Which country has the most cheats?

[Hellspell]

the Ugandans I always thought, but if that graphs correct

[sgt.d]

Very interesting.

[MerCyKiL]

Brasil, Y U No have more than USA??????!?!?!?!???!!?!?!1111??!?!?!?1/1!?!?1/?!??!/!oneoneoneoneslashslash

[jamz]

Myself, jamz, rofl, Shield, Optic, Jason, Andy, tipper and Aekom are the only guys from the UK I know who play AC o_0

You're well off with the total number off British players. Aside from missing about seven regular ladder-server players, the majority are the ones who really keep this game going; the mass of newbs, noobs, and casual players who bulk up the pubs and produce the occasional gem. This goes for every country.

...Just to clarify these stats are just those who were blacklisted for cheating or as a whole?

...a collation of actual Central blacklist additions for cheating...

Cheats only.

Here are the player numbers for January and February of this year. It's probably very inaccurate, since it's extremely hard to identify individuals.
Again, click for bigger:

I've only gone as far as covering every country that was on the first chart. There were 74,660 connections in total from January 1 to February 29.

Going back to the original chart, here's the data after dividing the number of cheats by the player population. Brazil is now slightly worse than the US, but New Zealand and Austria have twice as many.
Sorry about the colours; I got bored.

[Aight]

Very interesting! Especially the 2nd chart, I was keen on seeing something like that, great work.

[jamz]

It just occured to me that, of course, the figures in the second graph are misleading because the cheats were counted from late 2010, whereas the player numbers only reflect the last two months of connections.
In reality there are nowhere near that many cheats, but as a comparison between nations it still works.

[Nightmare]

New Zealand and Australia D:/
(and Austria)

[kleinkariert]

nice to see that you put a lot of effort into that but i wonder what's the point there, jamz. those colours are awesome btw.

[paulmuaddibKA]

Hey jamz, would those number be of individual connections, meaning if a IP connected twice during those months then its ruled out, or its number of total connects from each country?
Anyway its lovely too see such charts, and, this:

those colours are awesome btw.

[jamz]

...i wonder what's the point there, jamz...

Go back to the first post. I wanted to rid AC of the myth that Brazil is somehow responsible for the majority of cheats. I knew it wasn't true and I hope the charts convey this.

Hey jamz, would those number be of individual connections, meaning if a IP connected twice during those months then its ruled out, or its number of total connects from each country?

I tried very hard to remove all duplicate connections; in other words, you are only one of those 74,660. It seems unlikely that there should be so many players, I know, but I didn't knock this up in five minutes. I suspect Brazil's total should be a bit lower, since they have a greater number of players who change name often, and very dynamic IPs.

[paulmuaddibKA]

Ok!
* paulmuaddibKA starts printing AC shirts...

[[SODA]___ME___]

jamz, those charts are awesome, it does help to put things into perspective.

I wanted to rid AC of the myth that Brazil is somehow responsible for the majority of cheats.................Brazil's total should be a bit lower, since they have a greater number of players who change name often, and very dynamic IPs.

I feel that the dynamic IP is the problem here not the number of cheats or even the ratio. It only takes a few with dynamic ip to ruin things for everyone else. When you ban and/or blacklist someone who is hacking and a few minutes later the same one is back with new name and IP doing the same hacks you can A: ask everyone else on your server to ignore the player that headshots everyone on the other team within 4 seconds of a round, B: ask Brazil to use static IP, or C: ban the country until there is a better way to deal with this.

Are there any known static IP ranges or players with static IP in Brazil?

[MCS]

i think that dynamic IP addresses bring a serious problem to the health of Assaultcube, at least from a cheating standpoint.

banning countries is wrong.

However,

this is really the only way to deal with cheaters that use dynamic ip address. Some rather unsatisfied individual can't aim or kill without a crutch, decides he needs to cheat to be able to seem "ok". He/She gets caught and banned. Person resets their modem or requests a new ip. Back to cheating.

Would there be some way to code something that would require players from ISP's (not countries) with dynamic IP addresses to input some sort of unique ....deban (not really deban, but more like player profile password) as a way to keep the cheating players and legit players from dynamic IPs separated.

I think if the above ^^^ were implemented, that we would either have a REAL clear picture of WHO the cheaters were (whether by detection or SUDDEN SKILL LOSS ;))

or a lot less cheaters.

The problem in assaultcube for me isn't the cheaters that even new players can spot. It's the clan players (probably rather respected, depending on who you ask) that use cheats to periodically cheat throughout pubs/match.....w/e that is killing the fun in this game.


If asking only dynamic users to register a personal access code seems too excluding...perhaps the devs must ask EVERY player to register for an individual password.

I've been taking a break from Assaultcube for a while now. I just don't know who the genuine players are anymore.

I hate to say it.... but i think i'm done (with Assaultcube) until we can figure out a few clever ways to kick the cheating and the cheaters.

[Zarjio]

As has been discussed many times before, having some sort of authentication system would do wonders for removing cheaters from AC... or would at least help.

[GDM]

And what's to stop someone from resetting their router *and* their 'player profile password' ?

[LameFox]

each player gets a unique pass. cheat on the pass, their pass is removed. i.e. MS blacklisted.

Some sort of default time frame for each infraction etc.

This would also remove the really lame "my brother did it" or w/e (insert blame re-director here). Aw but it was my brother....Well don't give your pass to your brother lol.

I do sometimes miss Server Master days

[OpenSource]

The problem is they can change IP and download the game again.
Then they get a new pass/auth...

So some clever coders need to work on this.
And maybe anticheat need to worked on to so it may detect more.

I too understand its hard to stay ahead of cheaters since its a open source game and coders can always edit the code, but it sucks that you have to ban IP ranges that will ban a lot of innocent players.

[LameFox]

which would be why this would have to be registered through the forum, through an email address.

The "plan" I've mentioned doesn't rely on IPs.

Right now, if someone is blacklisted (innocent), they have to come get a new deban pass. What I was suggesting is having all players come to the AC forum and get a pass there.

Requiring either all dynamic players to apply for a pass before play, or requiring all players to register for a unique pass. I know this would be a lot of work. I think, however, that right now it's the only alternative to either ignoring the players who destroy this game, or banning their entire ISP

[OpenSource]

Change IP, get new email address and stuff.
Not hard at all.

My guess is that some sort of auth, like on irc, at least will help when it comes to player that play regular/clan players.

But new comers and those that wanna cheat is hard to stop.

[tempest]

The problem with almost all of these methods is that it makes things more complicated for everyone, while having little effect against cheaters. What would be possible though is using the auth system for some kind of "positive trust" thing. See Aard's idea, for example.

[Marti]

how can the netherlands have so much cheaters if we only have about 1000 people living here :P

really freakin me out that there are so much dutch players i dont know about :)

[LameFox]

3rd time.....it isnt IP based.

[tempest]

Yeah, but that makes little difference. Actually, it's easier to get a new e-mail address that it is to get a new IP range.

[Zarjio]

The problem with almost all of these methods is that it makes things more complicated for everyone, while having little effect against cheaters. What would be possible though is using the auth system for some kind of "positive trust" thing. See Aard's idea, for example.

Aard's idea, while certainly interesting, would never work for AC, given how many noobs download the game, play for a couple days, and never come back.
Any sort of auth system could at least help, provided problem IP ranges required manual activation of new accounts. Take the case of victor, the hacker from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Do you know how many people from Calgary have played AC? Probably only him. So when his old account was banned, and a few hours later someone from Calgary tried to register, it would be easy to tell who it was.
Yes, there will be huge ranges where this is hard to use, but altogether it would help.

[tempest]

Aard's idea, while certainly interesting, would never work for AC, given how many noobs download the game, play for a couple days, and never come back.

I know, and I guess he also knew that - at least Cube never included such a thing.

Any sort of auth system could at least help, provided problem IP ranges required manual activation of new accounts.

Yes, it might help, you might gain a little advantage over the cheaters, at the expense of creating excess trouble and annoyance for everyone else involved, i.e. the huge majority of completely honest players.

[victor]

Okay, but that's what we have gban ("CBL") for - it's already possible to centrally ban IP ranges, and it's being done. If that guy is in such a narrow IP range, I'm sure jamz knows ;)

[Zarjio]

Aard's idea, while certainly interesting, would never work for AC, given how many noobs download the game, play for a couple days, and never come back.

I know, and I guess he also knew that - at least Cube never included such a thing.

Any sort of auth system could at least help, provided problem IP ranges required manual activation of new accounts.

Yes, it might help, you might gain a little advantage over the cheaters, at the expense of creating excess trouble and annoyance for everyone else involved, i.e. the huge majority of completely honest players.

[victor]

Okay, but that's what we have gban ("CBL") for - it's already possible to centrally ban IP ranges, and it's being done. If that guy is in such a narrow IP range, I'm sure jamz knows ;)

Fair enough, all good points. I still think the auth system is worth the extra trouble. Although really solid anti-cheat server side is the best way to stop hackers.

[Jason]

Jamz makes pie chart... shit just got real.

[jockskratos]

amerika #1!

[Brahma]

:'-)

Thank you, jamz.

[Brun0]

lol