Good day everyone,
Quick bit of news, WG has let out a wave of bans for users of illegal mods. The ban is for 7 days and continued use afterward will result in a permanent account suspension.
Update: A notice on the RU portal confirms they have banned 15937 players as well as disqualified players from the ongoing Tank Aces event.
NA– 252 players banned for 7 days.
EU-2,869 players banned for 7 days.
SEA-115 players banned for 7 days
From the terrible image quality, all I can read from that post is that the guy was absolutely sure he wasn’t using any mods and was complaining about unfairness blah blah.
User is banned until December 66th for using illegal mods.
unusual date…
Until 66th of December?! Yes please!! XD
Hehe. Typed this up at 5:30 AM without coffee :p Fixed
I can’t really get much info from this.
Also, I am very interested in how WG exactly ‘detects’ who uses illegal mods. Unless these were players who were stupid enough to post screenshots or videos of them actually using them, there is no way WG would be able to know this without seriously violating ones privacy.
Mods work completely client-side, so there is no way to detect mods without scanning your local computer. We already through this with (I think it was an early version of Denuvo) DRM software that wanted to do this and this was ruled to be illegal.
There IS anti-cheat software which scans your local computer (like BattleEye), but you have to give that software very specific authorisation to do so upon installation and even then, it does not send that information anywhere…
But I could be mistaken of course…
Don,t worry you can use your aimbot safelly…wg can,t spot you cheating because you are not so stupid like others to post yourself cheating…:)
Well, I was more concerned with the potential breach of privacy actually. I don’t want them ‘accidentally’ scanning my porn folder :P.
I have too many tank pictures for porn. I think I’ll be fine
I believe it was in the user agreement that you handed wargaming the rights to quietly review your game logs but I do not believe there is an article in there that speciffically allows wargaming to access anything outside of the complete wot folder if you read it. It is also hard to delete data that is cycled to external servers and that is my best guess on how they catch cheaters besides just a general cross reference between input and output.
Just for some peace of mind, it wouldn’t be of any benefit for wargaming to ban an innocent player because you’re essentially deleting content and making cheat hunting methods public to mod developers would encourage new methods on how to cheat the system. I can see that giving wargaming a free pass is negative in the long run so it’s more of down to the developers and community managers to leak info if wargaming is going too far. But we all know wargaming is a cruel, hive mind, singularity, hell bent on torturing and harvesting the suffering of players to feed their dark chaos gods. So I think we’re doomed.
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I’m guessing there’s a mention of it in the EULA
They tried that, was not allowed. Has to be a separate authorisation…
But knowing WG and where they come from, it wouldn’t surprise me.
I am pretty sure all they need is checking the injection of worldoftanks.exe or scanning their own game folder for which they don’t need your authorisation …
I don’t know any mods who would need to be injected, but as for the game folder they still need permission. It is YOUR local disk in YOUR computer, regardless of its contents. Several anti-cheat software programs also received heat for doing this, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they slipped it in their ToS somewhere…
Blah, blah, blah. They are checking integrity of the game files with every start, wheter there is something to repair, or not. What exactly stops them from scanning the game directory with an added parameter that includes list of blacklisted files? Nothing. Same goes with e.g. hardware survery – I am sure they have anonymous statistics with information what dosrt of hardware players use etc.
If they really did, a whole lot of players would be banned now. This is just a simple gesture and show of force with little to no meaning. There are some players I know for a fact use illegal mods (and not even grey area ones) and they are still in the game. We’ll see how ‘real’ this so-called threat from WG is. It takes more than just this for me to believe all those conspiracy theories.
Oh, and by the way, the game doesn’t check file integrity. It simply checks game client version and that’s it. You can easily remove or edit core game files and the game will still either start or crash later on. You can test that yourself.
It may check integrity but it doesn’t then phone home and tell WOT what it found. That’s the difference.
Thing is how they detect you cheating or using illegal mods is the game is set at a thresh hold of 50 percent whatever they set it at they go by stats to see if they go up a lot or down a little they scam players into believing there is succession when the only scam is to make money . They ban accounts like in my case all my info managed to make it to a site lot of other peoples were as well a breach in there so called security they feel no liability to it when it is on their servers long story short they threw chargebacks at me cause I stopped unauthorized transactions when my account was hacked I never gave my stuff out to be on a website where other users names and passwords were also breached the problem I have is the charge off aspect they penalize the innoncent reward the ones that do wrong in order for me to play the game I would have to pay the original amount plus 19.95 in a fee to wargamin I said screw that said some other things bout the frauding around and scamming of nerfing the tanks they say all the way to needing new maps to making match maker fair to the player since that is what the agreement everyone clicks on is for fair play two tiers higher is a big issue doesn’t show you skill but greed . So they banned my first account or blocked it due to reason of lawsuit which I filed none just told them though that I did report it to the FBI and that people are looking into it on the North America side mean this company use to have a Headquarters in Chicago then a phone number they no longer have any of that because they can’t face the people they screw they consider the players that being us customers if that is the case I would love the crap I did buy from 3 years ago put on another account when I mentioned that they got pissy sent me a response won’t let me respond back that is how chicken shit they are .
Shadeo – “there is absolutely no way…”, but “I could be mistaken”. Contradictory.
No. Those two statements did not concern the same part of my comment.
They are using the same tech now that blizzard did for diablo 2 on battlenet.
Oh come on, I played that and it was rife with cheaters and hackers…
I can tell you as a security person in IT, all the folks saying you can’t be detected because nothing is installed client side is hogwash. You can still intercept incoming data to the server, analyze it for inconsistencies from client data, and begin to build logic and filters that will start to raise your probability of “cheat” detection over time to a very high level. Do this on firewalls all the time, I don’t need a thing from the source, I just need to modify how I look for inconsistencies.
I know those methods and most of them are nowhere near 100% foolproof. This would imply people with unusually high hit rates *might* be using an aimbot for example. Which is nonsense.
They might be using algorithms like that, but at best this is a very fancy way of just guessing who might be cheating. This together with their no-appeal policy is dangerous.
Ah well, it’s their problem. We will see what happens…
Well… WG apparently has a system to detects illegal mods (otherwise there would be bans for it). It could be either some sort of code running on “server side” and I gues it is also sending additional info to the server from the game client itself.
There are numerous ways they can detect almost anything that you have doing with game files. They didnt even had to do some major update. They just changed something on the “server side” – to collect the info and also applayed some ninja 10 mb patch and suddenly they have all the info.
And I think the way they detect illegal mods shuld remain a secret – so cheaters will not be able to provide some countermeasures for that.
I still highly doubt that, considering the low number of bans, but we will see what they do.
Oh, and security by obscurity doesn’t work.
No screenshots or video published. This is most likely done by one of 2 things
1 – they bought out an illegal mod maker and now know a way to detect it.
2 – Their file integrety checker creates a report and sends WG a list of everything installed
they dont need to violate our privacy to look for illegal mod use or cheaters they can just look at your files to look if they have been changed in some way it would not result in privacy violation because the files belong to wargaming so they have the right to look if somebody changed it they can do it quit easly by making all players update to a extra file that look at your files when you start if they have been changed the programma file would detect it and ban the modders/cheaters
There are plenty of replays of illegal mods, I’ve seen a few on various YouTuber’s channels, it’s a good place to start…
I’m sure it’s another,”show of force.” They did a simular thing a few months back in WoW. For all the talk about it, it would almost never happen on the SEA server, if they did all the top Vietnamese clans would be disbanded, and there would be no clan wars. If you want to get rid of illegal mods, get rid of the resmod folder.
I’m not sure just removing the resmods folder would help. People would just go back to installing mods the old-fashioned way before that folder existed. If you want to completely disable mods, you will probably have to use some sort of resource encryption…
Its a program they use I know how it works. It scans the folders for anything thats not in the basic folder of the clement if it detects something it checks for the allowed section and the banned section if it detects a banned file or folder or even the smallest fragment of Trojan or banned mod it automaticly bans you from the game.
Yeah, I can tell you they are NOT using that. That is pretty much akin to spyware and would red flag anyone using any serious scanner. Several anti-cheat software programs (Punkbuster for example) have already tried that in the past received a LOT of heat for that.
There are some serious nerds playing this game who have their computers protected with some serious sh*t and know how to do that much better than you and I together.
Mods can function verywell without resmod folder. There where times when resmod folder was not in game and people still used mods.
RIP noob
Is it possible that the use of a mod in the res_mods folder (and what it does) is transmitted as part of the connection data? That’s a good trap for the unwary illegal mod user if so.
I can see that 9.17 will be the lowest online patch so far
I know a lot of people will be asking why don’t they just disable mods althogether. The answer is that it would only harm players with legal mods in the short run and harm WoT development in the long run. If you see any other online videogame scene you will see that cheats are a problem there too even without mod support.
Videogame cheats are an arms race between game and cheat developers. As a detection software gets implemented, cheat devs are already reverse enginnering it to bypass it.
They could simply disable the ability to mod game files, that affect battle or battle loading screen in any way (so you could only be able to use garage mods). Sure, you could not use some HD skins or sound mods – but lets remember here – legal mods are maybe, perhaps 1% of all mods available for WoT.
First, your solution is crap. As I said other games also have this problem without mod support and checking files and whatnot. It’s only needed for some clever coders to bypass the detection, mask their files as game ones or even just say “fuck the files” and use some other technique for the cheat implementation.
Second, I don’t agree. There are a lot of legal mods available and some important ones are quite widespread (i.e XVM, even with some important features already in-game, is still used for the extra customization and stats). It only suffice to see a menu of those mods installers to see that there are a lot of them.
WG must fight the cheaters, but forbidding mods isn’t the way.
WORM318
I am not saying that it is BEST solution out there…
…The best solution is to completely remove the ability to mod the game and add some fille checksum – checking mechanism – so you could not be able to run game with modified files (anti – cheat).
It would not eliminate 100% of cheats, but at least with 80 – 90% of them. And as you said – those who realy want will find a way to cheat anyway. But it will by much more dificult to do, than it is now. And that is something…
btw. Although XVM is considered legal (at least for now) it sitll gives you a lot of additional info about other team and your team. During battle in default “clean” game acces to this inforamtion that quick is imposible.
First wave hit NA servers.
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/17/first-wave/
Supposedly 252 players 7-day banned.
played for 5 years since beta, and i get the feeling that concerning illegal mods ”it’s fine, as long as you dont get caught” attitude from WG.
after 40K battles semi-vanilla only QB modpack, i tried an aimbot trial from shaitan for 1 week. it was awesome, easy to install and easy to use.
There lies the problem……. i thought it was hard to install such mods, and that u got caught ASAP. nobody called me hacker or aimbot etc. in that week. got alot of my suspicions confirmed that sometimes when u come up against some1 MAYBE using aimbot etc. u knew and learnt that they were in fact using aimbot.
realized that this problem was much bigger than i first thought, clan wars, strongholds etc.
after this i felt depressed, and felt cheated for NOT using aimbots for 5 years. could have used aimbot this entire time….
it was so easy to install this shit….
this is FAR too late WG…. coming now 5 years after launch with the bans and stuff….
Better late than never
If you want to cheat pay for some of the new very balanced premiums. Or play the InvincibleShit-3.
Hey ! look at this from the bright side ! For 5 years YOU were playing game. Not some “bot”. It was all you. When you missed the terget it was you. When you hit the target it was you. And tell me, hitting target all by yourself… would you be as satisfied with this as you would if you used some aim-bot to aim for you ?
when they said they were gonna ban ppl for illegal mods, i had to try it atleast once.
enjoyed aimbot alot, not the aimbot itself, but the marker/reticle gave a % chance of pen at where u were aiming, much easier to decide where to shoot, when a tank is angling 30-45 degrees etc.
dont want to sound like a total asshat, but i enjoyed the aimbot trial. was new and fresh.
but i am AGAINST illegal mods, always has been. just not fair that i had to play the correct way for 5 years.
feels like we who have played by the book and rules have been punished, for NOT using aimbot etc….
always believing WG brainwash about them having illegal mods under control…….
until now they didnt……
Not as much butthurt about being banned as I expected, give it a bit longer see if they crawl out to post.
All players replays should be available after battle, so you can download it all. And check each player. Maybe that is exactly what are doing.
if this is true I welcome it, I have been saying to lots of people in game for the last 3 years about cheating in WOT, any server is hackable, Ask the CIA, FBI and countless other Govt organisations
prepare your shovels! we are going to harvest salt!
if you ever try these mods you can easly understand 2k player isnt even tip of iceberg. gg plz continue your masturbation
Might as well say go out and say it, seeing as nobody seems to have already.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. (@the cheaters)
Big deal……this scumbag company worries about illegal mods, nut they allowed EVERYONE to cheat for the t-22 on the na server and did nothing, its a garbage company
I think they actually were some bans for T-22 mission rigging…
I’m really curious to see how they come to the conclusion of someone cheating. As far as I can imagine, they’re doing it based on accusations. Anyone can be accused of it. I’ve been accused of being a bot many times b/c I don’t follow the orders or respond to the tomato in charge and end up staying alive longer. As far as the “what took them so long” argument people (I’m assuming they r) make, it hurts a lot more to lose something u spent years doing then it is to just start fresh after a couple hundred matches. It stings more.
What about to “ban the Wargaming servers” for internet as just and fair response… I guest, pastebin.com for ideas
LOL it is like buying fish. Mods and modpacks you have to trust the source that there is no illegal mods in it just like you trust your fishmonger he is not selling bad fish. Too funny!
good riddance!
i love it when companies ban scumbag cheaters, I can only hope they delete their accounts/tanks/etc entirely next time 🙂
I am fairly curious to know how many of those accounts are secondaries, bot run, or simply forgotten accounts. probably only 5-10 percent of those accounts but it isn’t too hard for the high end cheaters to take gold from their clan treassuries to start a new account. This is just the pessimistic side of me.
It is good of wargaming to be acting on bans in single swings so countermeasures can be stifled. It is also good they did not do this when december started as that would set a poor tone for the month. Perhaps the top tanker event was used as a ruse to weed out the most aggressive cheaters/riggers. But that’s about all my optimism has patience for such a distasteful event.
I want the list of nanned people to be public…just for fun.
Come on i know first hand from being in sea for two years now that there are far more cheaters than 115. i will give about 5%+ of the population
Just got banned … and yes i was using destruction map mod. How they found this? I was dumb enough to download that “oficial mod” for top tankers event. End of story…
Oh, it was destruction map and fire mod… All came în one package from a friend, he did’nt get banned because he did’nt download top tankers mod… GG. A short break is welcome 🙂
People interested so much in “how dey do dis” could just use google and look for shady mod pages to find the info in 5 minutes, it wasn’t that hard:
1. Aimbot users getting detected (feedback data I guess, if client can fetch server sights it can send it back too, changing weakspots etc.).
2. WG’s “Ace Tanker” mod for event is a local spyware. But that was something to be expected, WG wouldn’t wipe their butts after a toilet visit if it wasn’t for the smell afterwards, so creating a mod from scratch for time-limited event was suspicious.
3. P0LIR0ID whistleblowed (sold) his database to WG. That explains why amount of bans on RU is so disproportionate to other servers.
So, whats to stop these ‘cheaters’ using another server. They get banned on one server, nothing to stop them from CT or a different country server though? So they’ll just change server and carry on until they get caught again.
They have to start all over your tanks do not carry over from e.g. NA to UK or ASIA servers.
You give them permissions to scan your game files when you download the game…so no privacy issues exist. If you can download mods…they can too, so they know the files and can scan for them. Battle Eye in steam is the same. You may go undetected for a while if you write your own mods…but, you do not need to cheat, vanilla is fine
You douche bags all whining now. 50% + of players are using mods including iffy mods. The top clans on NA are using transparent modules on your tank mods along with others breaking objects on map (shown on mini map) and lower top 10 are using aim bots. They will have to ban almost every player in the game now that everyone got so used to it.
They need to check out player: NoneField{G-D-A] eleven kills in one battle! I don’t think so, skill my butt!
What Wargaming and many others have not yet understood is that illegal mods they are a democratic way that helps the game to be balanced between weak and strong players. A weak person likes to dream about being a superman and doing things he can not. This is the real reason why so many people use a cheat mode.
Shadevari is that you? I knew you would come in and try to defend your pussy ass ways.
Shadevari is that you? I knew you would comemin and try to defend you no-skill having pussy ass ways.
I can tell you my story about being banned. I used a mod that showed me the reloading time of my enemies. I had no idea that mod has become illegal because i\ve been using it for 8 months. One day I met in random my biggest enemy – he hates me big time. He died among first. After that he moved on me and recorded my moves. He sent this video to WG. 4 days later I got banned 7 days for using illegal mod.
How about grow the fuck up and stop cheating as if somehow you are entitled to do so. Try actually READING the forums once in awhile to find wtf is going on. If you install ANY program that allows you to do ANYTHING not programmed into the game YOU ARE CHEATING!!
Are you having anger management issues ? Go see a shrink, this is not the right place for you ! I repeat for you, dumbass : reload time was LEGAL, after november 2016 they made it ILLEGAL ! I am not wasting my time on forums, fb, twitter and some other shit, like YOU DO ! I PLAY !
Thank you for proving my point for me. Your childish me me me attitude speaks volumes.
I am not a child and you seem to have a problem about that. My comment was mostly about YOU. GO see medical help, your brain is toasted.
Again, reading comprehension seems beyond your limited mental capacity. As i have said repeatedly anything that circumvents the program and gives you information that you are not entitled to, you are cheating.
I got banned for a power outage. Net goes down when you don’t have electricity so your tank sits there and people complain about you botting it. What a joke! i think they will lose money over this. I can’t see anybody being happy or wanting to rush out and buy a new tank now.
I can’t see this ban actually helping anything except pissing people off and making them not want to buy anything in the game. Who would rush out and buy a new tank if they just had a 7 day ban? I think all 15,937 people and their clans should boycott the game.
I hope people quit or boycott the game. Don’t let the rulers dictate to the players. Boycott them. It’s an outrage. Ban people and not have valid proof or evidence. We should all stick together and stop this banning process.
How about grow the fuck up and stop installing shit that lets you cheat as if somehow you are entitled to do so.
Please see my previous comments. All of you online gamers have felt the need to install cheating “mods” for so damn long you are like little children throwing a tantrum when your parents say “no more.”
This folder is used for packaged World of Tanks modifiers (*.wotmods)., Wot developers make this folder with clean installaTION, WHY? In my folder there is only this doc. In it is written the above…, I know that if you want to install mods , illegal or not, you have to put it in this folder, so the game will load it, scanning this folder with for example the client or in a update could be enough to reveal unwanted mods.., but is it happening?
In my experience, I believe these posts of so-called banned players is a smoke screen, WG simply does not care/