"Modified Client" kick bullshit?

[ken0069]

OK guys I play on your servers a good bit and I see this bullshit all the time.  I AM NOT RUNNING A MODIFIED CLIENT!!  Unfortunately I'm still on a dialup connection that laggs like shit on occasion and the next thing I know, I'm out of the game for cheating?  This is BULLSHIT!!!  It may not be a biggie to you but it is to me!  I don't appreciate being kicked off a server for a slow connection then come back on and have guys rag my ass for cheating.  I understand the need for cheat protection but this ain't gett'in it.  Some of you software geeks need to remember that there are STILL some of us out there on a laggy dialup that don't appreciate being labeled a cheater for no reason other than your software doesn't know the difference between a speed bot and lagg!

Racer

[haunted]

That bug has been in several mods for several years now. Only newbs will say that you're cheating so don't worry about it. Lag causes the illusion of a speed hack / 'modified client' if it's bad enough. Nevermind, it happens to me all the time.. which we all know is from my 200 ping ratbot.

[X'tyfe]

its possible that the q2admin settings for the server are not tailerd for dialup users

[console]

I AM NOT RUNNING A MODIFIED CLIENT!!  Unfortunately I'm still on a dialup connection that laggs like shit on occasion and the next thing I know, I'm out of the game for cheating?

Hi,

Unfortunately this is a known problem with the q2admin software.  Indeed, if a player lags during its periodic bot checks, it can get confused and interpret the nonresponsive client as some sort of hack. 

When we first started using it, a few years ago, it was much worse.  We have already tweaked all the settings to eliminate SOME of the kicks that were occurring because of lag, but some of its other checks are hard-wired into the code and can't be changed by a config file.

If there were some way to set a flag saying dont_kick_on_lag_you_pos = 1 ... we would definitely set it.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

[Ax2Grind]

One question, for Ken's sake and everyone else's: how long will it be before someone takes advantage of this and real cheaters use it to their advantage - or has someone already done so?

[console]

how long will it be before someone takes advantage of this and real cheaters use it to their advantage - or has someone already done so?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

You're talking about a cheater being kicked, and coming back on, and saying, no, it was just lag?

Well that implies they've been kicked, and so lost their frags... I'm not sure to what degree that might be considered advantageous.

There are very few fool-proof cheat detection methods, and the ones I know of only work on older hacks.

So it's the same old story.  Ultimately we have to rely on demos.

Regards,

[X'tyfe]

correct me if im wrong, but isnt this whole cheaters thing way overrated??
i mean do we really need this kind of protection that is so tight that it limits some specific users
how likly is someone going to cheat? really?

[console]

i mean do we really need this kind of protection that is so tight that it limits some specific users
how likly is someone going to cheat?

I guess that's two questions?

1. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we're not happy with q2admin kicking people for lag.  We've tried to prevent that as much as possible with the settings availble in the config file.  Beyond that, we'll have to hack the code.

2. How likely is someone going to cheat?  Well, I don't know.  I'm pretty sure there's a correlation between not seeing too many cheaters lately and the fact that when they're caught, they get banned.  Back in the old days, servers were full of guys like this: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=1663.0


Regards,

[X'tyfe]

i even have problems connecting to the servers, i hope you are able to fix that in time too

[Shovel.Ds]

We used to have this problem frequently on our servers too, now it very rarely happens.

What we did to correct this is in the q2admin.txt make sure the settings are as follows

;
; Detects if the client has a hacked timescale quake2.exe
;
timescaledetect "No"

and in ieno's settings in q2admin 1.17.43 and 1.17.44

;Speedcheat detection
max_pmod_noreply "1"
msec_int "5"
msec_kick_on_bad "5"
msec_max "6500"
speedbot_check_type "3"

and in the server.cfg make sure the r1q2 cvar "sv_enforcetime" is 0.

There seems to be a conflict with the q2admin speed detect, ieno's and r1q2's enforcetime.

This way the q2admin and r1q2 speedcheck is not being done but ieno's is being done.

just my 2 cents.....


 

[Shovel.Ds]

Ask spawn lol, he used to get kicked 3 times every game he played for the "modified client" when he was dial-up.( besides he cheats like a sob )

[plastik]

If possible, disable the speed hacks checks.  If it believes that lag is a speedhack anyways.  But I think it would be noticed quickly on any server, and demo's easily made.  Compared to aim assistance atleast.

[X'tyfe]

wouldnt a real speed cheat be a consistente speed? where as lag just stutters. stops for a bit then the player moves really fast to catch up to the server

and that would be the difference between them, is there no way to have q2admin figure this out too?

[Spawn.Ds]

The thing is and Im sorry to say this , is if your 56k its one of those downfalls . somthing you will need to deal with , but if your laggin to that extent you should reconnect anyhow . Not really sure what the problem is ? Unless you concerned a admin might mistake this for an actual hack . Most admins are wise enoough to look at the players ping at the time of a kick .

To answer the question of are these checks needed ? I think so , look at it this way hacks are over rated because of these checks , If server admins didnt use them then anyone could hack not just the ones with privi's .

for a2g's question

I use to use a bs cvar check also , like bad_kick ( Thats not it of course dont need any code script kidies adding my bs cvar into their hack so I think the person is ledgit hehe ) what this does is when a lag issued kick like that is issued , in the logs for what ever cvar they got booted for the bs cvar command will acompany it .

well to sum it all up your geting kicked because your lag is generating a impulse , normaly

[console]

wouldnt a real speed cheat be a consistente speed? where as lag just stutters.

It's understandable people figure that if q2admin kicks them for "lag", it's somehow related to speed hack detection.

However, you can tell when q2admin is kicking what it thinks is a speed hacker.  It will say, "playername is using a speed cheat."

These "Modified client" disconnects are part of its other bot detection, not really related to speed hack detection.

q2admin periodically sends a series of commands to clients, kind of like an IQ test for the client, and it waits for the client to return the correct response.  Certain hacked clients are known to fail the IQ test.  However, an unfortunately timed lag spike can cause a legit client not to respond to the IQ test in time, appearing to have failed the test.

So I'd like to head off this confusion about speed hack detection.  Unless it says specifically it's kicking you for a speed cheat, that's not really the issue we're dealing with...

Regards,