Encrypting your data?

[Statharas]

How would you encrypt your data/banks?




I would use a combination of algorithms, data cleanup system, and unique uses hashes to use in algs.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

If Blizzard made banks readable in a zip or rar you could use password protected banks. Really nothing breaks into rar archives unless someone's crazy enough to do brute force 10 days.

 

[tagg1080]

How would you encrypt your data/banks?




I would use a combination of algorithms, data cleanup system, and unique uses hashes to use in algs.

In all honestly I doubt people would go through that much trouble to get your stuff, so very simple things like what banks do with prime numbers would work fine.

Don't get too crazy.

 

[Dr Super Good]

If Blizzard made banks readable in a zip or rar you could use password protected banks. Really nothing breaks into rar archives unless someone's crazy enough to do brute force 10 days

Or just open the map, read the password and bam, <1 minute and you can access the bank.

I would spend more effort designing my map making cheating a non issue. For example I would allow pretty linear progression meaning that you will always feel like you are progressing when playing and with harder difficulties offering noncrutial bonuses (like a message or text only ego thing) so people do not feel they need it.

Actual protection wise I would just use a hash algerthim to prevent your average joe from opening the XML file and getting what he wants.

Basically, prevents casual modification of the banks yet people who are seriously out to hack are a non issue.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

It wouldn't make sense to be protected if banks could be read as a rar password protected archive, so yeah i dont make sense, ignore my idea.

 

[BoneBreaker]

Encryption is useless, simply because the galaxy script can be copied from your map and therefore working codes can be generated easily.

I mean, it stops the average person from cheating, but it cannot stop someone with above average knowledge.

 

[Statharas]

So, in fact, we need to clean up the gui. Wipe it.




Does anyone know if #define exists in galaxy?
If so, we might be able to delay the hacks, and change their protection every 10 days or so.
Like, change the language using #define to cpp or c. Of course, someone with knowledge of all languages could pull off something.




What about a protectron? Quick translator, that instantly changes the language of the script. Could also implement new languages as well!




Heh, i'd love it if someone could make a translator that translated into MINDFUCK

 

[Dr Super Good]

Or you could just design a better map... That fixes many problems at once.

 

[mrzwach]

You can't change the algorithm used to generate the codes once you have put it in use. If you did, it would either A: invalidate everyone's codes from before you changed it, or B: let the people who already hacked their codes retain said hacked codes.

Personally I would say that high levels of encryption are pretty much unnecessary. As long as you don't have things like "RANK" with a numerical integer between 1 and 10 stored there, chances are people aren't going to go through the trouble, or, if they were, they would just open the map and generate their own code.

Don't make any godlike unlockables, and people will be less motivated to hack it. Aside from that, if someone wants to hack it, they will be able to, so might as well spend more time working on the map than the encryption.

 

[Mooglefrooglian]

So, in fact, we need to clean up the gui. Wipe
Does anyone know if #define exists in galaxy?

Go bug geX to add that to Andromeda. I want it!

 

[Statharas]

Still, i'd love it if we could have a way to encrypt our data using a mindfuck translator (using #define)

 

[Dr Super Good]

Which would be entirly pointless as everyone will already own the software to decrypt it and eventually tools would be made. People just need to grow up and not deface other's maps as well as make better maps.

 

[mrzwach]

Still, i'd love it if we could have a way to encrypt our data using a mindfuck translator (using #define)

Err, it would have to interface with the basic galaxy code, so that the game could run it. They could just pull out the functions you use and simply add in some commands to arbitrarily alter their score and save the bank to generate their own code.

Also when you compiled the map, it would be turned into basic galaxy code anyways. Thus how Andromeda works.

 

[JackRCDF]

This here looks quite interesting, haven't had a chance to try it myself though.

 

[M0RT]

Yeah, except everyone can download the algorithm and generate hashes easily for any map that uses it. That's sure going to be safer than anything you make just for your map.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

The more you protect, the more wanted to be hacked. Blizzard did a greast job making available so many models and such. E.g in the ebginning their answer was 'no we're not gonna let you have the Raynor model from the storyline' but now you can use it.

Oh noes, they will steal your bank data... come on, golden map? Only if it becomes as popular as Dota it may get deprotected.

 

[Dr Super Good]

People will only hack banks if you make it worth the while. If your map needs 2000 hours of playing to get the best stuff, welcome to hacking town... If your map allows people to obtain the best stuff via casual play then there is no need.

 

[Eccho]

Blizzard has stated that they will be implementing bank encryption (for those who want that for their maps) in later patches. It wont be an issue really, as I am sure the encryption they are making will be pretty good. They have also said that they are working on the map protection itself as they do still plan to have a marketplace on battle.net.

 

[mrzwach]

Bank data will also get saved on Blizz servers, so that's nice.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Not really, it will render a lot of maps completly unplayable due to foolish map makers thinking we play 24/7 or something.

 

[Eccho]

How does that make maps unplayable?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Cause if you need to grind for hundreds of hours to get anywhere, the map is virtually unplayable where as atleast now you could speed up the process with a few minutes of work.

 

[Eccho]

I don't get it, what has this has to do with banks being saved on battle.net?

 

[M0RT]

atleast now you could speed up the process with a few minutes of work.

By that he meant crack the code and skip over the hours of grinding. With banks on battle.net, that would be impossible.

 

[Eccho]

So again, what has that anything to do with a map being unplayable<.<?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well it will mean that grinding maps will be unplayable unless you apparently have no education / job. Frankly if people were smart enough just not to make them need so much grinding it would be ok but one can not rely on that.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

DSG, some situations require the use of banks for a legitimate purpose that would be jeopardized by their being hacked. A quick example is global high score lists, though many gameplay reasons also exist which I'm sure you could think of. I agree that a map should never have a situation where a player with a lot of hours clocked in gets an artificial boost in power, but other situations exist where the particular accumulation of stuff, settings, and such are used for a sense of progression and unity rather than grinding.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The ultimate safety is to perform logic checks on the values to stop them getting insane values.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Naturally. However, as someone who knows hack-exploiters, people hack these data tables to troll the game, so it won't necessarily be an insane value but just one that's broken, offensive, or game-breaking in some limited fashion.

That being said, the only way to really avoid such things is to be able to use galaxy to grab a hash check of the map file itself, or to simply store the banks on the blizzard servers instead of locally.