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PUNKBUSTER Questions And Answers:
Below are the answers to a number of questions you might have about
PunkBuster
What Is A Global Ban:
GNE Clan
PBBans.com nor any other
anti-cheat community have any control over global bans or global hardware bans.
They are issued directly from EvenBalance and according to what was said in
their announcement....WILL
NOT BE LIFTED!
If, however, you feel that you were banned in error, please e-mail EvenBalance
at support@evenbalance.com or you
could use their support ticket system:
https://ssl.evenbalance.com/troubleticket/
I recently asked EvenBalance for some clarification on these bans...
Can you folks give us a semi-clear definition
of the various types of global bans that are issued by EvenBalance?
The clearest definition we give is that we globally ban (both guid and hardware
at our discretion) for the use of any cheat/hack that hacks PB or interferes in
any way with PunkBuster's normal operation.
Does the global ban system work on no matter
which game type you play? In other words, is it GUID based only or are they
means to keep habitual cheaters off of all PB enabled servers no matter the
game?
A PB Global GUID ban is game specific so it covers only one game. A PB Global
Hardware ban covers all games we support.
Can you give me a few stats? In general, about
how many players are globally banned?
We do not discuss stats with anyone.
Have any of the bans ever been lifted from an
appeal?
We do not have an appeal process. We read every email that comes in complaining
of these bans and we check to make sure no mistake was made since all of our
bans are done manually as opposed to some automated process. We only lift bans
when we made a mistake or believe a PB violation could have been a false trigger
(both are extremely rare but we always lean to the benefit of complaining
players when there is a shred of doubt).
I hope that this information is useful in answering your questions.
_________________
How is PunkBuster funded, do you have sponsors? Or don't you require any
thing from outside PunkBuster?
Quote:
Even Balance, Inc., the company that owns PunkBuster software, pursues
commercial licensing and service agreements with game developers and
publishers. Our goal is to keep PunkBuster free for users and admins so that
the associated costs are absorbed in the original cost of the game and passed
to us via the normal revenue stream. We also offer a premium Name Registry
service direct to players and clans so they can register their names and tags,
but the income from this is just intended to pay for the costs associated with
offering the service.
Who came up with the name PunkBuster?
Quote:
I did. When I was a league admin, we always referred to the cheaters as
little punks and we were always looking for ways to catch them cheating. When
I came up with the idea to have a program running in the background to look
for cheats, the name "PunkBuster" just seemed to fit.
Will PunkBuster ever be able to eliminate all game exploits, meaning truly
all of them?
Quote:
Games are just computer programs representing (often) millions of lines
of code ... each line having been hand-coded by a human being. Since humans
are not perfect, neither are their (game) 'creations'. That means that games
will always have loopholes and bugs that can be exploited, no matter how much
time and effort is put into fixing them. Therefore, complete elimination of
exploits is an impossible dream - just like complete elimination of crime from
a society. Our goal is to create a real deterrent to put those who would cheat
at risk of getting caught and exposed, just like police are looking for
criminals to catch them.
Why do wallhacks and aimbots still work client side on some servers with PB
enabled?
Quote:
PunkBuster is designed to work properly only when the latest version is
running at the PB Server. Some servers are behind firewalls that prevent PB
from keeping itself up to date. When cheats work on some PB Servers, most
likely the cause is that those servers are running old versions of PunkBuster
and the admins have not fixed the firewall problem and/or manually updated the
PunkBuster version to the current one. Also,
even on current versions, it sometimes
takes a few days for the PunkBuster research team to obtain and verify a new
working cheat. Once we have done that, it is only a matter of hours/days until
PB Servers are detecting those new cheats. Also, some of the more
serious cheats and hacks are not reported during gameplay, but are silently
passed to our master server for us to consider in permanently banning the
players using them. You should not be testing cheats that hack PunkBuster
itself on public PB Servers or you are likely to get caught and permanently
banned without recourse.
Could you give us a brief description of what the PB-guid is, what it does
and how reliable it is?
Quote:
The PB GUID is a way to identify
players. GUID stands for Globally Unique IDentifier. It is based on each
player's CDKEY in such a way that someone cannot reverse the GUID back to find
the originating CDKEY. It is very reliable except in the cases where a punk
has hacked the GUID to try to get around PunkBuster's normal operation. When
we catch players trying to hack their GUID or otherwise trying to hack or get
around PunkBuster itself, we globally ban those associated GUIDs from being
able to play on any PunkBuster server forever.
Is it possible to change your PunkBuster Guid? If yes, what's the use than to
ban cheaters they can come back?
Quote:
Since the GUID is based on the player's CDKEY, it can be changed by
obtaining a new CDKEY. That means cheaters can come back, but they have to buy
the game again or otherwise obtain a new valid CDKEY. As noted in the previous
question, if hackers hack their GUID to try to get around PB's normal
operation, we can ban them from all PB Servers without recourse.
What's the use of PunkBuster or any anti-cheat program when anybody can find
new cheats that can be used?
Quote:
PunkBuster is updated all the time. When our research team becomes aware
of new cheats that are not currently detected, we update the system so that it
can detect these new cheats. Players and admins who find new cheats that are
not currently detected by PB should forward them or info on where to get them
via email to research@evenbalance.com.
Why does one get banned only 2 minutes for having a wallhack?
Quote:
The 2 minutes is just a default. Each PunkBuster admin can set the kick
time to up to 60 minutes on a per-server basis. PunkBuster never automatically
bans a player permanently. We leave permanent bans up to individual admins.
PunkBuster logs cheats to a special log file that admins can use to ban
players if they choose to do so.
Does PB decide how long the bantime is or is Raven in control?
Quote:
Each server admin can decide how long to have PB kick for (up to 60
minutes). Manual bans can be added for any length of time by the admin
(including permanent bans).
How come in some cases a Kazaa hack is seen as a gamehack? This happened to
quite a few peoples i know.
Quote: THIS MAY BE WHY ALOT OF PEOPLE
GET BANNED FOR NO REASON SPYWARE
Any program that has code to
hack other programs in memory is likely to get caught by PunkBuster as a cheat
or hack program. PunkBuster doesn't care what a program is named or where it
is installed on the system. But if it is running in memory while the game is
running and it has the capability to change other programs, then it is subject
to a PunkBuster violation. In general, players should never be running any
extra unnecessary background programs while they play on PunkBuster servers.
Who provides you information about new cheats? Do you look for them yourself?
Quote:
Our research team is always looking for new cheats, but many players and
admins send us emails to research@evenbalance.com. Most of the time, we are
already aware of what comes in, but every once in a while a new cheat is
discovered because of a report by a PB user.
How many times a week does PB gets updated? And due to what sources?
Quote:
Some weeks, PunkBuster is updated many times ... 20 or more. Other
weeks, there are relatively few updates. It just depends on the level of new
cheat/hack activity.
What exactly does PB do to disable the cheat?
Quote:
PunkBuster does not disable cheats at all - PunkBuster doesn't change
anything on a player's system, not settings, not the registry, nothing except
PunkBuster files. PunkBuster simply detects and reports. Then it is up to the
Admin to take the next step and ban the player from his/her server if desired.
When will there be an update for PB that solves the autoupdate problem? Now
we have to download an update program.
Quote:
Most players' PunkBuster can auto-update with no problems. Some players
run "Internet Security" software or play behind a firewall/proxy that prevents
PunkBuster from being able to keep itself up to date. These players must
manually update PunkBuster. In the future, we hope to have an alternate
auto-update procedure that works for these types of players. Alternately,
instead of manually updating, the console command "/pb_security 0" will also
allow PB to accept updates from servers without communication with our
masters. However, we only recommend using that setting when connected to
servers where the player trusts the admin.
Since PB is an extra program that's running, does it causes any lag? If it
does, in which case?
Quote:
For the vast majority of players, PunkBuster never causes any noticeable
lag. Players with slow computers and/or Internet connections will notice a bit
of lag from time to time especially during auto-updates or screenshot
transfers.
Is there any chance of PunkBuster and other anti - cheat programs working
closer together in the nearby future?
Quote:
PunkBuster was the first software and system that proved that cheating
could be fought effectively back a few years ago. Since then, we have
discovered that the only effective approach involves direct integration with
the game (i.e. a separate third-party program just has too many loopholes). We
are not interested in working with any third-party system because we already
know that is a waste of time. We are willing and able to work with any game
developer or publisher who would like to contract with us for help in fighting
cheating in their games with *direct integration*.
How does PunkBuster's future look, what's going to change for the better?
Quote:
The future looks bright. Several new games coming out this year will
have PunkBuster integration and we are involved in other types of deals as
well. I can't talk much about them until they are officially announced.
Several aspects and feature sets of the PunkBuster software are slated to be
enhanced and/or completely rewritten to improve overall effectiveness and also
to address concerns expressed by players and admins of the current versions.
We always strive to keep improving PunkBuster and we have since it was first
released almost three years ago. Our focus is on giving admins more ways to
keep their servers as cheat-free as possible while keeping PunkBuster as
invisible and in the background as possible for the players.
Couple questions Is there a way i can Control What PB Bans Example I want pb to
only ban for hacks and from my list of cheaters not for every little thing
imaginable.
2.I run my own server and can't find a option to allow people who have been
globally banned I didn't ban them and they didn't cheat on my server why is
their not a option to do that.
3.Pb is banning people on my server who do not cheat and I'm sure of it --they
are getting banned and it's not in my violation log or cheat log.
4.PB would be 100 times better if it didn't do this or had ways to control it.
5.I never cheated before and I had to buy another game 6 months ago because I
was Global banned
ANSWERS FROM PB SUPPORT TEAM
Note #2: There is no way to block global bans that are issued by Even
Balance. The ability to do so would render the Punk Buster system useless.
There is no way to filter PunkBuster kicks such that it only kicks for certain
cheats. This would again render the PunkBuster system useless.
PunkBuster will globally ban people that cheated using a hack that violates our
EULA. This may or may not have happened on your server.
Please help me understand how this works if your guid is used in cheating you
get a global ban well
People can use your guid and cheat then your screwed you say.
So Punkbusters reply is to secure your guid thats hard because every server you
enter gets a log of your guid they could distribute this to other or post it
almost all stat programs list it in there links I could bring back a list
of 1000 guids and then post them or use them to cheat.
also people ban people for no reason and post there guid on websites.
maybe pb should integrate a combo between a cdkey and a guid and allow pb
servers to choice if they want to ban global banned players
THEIR REPLY
Note #2: GUIDs are generated as a hash of the CD key.
The CD key hash is generated and sent by the game developers authentication
system for each game. The authentication systems return a valid/not valid
response. The GUIDs are not generated by the clients or the game servers, rather
the authentication system. Knowing a players GUID does not make them vulnerable
to random banning.
In short, people can NOT use your GUID to cheat on servers unless they have
stolen your CD key.
Furthermore, consider your recommendation that we allow server admins to allow
certain global bans, but not others or that we allow server admins to kick for
certain violations, but not others. How then would I as a player be protected
when playing on your server? Why would you want to allow some cheating or some
cheaters to play on your server, but not others?
Ok I have confirmed that Unless You Give away Your
Cdkey Or Have The Same As Another No one can steal it and cheat with it.
see: info
In general,
GUID
is an acronym that stands for “globally unique identifier”. The
guid
inside PunkBuster
is used to identify players with something more solid than their playing name or
IP address. Your guid
is loosely based on the cdkey
that was used to install the game on your computer. When Server
Admins
kick or ban a player from their
server(s),
PunkBuster
uses the player's guid
to enforce the kick/ban. Since it is based on the game installation, it is a
better way to identify individual players than by looking at their IP address or
playing name. For those concerned about privacy,
PunkBuster
uses a 128-bit one-way hash (a mathematical function) to generate the
guid
from the cdkey
so that no one can figure out or compute your
cdkey
by knowing your guid.
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