rec.autos.simulators

I am saying this with all due modesty as I am not a professional programmer
and haven't touched a programming language in more than 15 years, and please
nobody mistake this for attempted wisecracking, but AFAI remember when I was
still playing around with programming languages (and that's all I ever did)
you could specify _relative_ addresses (offsets) which the linker would
either resolve at linking time or at program loading time.

Therefor, I had thought Bill was referring to using such within limits
varying random offsets for the respective data / objects / arrays /
structures which the linker would resolve to different actual offsets from
the respective start address of the program or data area.

I don't remember though and therefor have to ask - is it possible to keep
the code and data areas separate, and to give the data area a different
internal layout at each program start in terms of switching the data /
objects / arrays / structures to different positions based on perhaps a
random keycode generated at startup time?

I also wondered whether, if that is possible but the internal structure of
an array is known, a RAM sniffer couldn't re-detect the data pattern no
matter where it is in RAM? If that's the case, the above relative offsets
wouldn't suffice and one would have to actually change the internal
structures of the data objects / structures / arrays to prevent a RAM
sniffer from redetecting the pattern - one would have to morph the data
containers themselves into different shapes to prevent such sniffers from
redetecting the patterns?

Sorry if I'm talking nonsense, the topic is interesting and I'd really like
to know, so despite being a non-expert, I'm bringing the question up...

Achim

Hatin' it,
Gerald.

This makes it a bit hard to include a check for it as we don't even
know what to start looking for. Does this cheat fix damage/tires etc?

If so, there is a chance that we can include a check for it. No
promises though! And we will probably not include a check unless it is
a reliable one.

Could someone who knows how to activate this cheat please send a mail

Cheers,

/Martin

Achim

...

You seem so..... bitter.   <VBG>   ;)

--
Scott B. Husted
PA-Scott
ICQ# 4395450
http://www.Husted.cc

My point, however misguided lol, was IF they are hacking the server.exe to
check for cheaters, and I don't know if thats how they do it, then what is
to stop them from adding anything else to the server.exe that they choose?

I don't know who is wrting the cheat protection programs.  And I wouldn't
knowingly race on any server that used it if someone from Sierra or Papyrus
hadn't said something positive about it.  If I have access to a cheat
protection program that somehow requires users to keep software that didn't
come with the install I would anoumce that you were using it to race on my
server and send the code to Papy asking for an opinion.

However, if all it is is a replay analyzier then my brother got railroaded
because of a false sense of security created by the guy who wrote the cheat
detection program.  It does not matter how nice a guy he is.  League admins
will use it wrong, or to just plain kick someone out they don't like. Either
way, programming that starts with good intentions must carry that
responsibility, otherwise it ultimately does as much harm as good.

I know, I'm making some leaps here but coming from a programming background
I take the responsibility of users depending on the accuracy and intent of
my software very serious.  I'm not trying to stop people from helping but
IMHO I don't think a program that arbitraily looks for hot keys only and
assumes, or lets the admins assume you are cheating, is responsible coding.

While I agree that it may be okay for you or me if you trust the guy and you
are pretty sure he/they would never invade your pc for any other reason
(such as modifying the server.exe on YOUR pc so that his/their cheat
protection gets passed along to every other server.exe) I still think a
company, like Papyrus, holds the responsibility to maintain integrity versus
giving it to users.

Papyrus always knew about the cheats.  They chose not to deal with many of
them for a variety of reasons.  But your asking every single online player
to trust the same people you or I trust, thats all I was saying.

--
Tim White
www.intracmotorsports.com

That was back in the DOS days (and 16-bit programming).

Code and data are already separate.  The only way you can realistically
change the "layout" of data allocations is to make random-sized
allocations of basically garbage objects (structures), before and during
allocation of "real" data.  You can't really start moving big chunks of
memory around because a) it would eat up a LOT of time, b) it would not
change the offsets to the data segment (or the data within the segment),
and c) would be highly unreliable.

The way the ram cheat programs work is by the cheater specifying a
memory offset to change (and sometimes to keep changing on a specified
timie interval).  If the offset isn't the same from one execution of the
program to the next, they can't use that particular approach.  The key
is to not only change the first offset, but to allocate random-sized
objects BETWEEN all of the real data as well. This might introduce a
speed penalty while the program starts up, but once allocated, the
program would act as it normally does.

The whole objecvt is not to make cheating impossible (because that task,
in and of itself is impossible), but to make it so annoying and
convoluted to do, that by the time the cheater finally (if ever) gets
around to figuring it out, his parents have hung a new shiney thing over
his crib, and his attention drifts away to the new shiney object.

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I'm not an experienced programmer, but what is stopping the hackers from
doing the same thing to the cheat detection programs? You have to remember
that the reason cheating is possible is because all of the game's processing
is done on the client. Well, the same goes for any cheat detection program
that resides on the client.

Like you said, you can only make it inconvenient to cheat, you can never
make it impossible. But based on my limited *** experience, it seems the
desire and creativity of the cheating community will *always* overcome even
the most elaborate cheat prevention schemes. Exact same situation as the
piracy issue IMO.

The bigger a Game's community is, the more likely it will include someone
who has the desire and ability to cheat. Once a reliable cheat is made, all
that is needed is for it to be distributed across the Net and then every
Tom,*** and Harry can use it. So I guess the thing to do is to find a game
that sucks so bad that nobody plays it.  ;-).

Dave Boyle

Brian Oster

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

I was mainly a rhetorical question, but, that sort of information
really needs to be made publicly available if we really wan't anything
to get done about the problem.  That's a whole other side debate...

Ughh...

Well, personally, I am spending a lot of time building my home
theater/game room and comparitively little time racing.  By the time I
get back on the track, it won't matter if my opponents are cheating or
not... <sigh>

Gerald