Full article at the jump, http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...ogy-stopped-pokemon-go-hackers-for-four-days/
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How hackers broke Pokémon Go's anti-cheat technology in four days
- Thread starter dmr87
- Start date
Full article at the jump, http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...ogy-stopped-pokemon-go-hackers-for-four-days/
Thursday War
Banned
do they not have anything better to do
fuck hackers
fuck hackers
LambdaTeos
Member
"Thus far, Pokémon Go bots have been focused on single-player Pokémon collection and not on the more competitive gym-battling portion of the game. That could be set to change soon, though. Jake told Ars that automated gym battles are on a list of "some big new features" the team is working on for MyGoBot in the near future.
This new feature has the potential to completely destroy a crucial part of Pokémon Go. A tireless bot could maintain nearly permanent control of a gym, using accumulated potions and hyper-leveled, near-perfect Pokémon teams to recapture a gym minutes or even seconds after it falls. Plus, a GPS-spoofing bot can attack a gym without having to be in the applicable real-world location, potentially taking over far flung locations around the world."
And somehow, Niantic is to blame here right?
This new feature has the potential to completely destroy a crucial part of Pokémon Go. A tireless bot could maintain nearly permanent control of a gym, using accumulated potions and hyper-leveled, near-perfect Pokémon teams to recapture a gym minutes or even seconds after it falls. Plus, a GPS-spoofing bot can attack a gym without having to be in the applicable real-world location, potentially taking over far flung locations around the world."
And somehow, Niantic is to blame here right?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
To be fair there's an entire community of developers who were working on breaking it. Also it only took 2 days for them to reverse engineer the API.
NCR Redslayer
NeoGAF's Vegeta
Team instinct is stepping up their game.
PorygonVandal
Member
Thanks for ruining the game guys
It hasn't been a good week for Niantic. A lot of it they've brought upon themselves, like the alleged "bug" for catching, but they had to have expected this in the wake of their awful PR regarding the third-party tracking block and their relative lack of words on what they were actually planning on doing to fix theirs.
That being said, proudly explaining how this new bot program is going to make the gym experience more terrible than it already is is not something to praise.
That being said, proudly explaining how this new bot program is going to make the gym experience more terrible than it already is is not something to praise.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Or there's fewer people who care to break Yokai Watch.
Thursday War
Banned
i fucking hate these people
It always starts with a screenlooker who gets out of control
Blame Niantic's anti-cheat. There's going to be cheaters in every popular game ever, it's up to the developer to stop them.
Also they should probably design the game in such a way that there is literally ANY HUMAN INVOLVEMENT NEEDED.
Fuck these people. They should do something productive with their time instead of making the game worse for people that actually want to play instead of cheat.
I'm pretty sure it's because it's not popular. If the thing was as successful as Pokemon Go it would be cracked wide open.
I'm pretty sure it's because it's not popular. If the thing was as successful as Pokemon Go it would be cracked wide open.
i cant believe people really think like this
As you can tell by my posts I'm kinda salty at how hard Niantic has fucked up everything related to Pokemon Go.
Chainsawkitten
Member
From Google Play:
Yokai Watch Wibble Wobble
Installations 100 000500 000
Pokémon Go
Installations 100 000 000500 000 000
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Can't they automatically detect someone traversing X amount of miles instantly and just ban them? I wouldn't worry about gym bots being a huge problem unless they only stick to one or two gyms each
they are a small company with the most popular app EVER, even the biggest company would have run into these problems
There is probably already some sort of bot functionality in use for gyms I believe. My buddy mentioned a week or two ago that there were a few gyms on UT's campus that were capped by a few poke with trainer names that were like LyuBot1 LyuBot2, etc. and they were all level 35 which at the time seemed absolutely insane to me.
Did you know that Niantic hasn't been able to implement features as they like due to the enormous amount of people on the game, which put a lot of stress on the servers?
Did you know all these third party apps & botters put even more stress on the servers, making it even harder for Niantic to actually make the game better?
sssstententen
Member
While I somewhat agree, I really question why Niantic has had so many issues with this game.
This is from an uneducated point of view but the game has been ultra-successful.
Why aren't they instantly reinvesting and reinforcing their product with the resources an app of its popularity deserves.
On that note, have any of the Clan or other mega popular mobile games been majorly hacked? If so and these hackers are just that good, its a little more forgivable, but from the surface it seems like Niantic isn't taking the state of the games security and development as seriously as its popularity/size demands.
To me this is hardly an excuse. They are making millions a day with this app. They should have all the necessary resources to strike back and meet the demand. Early launch issues are absolutely to be expected. But once it continues for months post release, I think its absolutely fair for the end user to question why things aren't being solved.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Currently they soft-ban for teleporting too far too fast, but it just makes it so you can't catch pokemon for a set time limit. However hackers found an easy way to unban an account in seconds.
Chainsawkitten
Member
It doesn't work like that. Hiring more developers doesn't speed up development, it slows it down (initially, it can pay off maybe a couple of months down the line).
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
Huh? This is the type of shit that gets you hired.
Oh I'm sorry, let me walk over to the programmer vending machine and just buy myself a few new couple hundred employees, this should only take a sec.... wait what do you mean hiring practices can takes weeks at a time?
It's a good thing you prefaced this post with "uneducated point of view". I know it's rough to understand how it works on the other side but at least do some basic fact checks.
Considering the initial (official) release date was July 6, 2016, it has been literally a month and two days. Not exactly "months" of problems.
Are you thanking Niantic or the "hackers"? Not sure how being able to actually locate Pokemon i.e. the main purpose of the game, and the one crippled by Niantic first breaking and then removing in-game tracking, ruins the game
For some it's just a challenge.
Months? This game has only been out one month. Recruiting new staff also usually doesn't happen over night. I don't get why people keep complaining when the game clearly has gotten better already in the past weeks (no server issues and some QoL things). But of course not everything is perfect right now (3 step removal). Some people (especially on the PokemonGo subreddit) act like this game is totally ruined now.
GenericBadGuy
Member
Its something to keep in mind that the same communities that birth the bots like the Pokemon GO Dev subreddit are also where the creators of the unofficial trackers and other sites like Pokeadvisor (see pokemon stats) collaborate. The applications that do the same thing as Pokevision did (track pokemon in lieu of it working in game) are back to working as well as a result of this effort. I like the stat and tracking apps, but would never bot - maybe that means I have double standards?
Edit: I say this and now Niantic has taken PokeAdvisor down. Ugh.
Edit: I say this and now Niantic has taken PokeAdvisor down. Ugh.
Well, there's no point to actually playing it like they intended it to play with in-game tracking not being accurate whatsoever.
Go on walks to hatch eggs, catch whatever stray Pokemon you come aross (good luck hunting down that undiscovered Pokemon that's on your radar) or just go around looking for Pokestops that people set lures up at and stay in one place while the Pokemon come to you. Oh wait, except escape rates are bugged and Pokemon are all around more difficult to catch now!
People basically need to understand that software development is hard as fuck.
Also, on the comments on hiring more developers, as has already been stated, this takes a long time.
Coupled with the fact that hiring developers costs money. Just because you have one success doesn't mean that you suddenly want to start hiring like crazy. You could end up with a huge wage bill, and suddenly when your success peters down, ya fucked.
Also, on the comments on hiring more developers, as has already been stated, this takes a long time.
Coupled with the fact that hiring developers costs money. Just because you have one success doesn't mean that you suddenly want to start hiring like crazy. You could end up with a huge wage bill, and suddenly when your success peters down, ya fucked.
Also new developers don't instantly start on Day 1 fixing and improving everything. There is a rampup time associated with new devs.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Normal person: I wish I could catch a Zapdos
Hacker: *puts on sunglasses* who says you can't
Hacker: *puts on sunglasses* who says you can't
Thursday War
Banned
if it's just a personal challenge then they should keep those hacks for themselves instead of ruining the experience for others
FallingEdge
Member
someone else here who knows nothing what they are talking about
armchair developers ftw
Really can't they use their skills for something more usefull for community instead for bunch of lazzy couch ass ? That stream their bot play and people watch them ??
Good stuff like Pokeadvisor was good for community and it got blocked because of those idiots.
Niantic should ban wave them, I know they can, they have the script for it since Ingress.
Good stuff like Pokeadvisor was good for community and it got blocked because of those idiots.
Niantic should ban wave them, I know they can, they have the script for it since Ingress.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
Niantic is following down GameFreak's path at this point. None of them realizing that the only reason people are hacking is because of BS hurdles that prevent the game from being fully enjoyed (taking away trackers, etc).
Now the gym stuff is absolute bullshit, and warrants a ban. But the real question is are they going to do something about it? GF does jack shit in their own games.
Now the gym stuff is absolute bullshit, and warrants a ban. But the real question is are they going to do something about it? GF does jack shit in their own games.
Uh no. This shit happens in all competitive / popular games, even if the developers have done nothing 'wrong'. You could only argue that people were extra motivated, but you could also argue that it's also got more to do with the huge popularity than with the way Niantic has treated the game so far.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Some are doing it for financial gain. Like there's programs that allow you to run run several hundred instance of the game at once, and get them to level 20 in an afternoon. Then they sell the accounts for a couple bucks a piece.
I'm no developer, but I'm guessing if the problem were as easily solved as some are suggesting, then Niantic would have solved it.
It must not be so easily solved? And this whole "people hacking your game" problem seems to have been around for decades, still not solved, but Niantic should just spend some of that pokécash and hire some people to solve it, right?
It must not be so easily solved? And this whole "people hacking your game" problem seems to have been around for decades, still not solved, but Niantic should just spend some of that pokécash and hire some people to solve it, right?
Wait, hackers can unban themselves? How is that even possible?
I haven't played the game but from what I understand, a hacker can ruin the game for anybody around the world, right? Is the game world connected in one piece?
So this is not like people hacking in a COD game, which is isolated in that space for 12 - 18 people and for that match only, but someone on pokemon can take over the world, no?
Edit: Is there a denuvo mobile?
So this is not like people hacking in a COD game, which is isolated in that space for 12 - 18 people and for that match only, but someone on pokemon can take over the world, no?
Edit: Is there a denuvo mobile?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I don't know if it's changed but the soft-ban was only in effect until you spun poke stop signs like 30-40 times. So the bot just jumps to a pokestop and spins the sign to quickly unban itself.
Never worked a day in your life have you?