Ardenwolfe.8590 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 This is true, but access from Support here, and via private message to the right people, is known to be faster as opposed to the method you allude to. But the question was asked and answered. Let's leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oldirtbeard.9834 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said: > This is true, but access from Support here, and via private message to the right people, is known to be faster as opposed to the method you allude to. But the question was asked and answered. > > Let's leave it at that. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > 1: when you report a bug > > 2: when you are reported > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashen.2907 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Arathor.5819" said: > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > @"Arathor.5819" said: > > > > @"Laila Lightness.8742" said: > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > One reason the warden stuff wouldnt work is its to well known wich hasnt prevented never hacks and can be bypassed what anet did was a way a person couldnt hide unless you play on linux ore mac since anet used windows api > > > > > > The grammar here makes this really hard to understand. > > > > My post or his, I understood it but I can see if perhaps English might not be a native language you may have trouble? > > Please, just learn what constitutes a sentence. I'm not saying you need to be perfectly punctual, but if you manage to have 5+ mistakes in one sentence like your post does don't confuse incompetence of legibility with the incompetence of comprehension. The irony here is hilarious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ardenwolfe.8590 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 Indeed, it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azure The Heartless.3261 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Ashen.2907" said: > > @"Arathor.5819" said: > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > @"Arathor.5819" said: > > > > > @"Laila Lightness.8742" said: > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > One reason the warden stuff wouldnt work is its to well known wich hasnt prevented never hacks and can be bypassed what anet did was a way a person couldnt hide unless you play on linux ore mac since anet used windows api > > > > > > > > The grammar here makes this really hard to understand. > > > > > > My post or his, I understood it but I can see if perhaps English might not be a native language you may have trouble? > > > > Please, just learn what constitutes a sentence. I'm not saying you need to be perfectly punctual, but if you manage to have 5+ mistakes in one sentence like your post does don't confuse incompetence of legibility with the incompetence of comprehension. > > The irony here is hilarious. I love this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercury ranique.2170 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > 2: when you are reported > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. Let’s look at the flow. You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illconceived Was Na.9781 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Theros.1390" said: > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > > > @"Zushada.6108" said: > > > Question: given I have never used 3rd party software or received an infraction, I am curious to know why banned accounts can still post on the forums. In my old game this infraction would have been universal to all areas associated with the account. > > > > ANet's chosen to treat the two domains as distinct. > > * If you violate the forum's terms of service, you can still play GW2. > > * If you violate the game's ToS , you can still participate in discussions on the forums. > > > > That seems fair to me. > > Well, this is not totally true actually. Why ? Because I noticed that players who got the BAN ig, just made a few posts on the forum about it, and for no reason, got a ban on the forums. Dr Fox is the exemple I remember. > > And I also can give some exemples like this one, on french forum. Two peoples got the ban IG, wrote 1 or 2 posts on the forum, and then get banned on the forum as well. You don't think it's possible that a player got so salty from their in-game suspension that they were incautious in posting on the forums, resulting in a suspension here, too? To me, that's even less surprising if the in-game suspension was for verbal abuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWI.4127 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Shikigami.4013" said: > > @"SWI.4127" said: > > [...] but I'm a bit paranoid with these bans. [...] > > That about sums it up. We know what they suspended for and why they did it. > > The fact that they included cheatengine in a list of just 5 different programs to look for tells us that this program was a significant source of cheating. So significant that they felt the need to include everyone in the suspensions who was using it for an amount of time alongside GW2 that exceeded scenarios like "I just finished cheating in my singleplayergame, let me just start GW2 and then close cheatengine". They considered people running cheatengine at the same time as GW2 for a longer period to be so likely to be cheating, that they should not be given the benefit of the doubt. But they did not scan for installations. Why? Because the target were people who were likely to cheat. People who have it installed but never use it when GW2 runs are not likely to cheat, else they would have run the program and not just have it installed. So why include them, it makes no sense. > > Common sense says they won't do it in the future either. Paranoia says they might do it anyway. Nobody on this forum can tell you if you are safe, including me who would without hesitating keep it installed, if I had it installed. But if you want to make sure, uninstall it. > > > > Yeah I would just like some dev clarification, although I know that's asking too a lot considering how big this thread is already. Communication could be better on their end. Logic would say just having it installed is no problem, but you never know. A similar situation happened when the bans first came out and a lot of people thought it was because of ArcDPS and Taco, because it's hard to get a definitive answer from them one way or another if these programs are okay. I get they don't want to be liable in case of a lawsuit or something, but it leaves players in the dark where the only 100% safe option is just to use nothing at all. As a player, I feel like I shouldn't be in fear of getting banned having done nothing wrong, yet I get a bit worried whenever they roll out a ban wave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illconceived Was Na.9781 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"SWI.4127" said: > Logic would say just having it installed is no problem, but you never know. There are three "common sense" approaches: * Having cheatware or a game editor _installed_ is okay, as long as it's never in use when the game is. * Having same _running_ is okay, as long as it's never used on the game in question. * Even having it installed is not okay. I wouldn't assume which of those three approaches a game company might take nor that they might change their mind. In effect, in this case, they are saying, "we found you in the middle of a private locker room with lockpicking tools. We'll suspend you from the club to give you a chance to reconsider why we think that's too much of a risk." > A similar situation happened when the bans first came out and a lot of people thought it was because of ArcDPS and Taco, because it's hard to get a definitive answer from them one way or another if these programs are okay. If you applied logic to the first situation, why not apply it to this question too? Only 1600 people were suspended, so it couldn't be Arc or TACO because far more people use them. Further, there are tons of posts from ANet about the acceptability of those particular tools: the ANet security lead has specifically posted that those tools are "greenlit" because their developers worked closely with him to ensure that they didn't cross any lines. > it leaves players in the dark where the only 100% safe option is just to use nothing at all. That is the only "safe" option; ANet can't make any promises regarding software developed by others. Still, it's pretty easy to determine the "almost no risk options" with a bit of googling. > As a player, I feel like I shouldn't be in fear of getting banned having done nothing wrong, yet I get a bit worried whenever they roll out a ban wave. As I player, I am not in fear of getting banned for using such tools, because I do the research before using any of these programs. (Plus, I also wait until I'm sure that 1000s have been using them for a long time.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > Let’s look at the flow. > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercury ranique.2170 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. > > Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. As far as I'm aware, there is no actual evidence or indication of that. The only evidence I've seen related to the specifics of data being sent back to Anet by the scanner was that there was at least some degree of filtering done before it was sent. That indicates that the full set of data gathered was not sent back. Looking at the functionality of other similar cheat detection tools in use with other games, that is how Anet's tool would be expected to work. Anet would most likely want to avoid being accused of a using a cheat detection tool that was the equivalent of spyware. It would be very stupid of them to collect the full list of processes running on every player's PC, in any form. That information is not of much use to them, and having it would only harm their reputation. They really need to release a statement and clarify what exactly what data was collected by them, because there is already a considerable amount of bad press about this mess that could be alleviated if we knew for sure they didn't collect all of that data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWI.4127 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > If you applied logic to the first situation, why not apply it to this question too? Only 1600 people were suspended, so it couldn't be Arc or TACO because far more people use them. Further, there are tons of posts from ANet about the acceptability of those particular tools: the ANet security lead has specifically posted that those tools are "greenlit" because their developers worked closely with him to ensure that they didn't cross any lines. I know it was not Arc or Taco obviously, but at the time when these bans first came out, there was lots of speculation and confusion surrounding those 2 programs in particular. I'm saying that is due to no definitive word on them. And as far as I know, a dev "greenlit" one version of arcdps and said something to the effect of "I cannot be certain future versions will all be compliant". So having read that months ago, it's not a definitive answer at all. I also "did my research" on what programs I use, but I rarely, if ever, find anything definitive from A-net. For the record, I only use yolomouse and arc with GW2. I only installed Cheat Engine after this banwave and for a completely different game. I'm just paranoid now due to the 3rd "common sense approach" you listed earlier. I guess I am taking a slight risk, but I feel like all this confusion can be completely avoided if Anet just said "hey don't have it installed at all" or "hey don't run it alongside GW2" or "hey don't use this program to specifically alter GW2". To relate it to your locker room analogy, I'm worried about "Hey we found these bobby pins in your house, we are worried you can take these to a locker room and use them to pick locks". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theros.1390 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > > @"Theros.1390" said: > > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > > > > @"Zushada.6108" said: > > > > Question: given I have never used 3rd party software or received an infraction, I am curious to know why banned accounts can still post on the forums. In my old game this infraction would have been universal to all areas associated with the account. > > > > > > ANet's chosen to treat the two domains as distinct. > > > * If you violate the forum's terms of service, you can still play GW2. > > > * If you violate the game's ToS , you can still participate in discussions on the forums. > > > > > > That seems fair to me. > > > > Well, this is not totally true actually. Why ? Because I noticed that players who got the BAN ig, just made a few posts on the forum about it, and for no reason, got a ban on the forums. Dr Fox is the exemple I remember. > > > > And I also can give some exemples like this one, on french forum. Two peoples got the ban IG, wrote 1 or 2 posts on the forum, and then get banned on the forum as well. > > You don't think it's possible that a player got so salty from their in-game suspension that they were incautious in posting on the forums, resulting in a suspension here, too? To me, that's even less surprising if the in-game suspension was for verbal abuse. Sure it would be not surprising in that case. But the players I mentioned on FR forums, I know em well, and I assure you that they were not salty at all. :) the most remarquable exemple I can give, is a player I know and who never posts on the forum usually. He just asked informations, in a very calm and respectful message. His post wasnt deleted, but he got his ban on the forum, and didnt understand why :) And, as nobody answered to his question, I'm almost sure that he didnt put a second salty post just after the first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illconceived Was Na.9781 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Theros.1390" said: > > You don't think it's possible that a player got so salty from their in-game suspension that they were incautious in posting on the forums, resulting in a suspension here, too? To me, that's even less surprising if the in-game suspension was for verbal abuse. > > Sure it would be not surprising in that case. But the players I mentioned on FR forums, I know em well, and I assure you that they were not salty at all. :) the most remarquable exemple I can give, is a player I know and who never posts on the forum usually. > > He just asked informations, in a very calm and respectful message. His post wasnt deleted, but he got his ban on the forum, and didnt understand why :) And, as nobody answered to his question, I'm almost sure that he didnt put a second salty post just after the first. Then they should protest the forum suspension. If that's what happened, the forum suspension should end up being reverted on review. (I've seen people make similar claims in the past, and, of all the ones in which there was a follow-up or if I saw some of the removed posts first, there were reasons for the suspension. Not saying this is the same in this case, just that I'm skeptical. It's not always intentional on the part of the poster, but sometimes something slips out.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchonWing.9480 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 The forums are public view and are not the place to discuss that kind of thing involving account issues. Which is also why the no appeals thing was probably a bad idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercury ranique.2170 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > > > > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > > > > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. > > > > Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. > > As far as I'm aware, there is no actual evidence or indication of that. The only evidence I've seen related to the specifics of data being sent back to Anet by the scanner was that there was at least some degree of filtering done before it was sent. That indicates that the full set of data gathered was not sent back. Looking at the functionality of other similar cheat detection tools in use with other games, that is how Anet's tool would be expected to work. > > Anet would most likely want to avoid being accused of a using a cheat detection tool that was the equivalent of spyware. It would be very stupid of them to collect the full list of processes running on every player's PC, in any form. That information is not of much use to them, and having it would only harm their reputation. They really need to release a statement and clarify what exactly what data was collected by them, because there is already a considerable amount of bad press about this mess that could be alleviated if we knew for sure they didn't collect all of that data. Despite your propaganda, I would invite you to actually react to what I am saying. A vague. No indication is not really a reply. My stance is that the goal of a hacking tool that gives an unfair advantage is to gain an advantage on the server. (More loot, quicker movement, walking through walls, etc). As it would be only on the client side, it would never give an advantage. So the data envolved is allready sent to the server, but is gathered again in a different representation to track down cheaters. That has nothing to do with spyware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > > > > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > > > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > > > > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > > > > > > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > > > > > > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. > > > > > > Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. > > > > As far as I'm aware, there is no actual evidence or indication of that. The only evidence I've seen related to the specifics of data being sent back to Anet by the scanner was that there was at least some degree of filtering done before it was sent. That indicates that the full set of data gathered was not sent back. Looking at the functionality of other similar cheat detection tools in use with other games, that is how Anet's tool would be expected to work. > > > > Anet would most likely want to avoid being accused of a using a cheat detection tool that was the equivalent of spyware. It would be very stupid of them to collect the full list of processes running on every player's PC, in any form. That information is not of much use to them, and having it would only harm their reputation. They really need to release a statement and clarify what exactly what data was collected by them, because there is already a considerable amount of bad press about this mess that could be alleviated if we knew for sure they didn't collect all of that data. > > Despite your propaganda, I would invite you to actually react to what I am saying. A vague. No indication is not really a reply. My stance is that the goal of a hacking tool that gives an unfair advantage is to gain an advantage on the server. (More loot, quicker movement, walking through walls, etc). As it would be only on the client side, it would never give an advantage. So the data envolved is allready sent to the server, but is gathered again in a different representation to track down cheaters. That has nothing to do with spyware. I really do not know what point you are trying to make here, in regard to how this recent ban wave was carried out. The type of detection you mentioned is not what was used in this case. And that's not propaganda, Anet told us that in their own statement. I'm sure we all realize that Anet does collect data server-side based on our activity in the game. Data to determine whether our characters are using macros, moving too fast, jumping higher than should be possible, or teleporting without using portal, etc. But that type of data collection/cheat detection has absolutely nothing to do with how Anet detected cheats for this ban wave. For the topic at hand, we are discussing a cheat detection tool that used a Windows OS function to read data about players' computers, producing MD5 hashes of every running process, compared that list of MD5s against a list of MD5s belonging to cheat programs, then reported back to Anet whether or not a match was found. The point of uncertainty is whether or not the full list of MD5s was sent back, or only those determined to match a known cheat's MD5. If it turns out that Anet was collecting the full list of signatures from every player, then it would be considered spyware. It does not seem that the full list was collected, but only Anet knows that for sure. I can't give a definitive answer on that point, because one does not exist that we are privy to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercury ranique.2170 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > > > > > > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > > > > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > > > > > > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > > > > > > > > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > > > > > > > > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. > > > > > > > > Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. > > > > > > As far as I'm aware, there is no actual evidence or indication of that. The only evidence I've seen related to the specifics of data being sent back to Anet by the scanner was that there was at least some degree of filtering done before it was sent. That indicates that the full set of data gathered was not sent back. Looking at the functionality of other similar cheat detection tools in use with other games, that is how Anet's tool would be expected to work. > > > > > > Anet would most likely want to avoid being accused of a using a cheat detection tool that was the equivalent of spyware. It would be very stupid of them to collect the full list of processes running on every player's PC, in any form. That information is not of much use to them, and having it would only harm their reputation. They really need to release a statement and clarify what exactly what data was collected by them, because there is already a considerable amount of bad press about this mess that could be alleviated if we knew for sure they didn't collect all of that data. > > > > Despite your propaganda, I would invite you to actually react to what I am saying. A vague. No indication is not really a reply. My stance is that the goal of a hacking tool that gives an unfair advantage is to gain an advantage on the server. (More loot, quicker movement, walking through walls, etc). As it would be only on the client side, it would never give an advantage. So the data envolved is allready sent to the server, but is gathered again in a different representation to track down cheaters. That has nothing to do with spyware. > > I really do not know what point you are trying to make here, in regard to how this recent ban wave was carried out. The type of detection you mentioned is not what was used in this case. And that's not propaganda, Anet told us that in their own statement. > > I'm sure we all realize that Anet does collect data server-side based on our activity in the game. Data to determine whether our characters are using macros, moving too fast, jumping higher than should be possible, or teleporting without using portal, etc. But that type of data collection/cheat detection has absolutely nothing to do with how Anet detected cheats for this ban wave. > > For the topic at hand, we are discussing a cheat detection tool that used a Windows OS function to read data about players' computers, producing MD5 hashes of every running process, compared that list of MD5s against a list of MD5s belonging to cheat programs, then reported back to Anet whether or not a match was found. The point of uncertainty is whether or not the full list of MD5s was sent back, or only those determined to match a known cheat's MD5. If it turns out that Anet was collecting the full list of signatures from every player, then it would be considered spyware. It does not seem that the full list was collected, but only Anet knows that for sure. > > I can't give a definitive answer on that point, because one does not exist that we are privy to. Again, you are spreading misinformation. The md5 check is done client side. The entire chest detection is done at the client (you said so yourself). Once the game recognizes certain third party apps running, it is gathering data allready sent to the sever to function in a regular way to track the ingame behavior of a cheater. Arenanet is not sending a list of processes running to the server. The check if there is a suspected app is done one the client, and if so it sends the regular game data together with the suspicious flag to the server. There is no reason to claim it is sending all processes to arenanet. As stated by yourself. This check is done at the client. People are banned for illegal behavior in game based on the actual regular data sent from client to server. The cheat detection tool checked on the client and marked the client as suspicous. It looked for specific game data based on this client side suspicion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obtena.7952 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > One problem. We don't really know the risks anymore. Anet seems to have changed rules, and what qualifies as a risk, when they started banning for people for something that should have been fine based on their own words. > > Anet has been fine with Logitech Gaming software running on my computer for the last 6 years. Is it now acceptable for them to decide that I'm at risk of using it for macros, and ban me without so much as a warning or notice that their stance on this program has completely changed? It's your risk ... not theirs ... and NO one should be ignorant to that fact. If you don't believe Anet has a reasonable approach to dealing with how they define 'cheating' software (though I don't know how you don't think they do) that might get you banned, you have choices on what software you run on your computer. I think it's pretty safe to say that Anet, as a provider of a service to run a business who is interested in customers patronizing them ... aren't going to rush out ... AT LEAST without warning .... and ban people using logitech gaming software, for example. Those are just extreme examples that aren't even worth discussion that you are using to create a fear of unreasonable practices at Anet. The problem is that it's been 6 years ... and Anet HASN'T banned anyone from using the software you use an example ... so that's not a realistic fear. Are there other more realistic fears that are closer to the softwares Anet banned people for ? Damn right ... so not amount of being obtuse is going to confuse the issue about what Anet is likely to ban you for ... or NOT ban you for. If people decide to push the limit, that's THEIR risk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > > @"mrstealth.6701" said: > > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > > > > > > > > > > @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said: > > > > > > > > > > > My account is safe, not banned. I'm more concerned with the privacy violation. I think this should have been better put together like Blizzards Warden in a way where it prohibits people from logging in or staying logged in if said programs are active, permanent again like Warden, and finally they should have had the decency to tell us what was happening so that we don't have all of these conspiracy theories going around. Personally I haven't logged in beyond making sure I wasn't swept up with the 1500. The lack of transparency has really killed my interest in playing or spending money until we get a statement regarding this program and what data was collected, how it was encrypted (if it was even), and what data they kept. I also think ANet should release a statement to major blogs such as Massively OP because out side of GW2s player base ANet has egg on it's face. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I want to avoid any sparring so if I see anything I feel might get my blood boiling it's probably smart of me to not engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We all have great love for this franchise and I respect your viewpoints so let's keep our discourse civil over this hot button situation. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The warden does nothing to stop bad people. > > > > > > > > > > As for privacy. We find it perfectly ok that Arenanet gathers data. This is needed for example to play the game. Store our progress, etc. All data involved has to be sent to Arenanet anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This data is only reviewed by a human in the following situations: > > > > > > > > > > 1: when you report a bug > > > > > > > > > > 2: when you are reported > > > > > > > > > > 3: when you are flagged as suspicious by automatic systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Even then, the GM is not allowed to sniff through all your file. Only what is relative close to the timestamp of the incident. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thank you for the clarification, this is the sort of thing that should be elaborated by ANet; this would clear up a lot of half truths and out right Mis information. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The data required to play the game (your characters, progression, etc) and what Anet was scanning to look for cheats (every running process, whether it relates to the game or not) are two entirely different things. There isn't really any reason for them to be checking every other process outside of looking for cheats. The only other instance where they have any business looking outside of their own game's data is for crash reports, and I think reports like that are typically limited to hardware info like CPU/GPU and driver versions. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That said, data actually being sent back to Anet in this cheat detection system appears to be restricted to detections of the specific programs they were hunting. If you had none of those running, there shouldn't have been any extra data being sent to Anet. It's definitely concerning when any software starts sifting through data on our computers unannounced, especially when the developer refuses to say what data was or wasn't sent back to them, and what, if anything, was kept for later use. But at least in this case it *appears* that for the majority of us, it was nothing. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Not really. The scan was done on the client, but the data scanned was also sent to the server, just in a different fase of processing. > > > > > > > Let’s look at the flow. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > You press the forward key, this is translated by the client in the way your character moves the screen. The new position coordinates are also sent to arenanet. So the actual input output flow ends at the central server > > > > > > > > > > > > Going by the reverse engineering work done by a couple reddit users, the client should have only been sending back data if something on the list of cheat programs they were targeting was detected. We may never know with 100% certainty how much or how little data was sent back to Anet, but it seems to be little to none for most of us. If the entirety of that data was being sent back to Anet's servers, then they are definitely guilty of a completely unjustified and unnecessary breach of privacy. Though, the type of information gathered was not very personal in nature, and should not have contained any private/confidential data like content of files loaded by a running process. > > > > > > > > > > > > And it really has nothing to do with data like location coordinates for character movement. Those are data points that have to be sent to the game servers for the game to function. If the client wasn't sending information to the server about your location, movement, and skill use you wouldn't be able to play the game. Data gathered by scanning other processes running on the computer has nothing to do with the game's functionality, and falls completely under the category of spying/surveillance. > > > > > > > > > > Please read my post. The data itself have been sent for technical purposes. Just cause the detection might have been done on the client, and after selection, the data was sent again in a different form, doesnt change that. Everything you do is sent to the server anyways and is logged. It is just another presentation with a different goal. > > > > > > > > As far as I'm aware, there is no actual evidence or indication of that. The only evidence I've seen related to the specifics of data being sent back to Anet by the scanner was that there was at least some degree of filtering done before it was sent. That indicates that the full set of data gathered was not sent back. Looking at the functionality of other similar cheat detection tools in use with other games, that is how Anet's tool would be expected to work. > > > > > > > > Anet would most likely want to avoid being accused of a using a cheat detection tool that was the equivalent of spyware. It would be very stupid of them to collect the full list of processes running on every player's PC, in any form. That information is not of much use to them, and having it would only harm their reputation. They really need to release a statement and clarify what exactly what data was collected by them, because there is already a considerable amount of bad press about this mess that could be alleviated if we knew for sure they didn't collect all of that data. > > > > > > Despite your propaganda, I would invite you to actually react to what I am saying. A vague. No indication is not really a reply. My stance is that the goal of a hacking tool that gives an unfair advantage is to gain an advantage on the server. (More loot, quicker movement, walking through walls, etc). As it would be only on the client side, it would never give an advantage. So the data envolved is allready sent to the server, but is gathered again in a different representation to track down cheaters. That has nothing to do with spyware. > > > > I really do not know what point you are trying to make here, in regard to how this recent ban wave was carried out. The type of detection you mentioned is not what was used in this case. And that's not propaganda, Anet told us that in their own statement. > > > > I'm sure we all realize that Anet does collect data server-side based on our activity in the game. Data to determine whether our characters are using macros, moving too fast, jumping higher than should be possible, or teleporting without using portal, etc. But that type of data collection/cheat detection has absolutely nothing to do with how Anet detected cheats for this ban wave. > > > > For the topic at hand, we are discussing a cheat detection tool that used a Windows OS function to read data about players' computers, producing MD5 hashes of every running process, compared that list of MD5s against a list of MD5s belonging to cheat programs, then reported back to Anet whether or not a match was found. The point of uncertainty is whether or not the full list of MD5s was sent back, or only those determined to match a known cheat's MD5. If it turns out that Anet was collecting the full list of signatures from every player, then it would be considered spyware. It does not seem that the full list was collected, but only Anet knows that for sure. > > > > I can't give a definitive answer on that point, because one does not exist that we are privy to. > > Again, you are spreading misinformation. The md5 check is done client side. The entire chest detection is done at the client (you said so yourself). Once the game recognizes certain third party apps running, it is gathering data allready sent to the sever to function in a regular way to track the ingame behavior of a cheater. Arenanet is not sending a list of processes running to the server. The check if there is a suspected app is done one the client, and if so it sends the regular game data together with the suspicious flag to the server. There is no misinformation on my part, but you have definitely misread Anet's statement on this matter. > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said: >Yesterday we suspended 1,583 accounts for a period of 6 months. 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 over a significant number of hours during a multi-week period earlier this year. We targeted programs that allow players to cheat and gain unfair gameplay advantages, even if those programs have other, more benign uses. > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > People are banned for illegal behavior in game based on the actual regular data sent from client to server. The cheat detection tool checked on the client and marked the client as suspicous. It looked for specific game data based on this client side suspicion. It's clearly stated that the suspensions were based on the detection of these programs running along side GW2. They even said that they banned for programs that have "other, more benign uses", which shows that they were not relying on data collected by ingame activity/server communications. Their own words tell us that these bans were based on only the detection of a running process, not that data in combination with their usual detection methods of monitoring client/character/server activity. > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > There is no reason to claim it is sending all processes to arenanet. As stated by yourself. This check is done at the client. > You're right that there is no evidence right now giving us reason to assume that Anet collected data on all running processes. I've only claimed that we do not know that for sure, because Anet has so far failed to confirm it. There were previous accusations that were later updated by reddit users(though not with certainty), but games media outlets had already published stories claiming that the full list of processes was gathered. That is why Anet needs to make a statement clarifying that point. I don't think Anet has a list of every process running on my PC. But I know that accusation is already out there, and there will be people that think it's true. It even did seem like it was true at first. I'm not going to post saying that Anet did not gather that data, because right now it's just the most logical conclusion, not a confirmed fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saira.6958 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 While running third party software is a risk, the increase in QoL for many players is worthwhile - especially in communities where the devs are unwilling to answer concerns like raids. Simply telling players to go to the golem is incredibly unhelpful, and banning DPS meters is not a solution, as that reflects about 0% of the reality of raid instances. Playing on a MAC means that I don't run any third-party software, but it is incredibly frustrating that there's a huge lack of engagement with prevalent issues. ANet's biggest issue had always been lack of transparency and I honestly feel like there is no case less transparent than their stance of third-party software. The so called "silent agreements" that they appear to have about software for years, and then turn and ban players for using it seems incredibly rude. Instead of tacitly saying nothing and refusing to become involved until the eleventh hour, having open discussions with players and third-party developers would help alleviate the issues that current players are facing. A list of approved software, and instantly banning non-ToS abiding software (rather than letting it hang around for years in some cases) would definitely be a few steps to take to preventing the issues that have come up as a result of the bans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedek.8932 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > ANet's chosen to treat the two domains as distinct. > * If you violate the forum's terms of service, you can still play GW2. > * If you violate the game's ToS , you can still participate in discussions on the forums. > That seems fair to me. As you already responded to: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37060/forum-account-suspended#latest I would not vouch for it. Excelsior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrstealth.6701 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 > @"Saira.6958" said: > While running third party software is a risk, the increase in QoL for many players is worthwhile - especially in communities where the devs are unwilling to answer concerns like raids. Simply telling players to go to the golem is incredibly unhelpful, and banning DPS meters is not a solution, as that reflects about 0% of the reality of raid instances. Playing on a MAC means that I don't run any third-party software, but it is incredibly frustrating that there's a huge lack of engagement with prevalent issues. > > ANet's biggest issue had always been lack of transparency and I honestly feel like there is no case less transparent than their stance of third-party software. The so called "silent agreements" that they appear to have about software for years, and then turn and ban players for using it seems incredibly rude. Instead of tacitly saying nothing and refusing to become involved until the eleventh hour, having open discussions with players and third-party developers would help alleviate the issues that current players are facing. A list of approved software, and instantly banning non-ToS abiding software (rather than letting it hang around for years in some cases) would definitely be a few steps to take to preventing the issues that have come up as a result of the bans. A great deal of the controversy over this could have been avoided if Anet announced their addition of a process-scanning cheat detector, then left the detector in the game permanently. I say leave it in permanently, because otherwise announcing it's presence would just have all the cheaters stop using their programs until they determined the scanner was gone. Going that route, Anet probably wouldn't get to say that they banned 1500 cheaters after a couple weeks, but they'd likely prevent a lot more cheating in the long run. Makes it look like they just wanted to say "hey, we got rid of 1500 bad people", instead of implementing something that would be more beneficial to everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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