VAC Ban's

[Crazy_N3wf]

When you guys registered for a Steam API key what did you use when it asked for a domain?  Did you use your community website or the IP for your game server?

 

I used my website, should it have been the servers ip?

 

Now the person Foghorn and i are talking about has been a part of my community for 8 years.

He has no Vac Bans on record ever, or Punkbuster bans for that matter to make a point.

I started my group back in BF2 days and had dual streamed multiple punkbuster servers between Airdale Ops Network ( Americas Army + Call of Duty 4),

Pbbans & GGC (BF2 + BF2142 + BFBC2 + BF3 + BF4). Now a couple of those sites require all members have a clean guid in anything attached to them.

Or they have to be removed from group which i have no issue doing and have done a few times over the years.

I have been a part in multiple anti-cheat third parties to keep my servers clean over the years and contribute by enabling streaming of server logs.

Now the person who is getting kicked has been a streaming admin at all these sites i have mentioned and has 9 guids clean in PB enabled games plus a clean Steam account with no bans on his account,

that is almost 4 years old (created steam account due to my nagging).

What we don't understand is why is the server kicking him and saying Vac Banned?

 

So back to the question i just started with.

 

I used my website, should it have been the servers ip?

If not why would someone with accounts in 12+  games between multiple anticheats get kicked in this case.

 

Crazy_N3wf:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:1:16234275 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:32468551] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************279 (Dec)

110000101ef6e47 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country Unknown First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:19:43 Times checked 3

 

Foghorn:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:0:61010234 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:122020468] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************196 (Dec)

11000010745e274 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country Unknown First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:22:12 Times checked 3

 

Forces affected account:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:0:38473802 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:76947604] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************332 (Dec)

110000104962094 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country United States First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:27:51 Times checked 4

 

Forces account is the affected one but has same results as ours.

[Darth_Rogue]

I don't know.  Nobody has said one way or the other.  AWOL's original post just said to apply for a Steam API key, which I did and was issued one immediately.  But there were no instructions on the Steam site really.  I assumed it was asking for the website URL in the domain field, since normally the SteamAPI is used for a web interface.  My only concern is that if the Steam servers are expecting queries to come from my website URL and they are instead coming from a different IP, could that be causing the false positives since maybe the Steam servers think someone hijacked my Steam API key?  I searched the Steam forums and what documentation I could find for SteamAPI setup and couldn't find anything specific for this kind of scenario. 

[Crazy_N3wf]

Here is what i have found with the help of a php coder when i asked him to see about using create and login accounts for my old site using steam.

 

I'll post info he gave me.

 

"Obtaining an Steam Web API Key

All use of the Steam Web API requires the use of an API Key. You can acquire one by filling out this form. Use of the APIs also requires that you agree to the Steam API Terms of Use."

http://steamcommunity.com/dev

http://openid.net/developers/libraries/

Hope this helps you and anyone else who may have had an issue.
As i have not seen anything else other then this on steam api's.

[Darth_Rogue]

Yeah I looked at those.  The best I can figure is that there must be something in the Epoch AH tools in C# that talks to the VAC system via the Steam API.  But there again, if my key is sending traffic to the server from a different IP other than what I registered with, I wonder if that's causing the issue.  I'll try creating a new key based off my server's IP and see if that makes a difference.  

 

On a side note, it would be nice if someone who has gotten the VAC interface working could provide some input on whether they registered their SteamAPI key with their community website as the domain or using the IP for their server.  That would put this baby to bed pretty quick.  

[ToejaM]

My account is and always has been clean, ever since 2003 when I opened it so I have zero sympathy for 'ex-cheaters' as I've never ever been one.
 
If people are falsely banned it is down to that player to speak to the anticheat that banned them and if that anticheat won't listen, it is down to that player to expose the ignorance of the anticheat and get something done about it, I have no doubt that the majority of people and by majority, I mean a huge majority that are banned are banned for a legit reason but there are of course false positives, that is inevitable but those false positives if done on a large scale are quickly rectified.
 
If you are banned for using enhancements to games that are not considered cheats in your eyes but make the game look better for example, that is the risk you take and it is for this reason that I do not modify the games I play unless I am 100% sure that I will not be banned for it. Examples would be: SweetFX (which for a while was getting people banned, so I was glad I never used it). Its common sense that any alterations made to a game, regardless of how small may get you banned and if you can't see that then everydays a school day for you.
 
Mistakes or not, those who cheat online have a certain mentality and that is one of complete disregard for other people who play legitimately on those servers regardless of the game they play and once a cheater, always a cheater. If you want to reconcile your mistake then you can pay the cost of having to bury that persona, buy a new game/account, having to deal with the awkwardness of swapping accounts if you have lots of games on your 'cheater' account and learn your lesson the hard way. Frankly, most people who are 'ex-cheaters' are only sorry because they got caught, not because they ruined the game for other people.
 
It's easy to lose someone's trust, but very difficult to gain it back. In life, temptations are put in front of us to challenge our loyalty and respect.. remember that. -Some unknown quote I found a long time ago which I feel is pertinent to the above.

[Fog Horn]

My account is and always has been clean, ever since 2003 when I opened it so I have zero sympathy for 'ex-cheaters' as I've never ever been one.

 

If people are falsely banned it is down to that player to speak to the anticheat that banned them and if that anticheat won't listen, it is down to that player to expose the ignorance of the anticheat and get something done about it, I have no doubt that the majority of people and by majority, I mean a huge majority that are banned are banned for a legit reason but there are of course false positives, that is inevitable but those false positives if done on a large scale are quickly rectified.

 

If you are banned for using enhancements to games that are not considered cheats in your eyes but make the game look better for example, that is the risk you take and it is for this reason that I do not modify the games I play unless I am 100% sure that I will not be banned for it. Examples would be: SweetFX (which for a while was getting people banned, so I was glad I never used it). Its common sense that any alterations made to a game, regardless of how small may get you banned and if you can't see that then everydays a school day for you.

 

Mistakes or not, those who cheat online have a certain mentality and that is one of complete disregard for other people who play legitimately on those servers regardless of the game they play and once a cheater, always a cheater. If you want to reconcile your mistake then you can pay the cost of having to bury that persona, buy a new game/account, having to deal with the awkwardness of swapping accounts if you have lots of games on your 'cheater' account and learn your lesson the hard way. Frankly, most people who are 'ex-cheaters' are only sorry because they got caught, not because they ruined the game for other people.

 

It's easy to lose someone's trust, but very difficult to gain it back. In life, temptations are put in front of us to challenge our loyalty and respect.. remember that. -Some unknown quote I found a long time ago which I feel is pertinent to the above.

What has this ^ got to do with this v ? Please read before spouting .

 

I used my website, should it have been the servers ip?

 

Now the person Foghorn and i are talking about has been a part of my community for 8 years.

He has no Vac Bans on record ever, or Punkbuster bans for that matter to make a point.

I started my group back in BF2 days and had dual streamed multiple punkbuster servers between Airdale Ops Network ( Americas Army + Call of Duty 4),

Pbbans & GGC (BF2 + BF2142 + BFBC2 + BF3 + BF4). Now a couple of those sites require all members have a clean guid in anything attached to them.

Or they have to be removed from group which i have no issue doing and have done a few times over the years.

I have been a part in multiple anti-cheat third parties to keep my servers clean over the years and contribute by enabling streaming of server logs.

Now the person who is getting kicked has been a streaming admin at all these sites i have mentioned and has 9 guids clean in PB enabled games plus a clean Steam account with no bans on his account,

that is almost 4 years old (created steam account due to my nagging).

What we don't understand is why is the server kicking him and saying Vac Banned?

 

So back to the question i just started with.

 

I used my website, should it have been the servers ip?

If not why would someone with accounts in 12+  games between multiple anticheats get kicked in this case.

 

Crazy_N3wf:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:1:16234275 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:32468551] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************279 (Dec)

110000101ef6e47 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country Unknown First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:19:43 Times checked 3

 

Foghorn:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:0:61010234 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:122020468] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************196 (Dec)

11000010745e274 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country Unknown First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:22:12 Times checked 3

 

Forces affected account:

Steam2 ID STEAM_0:0:38473802 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:76947604] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************332 (Dec)

110000104962094 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country United States First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:27:51 Times checked 4

 

Forces account is the affected one but has same results as ours.

[ToejaM]

What has this ^ got to do with this v ? Please read before spouting .

My reply was to the following quote, please read before spouting yeah? ktnx.

You do realise people learn from their mistakes?

If you have pro active admins and know how to read logs then you shouldn't need this. Unless the ban was recent.

[Flosstradamus]

Show me proof they learn from their mistakes ? personally i think they don't change but try to find better ways to hide the cheats.

I grew up in the 80's when games had cheats built in, entering dodgy codes and button combos allowed you to skip levels and shit, it made completing the game boring, you lose the sense of achievement, since then i play games fairly and fully, I enjoy them more this way :D

Mark wahlberg is asking for a pardon from his 1988 case where he was high and drunk. He beat the shit out of 4 people and cops while screaming racist profanities. Since that awful case of 1988 he has cleaned up his act and donated 7 million dollars to urban youth around the country. People deserve 2nd chances and can actually redeem themselves. I don't think a server should ban unless it pertained to Arma or it was recent(90 days)

[Richie]

Mark wahlberg is asking for a pardon from his 1988 case where he was high and drunk. He beat the shit out of 4 people and cops while screaming racist profanities. Since that awful case of 1988 he has cleaned up his act and donated 7 million dollars to urban youth around the country. People deserve 2nd chances and can actually redeem themselves. I don't think a server should ban unless it pertained to Arma or it was recent(90 days)

 

He only wants the pardon so he can get a restaurant license though, to make even more money :P

Not once in the 25yrs since it happened has he said sorry, he's only remorseful now because it's affecting him earning money.

 

So is he genuinely sorry or just keen to make more money ? :) answers on a postcard

[uniflare]

My account is and always has been clean, ever since 2003 when I opened it so I have zero sympathy for 'ex-cheaters' as I've never ever been one.

 

If people are falsely banned it is down to that player to speak to the anticheat that banned them and if that anticheat won't listen, it is down to that player to expose the ignorance of the anticheat and get something done about it, I have no doubt that the majority of people and by majority, I mean a huge majority that are banned are banned for a legit reason but there are of course false positives, that is inevitable but those false positives if done on a large scale are quickly rectified.

 

If you are banned for using enhancements to games that are not considered cheats in your eyes but make the game look better for example, that is the risk you take and it is for this reason that I do not modify the games I play unless I am 100% sure that I will not be banned for it. Examples would be: SweetFX (which for a while was getting people banned, so I was glad I never used it). Its common sense that any alterations made to a game, regardless of how small may get you banned and if you can't see that then everydays a school day for you.

 

Mistakes or not, those who cheat online have a certain mentality and that is one of complete disregard for other people who play legitimately on those servers regardless of the game they play and once a cheater, always a cheater. If you want to reconcile your mistake then you can pay the cost of having to bury that persona, buy a new game/account, having to deal with the awkwardness of swapping accounts if you have lots of games on your 'cheater' account and learn your lesson the hard way. Frankly, most people who are 'ex-cheaters' are only sorry because they got caught, not because they ruined the game for other people.

 

It's easy to lose someone's trust, but very difficult to gain it back. In life, temptations are put in front of us to challenge our loyalty and respect.. remember that. -Some unknown quote I found a long time ago which I feel is pertinent to the above.

Once a cheater always a cheater? What are you thinking, people say that when they really have no clue about the human psyche.

You just called me a cheater and for that good sir your opinion are meaningless, since I know I am not. You don't know how people think and neither do a lot of psychiatrists.

Think a little harder mate people change day by day. From your post I assume your a fairly educated person so surely you know not to paint everyone with the same brush.. Probably falling on deaf ears though it seems.

Good day

[Darth_Rogue]

Here is what i have found with the help of a php coder when i asked him to see about using create and login accounts for my old site using steam.

 

I'll post info he gave me.

 

Hope this helps you and anyone else who may have had an issue.

As i have not seen anything else other then this on steam api's.

 

 

So I registered for a new SteamAPI key with my game server IP instead of my website URL and no bans so far.  More testing is needed though.  Will let you know how it goes.

[Primus Palus]

You do realise people learn from their mistakes?

If you have pro active admins and know how to read logs then you shouldn't need this. Unless the ban was recent.

 

Not sure what world you live in... but the majority of people do NOT learn from their mistakes. This coming from a guy who deals with people making mistakes on a daily basis.

[uniflare]

Not sure what world you live in... but the majority of people do NOT learn from their mistakes. This coming from a guy who deals with people making mistakes on a daily basis.

Obviously a better world than yours ;)

[Primus Palus]

Obviously a better world than yours ;)

 

Clearly (in rainbows and unicorn land). I might move there some day.

[fr1nk]

I hear the rent is ridiculous there.

[uniflare]

Yeah rent is high but you don't get paranoid people banning anyone who has ever entered a cheat code on gta :)

 

I bet you if, i only lets people with vac bans from a year ago on my server and no "non-banned" players i will have much, much less hackers.

Something hat would be handy is an automated tool to see how old an account is. At least then you can decide logically rather than blindly to ban them or not :)

 

Do you guys think im posting here because i am vac banned? because i am not ... and never will be ;)

[Fog Horn]

I believe thats why this is included  . "    VACMaximumDaysSinceLastBan Players will be banned until the VAC ban will reach the maximum, same as VACBanned [default: 0, 0 means disabled]"

 

My issue is this guy gets banned

 

 

" Steam2 ID STEAM_0:0:38473802 Steam3 ID (32bit) [u:1:76947604] Steam3 ID (64bit) 765*************332 (Dec)
110000104962094 (Hex) Status NOT BANNED Country United States First seen as banned (CET) Never Last time checked (CET) 2014-12-08 16:27:51 Times checked 4

[semipr0]

This is an interesting feature. But also a conundrum for me.

 

I was the primary administrator for three DayZ servers and one DayZ Epoch server. I spent a lot of time fighting off hackers and I get how frustrating it is.

 

But on the other side of the coin...if this becomes a standard in the community...then even I won't be able to play on servers I don't personally administrate because as a younger man, I tried out a wallhack in COD Modern Warfare because I wanted to understand how other people were so good at the game...and as it turned out using said wallhack made it way easier for me to tell who else was using it.

 

Regardless of that I got VAC banned from COD MW...and I've never hacked since because I figured the knowledge gained wasn't worth the cost.

 

Would be a little disappointing to be told "once a cheater, always a cheater" when the one time I did cheat....was over a decade ago, and it wasn't done with malicious intent, and to top it all off I've spent the 10 years beyond that being a responsible server admin who's been just as plagued by cheats as anyone else.

 

Its good that its configurable but if people just leave it at defaults or literally set it to insane numbers to ensure that anyone with a VAC ban ever can't play Epoch....I'm not sure thats specifically a good thing for Epoch in the long term. Insular communities are...well...insular, after all.

[Fog Horn]

I find it interesting that those that have professed to be clean haven't posed thier results to show they aren't a "non banned" player as Unifare staes ," No non banned players I will have much less hackers "  here is the link http://www.vacbanned.com/ , my results are posted in this thread .

[Richie]

Clean as a whistle :D

[Darth_Rogue]

Clean here too!   ;)

 

[uniflare]

haha you want me to prove to you I am not vac banned already?, np.

Here is my 10+ yr old acc: http://steamcommunity.com/id/uniflare/

Here are my 2 other accounts: http://steamcommunity.com/id/uniflare2/http://steamcommunity.com/id/uniflare3/

 

This Vac Ban feature does not affect me, and will not affect anyone who purchases a different account for their games (as most smart hackers do). Hackers who get bans from games and wish to continue will obviously make a new account, it would be the obvious thing to do. Probably would use the old account to hack on any other game they have.

 

Where as people who have been vac banned and think damn, why did i do that, they might learn, and end up keeping the same account for years with other games and not using cheats.

 

I am surprised a lot of people have this assumption that once a cheater always a cheater. It is not as simple as that in any way. Someone who has never cheated for years could suddenly think f*** it ima kill everyone.

 

Anyway, I don't think I will participate in this thread anymore as I've said my views and don't want to cause petty arguments :).

And to be honest imo, anyone using this feature will just be lower pop than they could be, not any more secure.

 

Good Day :)