11/18/2008 6:04:00 AM
Scheduled Network Maintenance - Friday November 21st 2008 (11/21/2008)
On Friday November 21st 2008 (11/21/2008) our host will be replacing the upstream front end aggregate switch that provides connectivity to the rack level switch to which the Bustedpunks server is connected.
During this maintenance, our server will not be reachable on the public network. While the maintenance window is set for an hour, we expect no longer than 10 - 15 minutes of downtime.
Thanks
BustedPunks Team
mole12008-11-18 17:32:49
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11/8/2008 3:24:26 PM
BP PBucon Beta
After many months of testing and
recoding bustedpunks.com are now running an open beta on part of there PBucon
system, over the next few months we are going to be opening other tools for
server admins to use and enjoy.
But for now you can do the
following.
Account Setup
Profile Setup
Add server
Edit Server Information
Remove Server
View Server Violations
Player List
Error Report System
The BustedPunks PBucon system
supports all games running PB and that includes Call of Duty World at War Beta.
Over the next few months we are
going to be bring on new tools to the BustedPunks PBucon system some will be
open to any member using the Bustedpunks PBucon system but also there are going
to be new tools for server admins which have been supporting BustedPunks and the
White Light Project.
http://pbucon.bustedpunks.com
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11/4/2008 11:52:48 AM
Ban or not to ban
When the White Light Project was 1st setup. One of the things we did, was to keep an eye on what was going on within the many Anti cheat sites. The reason behind this was so that we could see what type of impact we had with the server admins, but also to have a good look at what the Anti cheat sites are doing.
When you look at the Anti cheat sites around. The one thing that becomes apparent. All of them are just a copy of what Punksbusted.com (PsB) had originated. PsB was the 1st Anti Cheat site to setup support of all PunkBuster (PB) games and was the 1st site which would let server admins stream there server logs to them. PsB worked side by side with Even Balance on this system. You could definitely say, that PsB is the daddy of the lot of them. Now saying that, all of the sites do things in there own way. BustedPunks.com (BP) is going to be looking at the type of things which some of the anti cheat sites ban for. We are going to start off by looking at Punkbuster screen shots (pbss).
PunkBuster screen shot:
All anti cheat sites will happily take screen shot submissions if the server is streaming to them, and you will also find that they are quite happy to look at any pbss which you are not sure what you are seeing in it. One thing I do like that I've seen on some of the anti cheat sites, are topics about the type of Punkbuster screen shots you should keep an eye out for on your server.
You would think that pbss would be clean cut in what the anti cheat sites ban for, but this is not the case. Yes, from time to time the anti cheats sites may get it wrong. However, the one golden rule they all should work by. If it is not 100% clear that a pbss is felt to be showing a player cheating, then it should not be banned. I am sorry to say, but this is not always the rule by which this is done at some anti cheat sites. It has been observed anti cheat sites banning on a pbss which clearly is not close to 100% showing a player using a cheat.
An example of this problem, is something which came up a few weeks back on a PBss which was submitted to some of the anti cheat sites. It was some overlay of video memory blocks captured by the PBss software code. On one hand, you have PunksBusted.com not banning for it and then you have Pbbans.com that are consistently banning for it. So why are the top two anti cheat sites taking a different stand on this PBss? Well it was discovered that it came down to the different information which was at hand to them.
In the case of PsB. Their decision was at least partly influenced with the information that we here at BP handed over to them. Here is basically what was sent:
"BustedPunks.com nor EvenBalance have seen any cheat which would do this to a PBss. Nor have we collected any information that a cheat function would do this to a PBss. This does not mean that there is not a cheat out there which would do this but we have no supporting evidence.. The pbss may look very suspicious, but we can't say anything close to any certainty, that it is caused by someone using a cheat"
Now in the case of Pbbans. They banning for it. This would seem to fly in the face to even an email that was sent to them from EvenBalance and even posted on the pbbans website site (small grammar corrected):
"I have never seen that in any screenshot I know of. I can't (say) that this is due to a known bug, but I can't quantitatively say that this is due to a cheat of some kind.
Glenn Courington"
So there we have it. Pbbans continues banning for a pbss which has been stated by EB that they can't quantitatively say that this is due to a cheat of some kind. We also have a PM that was sent from Blackwolf. He is a staff member with pbbans and a server admin. Read what he writes.
"It is most likely a PBSS blocker. However, we've never had our hands on the cheat which does that, so we can't be 100% sure.
I may be wrong there - I could have sworn we banned one similar to that a while back. I'll have to check before I can be sure.
BlackWolf"
Now lets total this up. This is not some obscure item or mistake. This is an attitude expressed by pbbans in the face of evidence to the contrary. Not only have EB said to them that it could not be a cheat, but we also now have a staff member at Pbbans saying that they can't be 100% sure this is a cheat. So the question remains. Why are Pbbans banning for this PBss? Could it be down to pressure from the server admins which are streaming to them? Could it be that pbbans think that they can ban any player they wish.without having anything even approaching 100% proof that the player was cheating?
What other the reason is behind pbbans banning for this pbss where it is clearly in the wrong to do so. There is an obvious absence in critical thinking being applied here. No anti cheat site how big or small it is, should ban a player without feeling 100% the person was cheating. Anti cheat sites not only have a responsibility to the admins which are streaming to them, but also have a responsibility to respect all players which are playing on those servers. It should not matter how much pressure any anti cheat site is under from the server admins to ban for something or other pressures. There needs to be the supporting evidence that a player was cheating. This should always be the case with this type of questionable pbss.
Most the time pbbans do a good job in what it does. It is quite apparent that this time, Pbbans has dropped well short of the mark. Don't think for one minute that I or others here are just picking on pbbans. I am just using them as an example where an anti cheat site has got something very wrong in what it is banning for, yet resists even when other well qualified people state their position, right up to and including EvenBalance recommendations and findings. Over the years I'm sure that same thing would have happen to punksbusted.com, Game Violations or any of the other anti cheat sites out there. This is about how they respond, what their procedures and processes are in place to deal with it that matters. Why and how did the policies of Pbans get to this point where there is not the accountability. That should be fixed while they reread their public quality statement and what it means.
Here at BP we deal extensively with many cheats that pbbans can't possibly have access to. We would never support these PBss's of being from any cheat that has come before us. This extends to public, private and pay cheats in our data. We simply have not found a relationship, nor even a hint in any portion of these samples we have viewed that a cheat is being masked or present.
In the next part we going to be looking at MD5 and CVAR checks..........
NewsBot2008-11-04 12:10:03
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10/16/2008 8:09:33 AM
1 Year old and 15,000 Violations
The White Light project is now over 1 years old and we are now into our 2nd year of working with Even Balance, in fact it was a year old last month but having so much on we have only just go around to posting this up.
So what has happen over the last 12 months?
Over the last 12 months almost 15,000 Global bans have been handed out by Even Balance to the players using the cheats which the White Light project members have been helping Even Balance with.
We are now doing 11 games from America's Army to Warrock and we will also be adding Warhammer to the list of games we will be working on with Even Balance.
On top of that the White Light project is now helping to bust over 32 private cheats (Cheats for Sell) and over the next 12 months we will be looking at adding to that number.
We also want to share with you some of posts which the Project Members get to see in the private areas on some of the cheat sites, so you will now see a new area on the home page called Favourite Quotations, Just click on the Read More Link to read some of favourite posts we have seen
From all the team we would just like to say thank you all very much for the support that you have all giving the White Light Project.
NewsBot2008-10-16 08:14:19
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9/18/2008 3:37:41 PM
Crysis Warhead to get Punkbuster
 Electronic Arts Inc. has contracted with Even Balance, Inc. to integrate PunkBuster Anti-Cheat
software into the game Crysis Wars® developed by Crytek. We will soon be
opening a section on our website to support PunkBuster for Crysis Wars. Crytek, Crysis and CryENGINE are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Crytek. EA and the EA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
More Information http://evenbalance.comhttp://www.ea.comhttp://www.crytek.comhttp://www.ea.com/crysis
NewsBot2008-09-18 15:40:37
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8/18/2008 2:19:23 PM
DDOS Attack
Over the last few days the BustedPunks site has been under a ddos attack, we know who is behind this and if this cheat site thinks that doing a ddos attack on a server which we are using to test PBucon on is going to stop what we doing then the site owner is an complete muppet for thinking this.
The BustedPunks web site and the pbucon tests we been doing are minor aspects to the job we do, the ddos attack is not going to stop their undetected cheats being detected. This attack just under lines the impact BustedPunks and the White Light Project has had on the cheat coders, and shows just how desperate the cheat coders are getting to stop the work that the White Light project has been doing along side Even Balance.
In one way BustedPunks should be thanking them for the ddos attack as it does show we are hurting them, but then again it does show how dumb some of them are to think that a ddos attack on a $45 VPS server is going to stop there cheats becoming undetected.
If you would like to help us to continue to the work that we do in detecting paid cheats then please make a donation. All money received will go directly and solely to the WL project.
BustedPunks Team
NewsBot2008-08-18 14:21:05
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8/12/2008 10:50:41 AM
Moving Server
I am happy to announce that BustedPunks will be moving to a
new server over the next few days.
So what does this all mean to BustedPunks? The only down side to this, is that BustedPunks will be down
for 24 hours.
We would like to thank
If it was not for there kind support we would not be able to
have made this move. Also I would also like to thank all the people who have made a donation
to BustedPunks and the White Light Project. Also a thank you to all the server
admins which have helped with the PBucon test. And a big thank you to the
BustedPunks Helpers
Thank you all very much for your support.
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8/5/2008 1:18:41 AM
Activision has contracted with Even Balance, Inc. to integrate
PunkBuster Anti-Cheat software into the game Call of Duty:
World at War developed by Treyarch. Activision and Call of
Duty are registered trademarks and World at War is a trademark of
Activision Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
For more information see
http://evenbalance.com
http://www.callofduty.com
http://www.activision.com
http://www.treyarch.com
mole12008-08-05 06:07:55
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7/22/2008 8:34:30 AM
 Battlefield Heroes to get Punkbuster
For more information see
http://evenbalance.com
http://www.battlefield-heroes.com
NewsBot2008-07-22 11:20:33
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7/12/2008 3:08:08 AM
 Warhammer online to get PunkbusterFirst, Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of Mythic Entertainment, announced to MMORPG.com that the studio has partnered with well-known anti-cheat company Punkbuster in an effort to make sure that their upcoming RvR game (Warhammer Online) is as free from cheaters, hacks and the like as possible. "As you know," said Jacobs in an interview, "we have fought a long battle against hackers, cheaters and other assorted slimeballs who think that it's both fun and fair for them to have an advantage over other players." "We obviously did a lot of things in Dark Age of Camelot that worked," he continued. " We banned cheaters whenever we found them. We made a tremendous effort to sort out and deal with hackers and companies or individuals who promote this sort of stuff. Did we do a perfect job? Absolutely not, nobody does, but we did a pretty good job." In 2008 though, he said, Warhammer is seeing a much wider distribution than its earlier counterpart and the landscape of MMOs has changed, leading to more and more people who look to cheat. Rather than facing down these cheaters and hackers on their own, Mythic is taking on a partner in Punkbuster, a company with a strong reputation in the online gaming world. More Information Click here
NewsBot2008-07-12 03:14:08
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6/25/2008 9:23:23 AM
10,000 Global Bans
BustedPunks is happy to announce that over 10,000 Global Bans have been issued
as a direct result of the work BustedPunks and the White Light project have been
doing over the last 7 months with Even Balance.
Thank you to all the people who have supported the White Light
project. Without your kind support, such sweeping success would not have been
possible. We would also like to thank all the members of the White Light project
for all their hard work which made this happen. Finally, we extend our deepest
appreciation and gratitude to all the staff at Even Balance for their
considerable effort, expertise, and dedication. Special recognition goes to
Stuart, it has been a pleasure and an honour to have been able to work with
you.
If you would like to help us continue our mission in detecting paid
cheats, then please make a donation. All money received will go exclusively to
the WL project and help in the work that we do with Even Balance. Many
thanks, BustedPunks Team.
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5/26/2008 7:37:25 AM
Punksbusted.com
BustedPunks are happy to announce that we will be working with PsB (Punksbusted.com) on all games that PsB support.
PsB (Punksbusted.com) have been around now for many years and is the fore runner of all the other anti cheat sites supporting PB games. It is also the home of the ground breaking AMBL (Automated Master Ban List) and over the years PsB has become the biggest of all the anti cheat sites
http://www.punksbusted.com
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5/26/2008 7:35:48 AM
TGL Partnership
TGL (Total Gaming League) have been in contact with BustedPunks to look at Enemy Territory Quake Wars.
BustedPunks will be working closely with TGL and Even Balance.
http://league.totalgamingnetwork.com/
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5/26/2008 7:14:14 AM
BustedPunks are proud to announce that we are now supporting Crytek in the work that we do. BustedPunks will be working closely with Crytek and Even Balance.
http://www.crytek.com
NewsBot2008-05-30 01:42:03
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5/26/2008 7:12:37 AM
Even Balance announcement
We rarely announce anything regarding commercial cheats and hacks. However, we are aware of the numerous "You Tube" type videos and posts on various sites where hackers who sell cheats make claims that are false but sound believable about PunkBuster and hack detection status. We receive numerous emails daily by concerned honest players regarding advertisements for undetectable hacks, etc. The truth is that via recent enhancements to PunkBuster's detection capabilities, we have cracked down hard on cheaters who pay for hacks in the games we support. Some commercial cheat sites have closed down due to our new methods and others have private forums where punks routinely complain about getting caught with the "undetectable" hacks, demanding refunds, etc. We have always maintained a strict policy of not giving money to punks, but thanks to community volunteer moles who have helped us obtain access to private hacks via donations of their time, etc., PunkBuster has been catching hacks from virtually all commercial cheat sites in recent weeks and months.
One of the recent enhancements involves our memory scanner which aggressively scans for patterns included in known cheats (public and private). A commercial hack site where we have had recent success catching their subscribers has recently staged a few demonstrations of inserting text-based patterns via certain chat-related systems such as IRC, Instant Messaging, etc. directly into the memory of computers. These are specific text patterns that we have deployed in some supported games in the recent past. It is clear that many of the demonstrators are cheat-supporters willingly participating in the demonstration, but there is evidence that some innocent players had PunkBuster violations triggered during the past few days by the hackers who sent specific text patterns into the chat programs that were open during gameplay. We are removing these text based patterns from our system and encourage admins to not ban for PB violations that occurred during the past few days.
Online gamers who play with other programs running should always enable security features in their messaging and chat programs to deny auto-download of files and only accept downloads from people they know and trust. As always, from PunkBuster's standpoint, if a known cheat pattern is in the memory of the computer during gameplay, then a violation will be triggered. We have always suggested closing other programs while you are playing multiplayer games on PunkBuster servers and that remains the safest policy. Leagues that require chat room usage for competitive play should take steps to ensure that only league participants have access and suspicious activity should be reported to us when there are concerns about manipulating the system.
http://evenbalance.com
NewsBot2008-05-26 07:16:40
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