The other day, I had the interesting experience of being "blacklisted" by a battle.net user who hadn't played nearly enough Build Tug o' War to realize that my mining speed was perfectly possible (I'm not even all that fast by top BToW pro standards, just faster than anyone who doesn't realize how to get mining going quickly in that game) without any sort of hack or exploit. Curious as to what he might have meant, I did a quick search, and discovered a program that allows users to create a list of IPs which would automatically be banned from any of their games, and which would be kicked from any game that user joined using a host-hacking function. Seeing that program made me think a bit about the status of Starcraft hacking, and here's what I realized: as updates become less frequent, cheating will become a greater problem, not only in that more people will cheat, but the increased frequency of cheating will cause others to be more suspicious and attempt action against those whose skill at a particular game exceeds the norm.

I also realized that the capabilities necessary to seriously reduce the problem already exist, albeit separately and not used for this particular purpose. Many hacks come with functions that enable them to detect if another user is hacking, and will display a warning message to alert the user. There doesn't seem to be any good reason that one couldn't make a fully automated anti-cheat program (I call it a program, though it would probably consist of a small program, a list file made to be hard to edit, and a .dll): basically, this would work like the "blacklist" hack, except that in order to prevent false positives, it would automatically and exclusively add users to the list when its hack-detection functions note that those users are hacking, and then eliminate the detected users from the game with a drop-hack function. Now, there will probably be some sorts of hacks that this program would not prevent, but it could be updated when methods were found, and all that a cheater would have to do is use one hack function that is detectable to be added to the list. Of course, the program would be set not to detect other copies of itself. Hack-makers will obviously try to come out with new and undetectable hacks, but the program itself would also be updatable, and program-users would already be protected against hackers who were detected before the newer generation of hacks was released.

What would make such a program truly effective, though, is if the program automatically shared its ban-list through an online server; instead of each person with the program having their own automatically generated list, it would send the list to the server, and then send back a list compiled from all the IPs that are sent to the server. Thus, if a player cheats in a game with any user of the program, anytime anyone with the program joins a game with that person in it, or if that person joins a game hosted by a program-user, the program will automatically kick the cheater. Each person who used the program would not only increase the frequency of cheater-detection, but would also serve as a kicking agent for the whole system; their copy of the program would take action against cheaters detected by every other copy of the program as well as by itself. Even if the program only achieved moderate popularity, the fact that each detected cheater would be on the blacklists of every program user would mean fairly frequent kickings for the cheater, and each cheater need only be detected by one program-user for every program user to be protected against that cheater. Because the program would be completely automatic (and the list file would have to be protected against manual editing), legitimate users would never be added to the master ban-list, which would grow according to the total usage of the program by all users. Considering that given maps are only hosted with a certain frequency, it would only take a decent proportion, not even a majority, of games to have one program-user out of all their players to make online Starcraft more or less unplayable for cheaters, without any recourse to private servers necessary.

While such a program would probably not stop all hacks, it would have a high intimidation factor: anyone that a potential cheat-user is in a game with might have the program running, and the cheat-user can never be certain that the program hasn't recently been updated to account for a previously undetectable hack, so turning on a cheat in a multiplayer game would come with a risk of instantly being added to the central list for instantaneous, automatic kicking by all program-users, with no possibility for a reprieve by a weak-willed user. Being added to the list would mean a permanent diminishing of one's online gameplay enjoyment, since IP addresses would never be removed from the list. Faced with that possibility, potential cheaters would have to think twice before choosing the path of darkness.

Of course, turning on the program would be completely optional, so map-makers could still use hacks to test games by themselves. Players could cheat as much as they wanted, so long as no others stand to be affected. But when one plays with others online through battle.net, one agrees not to cheat, however "harmless" or "irrelevant" it might seem, even if one is playing a game type that doesn't go on their record. After all, even if one player regards a game as a casual distraction, another might view it as a "friendly but serious" competition, and consider cheating an offense against his honor. It is not the cheater's right to determine how seriously his opponents should take the match.

Now, I'm a philosopher, not a programmer, so I don't have any capacity to make this program myself, but it seems that all of the virtual "technologies" that would be needed to make it work already exist. I'm sure that there exist in this community people with the skills to make something like what I have been discussing. All it would take is for one person to decide to help clear out battle.net by making this program, and a few more to start using it, so that the benefits start to accumulate. Once the benefits start to accumulate, so will the appeal of using the program. So the question is: why doesn't someone make a program like this?

I don't know if you'd want to blacklist anyone who ever used a hack, because what if they try to join your game when they don't even have them on yet? I think just automatically checking and banning would be better.

The problem with that is that unless a game is FFA, having one player leave in the middle of the game is much worse than having them replaced in the lobby. In a competitive team game, waiting for them to turn on a hack would mean you'd probably have to remake, which in turn means that you can't play because of the hackers. Banning them at the lobby ensures, as well as is possible, that you start with clean players. Not to mention, making it impossible for "convicted" hackers to ever enter a game creates a much more powerful deterrent effect, as it means they couldn't get away scot-free by simply not using the hack again.

.. A good idea, and definitely something I would download. There would be some problems if a person could manually add an IP to the list, but maybe needing 20 unique IP's to list someone as a hacker before making him permabanned would work nicely. Hope those hackers read this .

Well, no, I'm saying you detect the hacks in the lobby, like Penguin Plug used to do.

I was going to warn about this, but that fix is pretty good.

Except, if there was a clan of around 20 people, they could just get anyone added to the list, that they didn't like.

I'm thinking that there should also be positive factor. If someone is in danger of a permaban and someone detects that they aren't then, it has some good influence on him. Of course, then you could get your friends to give you positive influence.

Well, the idea is that the list file wouldn't be in plain text, but would rather be encoded, so that users wouldn't be able to alter it manually. The problem with requiring many detections to ban a user is that when the program was newer and had fewer users, it would be hard to amass the right number of detections, and if you're not the game host (we're assuming you won't use a manual host-hack either), there's no way to stop the offender in the meantime.


It's been quite a while since I used Penguin Plug...the version I used to have did nothing to hackers for ten minutes, then made them unally themselves. It was quite entertaining, if you were in a game that let you survive the first ten minutes against a cheat. Either way, I don't think that simply kicking them when hacks are detected will do the job. For one, you'll lose the ability to protect against undetectable hack components by keeping track of who is caught with detectable components. With a one-shot kicking system, hackers will be back in business as soon as they can find a way around the system, be it a newer hack version, activating earlier or later, or leaving some components disabled. With a synchronized blacklist, the system in general only has to identify someone as a person who cheats once, or however many detections it requires to add someone to the distributed banlist (perhaps "three strikes and you're out"?). Also, there's no deterrent effect with a kicking system: a cheater can simply keep joining games until they find one that is unprotected, knowing that everything will be all right if they turn off the hack. With a blacklist system, people have a good reason not to even try it in the first place.

Well, the PP I had would inform you if someone was hacking as soon as they joined the game, and it wasn't set up with a blacklist to detect hacks, there was a whitelist with Penguin Plug and plain SC on it, anything else was considered a hack. I loved it because there was a glitch where you could cancel enemy nuking It was very fun to play nuke the whales with that.

The program your describing is by no means anywhere approaching easy, let alone possible to do. It is possible but youd need the best of the best in SC hacking, Zynastor, Perma, and the rest themselves to do it. Theyre the only ones that know enough to make it and theyre the ones making the hacks.

Well, if we could get the people who made penguin plug back, we'd have a fighting chance, those guys knew more than Zynastor and them.

No they didnt Falk. They got lucky, plain, simple, and honestly. And they were korean from what I understand. And the language gap, as im sure you mappers even know, prevents a lot of the needed communication between the two communities. Id love if you were right, but thats just not the case. You have a better chance of Maplantis rising from the grave.

I would be against this program for fear of being on that list because if i did something wrong (like being too pro)
The thought of such a program is too controlling of people

As I intend it, this program would prevent people from being wrongly put on the list, because people are only added to the list by the program's hack detection, not by the program's users. If a program like this were to come into widespread use, people who are often banned from subsequent games on suspicion of cheating due to superior skill would actually be better off, because the program would replace the far less reliable suspicion of game hosts. Of course, it also means that saying "I'm just good" to cover for hacking won't cut it anymore.

And how would you get removed from this list? this is too controlling.

I think there are three primary problems:

Possible manual editing by users
Detecting hacks and continuously updating them
Permanently banning a user who might later change their ways, only to get banned again and again.

Still, if we could make a SEN-only version of this.... =D

Why don't you have it warn you of the frequence the player has hacked. So if the player has played 20 games and has been seen 1 time hacking you know it's fairly safe.

It could also read from the server the cheat updates so that you don't have to download each time a new cheat comes out. This also includes a has in the program itself so that hacks can't hide as an anti-hack.

How would it be hard? You just need to detect what each user is doing. Detecting hacks is not at all hard, depending on what they do.

I doubt there will be hacks on the level of StarCraft's for StarCraft II if for no other reason than it will have incredibly more complex data to sort through. Some hacks are bound to arise, but the whole process will be much more time consuming. Case in point: Company of Heroes has no hacks that I know of, and it has been out for the better part of two years now.

Wing-of-no-Wing, I just want to let you know that you should take Falkoner's and Excalibur's comments with a grain of salt. They are both professed hackers. Be cautious of their inherent bias towards any type of a program that would make their current style of SC gaming a thing of the past.

As for your actual system - I don't think just anyone who has the program should have the "add to server black list" power. I think the program should with 2 black lists. 1 of these will be the server one. This black list will be updated by a sort of "elite counsel" that can be trusted with genuinely only adding users who the program detects. The second list will be local. These are the hackers that you yourself have found, but since your just the average joe user using this program, your list can't be added to the server. Because with your current system, a hacker could not only attack the server, but he could find out how the program sends information to the server, and customize it. Basically making a hack for your hack so that he can add anyone's name he wants.
One problem I see being is that if 2 people are using this program in the same game, they will see each other as hacking. And if the program ignores that type of hacking detected, then you just gave an immunity for other hacks to use.
I would also remove any type of in-game dropping.

This sort of banlist is used on WC3- as a program like you are describing. You can make your personal one, or you can make it server controlled- which there are major ones on DotA- and one of the primary reasons of bans can be 'leaving in the middle of the game', and you can appeal to removal if you wished it.