think so), but more down to earth for instance with those you could move you mouse to do certain thing automatically, or when you press a key the mouse will go to a certain “AREA” of the screen and back also called “SECTOR” and click in a certain way (as fast as electricity and you will see just a blip, that’s the thing about this usage I think is perverse cause is like playing against terminator LOL ^^), or listen carefully... it is possible to use programs to use a set of virtual mouse pointers to be moving in the screen at the same time doing different stuff and in complete order until a certain objective is completed, is normally thought that this could be impossible to do inside the “RED ALERT ENVOIRMENT” this is absolutely true now until a certain point, but I will give you an example and you be the one to say if people uses this or not.

 

In StarCraft there was a contest to make perfect AI, I was in this contest back in 2009 (not that my lazy ass won anything, I am not Korean I have a life) and what we first developed was a “Server Emulator” for our LAN StarCraft UDP protocol, if you don’t understand shit then what I mean is just that we loaded “two or more” instances of StarCraft in the same computer one that loaded a BOT that played against me so we could test some things the AI could do, in the development of this “Server Emulator” was the key, it was not being loaded from inside the program, it was a set of clicks, mouse movement, OCR recognition libraries (Visual Reading for programs, so for instance a program CAN read and watch stuff and act, so you can now for instance just by the look if you are dealing with a low or high energy bar), the project works like a charm, some problems we encountered was that the behavior of the mouse was really different that the desktop behavior and it changed dramatically from Operative Systems, drivers and so on, the point I am making is that we got to a degree we could only program a set of function like “attack” or “protect base” that might seem very complicated and they where (we lost to a Chinese that knew math), and even use some “public” and sometimes “protected” set of evoirements on our advantages, like to make computer save progress, because the contest also was made for AI to be able to win custom scenarios so we needed the SAVE function build in the program to be able to work without messing with the arithmetic clock, but no point on explaining that, but for any first year computer science enthusiast it is quite easy, it is a student contest anyways now..., it is especially easy now with a bunch of library’s out there that now make things LOT easier that back then, and scripts like Python, LUA working so beautifull with CLI, importing things directly from MATH serve etc. By the way if you need any information about any concept of this sort or programming just feel free to ask I have all the time in the world and I can teach online.

 

Then to rap this boring POST out as you can see there is a WIDE margin of possibilities, I am not even touching other options.

 

But let’s go back again to this “AUTOMATIC SECTOR SOFTWARE” can be used for a lot of other things, for instance let’s say you always use the same resolution 800x600 or 1900x600 really anything, then you know where V4 will be in the screen, then you can use and external software to “recognize the picture” and thus build V4 for instance without you moving to the build panel and just by clicking a command like let’s say shit+1 or the letter v , and if you don’t want it no more to “right click two time anywhere in the screen” and cancel the operation.

 

So this behavior SHOULD be illegal, and it think it is ilegal, I tend to think that macros software should be at least accepted to a certain degree, but if someone is using a custom BUILD software to load scripts and such, then shameful cut your throat right away, the hard part to know is that there is virtually no way of knowing what the other person is loading on its computer, or at least without lagging or installing some very harmful things on each pc, and fucking the overall Red Alert experience.

 

 

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So my Humble suggestion:

 

¿so how can we AVOID this behaviors on our so love game?

 

The answer is quite simple but is not 100% usable on all the cheating scenarios but the thing goes like this:

 

APM = Action Per Minute, is a “counter”, or a number that grows each time a click is made, or a type of memory that is saving how much clicks you are doing during the game and also saves some other information, it doesn’t take space or internet bandwidth it just does it at the end of each encounter "uploads it to the chart", it also divides the number of clicks on the whole games and serves several purposes other than pointing cheaters, because it not only gives you information on how much “clicks” a person did in the game, but it also helps you get stronger each time based on useful statistics and say “today I was lazy” or “this guys has 400 APM and I only have 130 APM” so I must improve, again this can be developed in a certain way that if someone is using an external “clicking” or “macro software” everyone would noticed, the word KEYLOGGER word comes to mind but don’t worry this won’t upload any information outside the game (I hope so), this should work on a process easy to close from the taskbar on Windows and should be installed on request on not obligation, and only take information on what is being  typed and then if weird combinations are found outside the “regular” list of “pro keyboards” then a BELL!! Should ring (not an actual one i hate noise), this can be problematic cause people may change they’re keyboard to what they desire, but again that’s another subject of fare gaming (we all should use the same set of keys, at least in tournaments it should be like this, ins StraCraft at least it is, even the size of keyboard is the same), then this small log is uploaded to the server at the speed of light and it`s made public on the game chart at the end of each individual game, this is defiantly a MUST, and it changed the StarCraft world, for instance now people can notice cheater a mile away (at least the MACRO-TRAINER cheaters), so for instance you can know that if a person is maintaining a “regular” APM of 300 he is probably a cheater or maybe a Korean, but if it comes from a new person then… we could start talking at his back, or if someone is making to low APM and  he’s playing like a pro then almost certain he is fucking doing it, I have played StarCraft several years and I can say that the problem in that particular game when developing the APM app was that the 3 races used and worked different APM standards all over, Zerg uses a lot more APM, and sometimes depending on the map Terran used more APM than Protoss, but when fighting Protoss used more APM sometimes, in Red Alert we shouldn’t have this problems AT ALL cause its all the same all over, so the info send to the APM-APP in CnCnet should give standard information based on players and maps info, or even who knows it might even push players to do some improvement and make the game near WCG good times....,some questions arise like: ¿what happens when a APM shows same clicking over and over again?, it can mean two thing, a player is a cocaine addict, or he cheating,  or trolling, in both cases there are “ways” you can tell, probably if he’s pressing Q and shit a lot he’s all right, but if he is making left mouse clicks all over the place to fast for human (whatever that means, I guess is a ratio of 120 clicks per minute for an individual action, but in different distributions cycles), then is probably ok, but anyways, in this case a sign must be shown in the game chart of the sort “Overall clicking limit” or something like that then the player can explain and people judge, players that click WAY to much must be flagged.

 

It is not hard to program such a package, just the CnCNet server must add a “counter” when game starts to end of game and probably another isolated app that takes input and saves only the important ones no credit card info or anything.

 

So thats my solution but remember this is not a 100 % solution, cause most of this software especially those installed as “DRIVERS” might not appear on the APM count, but it all depends on how it is programmed, i am just giving my idea here I hope it worked, next the two questions previously promised, I am so sorry this was so long to give such a stupid solution to an important problem, but again I am a troll after all, forever and above, so please comment.

 

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¿Why StarCraft didn’t gave a shit on the Cheating? ¿How did Blizzard resolve the TRAINER problem?

Simple answer: not they’re problem, it was the usage of external software that made the problem (mostly XD), but because they didn’t want they’re program source code to become public for people to mess with it they didn’t even answered the post, but the forum was mayhem anyways and they didnt gave a shit for several years un til we shut and started finding solutions of our own. Another reason was that they wouldn’t implement many changes on the game back then cause this programming even if apparently simple as implementing APM (Actions Per Minute) can be complicated to commercialize, and legalize (there is the electronic patent thing worth a whole other discussion) and probably was not worth there effort based on a security criteria also, and they were right, what Blizzard did was from that point on they programmed they’re software so the “external” clicking, moving, automatic processes where “almost” impossible to work parallel, they made robust software that use mouse and keyboard own very well protect internal instances, but again people learned to hack even those (impossible in red alert just to old for such a loading inside a modern CLI+ frame for instance, or so i think), and now what really worked for Blizzard is to make strategic alliances with big companies that develop drivers and other firmware software to share internal information so they can have more control over to what “handles” what, that works for instance when you want to record a screen with an alpha program and the video is black, or when you want to minimize a program and start using another software that uses the same process it won’t allow it, or when you want to use automatic message programs etc.

 

¿What other kind of cheating there are? hilarious answer, not intended to be serious.

Well there are the kind of cheating in which you grab the source code of Red Alert and change it strategically, so you can have access to several advantages other ways of doing stuff, this is especially perverse taking in mind that the CnCnet server can’t know an allows different instances and mostly doesn’t control where you are launching the Red Alert game, this Is the main problem being stated on the whole post up there, but then I explain that above, but other reason you can COMPILE or make a different version of Red Alert is to create fake exceptions and make package work at will, these “exceptions” are the errors (error windows sometimes) that normally are used to send package of useful information to the CnCnet server, such as you probably did used some times “Please send us the information to improve the experience” pop-up screen, so you use the exception boxes from a previously BUILD SOFTWARE version of your own so the people on CnCnet then read those and say Ohh! I must change this or improve this!, but then as you are a good programming you know that the only way to change that is by changing this other thing in the CnCserver launcher and so on, and BOOM you make a hole of your own, it has been used all over centuries in software, but it is hard cause you need to make a program exact replicate and is mostly top notch-trolling TNT, and it can’t get you as far to get sniffing information you can’t use more than to say Hmm this is the version of Apache they using, but sometimes you hit the jackpot!, you update your server as always and when opening the CnCnet server your change is there in the new update! and you got your feedback (people are people after all), so now you can do this or that if you are smart enough, I haven’t done it myself on CnCnet I simply don’t have the time, equipment or the mindset of a learning curve enthusiast, but probably there are some people there doing stuff of this sort all over (even in your brain kidding XD), mostly just trolling, but from the top of my mind I could use this for instance to make people DROP building as you can now resynchronize your version and lag others, or maybe oblige them to press alt tab because the game now renders different and so own, or even maybe show them a blue screen if they are using the wrong kind of operative system, and don’t start me on what it can be done if people at CnCnet are changing Dll based on feedback, or are being manipulated processes handlers being changed for optimization, but again who has the time or energy, chainserver.dll fault all over again! Show me the fucking flag! XD.

 

Why is this kind of hacking important for cheating? Because then almost any kind of hole made on and update or any kind of info that gives information to internal variable behaviors can be used to proxy-design packages for instance if you are REALLY pro, that CnCnet server would find them being normal, and then you can upload stuff and place some updates of you own that are NOT being recognized as virus at all etc, and then you can do much more than just cheating, you can share cheating to the world.

 

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NOW LETS PLAY!

[FunkyFr3sh]

We just banned/warned all macro/autoclick users, other cheats have been fixed too If there should ever be a new cheat then it will be fixed too

[mysog2014]

We just banned/warned all macro/autoclick users, other cheats have been fixed too If there should ever be a new cheat then it will be fixed too

 

DANKE funky master , i have read the "Facebook" commentary now way after spilling my self in a the big post, maybe i should have read that one first, i had no idea that you guys where already on it, but then how about implementing the APM i a near future is it possible?, sorry for the obnoxious kind - cheers.