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PunkBuster

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Info

Punkbuster is an anticheat program used mainly on Quake3 engine based games, though gaining in popularity. Games supported by punkbuster can be found Here


Major Features in PunkBuster

(some editions of PunkBuster™ do not have all of these features)

* Real-time scanning of memory by PB Client on players' computers searching for known hacks/cheats
* Throttled two-tiered background auto-update system using multiple Internet Master Servers to provide end-user security ensuring that no false or corrupted updates can be installed on players' computers
* Frequent status reports (highly encrypted) are sent to the PB Server by all players and the PB Server raises a violation when necessary which causes the offending player to be removed from the game and all other players are informed of the violation
* PB Admins can also manually remove players from the game for a specified number of minutes or permanently ban if desired
* PB Servers can optionally be configured to randomly check player settings looking for known exploits of the game engine
* PB Admins can request actual screenshot samples from specific players and/or can configure the PB Server to randomly grab screenshot samples from players during gameplay
* An optional "bad name" facility is provided so that PB Admins can prevent players from using offensive player names containing unwanted profanity or racial slurs
* Search functions are provided for PB Admins who wish to search player's keybindings and scripts for anything that may be known to exploit the game
* The PunkBuster™ Player Power facility can be configured to allow players to self-administer game servers when the Server Administrator is not present entirely without the need for passwords
* PB Servers have an optional built-in mini http web server interface that allows the game server to be remotely administered via a web browser from anywhere over the Internet

Hardware Bans

As of June 30, 2004, Even Balance has incorporated the usage of unique hardware identifiers to permanently ban players who raise a violation that corresponds to hacking or interfering with PunkBuster's normal operation from all PunkBuster enabled games.

Even Balance uses multiple private one-way hashes so that no serial number information for individual computers can be determined by admins or anyone else who may try to obtain this information from a hardware GUID.

To become 'unbanned' a cheater must replace several hardware components, including but not limited to:
Hard Drive
NIC Card
Onboard Sound Card
(You may recieve a ban on one or all of these components)

This practice has raised many issues. When a hard drive is bought pre-owned, the new owner could easily have purchased a Punkbuster banned piece of equipment. This means that the new owner will not be able to play on ANY punkbuster secured servers simply because of a mistake the previous owner made.
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