Ban the MAC address to stop cheaters from returning

jerj6925

Why ZOS do you not ban the MAC address for consoles when people are caught cheating, over the last few weeks I have seen this huge influx of names with random letters and or players with practically no champion rank running around just running their scripts again on their titan 2 or other such devices. They are causing so much lag the game is not playable, ban the MAC address for cheaters, and make it so expensive for them that they won’t think it’s worthwhile to cheat.

The creators of the programable devices are already warning script writers to add variability to the scripts to counter how you detect them, why would allow these people back into your game??? It’s almost as if you value them more than legit players. I can watch YouTube videos where people are showing how much they can parse on a trial dummy and you know they are running scripts as for the next 5 minutes every ability goes off perfectly timed with no errors, and on one video the dummy showed himself sitting back doing nothing while the scripts ran and his controler rested on the table…

Ban the MAC address on the consoles, I remember when game stop would not buy back a console unless they first verified the MAC address was not banned because they were getting stung paying Microsoft to unblock them, that’s how many people were cheating because they could. Stop letting them come back only to keep cheating with a new free account and a new name or now some are just using random characters because they don’t care.

Is it really so hard to make it so expensive for people to cheat?

TechMaybeHic

So MAC addresses are not passed past a router. By the time ZOS sees a MAC, it would be of a router at Akamai

jerj6925

Microsoft did it with I think great success with the first Xbox, once the next gen came out and they stopped supporting the first gen holy cow did the cheaters flood in then becuase they new microsoft didnt care.

I ready the below article on some one asking about how to change the mac address on their console, the key point is using the MAC address as a fingerprinting system.

What do you hope to achieve by changing the MAC address on your Xbox? Some sort of security improvement? Changing the MAC address isn’t really going to help with that. MAC addresses are not used outside the scope of the local network segment; your Xbox’s MAC address is not passed through your router for the purposes of network communication. Also, the MAC address is burned into a read-only section of the network interface hardware and cannot be physically changed without expensive hardware. It is possible that the Xbox OS can be configured with a user-entered or randomly generated MAC address, but that is only temporary for as long as the feature is active; turn it off and the permanent hardware MAC address is used once again.

Now, certain games or service subscriptions might use the MAC address as part of a device fingerprinting system to uniquely identify your Xbox, for instance to ensure that your device is properly using the games or services you’ve subscribed to. Depending on how the MAC randomization feature I mentioned above works, the physical MAC might still be used to generate the fingerprint.

If you want to change the MAC to get around a ban, well, forget about it. The game developers are usually able to detect such tomfoolery, and you won’t like the result.

danno8

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

So MAC addresses are not passed past a router. By the time ZOS sees a MAC, it would be of a router at Akamai

And even if they did, they can be spoofed easily by you or me in about 20 seconds by simply editing the entry on your computer.

If we are talking the hardware level MAC on your network card, then even if they required that a new NIC is only a few bucks.

Edit:oh consoles eh? I don't really know about consoles.

TechMaybeHic

jerj6925 wrote: »

Microsoft did it with I think great success with the first Xbox, once the next gen came out and they stopped supporting the first gen holy cow did the cheaters flood in then becuase they new microsoft didnt care.

I ready the below article on some one asking about how to change the mac address on their console, the key point is using the MAC address as a fingerprinting system.

What do you hope to achieve by changing the MAC address on your Xbox? Some sort of security improvement? Changing the MAC address isn’t really going to help with that. MAC addresses are not used outside the scope of the local network segment; your Xbox’s MAC address is not passed through your router for the purposes of network communication. Also, the MAC address is burned into a read-only section of the network interface hardware and cannot be physically changed without expensive hardware. It is possible that the Xbox OS can be configured with a user-entered or randomly generated MAC address, but that is only temporary for as long as the feature is active; turn it off and the permanent hardware MAC address is used once again.

Now, certain games or service subscriptions might use the MAC address as part of a device fingerprinting system to uniquely identify your Xbox, for instance to ensure that your device is properly using the games or services you’ve subscribed to. Depending on how the MAC randomization feature I mentioned above works, the physical MAC might still be used to generate the fingerprint.

If you want to change the MAC to get around a ban, well, forget about it. The game developers are usually able to detect such tomfoolery, and you won’t like the result.

Consoles, they generally not only have a gamertag ID, but also have access to what piece of hardware you are on. Might even be serial number that you have registered. Not so much a network thing that MAC provides, but a registration thing.

For console makers themselves to go after someone, it might have to be really egregious to get them to act. They probably do not want to wall off a paying customer that otherwise is non-disruptive that just exploits unintended mechanics that ZOS has created with pour code over a player actually trying to actually hack and manipulate systems themselves. They would view that as a ZOS problem. If they don't; really it falls on that console producer more than it does ZOS to make use of their ability to ban.

oldbobdude

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

So MAC addresses are not passed past a router. By the time ZOS sees a MAC, it would be of a router at Akamai

True, but they could probably craft a cookie like script that could collect the local MAC and report it back for each session.

Skullstachio

The problem itself is a lot more complex than you think. More complex than every single book and tome written and catalogued in apocrypha.

Case and point: it is a problem that does not have a concrete cure-all, just look at team fortress 2.

Skullstachio

P.s. I also expect this thread to be moved to technical support since the OP is talkin about PC/MAC technicalities.

Heelie

Tell me you don't know anything about networking without telling me you know nothing about networking. MAC (Media Access Control) adress is just an adress between your pc and your router. All you need to change is your NIC in case you're banned, but ZOS won't know this adress unless they specifically ask for it and these request can be spoofed quite easily.

zaria

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

jerj6925 wrote: »

Microsoft did it with I think great success with the first Xbox, once the next gen came out and they stopped supporting the first gen holy cow did the cheaters flood in then becuase they new microsoft didnt care.

I ready the below article on some one asking about how to change the mac address on their console, the key point is using the MAC address as a fingerprinting system.

What do you hope to achieve by changing the MAC address on your Xbox? Some sort of security improvement? Changing the MAC address isn’t really going to help with that. MAC addresses are not used outside the scope of the local network segment; your Xbox’s MAC address is not passed through your router for the purposes of network communication. Also, the MAC address is burned into a read-only section of the network interface hardware and cannot be physically changed without expensive hardware. It is possible that the Xbox OS can be configured with a user-entered or randomly generated MAC address, but that is only temporary for as long as the feature is active; turn it off and the permanent hardware MAC address is used once again.

Now, certain games or service subscriptions might use the MAC address as part of a device fingerprinting system to uniquely identify your Xbox, for instance to ensure that your device is properly using the games or services you’ve subscribed to. Depending on how the MAC randomization feature I mentioned above works, the physical MAC might still be used to generate the fingerprint.

If you want to change the MAC to get around a ban, well, forget about it. The game developers are usually able to detect such tomfoolery, and you won’t like the result.

Consoles, they generally not only have a gamertag ID, but also have access to what piece of hardware you are on. Might even be serial number that you have registered. Not so much a network thing that MAC provides, but a registration thing.

For console makers themselves to go after someone, it might have to be really egregious to get them to act. They probably do not want to wall off a paying customer that otherwise is non-disruptive that just exploits unintended mechanics that ZOS has created with pour code over a player actually trying to actually hack and manipulate systems themselves. They would view that as a ZOS problem. If they don't; really it falls on that console producer more than it does ZOS to make use of their ability to ban.

Agree, but if ZoS got access to a unique console ID they could use it to block the console

Jammy420

Ban the serial number of the pc they own, and make supplying the serial number through analytics a part of the ToS.

Its that easy.

Trejgon

Jammy420 wrote: »

Ban the serial number of the pc they own, and make supplying the serial number through analytics a part of the ToS.

Its that easy.

there is no such thing as "serial number of the pc".

davidtk

Trejgon wrote: »

Jammy420 wrote: »

Ban the serial number of the pc they own, and make supplying the serial number through analytics a part of the ToS.

Its that easy.

there is no such thing as "serial number of the pc".

Doesn't Jammy420 mean HWID? I thought ZoS was giving the ban that way.
Because unlocking access (password access codes) to account is tied to HWID?

zaria

davidtk wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

Jammy420 wrote: »

Ban the serial number of the pc they own, and make supplying the serial number through analytics a part of the ToS.

Its that easy.

there is no such thing as "serial number of the pc".

Doesn't Jammy420 mean HWID? I thought ZoS was giving the ban that way.
Because unlocking access (password access codes) to account is tied to HWID?

Probably if you change cpu or similar you will be asked for an verification mail in ESO as an example.
Think even swapping out storage drives unrelated to ESO installation can trigger this as I believe I had to get an verification doing that.
But this make creating an new HWID simple.
Purpose of HWID is not to identify an pc uniquely but to show that system is not the same anymore so you ask for an two key authorization.

Its probably some ways to uniquely identifying an pc, discs has an unique serial number for one but this can be modified with tools. Belive you could use other tricks to fool this.

But on PC you can simply ban the user account, this will hurt real players cheating, way more if they have old accounts with lots of money, achievements and gold in them. Now it would not affect low level bot farmers but that is not an issue on PC.

JavaRen

Interesting how the discussion veered into PC issues, rather than console as the OP referenced.