quote:Original post by CWizard
What does the client need to do to persuade the server to give it the exe? I guess it's there the big hole would be.

Huh? The client just says "I wanna log on" with some common communication protocol. This phase doesn't need to be crypted in any way. Then the server sends the exe, client runs it and the server expects the client to reply with the communication codes enbedded in the exe.

quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Couldn't someone just figure out how to hack one EXE and distribute that to anyone else who wants to use it?

As I said in the first post "So the player can't use any hacked executables, because they'd communicate with the server differently."
So I think that can't be done. A single hacked EXE is useless.

quote:Original post by Ramsess
Every client application can be hacked It's not hard if you know debugers like softice.

But AP was right with what he said to you. The point of sending the whole exe is that it doesn't communicate with anything external that *can* be hacked safely. It's a single block of info that needs to be hacked every time you get it from the server. And I don't think your average gamer will start hacking a game with softice every time he connects to a server

quote:Original post by Beer Hunter
What about the clients who connect to a cracked server?

True.. Those server could send exes that contain viruses or something equally bad. Maybe this scheme would only work for a game with one, trusted central server.

[edited by - civguy on August 30, 2002 3:17:56 AM]

You can always hack it.. all you have to do is write an application that intercepts the exe, and modifies bits of code that DON''T change.. i mean. the communication protocol might be diffrent. but the rest of the exe is basically the same.. al you have to do is to search for a unique bit of code where it does something you want to alter. this is sent trough the communication protocol sure, but still it''s altered before this happens. it''s basically as hard as cracking any game. just needs a little more advancec app to do so. so it comes down to that this is still rather useless... still a good idea, but you can''t have infinite diffrent client exes (not even when you add ''random'' data because you can simply skip those parts... and you can''t paste that random data in the middle of the exe.. only at the end)

quote:Original post by The Eternal
You can always hack it..

I know, that''s why the topic wasn''t "impossible-to-hack scheme"

quote:all you have to do is write an application that intercepts the exe, and modifies bits of code that DON''T change..

You''re right :/.. An application that automatically seeks the parts that don''t change and inserts the hacks there. That wouldn''t even be too hard to make for a moderately experienced hacker.

But I got an improvement idea: when the server compiles the exe, it could add some no-op code randomly throughout the whole exe. It would make the exe run maybe 50% slower though, and one would need to make a new compiler specially designed for this purpose . But then there wouldn''t be any kind of easy generic patterns for the hacker to seek. It would be *very* hard to hack I think...

quote:so it comes down to that this is still rather useless...

Nah, I wouldn''t be so hasty in saying that this kind of protection schemes are useless. The more complex it is to make a cheat in a game, the less willing hackers are to do it.

quote:and you can''t paste that random data in the middle of the exe.. only at the end

Why not? The exes are compiled after all.

quote:Original post by civguy
The more complex it is to make a cheat in a game, the less willing hackers are to do it.

There will always be hackers willing to do it - the harder you make it the more they will relish the challenge

However, if your aim is to prevent "joe-average" from being able to cheat/hack at the game then that''s no bad target.

The main focus there would be the prevention of tools for hacking/cheating - if you can force it so there is no way a hacker can write a program and distribute it to do a certain hack, then joe-average is stuffed because they don''t have the skillset to do the advanced hacking on the fly, by hand.

-Mezz