VAC goes ban

[Ch3tan]

valve
"There have been many of questions about what we've been doing in the past few days. I'd like to get people up to speed on how things are going.

The ban list is now active, which means people that are detected cheating on a secure server will be banned from all secure servers for 24 hours. We'll be increasing the penalty for cheating dramatically over time as we become more comfortable with how the system is operating. We know of no false positives being generated currently, but we're going to be extremely careful we aren't banning legitimate players.

Many people have expressed concern over us banning players using CD-Key changers. We will not be banning any users that have legitimate reasons for using multiple CD-Keys (family members sharing a key, multiple clients behind a NAT, etc.). We're aware of all of the legitimate reasons for having multiple CD-Keys from one client, and users in these situations will not be affected.

Team Fortress Classic (along with Ricochet, Half-Life Deathmatch, and Deathmatch Classic) will have VAC support in the next Half-Life client release. We will be testing some of the features in the next Half-Life/Counter-Strike release on Steam in the coming weeks.

Thanks to everyone that runs servers for the community. We know how important server administrators are in keeping the community running, and we'll continue to do things to make running a server a better experience."

 

[ECA]

do you have a fetish for posting old news?

 

[1tchy trigger]

Well I for one thank Chets for his update - I don't have time to traul through all of the HL/CS sites for news etc and generally just pick up on what peeps post in here.

What was the point of your post ECA??? This isn't the general forum so why do you feel the need ??

 

[ECA]

he posted another one about some ex_ cvars being locked.

 

[ECA]

he could have A) combined em ( i am well aware of the irony as i'm double posting too lol ) or B) just pointed to the article/s in question that he has trolled.

 

[TipTop]

or C) Posted them for the forums benefit and allowed us to decide if it is useful or not...

Thx Ch3ts and ECA stick to the useful comments you make and stop trying to bump your post count

 

[Insane]

can I bump my post count by being an arse?

maybe not...

Thx ch3ts, gg pld

 

[throdgrain]

Yep stick at it Ch3tan .

 

[ECA]

actually the article with the netcode guy is very informative, I was looking round trying to find it earlier but no luck.

It explains most of the netcode stuff like ex_interp properly, and explains what they do and why they are there.

 

[Mr Bungle]

Originally posted by ECA
do you have a fetish for posting old news?

In this case I think Chetan was just trolling for h4x0rs.

Cheers,
Bungle

 

[Ch3tan]

Actually I have always posted things like this ECA, well before you started posting here. If I think people may be interested I will post it, it is only old news to people who troll news sites and not everyone does.

 

[Wilier]

Originally posted by ECA
do you have a fetish for posting old news?

I dont see you posting any interesting articles.

 

[scooby-doo]

will you two behave.

 

[Skyler]

Stop whinging ECA

This ban thing is a small step in the right direction, but we need permanent bans and better detection ultimately

 

[Ch3tan]

A threat of a ban across the entire network of HL servers would be enough to put all but the most detirmined cheater off. Would you even consider cheating if it meant that your cd-key was worthless on every online HL server?

 

[ECA]

for a start VAC is optionable, a fair few servers dont run it.
Most of the major GSP ones do I admit.
HL is v cheap as well a tenner.
Add to that you can ring sierra and get a new cd key for 6 quid.

I agree its a step in the right direction, but the cheating teams out there will always be one step ahead, its exactly the same as with virus writers, you dont know how they are going to get through next time, only that they will, and then you have to start coding your anti-cheat to block/detect it.

When you start writing your anti-cheat, they'll be working on the next version.

The only cheaters who get caught are stupid ones.

Untill VAC is updated without telling anyone, a large proportion of iintelligent cheats will remain uncaught.


The ONLY way for the VAC team to stay ahead is to have a seperate team of coders at valve developing cheats and the VAC team blocking them, that way the cheaters routes will be decreased much much faster and will take longer to produce new versions.

 

[ECA]

PS: If thats spouting shit as you put it, I have nothing further to say to you.

 

[Will]

But they don't announce VAC updates until after the fact.

 

[ECA]

are you on the hlds mailing list?
They announce beta modules for people to test a few days before.
And the announcement is usually on the mailing list before they are updated.

 

[Will]

If cheats can suffer the constant spam of the hlds mailing list, good luck to them. I couldn't take it.

 

[Skyler]

Originally posted by Ch3tan
A threat of a ban across the entire network of HL servers would be enough to put all but the most detirmined cheater off. Would you even consider cheating if it meant that your cd-key was worthless on every online HL server?

There are many answers to that, but me personally I would use an undetectable self written wallhack/aimbot (if i was going to "hack") but if not I would just use a multitude of a3d 2.0 more visible models, some changed sprites and sounds, all of which are undetectable and have no chance of achieving a complete serverwide ban.

The average joe cheater has no clue what they are doing they just download ogc and start playing, they have no clue about vac they just want to cheat, so it wouldnt deter them..

As for the other more clever cheaters well some use undetectable h4x and the rest just have so many wonids they really dont care

There are some who would be put off by this vac thing but most wont be..

 

[Ch3tan]

VAC is optional ECA, but would you really play on insecure servers? VAC will not be optional soon, it will be mandatory to run in secure mode. Your saying that cheaters will pay up to a tenner for the oppurtunity to cheat again? heh.