Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiaho daniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list hlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleeper mslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's scoring/reputation system is still in effect. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Jesse Porter reacherg...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with blacklisting these servers is that they seem to show up a few weeks later with a new batch of ip addresses. Can't blacklist them effectively when they do that. On Nov 1, 2011 7:40 PM, Robert Paulson thepauls...@gmail.com wrote: It is very rude of you to repeatedly spam the mailing list to pressure Valve into doing whatever you want instead of working on crashes and content. Valve has already put in a huge effort making these servers less prominent. - Blacklist - Quickplay - Reputation It isn't perfect but blacklisting takes care of the servers you don't like once you've spotted them. Quickplay and reputation filter most of the ones you haven't spotted yet. No one I know has any problems finding a server full of real players. Everyone I know just blacklists and move on. Server IPs do not change often since it costs money to buy new ones and you need proper ARIN justification to get more due to the IPV4 shortage. The fact that you are on here spamming about it as though TF2 is going to die out next week makes me think that you are struggling with your own server rather than being a concerned player. I also hate the big pay-to-win servers with fake clients, but it would be a mistake for Valve to just de-list them, wrongly assuming no one really wants to play there. I have a friend who wouldn't be playing TF2 if they didn't exist and has bought hundreds of dollars worth of Mann Co keys. And from what he tells me he isn't the only one. Yes he knows there are bots. The cloaked bots appeal to him for the same reason Valve decided not to name bots bot1, bot2, bot3 and to have them taunt randomly. These servers still exist not because of a fake player plugin but because, as much as it pains us to believe, some players actually prefer them. No one here is enthusiastic about having
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiaho daniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list hlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleeper mslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's scoring/reputation system is still in effect. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Jesse Porter reacherg...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with blacklisting these servers is that they seem to show up a few weeks later with a new batch of ip addresses. Can't blacklist them effectively when they do that. On Nov 1, 2011 7:40 PM, Robert Paulson thepauls...@gmail.com wrote: It is very rude of you to repeatedly spam the mailing list to pressure Valve into doing whatever you want instead of working on crashes and content. Valve has already put in a huge effort making these servers less prominent. - Blacklist - Quickplay - Reputation It isn't perfect but blacklisting takes care of the servers you don't like once you've spotted them. Quickplay and reputation filter most of the ones you haven't spotted yet. No one I know has any problems finding a server full of real players. Everyone I know just blacklists and move on. Server IPs do not change often since it costs money to buy new ones and you need proper ARIN justification to get more due to the IPV4 shortage. The fact that you are on here spamming about
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
This would be nice, yes. On 11/2/2011 3:45 PM, msleeper wrote: Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiahodaniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing listhlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleepermslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's scoring/reputation system is still in effect. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Jesse Porterreacherg...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with blacklisting these servers is that they seem to show up a few weeks later with a new batch of ip addresses. Can't blacklist them effectively when they do that. On Nov 1, 2011 7:40 PM, Robert Paulsonthepauls...@gmail.com wrote: It is very rude of you to repeatedly spam the mailing list to pressure Valve into doing whatever you want instead of working on crashes and content. Valve has already put in a huge effort making these servers less prominent. - Blacklist - Quickplay - Reputation It isn't perfect but blacklisting takes care of the servers you don't like once you've spotted them. Quickplay and reputation filter most of the ones you haven't spotted yet. No one I know has any problems finding a server full of real players. Everyone I know just blacklists and move on. Server IPs do not change often since it costs money to buy new ones and you need proper ARIN justification to get more due to the IPV4 shortage. The fact that you are on here spamming about it as though
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
The abuse reporting system has only been live a total of 4 days. Give it some time. There are no plans to give any (non-Valve) entity any special route to get their claims of abuse escalated more quickly. There are still simple things we can do to increase player awareness of this functionality, and we are working on them. Give it a couple of weeks or so. We'll see how much data we get back from players, and how effective the system is at curbing these sorts of problems. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of msleeper Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 12:45 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiaho daniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list hlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleeper mslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's scoring/reputation system is still in effect. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Jesse Porter reacherg...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with blacklisting these servers is that they seem to show up a few weeks later with a new batch of ip addresses. Can't blacklist them effectively when they do
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
Can anyone share some tips on identify those spoof server? There are a few servers I know that's doing it, but they're hiding it so well. it's really hard to tell they're using bots. On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.comwrote: The abuse reporting system has only been live a total of 4 days. Give it some time. There are no plans to give any (non-Valve) entity any special route to get their claims of abuse escalated more quickly. There are still simple things we can do to increase player awareness of this functionality, and we are working on them. Give it a couple of weeks or so. We'll see how much data we get back from players, and how effective the system is at curbing these sorts of problems. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of msleeper Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 12:45 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiaho daniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list hlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleeper mslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
That doesn't really work. I don't want to get into the details on this public forum, but I can guarantee that the result of what you describe is that the problem would just be escalated higher, meaning more convincing bots with avatars, with valid steam accounts that are logged into steam, etc. A few weeks (or maybe even a few days) later, we'd have the same problem, only the avatars would be fixed and it would be even harder for a human to recognize them. This is exactly what I meant by an arms race. We would spend all that time, and maybe some people decided it was too much effort for them, but likely many would still continue to do it. The delusion that the problem is trivial or that there is magic bullet is only enabled by ignorance of what people are able to and the lengths they go to do this sort of thing. - Fletch From: John Schoenick [mailto:j...@pointysoftware.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 1:48 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Cc: Rob Liu; Fletcher Dunn Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Missing avatars is a big clue. Hit steam overlay - recent players or whatever, if they don't show up there, they're not actually in the server. All steam needs to do is keep clients updated on steamIDs auth'd with a server. TF2 could then just label steamIDs that are being shown on the scoreboard but not present according to steam as bots. It could evenly passively report this discrepancy via the abuse system. It's hardly unwinnable, it just requires adding some more capabilities to steam. Ideally, we'd just get our server lists from there and not trust servers to be honest. - Neph On 11/02/2011 01:42 PM, Rob Liu wrote: Can anyone share some tips on identify those spoof server? There are a few servers I know that's doing it, but they're hiding it so well. it's really hard to tell they're using bots. On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.commailto:fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: The abuse reporting system has only been live a total of 4 days. Give it some time. There are no plans to give any (non-Valve) entity any special route to get their claims of abuse escalated more quickly. There are still simple things we can do to increase player awareness of this functionality, and we are working on them. Give it a couple of weeks or so. We'll see how much data we get back from players, and how effective the system is at curbing these sorts of problems. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.commailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.commailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of msleeper Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 12:45 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.commailto:fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
Also having the report option on the blacklist this server window that you get if you soon after joining disconnect from the gameserver. It would raise more awareness of the report fuction. That is one of the things we have on the list to help raise awareness and make the feature more accessible. Your humble servant, Fletch ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
Some problems as a gamer are that its very hard to identify proper humans from bots. But there are someways to detect them which I now list. 1. If someone types on the chat in reply to what someone on mic or chat is saying. 2. Bots do not know how to surf or play on minigames. So if I join those kind of servers I can expect that I am playing with humans 3. If they show up on player list when I shift tab ti steam overlay 4. If I am playing on valve's official server. I know you guys won't lie to me about who is playing. What this means is that it could be possible to use this criteria to prove someone is human on a server, but noone would like to be typing captchas every certain minutes of playing. My gues is that having a list of official servers seperately from the community server could fix this issue. Having clans to properly register and to check them periodically for unwanted software could help this issue. Ie, servers that register for a valve server approval are checked. This along with the report tool could help to tackle this issue. Also, the report tool is quite hidden. I haven't seen it while I am playing. Also, a tag for valve's official servers could be created so users can find these servers on the server browser. it would be penalized for anyone unauthorized use this tag for their servers. These are just my thoughts on the issue, and hopefully this could be of any help. Enviado desde mi oficina móvil BlackBerry® de Telcel -Original Message- From: Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com Sender: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 21:03:35 To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing listhlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Reply-To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Cc: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing listhlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Also having the report option on the blacklist this server window that you get if you soon after joining disconnect from the gameserver. It would raise more awareness of the report fuction. That is one of the things we have on the list to help raise awareness and make the feature more accessible. Your humble servant, Fletch ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
I get what you're saying, but there's a difference between magic bullets and leaving the door unlocked. If you needed to setup 31 F2P accounts, get multiple IPs to avoid super-easy abuse detection, and use an external tool to have them all auth into your server (which is VAC bannable) it'd be a hell of a lot more involved than typing 'fake players' into a sourcemod plugin search and copying the first result into your server folder. - Neph On 11/02/2011 01:59 PM, Fletcher Dunn wrote: That doesn't really work. I don't want to get into the details on this public forum, but I can guarantee that the result of what you describe is that the problem would just be escalated higher, meaning more convincing bots with avatars, with valid steam accounts that are logged into steam, etc. A few weeks (or maybe even a few days) later, we'd have the same problem, only the avatars would be fixed and it would be even harder for a human to recognize them. This is exactly what I meant by an arms race. We would spend all that time, and maybe some people decided it was too much effort for them, but likely many would still continue to do it. The delusion that the problem is trivial or that there is magic bullet is only enabled by ignorance of what people are able to and the lengths they go to do this sort of thing. - Fletch From: John Schoenick [mailto:j...@pointysoftware.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 1:48 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Cc: Rob Liu; Fletcher Dunn Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Missing avatars is a big clue. Hit steam overlay - recent players or whatever, if they don't show up there, they're not actually in the server. All steam needs to do is keep clients updated on steamIDs auth'd with a server. TF2 could then just label steamIDs that are being shown on the scoreboard but not present according to steam as bots. It could evenly passively report this discrepancy via the abuse system. It's hardly unwinnable, it just requires adding some more capabilities to steam. Ideally, we'd just get our server lists from there and not trust servers to be honest. - Neph On 11/02/2011 01:42 PM, Rob Liu wrote: Can anyone share some tips on identify those spoof server? There are a few servers I know that's doing it, but they're hiding it so well. it's really hard to tell they're using bots. On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Fletcher Dunnfletch...@valvesoftware.commailto:fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: The abuse reporting system has only been live a total of 4 days. Give it some time. There are no plans to give any (non-Valve) entity any special route to get their claims of abuse escalated more quickly. There are still simple things we can do to increase player awareness of this functionality, and we are working on them. Give it a couple of weeks or so. We'll see how much data we get back from players, and how effective the system is at curbing these sorts of problems. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.commailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.commailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of msleeper Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 12:45 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.commailto:fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
Fletch probably doesn't have a ton of free time, if I had to guess, but if you want to talk to him further about the details he doesn't want to go into on this public forum, you might consider just replying to him and not including the list. ;) /includes the list on this email because sux On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:42 PM, John Schoenick nephy...@doublezen.netwrote: I get what you're saying, but there's a difference between magic bullets and leaving the door unlocked. If you needed to setup 31 F2P accounts, get multiple IPs to avoid super-easy abuse detection, and use an external tool to have them all auth into your server (which is VAC bannable) it'd be a hell of a lot more involved than typing 'fake players' into a sourcemod plugin search and copying the first result into your server folder. - Neph On 11/02/2011 01:59 PM, Fletcher Dunn wrote: That doesn't really work. I don't want to get into the details on this public forum, but I can guarantee that the result of what you describe is that the problem would just be escalated higher, meaning more convincing bots with avatars, with valid steam accounts that are logged into steam, etc. A few weeks (or maybe even a few days) later, we'd have the same problem, only the avatars would be fixed and it would be even harder for a human to recognize them. This is exactly what I meant by an arms race. We would spend all that time, and maybe some people decided it was too much effort for them, but likely many would still continue to do it. The delusion that the problem is trivial or that there is magic bullet is only enabled by ignorance of what people are able to and the lengths they go to do this sort of thing. - Fletch From: John Schoenick [mailto:john@pointysoftware.**netj...@pointysoftware.net ] Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 1:48 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Cc: Rob Liu; Fletcher Dunn Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Missing avatars is a big clue. Hit steam overlay - recent players or whatever, if they don't show up there, they're not actually in the server. All steam needs to do is keep clients updated on steamIDs auth'd with a server. TF2 could then just label steamIDs that are being shown on the scoreboard but not present according to steam as bots. It could evenly passively report this discrepancy via the abuse system. It's hardly unwinnable, it just requires adding some more capabilities to steam. Ideally, we'd just get our server lists from there and not trust servers to be honest. - Neph On 11/02/2011 01:42 PM, Rob Liu wrote: Can anyone share some tips on identify those spoof server? There are a few servers I know that's doing it, but they're hiding it so well. it's really hard to tell they're using bots. On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Fletcher Dunnfletcherd@valvesoftware.** com fletch...@valvesoftware.commailto:fletcherd@**valvesoftware.comfletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: The abuse reporting system has only been live a total of 4 days. Give it some time. There are no plans to give any (non-Valve) entity any special route to get their claims of abuse escalated more quickly. There are still simple things we can do to increase player awareness of this functionality, and we are working on them. Give it a couple of weeks or so. We'll see how much data we get back from players, and how effective the system is at curbing these sorts of problems. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds-bounces@list.**valvesoftware.comhlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com mailto:hlds-**boun...@list.valvesoftware.comhlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com ** [mailto:hlds-bounces@list.**valvesoftware.comhlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com mailto:hlds-**boun...@list.valvesoftware.comhlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com **] On Behalf Of msleeper Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 12:45 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch
Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images
one other thing I like to notice, is that IF you blacklist a server, its the last accessed one, not the one clicked in my previous described case. I had to go search again for the same server and blacklist the server in the server list i tried to connect to to make it effective... in other words, the normal system didn't blacklist the IP I tried connecting to, but instead the one I was redirected to... I'm sure valve is aware, reading Fletchers response, and I appreciate their balance in it. but maybe the above can be addressed also somehow. and thnx for letting us know that there is some in the pipeline for this stuff. From: Spencer 'Voogru' MacDonald voo...@voogru.com To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 20:49 Subject: Re: [hlds] [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images This would be nice, yes. On 11/2/2011 3:45 PM, msleeper wrote: Fletcher - Is there someone we can report blatantly, aggressively abusive servers to in an attempt to escalate the worst offenders to human intervention? I don't think any of us here are expecting a flawless programmatic solution to the issue of Bad Servers, nor would we expect Valve staff to spend paid manhours joining and checking servers instead of working on much more important tasks, but as someone else said, the 1% worst offenders are too big to fail and seem to be falling through the cracks in your automated systems. The reporting tool sounds like a great solution, but my immediate concern is that it might not pan out like you (and us server ops) are hoping since the vast majority of players probably aren't even aware of such problems. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Fletcher Dunn fletch...@valvesoftware.com wrote: This is a problem we're obviously aware of. It's definitely not that we don't care. However, it is essentially an arms race that is provably unwinnable by Valve. Furthermore, any change we make in the name of security will almost certainly cause a disruption of legitimate service, due to bugs on our part, or usage cases we're just not aware of. It is a classic conflict between security and accessibility. Hopefully those two reasons help explain our reluctance to address these sorts of problems through technology. They will create an ongoing arms race, in which we can possibly limit this activity and make it harder, but probably never eliminate it completely. Furthermore, this benefit comes at a cost of taking resources away from adding features and fixing bugs, and also disrupting legitimate users. When we can do simple and safe things to make it harder to do these sorts of things, we will. We have some protocol changes that will make it harder to do this sort of spoofing, which have been beta tested for some time now. We'll be rolling those out in the next couple of months. Crowdsourcing using the abuse reports helps us stay out of the arms race, and it's the safest and simplest way to deal with this problem and many others like it. Your humble servant, Fletch -Original Message- From: hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds_linux-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Mart-Jan Reeuwijk Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 5:39 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images there is some italian group that does that. they have dozens maybe even in the hundred of servers in server list, but all get redirected to 1 server. and those server report a variety of maps played, names in server lists etc. you click info, refresh, says for example dustbowl, and then join, get redirected to their server, with bots, and another map then advertized in the server info. Its damn annoying. And indeed, they change IP's a lot, to evade blacklisting. From: daniel jokiahodaniel.joki...@gmail.com To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing listhlds_li...@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 7:27 Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Fake clients, misreported bots, infringing usage of player names/images what about servers on different ips and port that have exactly the same players. I join server x. U join server y. And still we play against or with each other :-( On 2 Nov 2011 06:53, msleepermslee...@ismsleeperwrong.com wrote: Are you sure they're not just adding more servers? Changing IPs is a server playerbase suicide as anyone who had it bookmarked won't be able to find it again. I suppose they could use those servers for redirects, but in theory that would get those IPs blacklisted pretty fast if Valve's scoring/reputation system is still in effect. On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Jesse Porterreacherg...@gmail.com wrote
