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Server Servers Intentionally Registering Bots as Players

BloodMalice

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 4, 2013
75
5
I have no idea where the appropriate place to post this is but I pray that someone from Tripwire will at least notice this report.

I've noticed some servers beginning to find ways to have their bots listed as players in the in-game browser so that they're listed higher when sorted by players and dupe people into joining the server and increase their player count. This is obviously an attempt to exploit the game in a way that the developers didn't intend, not to mention, adds additional clutter to the browser.

Is there a way Tripwire can have the method they achieve this by blacklisted, much the same way the bot rank-up servers went unranked?

The [FOH] servers have been doing this for quite some time now but then once I saw {ubb} try it it's prompted me to post about it.

[FOH] Stalingrad: 192.223.25.28:28020
[FOH] Pacific: 192.223.25.28:28030
 
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Been talking with people in the underground about how they may be achieving this, but had to censor their name because I'm not sure they would've given me this information otherwise.

Yoshiro mentioned he would look into this but would like to know how they're pulling this off. Unfortunately, this conversation is the best I've been able to come up with so if anyone has any other information it'd be appreciated!

4:18 AM - Anonymous: yo Anonymous 2 told me you where interested in the dropper tool
4:18 AM - Anonymous: hit me up when you there
7:40 AM - BloodMalice: Yeah, hey Anonymous. Just looking for information on how it works first.
7:41 AM - Anonymous: What it does pretty much is connect 2000 players to the server simultaneously
7:41 AM - Anonymous: Now this crashes the server most of the time
7:42 AM - Anonymous: it can be tweaked to connect only certain number but then it will only occupy slots
7:44 AM - BloodMalice: But how does it register bots as players?
7:45 AM - BloodMalice: I see the FOR servers do this
7:45 AM - Anonymous: There is no "real" players or bots anything or that sort
7:45 AM - Anonymous: Unreal engine is exploitable to make it think there are players on the server by sending ICMP packets
7:46 AM - Anonymous: ALL unreal engine based games are susceptible to this sort of DoS
7:47 AM - Anonymous: It is even possible to create similar effect by sending a string containing 0x07 chars
7:48 AM - Anonymous: It doesn't create "fake" players and hence increase your gametracker rank just occupies slots if tweaked
7:50 AM - BloodMalice: But it makes so that when a player browses the in-game browser that it'll appear as 53/64 or something like that despite the bulk of those actually being bots?
7:53 AM - Anonymous: Perhaps this will explain better [url]https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2003-1433/[/URL] the connections don't sit on server connects dcs connects dcs
7:55 AM - Anonymous: Doesn't work like source engine fakeplayer where a server can get gametracker rank by having bots appear as people as that would require steam auth and they patched that exploit some time ago
7:56 AM - BloodMalice: CVE-2003-1433? Rather generic kind of name, heh. How did you ever find this with a name like that? Quite underground, probably xD
7:57 AM - BloodMalice: Yeah, I realize it doesn't help in rank, but it does cause the player count to appear as full on the in-game browser despite being otherwise, am I right?
7:57 AM - Anonymous: [url]http://cvedetails.com[/URL] is nice resource for scriptkiddies :p
7:57 AM - Anonymous: No, since it's hard to control the connections and servers have a hard time dealing with it
7:57 AM - Anonymous: so it usually just ****s itself and trys to reboot hoping that the connections will stop
7:58 AM - Anonymous: I can show you on your IP if you want but it might drop connection
8:04 AM - BloodMalice: I'm trying to see how to achieve what the FOR servers do. They get is so that it registers there being a full server on the browser when in fact there isn't one. They aren't ranked because of it but it doesn't stop them from being able to fool people into joining their servers. I guess they're not using this?
8:05 AM - Anonymous: No, what they are probably using is bot steam accounts buying their steam auth keys applying them to custom bot
8:06 AM - Anonymous: OR it could be the [url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=107233[/URL]
8:07 AM - Anonymous: * [url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=106346[/URL]
8:07 AM - Anonymous: Can be ported to ro2 so they probs did and are using that
8:09 AM - BloodMalice: I doubt they bought 50+ bot accounts to achieve that. Every time I click on their server in the list there's only a few people on there (despite it saying otherwise) and probably because they were fooled into joining.
8:09 AM - Anonymous: do you have their IP?
8:13 AM - Anonymous is now playing Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 Multiplayer. Click here to join.
8:14 AM - BloodMalice: [FOR] Stalingrad: 192.223.25.28:28020
[FOR] Pacific: 192.223.25.28:28030
8:14 AM - BloodMalice: Trying to see how they achieve this
8:16 AM - Anonymous: All of their servers are hosted from one machine
8:16 AM - Anonymous: they could be running any number of things like sandboxed games linked to bots
8:19 AM - BloodMalice: Ah, I just don't understand how it works to achieve that
8:30 AM - Anonymous is now Online.
8:31 AM - BloodMalice: Any ideas?
8:34 AM - Anonymous: I probed their server for a bit can't figure out what exactly are they doing but seems like honor level exploit
8:35 AM - Anonymous: I'm thinking its a mutator of some sort because it displays that it has bots connected as well
8:35 AM - Anonymous: if it was just bot standard fake player thing it would occupy slots display 0 bots
8:36 AM - Anonymous: Out of curiosity why are you bothered by them? Because their ranked status can be taken away if you report it to tripwire
8:37 AM - Anonymous: But yeah I think its an exploit that sets max honor to 0 hence regging bots as players
8:44 AM - BloodMalice: Never knew about that exploit
8:44 AM - BloodMalice: Sounds like a simple ini setting than a mutator
8:44 AM - BloodMalice: Question is, where can that mutator be found if it is one
8:45 AM - Anonymous: ye most likely if it is a mutator might be custom one and you are unlikely to find one anywhere
8:46 AM - BloodMalice: Damn
8:46 AM - BloodMalice: Thanks for all the help, mate
8:46 AM - Anonymous: Ye no worries
 
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