Dedimania forum

[got feedback from Nadeo, but haven't had time for follow-up yet]

enryx13 wrote:

Dunno if I should use this thread or the other one

There is no other thread for TM2 reports.

enryx13 wrote:

http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat&Mode=DESC&Envir=Stadium&RecOrder3=RANK-ASC&UId=QHYklmYY1RI1qmixBLlp1_PCQA6&Show=RECORDS

First cheater in TM2Stad?^^

Maybe, maybe not, but at least the first one caught. Four validation replays that give errors, and the first sector on that A02 track is impossible.  Banned and all deleted, thanks.

Hi,

2 new cheaters
login: nfsps19
login: wario76

booth of them use a lightly higher acceleration at the beginning of the race resulting more speed.

nfsps19:
Cheated Maps with available ghost replays:

1)Map: Spider hunt #8
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login nfsps19
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login hjorten
Dedi3(no cheat, validation ok) login enrul

-->very high acceleration at the beginning of the race after the turn down both dedi2 and dedi3 have normal speed.

2)Map: Mini Mlok19 (this case is obvious cause straight line beginning)
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS
Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login nfsps19
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login flash-gordon
Dedi3(no cheat, validation ok) login harjo
Dedi4(no cheat, validation ok) login mstottrop

-->The 3 not cheated replays have normal speed at the beginning of the race, dedi1 have higher acceleration and gets much earlier to the boost.

3)Map: Mr.DvD Mini 210
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS
Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login nfsps19
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login strobewafel
Dedi3(cheated, validation fails) login wario76
Dedi4(no cheat, validation ok) login freak04
Dedi5(no cheat, validation ok) login mornor

This case is interesting, nfsps19 and wario76 used similar cheat to start the race with a higher acceleration to get to the boost earlier than the others.


waRio76:

1)Mr.DvD LoL 11
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login wario76
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login maysen.
Dedi3(no cheat, validation ok) login strobewafel

Race beginning with higher acceleration. Case is obvious compared to dedi2 and 3.

2)Mr.DVD Mini 138
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login wario76
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login mstottrop
Dedi3(no cheat, validation ok) login 8641marco
Dedi4(no cheat, validation ok but no ghost replay available) login gosaft
Dedi5(no cheat, validation ok) login hollist

Same here, lightly increasing acceleration at the beginning of the race.

3)Natz (this case is obvious cause straight line beginning)
Link: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

Available ghost replays to compare:
Dedi1(cheated, validation fails) login wario76
Dedi2(no cheat, validation ok) login zypher67

Starting with higher acceleration resulting more speed over the time of race. Just before the very first ramp, the car of wario76 is already ahead of zypher's car inspite of a bigger angle to the right side= impossible.
The higher acceleration on the relatively straight line causes a rising distance between the two cars.


Both of the players got many other failing validations on other maps but ghost replays are only available for the maps listed above.

Thanks.
PS. Thanks Slig&Xymph for your effort for my registration.

jeromecortez wrote:

While downloading replays off this site I noticed several suspect records by this particular user.

Login: mstottrop

Sorry for the delay on this one. I verified the meaning of the invalidation errors with Nadeo, which took a few weeks, and another few weeks before I got around to doing something with their response.

I found at least 20 replays that don't validate for mstottrop, so banned and all (600+) recs deleted.
As 'collateral damage' I encountered login akkari, for which exactly the same (with 700+ recs) applied.
Thanks for the report.

Like for TMF, I am keeping a list of cheaters in TM2 that were banned from Dedimania and globally blacklisted, or get a warning after cheating on just a few tracks. The cheating pace out there is (still) very slow, as far as I can tell, so the round-up reporting frequency will be low too.

Logins mentioned early in this topic, before setting up the blacklist, were:

mp3.0, elking, maninblack

Bans added in recent weeks were:

wario76, nfsps19, akkari, mstottrop, poojuice, clashisclay

The one/two-timers were:

masterhack, masterhack2

I am not yet automatically batch-checking validation replays submitted to Dedimania, as I'm waiting for info from Nadeo on how to set that up. Hopefully xbx will have time for it after the SM Storm release this Wednesday.

enryx13 wrote:

please check this guy. Login: ustrunz
for example this: http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS
He left the server as he made that time.. the map is almost just straight with one turn it cant have so much deviation.

Of his 20 most validation replays, none passed. Banned and all recs deleted, thanks.

In the past two weeks, one new login made it onto the ban/blacklists: jwnjwn
That's all folks.

dedifan wrote:

please check login: balkouk1

http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS
Rank1

http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS
Rank5

and on other maps.

Dunno, the ghost replays look fine. Old validation replays can, in many cases, not be reliably validated by the current client anymore, and those are inconclusive.

dedifan wrote:

xymph wrote:

Old validation replays can, in many cases, not be reliably validated by the current client anymore, and those are inconclusive.

This is interesting and leads us to a whole other problem. If one can't get a replay validated with a VR with the actual client, that means that nadeo changed the physics of the game.

Not necessarily, the other possibility (which Nadeo confirmed to me) is blocks that were changed, however subtly. As I understand it, the replay validation process is very sensitive, or chaotic even, and the slightest block change can already cause the validation to fail.

dedifan wrote:

This means the whole Dedimania story makes no sens anymore as the players today are driving with other physics than in the past few months! That would ruins a game that is based on getting records! I am not talking about changes in the header of the VR or in container information. I am talking about registered Keypresses and how the engine of the game interprets these in action.

Well, it seems tiny block changes don't necessarily have a big effect on how a map is driven, so dismissing the entire system is premature.

Canyon was in beta for a long time, but after that period tiny block changes were still being made as recently as two months ago, and even in the 2013-05-16 client update there was one block change.

Stadium is still in beta, so block changes are still possible there too, and the recent change in start physics is a prominent example of a change that also affects replays and their validation, I suppose.

dedifan wrote:

Anyway I don't think that VR structure is the problem of this guy because the VR's of other drivers in that period of time(so same client version) are validating absolutely fine. This guy however has more than 20 faulty VR's, that should raise red flags in you.

It does, and there are in fact 50 invalid replays (along with 510+ valid ones) for balkouk1 in the Dedi archive, but because of the above problem I was not sure how many of them actually qualify him as a cheater.

The other replay problem is that validation for multi-lap maps is broken altogether, but it's not detectable from just a replay file whether it's for a multi-lapper -- that requires inspecting the map file.
So today I wrote a script that, for every replay reported as invalid in the client's batch mode, will find the map on MX and check the multi-lap flag, so that at least those can be filtered out from the validation process.

This still leaves 39-46 invalid replays (7 maps aren't on MX so I can't check those) for balkouk1, which were submitted between Dec 8, 2011 and Mar 17, 2013.

That they are spread out so thin across his replay history is also strange, as most cheaters (on TMF) cheat a bunch of times on a day, and again the next day if they aren't banned -- not once every few days or weeks. Only on Dec 19, 2012 there are 6 invalid replays, and three on Nov 20 including your previously mentioned pcmeGPFyjy_DS1X64JZSmK9pmQ4.

dedifan wrote:

I found two replays which should be easier to see (of course both of them do not validate):

http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

Just compare the resulting speed of the turn beginning at 00:6.50 and the turn beginning at 00:32.80 with the other GR's. The results are spectacular CP Times. Funny is that he is doing during the race some unlogical driving to lower the speed bringing back cp times to realistic values, like: "Shit I boosted too much, lets get back to normal times"

If this example is still unclear, then check the next one, especially with the GR of Dedi 2 because same straight line at the beginning, no turns no drifts, just pressing forward:

http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat& … ow=RECORDS

How can one explain that his car is already a meter in advance after 2 seconds of driving a straight line?

That is suspicions indeed, and those two examples are indeed from his 'busiest' day, Dec 19.

For starters I've decided to ban balkouk1 from making new Dedi entries, but not yet blacklisted him.

Thank you for stepping forward quickly. This is precisely why I didn't blacklist your login or delete your records yet.

The unreliability of the validation functionality in the client appear to become a real hindrance in the anti-cheater process, and false positives seem more likely than my already pessimistic expectations. I realize now it's even possible that one or more of the previously banned cheaters was incorrectly flagged by unreliable validation... but they haven't come forward here.

Anyway, I've unbanned balkouk1.

Xymph ---->Thanks you for your wise decision, but especially for your realistic decision.

Dedifan ----> Before suspecting me with replay or anything, talk to me and my friends to understand who i am and my vision of playing.

I only play TM for fun and competition. I hate cheaters, cutters or something like that.

See u on servers

Bye and have fun .

BalKouK

You are just crazy man. I don't know who you are and what you are doing all your days.

You have just found the wrong guy ^^. Maybe you're jealous  ? Or explain to me why are you picking on me ?

My friends laugh when they see what you write !! That's ridiculous.

Wake up, you have made a mistake, move on. Stop accusing me with two cans poor replay.

Thank you and bye .