Account suspension discussion [merged]

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > @"Sojar.1495" said:

> > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > @"Sojar.1495" said:

> > > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > > @"trueanimus.4085" said:

> > > > > > > > all i can say is good riddance. if you had the program running, any of them, at the same time the GW2.exe was going, you cant prove that you werent using it just like they cant prove you were.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > The point is... if you had those cheat programs running, you either knew how to cheat and didnt, or you were straight up cheating period.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > end of story.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Thank you anet for finally showing some concern

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Yes you can

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > I already outlined one way they could have used to determine whether or not the Cheat Engine process is attached to the Guild Wars 2 process by simply checking the handles the Cheat Engine process has open. So there are definitely ways to figure it out. It would take less than 15 minutes to implement and can be done in probably less than 20 lines of code as well. So this is not at all some kind of technical limitation.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > ANET were just sloppy, made assumptions and banned innocent people.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > You can prove you had Cheat Engine running multiple times in tandem with GW2, and did not use it for cheating in GW2?

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Well then,, post your proof. I'll wait. Calling your bluff here and now. So, prove it!

> > > > >

> > > > > The burden of proof is on the accuser not the accused

> > > >

> > > > Wrong again. This isn't the public justice system. This is a private service.

> > > >

> > > > You have no rights. No free speech. No right to freedom. No rights except what ANET grants you.

> > > >

> > > > Also, still waiting on that proof, which you so confidently stated was able to be provided by the "innocent."

> > > >You have no rights. No free speech. No right to freedom. No rights except what ANET grants you.

> > >

> > > I have all of my rights as i live in the EU :) I find it comical you as a consumer yourself are saying that like it would be a good thing. You should protect your rights not give them up because you like a certain company.

> >

> > Whether right or wrong whether innocent or guilty, ArenaNet can deny you access based on whatever they see fit. They are the ones who instructed the bouncer at the door not to let you in. You have the right to stand and wait at the door and even flash your membership card, but at the end of the day you're not getting in.

>

> Yes and i think it's not ethically okay to do that. It also has legal repercussions, companies cannot do whatever they want because their T&C says so. Again why are you so eager to give up your rights as a consumer?

>

> Stop pretending you would be perfectly fine with ANET banning your account because they felt like it.

>

>

> >

>

> From Chris clearlys AMA on reddit (Guy in charge of anti cheat at arenanet)

> > My path to game security actually started on the other end with bot and cheat creation for a number of popular online games back in the early 2000s. A hobby turned into a profitable venture that expanded well beyond what I thought it would be originally. Chances are if you wanted to buy something for a popular online action RPG back then you would likely run into my infrastructure at some point.

>

> Using your logic the guy in charge of anti-cheat at arenanet (chris cleary) should be banned from the game

 

Im just stating as it is. And no youre not using my logic. Its a suspension. Its a mere denial of service for a certain amount of time. Any suspension he would have had wouldve been passed years ago.

 

Ofcourse if I would be banned i would be annoyed too, although if I know why I would be more accepting. Considering its a suspension, at some point you can come back to the game. And this game is fairly easy to get back into. You can argue 6 months is a bit harsh and 3 months is better. Bringing a weapon into a club stating youre not using it will still get you kicked out.

[Shikigami.4013]

> @"Belorn.2659" said:

> > @"Shikigami.4013" said:

> > > @"Belorn.2659" said:

> > > > @"Anthony.7630" said:

> > > > Your worried about a mmo video game called guild wars 2 is spying on your computer ?

> > > > Spying is everywhere man. Cortana from windows 10 spies on you. So does avast antivirus and other anti viruse softwares. Also google chrome tracks all your search engines on your android or your computers.

> > > >

> > > > Android phones are not any better than iphones. Both apple and google / and even amazon take all your information and spy on you.

> > > >

> > > > Also email accounts track your messages and know what you're doing sending and searching / buying.

> > > >

> > > > The best way to be untrackable is to move to africa and use no technologies and stay away from governments and authorities. Oh and your ID tag for being a citizen tracks you.

> > > >

> > > > That's what is happening in 2018. The modernization and global collection / tracking of human data.

> > >

> > > And this is good and we should celebrate that a game developer do this, because...?

> > >

> > > There is a lot of bad things happening in the world. I would prefer that a game company avoid doing harm when there is no reason to do it and a very easy solution to do harm reduction. Do not store data that is not related to the cheat tools. Delete it any unrelated data that got caught by the spyware code. Reassure your players that information won't be suddenly leaked because the data is permanently deleted.

> >

> > They don't even know who you are. How would they leak anything that could harm you if they have no personal info about you anyway? All purchases are handled by DigitalRiver, which is a company that is not connected to ArenaNet in any other way than handling the commercial transactions for them. ArenaNet knows that you are Belorn.2659 and an email address you used to sign up (which is probably hosted anonymously because people concerned that much about their privacy would likely not use an email that is publicly tied to their realworld identity). When you purchase something, DigitalRiver handles your data and just notifies ArenaNet in an automated process if the payment was successful or not. They do not send your 20 Dollar to ArenaNet with a note attached saying "These 20 dollar come from John Doe, age 22, living in randomstreet 123, randomtown who used the credit card with the numer 1234-4321-1234-4321 to pay.

> >

> > Is a gameaccount name and the name of a process found running on your pc too much information for your taste so that you fear you could be "harmed" if the hypothetical fact that Belorn.2659 used a program called cheat engine on his PC in march 2018, would leak to the internet? Maybe you could tell us what exactly you are afraid of that could happen.

>

> If they only store the information about cheat engine and those program listed then we don't have a problem. If they are storing IP addresses along side which machine has banking software installed, or has backdoors running, or has company specific control software, then guess who would be very interesting to have that leaked so that those users can be targeted explicitly. Even better, have the email address attached so they can launch some spearfish spam emails, like those that Anet themselves accidentally clicked on a few years ago.

>

> Imagine that you got access to a list of all Google, Apple and Microsoft employees who happen to run gw2 on their work machine, together with their complete process list. I am sure that no such computer will have old software with know bugs in them that is just waiting to be exploited.

 

So the scary scenario is this:

Although ArenaNet never told us that they stored any hashes at all after matching them to their list, you consider the possibility that they not only stored the process hashes that were found to match one of the 5 processes they were looking for, but **all** the process hashes. Furthermore, they may have stored your IP address along with it, for whatever reason. Not ending there, they not just stored that data where it is being used for the purpose it was collected for, but added all the data to the data they already had about you, so that in case of a leak it would be ensured that the malicious people get as much data about you as possible.

 

Following the leak, the malicious user would then either find a "backdoor" on your PC, or an exploitable piece of software , neither of which you were previously aware of although you are concerned about privacy and security. Or they would send you a phishing email, that you would fall for and get scammed out of all the money you had on your bank account because they knew what banking software you were using and you are unable to tell a phishing mail from a real one.

 

Sorry, but that sounds like a paranoid person to me. It seems about as likely as getting hit by a meteorite. Wish you the best of luck with your data.

 

PS: After writing I had the idea that you may not be concerned just for yourself but for random other people. Which would be a nice gesture and make the whole thing slightly less unlikely. Although lots of people have a dynamic IP that changes each time they reconnect to their ISP or restart their router. But I will leave it at this now.

[Cynn.1659]

I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

[Belorn.2659]

We know that they sent the whole process list to their servers, and they have not said anything about what they did with the collected data. If its gone it would be as easy as tweet it out that only the hash of the 5 processes are stored. Would not even take them 5 second to do so.

 

If we find this so unbelievable that it can be exploited then let have some developer post their process list here on the forum. If its just a meteorite risk then no reason not to. Be brave and go on and post it! It is perfectly safe! No harm can happen if the developers of this game to publish a list of all the processes running on their machine, and they don't even need to post their IP address or email.

[JohnnySupernova.9182]

> @"Cynn.1659" said:

> I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

 

The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

[kharmin.7683]

> @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

>

> The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

 

It's also why one does the "custom" install of Win10 so that you can turn all of that stuff off.

[Deihnyx.6318]

> @"Cynn.1659" said:

> I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

 

Yep...

But the thing is, nobody usually care about that. Hence why this sudden outrage about data leak is hilarious, a bit like the outrage about mounts was ridiculous, having had black lion keys for ages in game with people barely complaining.

 

A hack resulting of a leak would likely cause a lot more damage with... I don't know... text logs from in game? personal info such as irl name? email?

[JohnnySupernova.9182]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

> >

> > The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

>

> It's also why one does the "custom" install of Win10 so that you can turn all of that stuff off.

 

Yeah, there's also some big differences between how MS does it and how Anet does it. The biggest being the fact that MS **freaking tells you they're doing it** and **you can opt out**. It's not even like it's behind a million pages of legal jargon! It's right there in the installation!

[Deihnyx.6318]

> @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

>

> The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

 

You could argue that a self respecting user wouldn't run a program that can potentially modify in game memory for a online game. Doesn't mean they won't do it, same goes with cleaning your OS (and automatic forced updates makes it a bit tedious anyway), or not using google, or not using facebook... etc.

 

And yes, two wrongs don't make a right, but this becomes interesting when privacy concerns are only brought up when a company is trying to get rid of cheaters, with suddenly some people getting outraged by how little their privacy matters on the internet.

[JohnnySupernova.9182]

> @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

> >

> > The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

>

> You could argue that a self respecting user wouldn't run a program that can potentially modify in game memory for a online game. Doesn't mean they won't do it, same goes with cleaning your OS (and automatic forced updates makes it a bit tedious anyway), or not using google, or not using facebook... etc.

>

> And yes, two wrongs don't make a right, but this becomes interesting when privacy concerns are only brought up when a company is trying to get rid of cheaters, with suddenly some people getting outraged by how little their privacy matters on the internet.

 

Privacy concerns are an incredibly hot button issue right now, and have been bubbling up for a while. The topic of digital privacy was going to blow up sooner than later, and it's a bit silly to say it's only Anet catching flak for it when Mark Zuckerberg was testifying in front of congress over digital privacy concerns a week ago.

 

WRT the cheating thing, the ends don't justify the means. Even if all 1500 people banned are 100% legit, I'm still not okay with Anet putting fucking malware on my computer, recording data about my machine and sending it back to their server to do who knows what with. If they can't think of any better way to ban cheaters than that, then they need to rethink who they have doing this.

[Arioch.4810]

Anet exercised the option guaranteed to them via end user licence agreement.

Having in mind toxic clouds lingering over PvP and WvW in last couple of months, this was the proper, well timed, and necessary action, to show the community that steps are taken to weed out persons playing with unintended advantages. I guess we're all aware of a bunch of videos/screenshots, tickets and complaints lingering around, a lot of that is also shared in forums? As someone who plays PvP and WvW i welcome stricter monitoring and steps by Anet.

 

Since there's a parallel now being drawn with other MMO's monitoring of players, ill just parse my FB comment here:

 

"Here's my take on the method used by Anet and reasoning behind it: While they could have went with something analog to Blizzard's Warden, ie only look for processes that are already known to be associated with cheating, looking for all processes on ours (players) machines active while playing GW2 gives them the chance to, for once, be on equal footing with persons creating cheat software: Now they got to see what processes known cheaters had running while playing, that helps a ton with catching new wave of cheats in development. There was a lot of data - screenshots, yt videos, of player's characters doing, well, let's say - some odd things? It's trivial to cross-reference complaints by players made via tickets and forums with information obtained in march, and look what exactly cheater X uses.

 

Since it's allowed by EULA, as long as data is handled in resonable manner, I'm okay ANet's actions."

 

So, not only did they ban a lot of players that have some interesting software on their machines, software that is in violation of EULA as interpreted by company providing service, they also used this opportunity to look at what exactly player X is having in active processes while running at 160% speed - how is that exactly a bad thing for any of us players?

 

[Tasida.4085]

I stand by Anet all the way in this. People agreed with the EULA and Anet has a right to take back control of their game. Hopefully after 6 months these people will have learned their lesson. GO GO Anet.

[BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372]

> @"ratche.6204" said:

> > @"BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372" said:

> > > @"ratche.6204" said:

> > > > @"Nezekan.2671" said:

> > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Jerks.3172" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Jerks.3172" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Jerks.3172" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Jerks.3172" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > If ANet was sloppy, then those players running any cheat program while playing an MMO were equally as sloppy. Either way you slice it, caught is caught and hardly makes those players innocent.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Nobody has argued otherwise, but until after they were suspended they were not told or aware that you were not allowed to run cheat engine at the time as guild wars 2. Nobody was caught doing anything wrong because cheat engine is not inherently bad

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > No, that's not even close to correct. Anyone that plays this game agrees to the terms and it's pretty clear 3rd party software is not allowed. They don't need to be told more than that; there is an expectation for a level of maturity and responsibility on the players part to understand what rules, restrictions and limits are involved when they sign up for this game service.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > You're mindset is irresponsible ... so if you aren't caught doing something, it's not wrong? I can see you have very little reason to be listened to at this point.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > If i recall how to use cheat engine, you had to inject it into a program before it can do anything. If its a program that can potentially cheat but they haven't got any evidence on the player cheating they need to just flag the account and do further investigation not ban with no remorse.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > You almost make it sound like Anet doesn't own the accounts that they took action on and need to PROVE to the player why they were banned. That's amusing to say the least.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I mean, what further investigation do you think should be done ... have a bunch of Anet employees sit around and watch the account in question play the game and hope they cheat? You do realize that's highly impractical no? All these calls for 'further investigation' makes it sound like you think the outcome woudl be different? makes it sound like you even have a clue of what they did and didn't do ...

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Except you don't.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It's called hiring GM's with invisible mode on and watch the suspected players. Games like WoW, and many other do this why cant Anet do it?

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Because they're busy creating content for a very hungry community desperate for it? The ironic part is I had a GM watch me solo a champion in the core game years ago before any expansion. I have no doubt players reported me for hacking because I repeatedly soloed the champion for loot.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Exchange went like this:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > GM: How's it going?

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Me: Good. You?

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > GM: Good. Mind if I watch you?

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Me: No worries. :)

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Five minutes later. . . .

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > GM: Have a nice day. ;)

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > But, seriously, you can't expect GMs to watch all people all the time. It's just not effective.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This is a prime example of a GM wasting their time. I'm not saying GM should watch all players. Just players that are flagged for suspicion of hacking. They should NEVER reveal they are watching you.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Um . . . you asked for GMs to do this, and then you say they're wasting time doing it. So . . . which one is it now? Besides, that wasn't the point of me telling you that story. :)

> > > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > I'm asking GM's to investigate flagged accounts not showing up and go "Mind if i watch you" Of course people will either log off or stop cheating completely if they had a GM show up.

> > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > My account was flagged, the GM watched me while invisible, then he announced himself to see if my behavior would change . . . and it didn't. He did exactly what you're asking them to do. Let's not rewrite history. You asked for GMs to _watch_ players for suspicious activity. Done and done.

> > > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > > Doesn't get clearer than that as far as what you're asking.

> > > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > > Yes but in this case they didn't and that is why people are complaining

> > > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > > Really? You expected a nice personal greeting from a GM asking you if it would be OK for you stop cheating? Obviously, that 'personal touch' wasn't a very practical approach in this situation, so expecting it was a little silly.

> > > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > > No i want ANET to do what they usually do which is investigate accounts that are flagged individually and gather evidence

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > You have no idea if they didn't do that.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Yes we do and i have quoted them many times admitting so

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > 1516 accounts were suspended because we detected that the accounts were running Guild Wars 2 at the same time as one or more of the following programs

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > That doesn't say how they did it. You simply don't know. You're whole argument for not being banned is based on the fact that you don't know the details of how people were caught. BRILLIANT! GL with that appeal. Personally I don't think that's going to get you very far because frankly, it's not very relevant. I doesn't matter. There is no due process here; this isn't an episode of 'Law and Order'.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > > They have some way, people were detected, DONE.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Yes we know this as they admitted

> > > > > > > 1516 accounts were suspended because we detected that the accounts were running Guild Wars 2 at the same time as one or more of the following programs

> > > > > >

> > > > > > ANETs customer service is usually fair in most cases and they will actually evaluate peoples accounts and look into them when they are appealing bans. Something that ANET should actually do before banning people and not ban them based on assumptions which is what people like myself are complaining about. That and the fact at first they originally said nobody would be allowed to appeal their bans something that they backtracked on.

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Nobody is asking for a free pass, people who know they are innocent just want a fair chance and to have a GM look into their accounts individually.

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Saying "well they can do what they want its their game" is not very useful and i'm not sure why fellow consumers are throwing away their rights to defend a company.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Either way i hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend

> > > > >

> > > > > I don't see how that's an 'admission' of not having data, proof or evidence of the violation. The violation is running 3rd party software ... they detected it. I'm not sure how it's more complicated than that.

> > > >

> > > > Cheat engine is NOT a cheating program despite the name, it can be used for many other things. You can create viruses with notepad, why people who had a notepad open are not banned? You can hack GW2 servers with coding programs, why are those not banned? They are even more dangerous than any cheating tool.

> > > >

> > > > Cheat engine is a modding tool for people who use it on single player games. Its free, its flexible and very easy to learn. Instead of constantly visiting sites like Nexus to get mods, and sometimes not even finding what you are looking for, you can change your game however you like. NOT A SINGLE COMPANY who produces single player games has a problem with this and none even try to protect their game against it. The most prominent use of it is probably Dragon Age Inquisition in witch people even used it to fix bugs.

> > >

> > > "Cheat engine is not a cheating program"

> > >

> > > You do realize how silly that sounds right?

> > >

> >

> > "Guild Wars" is a game in which wars between guilds don't really take place.

> > You do realize how silly that sounds, right? ;)

>

> Actually if you know game lore, it's not really silly at all, or the same thing.

 

You implied you could determine the nature of a thing by looking at the name. I gave a counter example (which would only be invalid if there were indeed wars between guilds taking place in the game - as opposed to referencing something in the lore for a time before even the events of the first game).

[GreyWolf.8670]

> @"Twoodi.5849" said:

> > @"fireanne.7682" said:

> > @Kheldorn.5123

> > I'd like to point out that if you want to keep pressing the "knife" metaphor, a better comparison is taking a knife on board of a plane. Does it mean you are a terrorist? No. Yet you will still not be allowed to take one.. The metaphor is not perfect (your knife can be used by another person, you will not be banned from a flight for 6 months etc.) but it is still closer to comparing the problem here to simply owning a knife.

> >

> > I personally know cheat engine can be used for non-hack related things, I used it for Dragon Age Inquisition's modding. But that is a single player game. I would not run the program while playing a multiplayer game. In fact, I do not run it at all unless I play that specific game. Why would I want to, anyway?

> >

> > Try to understand that it cannot work on a "caught me red-handed" principle here as that is virtually impossible due to privacy reasons. The result is then similar to the terrorist on a plane principle I mentioned above. If you smuggle a knife on board of a plane and you are caught, you will be punished. You don't have to be a terrorist, you do not need to have attacked anyone. The goal is to create a safe environment for everybody else you share the space, physical or virtual, with. Ultimately it comes down to no bans, or players agreeing to follow certain principles in order to create a fair enviroment for players (as for example not running software that can be used to hack the game together with the game to allow the devs to correctly detect people that use it to do so...).

>

> Thats the point though nobody was "caught red-handed" they didn't check in game logs or even watch the players. They just made an assumption and didn't investigate further before banning users.

 

How do you know this? They were apparently investigating for weeks.

[Ahnog.8795]

Arena Net is not the bad guy here. Run a hack program with the game and you deserve to be banned.

[TexZero.7910]

> @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > @"Deihnyx.6318" said:

> > > @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > > > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > > > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

> > >

> > > The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

> >

> > You could argue that a self respecting user wouldn't run a program that can potentially modify in game memory for a online game. Doesn't mean they won't do it, same goes with cleaning your OS (and automatic forced updates makes it a bit tedious anyway), or not using google, or not using facebook... etc.

> >

> > And yes, two wrongs don't make a right, but this becomes interesting when privacy concerns are only brought up when a company is trying to get rid of cheaters, with suddenly some people getting outraged by how little their privacy matters on the internet.

>

> Privacy concerns are an incredibly hot button issue right now, and have been bubbling up for a while. The topic of digital privacy was going to blow up sooner than later, and it's a bit silly to say it's only Anet catching flak for it when Mark Zuckerberg was testifying in front of congress over digital privacy concerns a week ago.

>

> WRT the cheating thing, the ends don't justify the means. Even if all 1500 people banned are 100% legit, I'm still not okay with Anet putting kitten malware on my computer, recording data about my machine and sending it back to their server to do who knows what with. If they can't think of any better way to ban cheaters than that, then they need to rethink who they have doing this.

 

To anyone who even mentions facebook or the congressional testimony i have 0 sympathy.

Read the User Agreement. Facebook has been in the business of selling your profile data for as long as it's been a company.

You know what other companies do this ?

 

Literally everything owned by Alphabet Inc. You may know them by their popular companies such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Alphabet

 

Now then complain more about your "Privacy" when you willingly consent to throwing it away on a daily basis.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"Nightlark.4029" said:

> Wow. You guys are really pessimistic about human nature, and very optimistic about how infallible ANet is.

>

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > But there are no false positives. If you cheat in one game you are prone to cheating and should be kept out of online games.

> > Also the hashing is nothing to a modern CPU, so if it happens let's say every 5min or so it will cosnume like 0.01% of your CPU time.

> > I just run a benchmark and my CPU can handle hashing 11.7 GB data per second of simple algorithms like MD5.

> > Even the most complex algorithms my benchmark tool has still reach 1 GB of data hashed per second.

> Calculating the hash might be a relatively cheap operation for the CPU (depends how often they ran it -- some people experiencing worse performance makes me believe they did it much more frequently than 5 min, I haven't played in the past few months, and I haven't dug into the executable yet to find out how often it ran). However, it was reading the programs as they are stored on the disk, which most definitely cannot handle 11.7 GB of data per second -- SSDs can handle ~650MB/s; a laptop drive might be able to handle 80-160MB/s in a good case, but could extremely low (1MB/s) with random access of small files.

 

Storage devices become faster quicker than CPU speeds increases. My NVMe SSD already has a peak read of 3.5 GB/s and a write of 2.1 GB/s and there are even faster models.

What you are saying is the CPU might have to wait for more data from the storage to hash it, but that is a good thing in this case so it has resources left to actually run the game itself.

 

Anet chose the most resource lenient way to detect these cheaters. We should be happy about it or the complains about a poorly optimized game would be even greater.

 

 

[PyrateSilly.4710]

> @"Zaraki.5784" said:

> Is anyone programming to do a class action for this spyware matter?

 

What "spyware" matter? You agreed to let ANet do what they did when you agreed to the TOS when you downloaded the game. There was nothing done that you did not agree to already.

[Zedek.8932]

> @"Anthony.3207" said:

> The most important thing is that - when you clicked accept on the terms of service - you created a legal binding with anet and in that binding it says..

 

Oh, it would not be the first time the actual stance is

 

**Law > Terms of Service/EULA**

 

Even "solid" clauses can be contested in court if properly laid out. And that's good.

Just to give you an example: DRM removal of iTunes. Against TOS/EULA, but the law allows private backup copies of your purchased media, that's why you can do it just fine despite the user accepted the TOS/EULA. Bam. Sorry, Apple.

 

So while you are right, it is not necessarily the case. It's only there because...

 

...a) prosecutors won't allow any trial for minor damages (a few Euros is not worth court time)

...b) anyone without the right education won't know the right legal remedies and...

...b2) never would call a lawyer about that situation.

 

But that does not mean you can't. It's like a bouncer on a discotheque. He might be in the wrong by 100%, but still - would it be worth any legal action?

 

> @"Anthony.3207" said:

> And even if you're in Europe ....arenet net made special laws for Europe so they wouldn't get in trouble.

 

Anet can't make laws. If every company could make laws to "not get in trouble", we could close all courts.

[Tanith.5264]

I'm seeing the word "spyware" getting thrown around a lot regarding this situation. Is there any actual evidence that "spyware" was used against these players, or are we all just having a case of the tinfoil tics due to the word appearing in the news so much?

[Ewon.5903]

I'm incredibly sad to see what this has brought out of this community. It's like some Salem witch trial thing. "These people were banned, they must be cheating scum! Perma ban them all!"

 

I'm not banned, but I really feel sorry for those who did get caught up in this. Myself, I'm not so bloodthirsty for a ban wave that any and every ban will do.

 

Anet going from #GW2FriendShips to #WitchHunt, what a sad time. :(

[STIHL.2489]

> @"Zedek.8932" said:

> > @"Anthony.3207" said:

> > The most important thing is that - when you clicked accept on the terms of service - you created a legal binding with anet and in that binding it says..

>

> Oh, it would not be the first time the actual stance is

>

> **Law > Terms of Service/EULA**

>

> Even "solid" clauses can be contested in court if properly laid out. And that's good.

>

> So while you are right, it is not necessarily the case. It's only there because...

>

> ...a) prosecutors won't allow any trial for minor damages (a few Euros is not worth court time)

> ...b) anyone without the right education won't know the right legal remedies and...

> ...b2) never would call a lawyer about that situation.

>

> But that does not mean you can't. It's like a bouncer on a discotheque. He might be in the wrong by 100%, but still - would it be worth any legal action?

 

I was on another forum, and we got into this very discussion about the legality of these kinds of things.

 

And the **Law** upholds TOS/EULA agreements about as often as they Uphold Lease Agreements. So yes, they are very much enforceable.

 

In fact, thanks to a few cases, that is why you need to now days scroll to the very end before you click "I Agree" this is to ensure that you manually went though the whole thing before accepting the terms, and, by doing such, they removed the feigned ignorance from the one thing left that allowed people to get out of them.

 

It's quite a fun subject, and I am not going to be able to cram a weeks worth of searching and forum post exchanges into one post.

 

But, TLDR: In the Modern Digital Age, The EULA you agreed to, is Legit, Legal, and Enforceable.

[choovanski.5462]

> @"Tanith.5264" said:

> I'm seeing the word "spyware" getting thrown around a lot regarding this situation. Is there any actual evidence that "spyware" was used against these players, or are we all just having a case of the tinfoil tics due to the word appearing in the news so much?

 

> @"Tanith.5264" said:

> I'm seeing the word "spyware" getting thrown around a lot regarding this situation. Is there any actual evidence that "spyware" was used against these players, or are we all just having a case of the tinfoil tics due to the word appearing in the news so much?

 

 

it’s straight up spyware. absolutely disgusting

 

> @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > > @"JohnnySupernova.9182" said:

> > > > @"Cynn.1659" said:

> > > > I find it hilarious that people are mad at anet for looking at the processes they had running. While majority of those angry people run win 10, which gathers data about everything they do and have on their pc all the time, and then sends it to microsoft.

> > >

> > > The very first thing any self respecting Win10 user does when they start on a new Win 10 install is purge all that crap off their PC. Regardless, the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is a concept children can understand, so...

> >

> > It's also why one does the "custom" install of Win10 so that you can turn all of that stuff off.

>

> Yeah, there's also some big differences between how MS does it and how Anet does it. The biggest being the fact that MS **freaking tells you they're doing it** and **you can opt out**. It's not even like it's behind a million pages of legal jargon! It's right there in the installation!

 

^ this. plus i trust microsoft’s data security much more than i do anet.

[Anthony.3207]

> @"Ewon.5903" said:

> I'm incredibly sad to see what this has brought out of this community. It's like some Salem witch trial thing. "These people were banned, they must be cheating scum! Perma ban them all!"

>

> I'm not banned, but I really feel sorry for those who did get caught up in this. Myself, I'm not so bloodthirsty for a ban wave that any and every ban will do.

>

> Anet going from #GW2FriendShips to #WitchHunt, what a sad time. :(

 

This "witch-hunt" is really just a bunch of over reacting Euro folks who never played an online video game in their life. Or never knew the law.

[Obtena.7952]

People like downplaying the importance of the TOS/EULA/whatever you want to call it .. because it's obviously convineint for them to do so. Clearly if the ToS is just some frivolity in someone's eyes, they can justify going about their nefarious activities even more to themselves ... and others. Anyone caught in the sting was in violation, and that's the reason for the ban. No question about it.