(30 Jun 10, 07:40AM)LeeZH Wrote: Also, I respect Brahma's anti-cheat work, but I also believe that security by obscurity gets nowhere. There are ways to view the code stacks for the anti-cheat code, and while it may take time, it is still possible. Instead it is better to have a solid design that is tough to break even though the code is out in the open.
I never found a hacker in this game.
The reason is very simple: until now, the sources are open (i will not use the "open source" term because you have your own meanings for this). Until now, anyone can go to sourceforge, get the sources, change it at will and play the game. There is no "hacking skill" in doing this. Only the "noobs" think the opposite.
So, unfortunately any *noob* (I include myself in this row) can change the sources. And I say "unfortunately" because it produces a lot of "cheaters". But at the same time it is a great thing, and modding is one of the pillars that sustain this game.
So producing cheats in a game where you have access to the sources is work of *noobs*... and we tried to deal in different levels with them.
The blacklist was created to this, also a lot of "politics" was made... and now we will try "closed source server bins". This will not make the sources less open... there is (and will be) a lot of modified servers, with different features to deal with the different problems. The "anti-cheat server" will be just one more of them. The clients will not see difference (with the exception of the cheaters, because they will play "worse" in these servers).
After all, the "anti-cheat sources" could be easily "opened".
The anti-cheat checks are not perfect, and they have a big tolerance to errors (so some cheats will not be blocked), but you cannot avoid these checks. If your client do something that other clients are not able to do (I am not talking about player skill), this anti-cheat code will be prepared to block it. There is no coding tricks, nor secret bytes, nor hacking skills in it.
So, if the anti-cheat code is so "good", why not make it public?
The answer is: This game has no hackers... so why to make the cheating work of the *noobs* more easy?
Studying the sources, a smart cheater can tune his client to the thresholds of the detection.
This will not be of great advantage, since only part of the game success is skill (the major part is intelligence, experience and knowledge over the map)... but "why to make the cheating work of the *noobs* more easy?" (x2).
So, let the real hackers revert the code, study it, create a cheating client in the threshold limits and take its 2 cents of advantage.