Ron wrote on Sun, 06 March 2011 06:16

I think I'll make it an option for the game host to decide for his/her game's files to be cleaned or not. Or do you think it should be mandatory for all games?

Opt-in should be easier for all involved, at least until the tool(s) are reliable enough.

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Everyone should have a choice, and I would not like to take away someone's choice.

Hopefully the tool(s) will be easy enough to deploy and use that anyone can use them in their hosting.

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Even now, without these tools out in public, players in non-SAH hosted games have to trust their game hosts, especially if the game host is playing in the game.

At least, with more anti-cheating tools it will be easier to trust other players.

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It sure seems like a fine line to me.

"Security" thru obscurity seems to me even finer.

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XyliGUN wrote

As of verifier - it's not ready yet. There is nothing impossible, but there are about 20 actions (with different subactions), which needs to be verified and it will take some time to make verifier ready enough. So, sorry, but don't expect a quick results here.

m.a@stars wrote

If you need help with that, of any kind, I'll be glad to lend what experience I have in building/debugging similar tools.

OK, once I'll have something to test I'll let you know, but do you have a knowledge on how to actually cheat?

m.a@stars wrote

From PaulCr's attempts, I gather most of these actions aren't that hard to detect.

I've seen his tools and they are pretty impressive and his cheats checks as well, but I'm going to go a bit different way, I'll concentrate on checking each block integrity against current universe state, so in general it wouldn't a known bugs list check, but hopefull any potential cracking\hacking check, even if it's unknown so far.

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m.a@stars wrote

Hopefully the tool(s) will be easy enough to deploy and use that anyone can use them in their hosting.

Cleaner usage:
StarsKnowledgeCleaner.exe game.mX
* remove hidden knowledge from game.mX

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XyliGUN wrote on Sun, 06 March 2011 11:29

do you have a knowledge on how to actually cheat?

Only theoretical, but...

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I'll concentrate on checking each block integrity against current universe state, so in general it wouldn't a known bugs list check, but hopefull any potential cracking\hacking check, even if it's unknown so far.

That's more my kind of turf / tool / interest. I knew some day all my experience with complex databases would pay off!

And, as many others have said, once the file format is well understood many cheats become possible, or even easy, so it shouldn't be hard to find / build test cases.

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Eagle of Fire wrote on Mon, 07 March 2011 06:39

My opinion on this is that we should of course use the cleaner on AH... But it would probably best not to create a program which can do the same for players outside AH. For the very reason you gave under 2>. If some programmers really want to decompile the game, they'll find it out eventually. Having a tool which openly remove information in the turn files however is a big pointer that they should actually look there.

So you're saying that not telling people how to cheat and not issuing a program which prevents it is better than telling people how to cheat and issuing a program that prevents it?

Why?

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magic9mushroom wrote on Sun, 06 March 2011 21:07

So you're saying that not telling people how to cheat and not issuing a program which prevents it is better than telling people how to cheat and issuing a program that prevents it? Why?

I think what he means is that it is a bad idea to tell people who want to cheat where in the files to look in order to cheat because an automated hosting service like Autohost is the only place where players can be reasonably certain that the tool to prevent cheating is in use.

Placing a marker in the files to show that the cleaning utility has been used, such as an in-game message, would not help, as it would probably be easy for a cheater to remove the cleaning functionality without removing the function that inserts that message.

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Eagle of Fire wrote on Sun, 06 March 2011 20:39

My opinion on this is that we should of course use the cleaner on AH... But it would probably best not to create a program which can do the same for players outside AH. For the very reason you gave under 2>.

Well, the cleaner itself is only half the solution. True safety won't exist until the x-file checker/sanitizer is out too.

Alas, even if the tools or the knowledge aren't very widely spread, the current level of security for all games, in or outside AH is at best weak.

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[Updated on: Sun, 06 March 2011 18:30]

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[Updated on: Sun, 06 March 2011 18:31]

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OK, developer is here.
First of all, when we are talking about Stars! security, IMO there could be only two possibilities:

1. Playing host have no access to the hst file (as well as to uncleaned m file) at all - in that case we can expect a really good security.

2. Playing host have access to hst file (or to uncleaned m file) - in that case you cannot expect any real security, and there is no tools that can give it to you (even in theory). Here you can only speak about trust. And if you don't trust to the host in that case you shouldn't play at all.

If we talk about wrapper (while I beleive it could be usefull to simplify its' usage) - it cannot give you any additional security if host can access hst file. Cheating host who have a knowledge on stars encoding will have to create a hacked/special sanitizer? No. What for? It's tooooo complex for that simple task (cheating). He will just copy hst file to the safe place and then read everything he needs thru encryption.

PS: IMHO, a good (i.e. effective) developer should be lazy enough to be able to find a really effective solution (even in case he decided to cheat)!

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XyliGUN wrote on Tue, 08 March 2011 14:40

PS: IMHO, a good (i.e. effective) developer should be lazy enough to be able to find a really effective solution

Robert A. Heinlein wrote

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."

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Robert A. Heinlein wrote

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."

Exactly. It looks like a perfect SAH signature.

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