Newsgroup: it.comp.giochi.simulatori
Titolo: GPL Engine Swopper...

From Paul Thurston:
Let me first state that I am not a cheat. Anyone who knows me or has raced
against me should know that. The sanctity of online leagues and hotlap sites
is important to me. People have to know that they're playing the same game
as everyone else. That was, perhaps ironically the motivation behind me
writing GEM. It is better for everyone to have it that only a few. I have
come in for a lot of criticism for releasing it. That was expected. I could
have released it anonomously or under a pseudonym but I believe you should
take responsibility for your own actions. I wish that GPL was unhackable.
Unfortunately it is not. The information on the cars is in there. Deep down
I've always known it was possible to change the cars. Anyone with a little
programming knowledge did. I've seen posts saying that it was impossible to
cheat at GPL. Anyone thinking that was just kidding themselves. I did not go
looking for a way of changing the performance. I was told how to swap
engines a couple of weeks ago and my first reaction was of shock and horror.
My second reaction was that it would be nice for the Cooper to finally have
the power it's chassis deserved and even up the field a bit - it would make
for some good racing. Then I started to think about the implications and it
dawned on me that if I knew about it then it was very unlikely that others
hadn't known for some time and were using it secretly. If someone had
decompiled the exe to the extent that they knew how to do this then they
certainly knew a lot more besides. Changing the engine could be a good thing
but it had to be policeable. We contacted Martin Granberg and Alison Hine,
telling them what we knew. We wanted Martin to add a feature to Replay
Analyser to detect if not the exact engine being used, at least that the
replay was dodgy. We sent him replays to work on. It is trivially simple to
swap engines. I told a trustable friend roughly what you had to do and he
did it with a hex editor with no further instructions. He is no programmer.
If he can do it then anyone can. We wanted Alison to put out a patch for
WinVROC to check the exe was clean before you could join a race. She told us
that she couldn't as she didn't have the source code any more. Alison
alerted Papyrus to the hack and we got an email from Grant Reeve basically
saying he'd speak to some others but that he didn't think they would patch a
two year old game. Martin after some work came back and said that he didn't
think it was possible to reliably detect the engine from the replay because
of GPL's prediction. I worked to find a way I could detect it's use. The
problem is that everything seems to affect only the client. It was becoming
apparent that either it was impossible to stop this or people just wanted to
hush it up. It was also becoming very clear to me from what people were
saying that people have been cheating in various ways for a very long time,
possibly since version 1.0. I asked a group of online friends what they
thought. There were reservations from some but the vast majority thought
that it should be released. I made the decision to release. The issue had to
be forced. Now it's out, suddenly everyone is trying to find ways of
policing it. This is a very good thing. I want a sim where we know what the
situation is. It is very important that future sims are able to check what
people are using on the client. Is the exe a clean one? Is the track file
the same on all the machines? Ricardo and I are being made scapegoats. We
are just the whistleblowers. If us being villified and publicly humiliated
means: (a) the people who *really* know about GPL work quickly to close this
hole (b) future sims are made better so they are policeable Then I will
consider it worth it. Paul.
--
**********************************************
Matteo Calestani
Driver profile
http://home.c2i.net/zlark/racing/drivers.htm
GP500 Hot Laps
http://www.multiplayer.it/sbk/hot_lap.htm
GPL Italian Championship 2000
http://www.racesim.net/gpl/index.html
***********************************************

 From Paul Thurston:
mi sembrano considerazioni giuste e lecite.
Inoltre nel msg è scritto che da tempo le persone che sapevano come fare hanno
cheattato GPL.
Ora invece è tutto alla luce del sole, basta trovare un rimedio per capire come
scoprire i cheattatori, no ??
ciao
Alesi_27

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si, certo.. ora ci manca che lo ringraziamo pure questo Thurston...
secondo me è un patetico tentativo di discolparsi. ha detto che Martin
non avrebbe potuto modificare il suo Replay Analyser? infatti dopo
solo 5 giorni (giusto il tempo di capirci qualcosa, modificare di
conseguenza, testare e pubblicare) ecco che esce il nuovo RA!!!
e aspettiamoci anche una bella flag su VROC.
Mr. Thurston e il signorino italiano che gli sta dietro sono solo dei
pagliacci.

e aspettiamoci anche una bella flag su VROC.
Speriamo! ;-)
Fabry
 - togli le parole "NO" e "SPAM" dall'indirizzo e-mail -
 - UIN: 63862865


"Martin after some work came back and said that he didn't
think it was possible to reliably detect the engine from the replay
because
of GPL's prediction."
questo l'ho ha scritto Thurston, non io...
(č semplicemente scritto piů sotto) 

(č semplicemente scritto piů sotto) 
Hai proprio ragione: un'altra volta imparo a fidarmi della mia memoria! :-)
Sorry!
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