ReFscan Interview
Antmoo is joined by Anisty, head coder of ReFscan, a new Anti-Cheat program.
First off could you tell me a bit about ReFscan?
Anisty: ReFscan is an anti cheat program that allows people to link together over the internet and check each other's drives for cheats. Good for trialing and clan wars really. Then there's ReFscan 2 which is a server client program for Half-Life, and works like PunkBuster to keep cheats off your servers. Hopefully we'll be done on that in about 4 weeks so I can get some rest.
How did you go about designing the two programs?
Anisty: I've been working towards making an anti-cheat program since I was working in cheater clans, trying to collapse them from within. All that experience has been valuable because it enables me to understand how cheat coders think and how they will try and get around our programs. The design ideas mostly come from sitting in the channel every night and thinking of ways to hack it.
How popular do you think these programs will be?
Anisty: Well, tricky question, there's how popular will the program be with players and how popular will it be with the server owners. The program is already picking up good responses from the playing community…. but we get server owners in the channel and the questions usually revolve around, "Is it going to auto update?" "Is it going to be easy to use?" "I don't like this take it out" etc… I'd rather just make sure it's useful and popularity isn’t an issue.
How long did the programs take from design to development?
Anisty: ReFscan 1.4 is about 6-7 months into development. ReFscan 2 is based on 1.4 and in about 2 months or so, they will be seperate programs.
So, which of the two programs do you think will be the most useful in cracking down on cheaters?
Anisty: Well, if using ReFscan client to client before every official clan match becomes standard, I think it would be very useful just to return some of the trust that seems to have walked out on the community. The other version is just as useful, but I'd like to return to the time when there was no anti-cheat on the server.
What do you think makes people cheat and/or create cheats for games such as Counter-Strike?
Anisty: Well, I interviewed system (the guy who created ogc) once and actually he’s a really nice guy - I have nothing bad to say about him. He cheats because it's a new coding challenge, though his ethics seem a bit screwed as he releases. But the way he sees it is that cheating is just a mod which is kind of why people cheat. The new fun in the mod though can come from winning without trying, rather than new skins and models.
Have you ever cheated in any online game?
Anisty: Yes.
What game was it?
Anisty: Counter-Strike and TFC. The first time it was just for fun then as it got into the community I got really stressed out with cheaters, left my clan (I accused a guy of cheating, no one accepted I was right) then went undercover to take down cheating clans. I was a clan leader in Half-Life cheaters and Half-Life Hacked… closed them down and rejoined the community. I found out the guy I accused in my clan got screenshotted as cheating by PunkBuster which was nice.
Now, I've tried out ReFscan and it could work apart from having to get the person you want to scan to go into the server and be scanned. So if they refuse you might not get any proof they cheat (although it will make them look suspicious). Do you think that is a problem?
Anisty: Yes it’s a problem sure, but anyone who’s a serious cheater can't take every hack off their system in under 10 minutes most of the time, and even so, at least you got them to delete the hack, a timer scanning every 10 mins or so will be introduced for the next version, so putting them on after the scan wont work.
So when people admin a match, and someone looks suspicious, they can scan them manually for cheats?
Anisty: Sure can
If readers are interested in downloading these programs, when and where can they download them?
Which do you think will be best at stopping cheats, ReFscan, or Valve's Anti-Cheat?
Anisty: Maybe they [Valve] just had a bad start, but they are crap at it, they have also ruined hlguard, which I just thought was getting somewhere...
On UKT there was news that CSGuard is no longer supported, do you think this will make ReFscan more popular?
Anisty: Well, hlguard isn't completely dead, but I expect that Valve trashing it has a lot of server operators worried so they might be looking for other options
What improvements do you think you could make to ReFscan to make it more deadly against the scum of the earth?
Anisty: We don’t have inbuilt lawyer scanning yet, but I'd give it a shot… apart from that, proofing it against being hacked like PunkBuster and CD were.
I have to ask this, did you make the Air Hockey game included in ReFscan?
Anisty: Heh, the original code was by an unknown source - whoever he is I want him on the team, but anyone who claims it as there's now is lying. :) The source is completely different now from the original, and it's fun fun fun. I’ve just been informed that I get to write netcode for it as well, so multiplayer air hockey action coming soon!
Do you have any plans to branch out into other games or will you just concentrate on Counter-Strike?
Anisty: The alpha versions included scans for UT and Quake 3 so its very possible they will be reappearing
Well thanks for you time Anisty. ReFscan looks set to be a great help in the fight against cheaters. Good job to you and the rest of the team, anything else you'd like to add about ReFscan?
Anisty: It's got air hockey. :)
Comments
Official Capybara Herder
UKTerrorist
18:01 5/7/2002
20:06 5/7/2002
Will be interesting to see how it well works, unfortunately I'd guess somebody that knows what they're doing could avoid detection. Hopefully im wrong tho. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
07:38 7/7/2002
18:36 20/1/2003