Defcon

[bert_the_turtle]

I can confirm that cheats that look as described are possible. They should be detectable even just from the recording; unfortunately, a bug in the server version of dedcon prevents that (upgrade!). It's also detectable 'live' and the bot can announce something fishy is going on; I guess I'll do that now. Mind you, it can't be prevented.

[cza]

I did see that Mrmot, but I thought maybe you were goofing around, and it didn't alter the outcome. Didn't happen until you had three nukes in the chamber of that silo. Not like it threw off whole targeting scheme, etc. I have screenshots too if people unclear from the video. Still think it is just a bug, not a hack, since this has happened to me before. Also, I would expect a hack to sabotage all of the silos and not a random silo involving one ghost target. Perhaps Bert can get to the bottom of this (though we ought to take up a collection to pay him something for all his labor).

[-- Tobias --]

A very long time ago I experienced games where my own commands would be changed against me. These phenomena ended around the same time a player named mindbender was banned. Coincidence?

bert_the_turtle wrote:

I can confirm that cheats that look as described are possible ... [and] can't be prevented.

I pray Defcon can continue without such abuse.

[bert_the_turtle]

Oh yeah, that guy.

Finished my analysis of the recording. The odd ghost targets are suicide nukes: nukes launched directly at the launching object. Six in total from silos (two silos got two each), one from a sub. Suicide launches don't work, luckily; the nukes head off to NANtucket due to a division by zero error. It is possible to give such orders by accident, but extremely unlikely that it happens seven times in one game, and I don't see how a bug in either Defcon or Dedcon could cause it. Plus, the orders for the launches are in the recording and not created by freak game code, they must have been given by a client (or somehow manufactured by Dedcon, but since they contain precise target coordinates Dedcon doesn't know about, I don't see how that could happen). Now, as I said, a bug on the server side sadly made it so that the ID of the client sending the orders is NOT recorded, so no direct trace is possible.

But: the suicide launch orders contain one oddity I haven't ever seen before, bits of data that make no sense and shouldn't be there. Definitely not a product of Dedcon or a regular Defcon client. And the same oddity appears in other commands as well. In fact, all commands of a certain type given by a certain player, and it wasn't Mrmot. I'd say someone is testing the waters, trying out how far he can go. This post should give the answer he's looking for.

[cza]

Thanks Bert, and any way to patch so that IDs are tied to orders for the purpose of analysis? I'm also confused, because I thought non-identical builds of Defcon couldn't play each other. You can hack and play then?


Why not out this player, btw, so the rest of us can avoid him?


Finally, this makes me sad, not the least because it partially exonerates Mrmot too. Although that silo/city placement was all on his own.

[Forever Young]

cza wrote:

(though we ought to take up a collection to pay him something for all his labor).

give him a couple of euros is not enough. his work is priceless(unbezahlbar!), but we must do something.
cza, i am with you!
Perhaps a new shrine or something else.
maybe something like this and the minarets has to be big nukes?
can someone good with photo editing? i can not.

[bert_the_turtle]

cza wrote:

Thanks Bert, and any way to patch so that IDs are tied to orders for the purpose of analysis?

Already done a long time ago, but then I broke it when Dedwinia was written, it's already fixed in the latest Dedcon release.

cza wrote:

I'm also confused, because I thought non-identical builds of Defcon couldn't play each other. You can hack and play then?

Presumably. Just the game code needs to be identical. I haven't tried it myself, but I suppose a tweak to the random number generator and a version string change are enough to make the source version compatible with current retail builds. Or you build a proxy filtering client and server commands. There are many ways.

cza wrote:

Why not out this player, btw, so the rest of us can avoid him?

Hacker ethos and a bit of a Doctor Who thing. You have to give him a chance to change. I hope that won't lead to you avoiding ALL involved in the game, of course.

[Baton101]

possibillity of cheat would explain misterious mrmots triangulation....

[tllotpfkamvpe]

There is no mystery. Mrmot's daughter is the one that does the triangulation on a second monitor, while mot is playing the navy and airforce. It's like one of those weird circus acts.

[kudayta]

tllotpfkamvpe wrote:

There is no mystery. Mrmot's daughter is the one that does the triangulation on a second monitor, while mot is playing the navy and airforce. It's like one of those weird circus acts.

...The Aristocrats!

[StifflerStyle]

Mwah wouldn't call it a hack, when you got the source code at hand, more a creative coding exercise. This one being a little obvious, but I am afraid for subtle nearly undetectable hacks, for example increasing/tweaking the chances of taking down incoming nukes...

[Mrmot]

tllotpfkamvpe wrote:

There is no mystery. Mrmot's daughter is the one that does the triangulation on a second monitor, while mot is playing the navy and airforce. It's like one of those weird circus acts.

That was secret man!!!! You were supposed to keep it for yourself!!

[bert_the_turtle]

StifflerStyle wrote:

for example increasing/tweaking the chances of taking down incoming nukes...

Those would be easily detected. You'd desync.