Project Reality Forums

Noddy,

I just found this. So it could be possible that we have a malicious streambans account. Or it could be nothing.

Posted May 30, 2013 - 01:02 AM
BF2 mass false bans. AIMBOT #50120

Looks like hackers are using 3rd party services GGC Stream & PBBANS to create false bans on inocent players.

The problem BF3 had with the 3rd party services was not fully fixed and has expanded to other games.

BF2 Fake Ban wave - PBBans

Which references a similiar incident last year that EB commented on

PunkBuster Bans Issues [UPDATE]

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Kusa__EA/
Kusa__EA 1 year ago 1384 comments 0


Together with the 3rd party service providers we have taken steps to remove the faulty bans, and improve the protection against future fake bans.
We have determined that the root cause resulting in the server bans is not directly related to Battlefield 3, but rather related to select 3rd party services which server owners can use in conjunction with PunkBuster to protect their servers.

If you are able to log in to Battlelog, your account has not been banned by EA or DICE so there is no need to contact Customer Support.

This issue did not affect Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 players of Battlefield 3.

UPDATE: As seen in the comments, we are receiving reports that this issue is still affecting some players. We are continuing to investigate what may be causing this issue with some servers.

If you are still experiencing problems please try joining other PunkBuster enabled servers - only a subset of servers are affected.

PunkBuster Bans Issues [UPDATE] - News - Battlelog / Battlefield 3

Spec, at this time we don't know what is causing it. Bitdefender seems like an obvious candidate since all the banned players that I was able to get in touch with, were all running it. However, we have members running bitdefender who did not get banned, so the issue is very unclear at the moment.

The pbbans staff and evenbalance staff is actively looking into this and I'm certain there will be an update on this very soon, I am keeping up to date with all of this on a daily basis and am following closely the developments that arise. You can be certain that I will post here as soon as we know anything about these possible false positives.

The stuff that DDS linked is completely irrelevant and will only add to the confusion surrounding this issue already. These are actual punkbuster violations that are put on the global banlist by streaming services. The violations are actually triggered, it is the cause of this trigger that is being disputed.

The new nvidia drivers seem to have played no role here, in fact none of the banned players have these drivers, if anything it is an old driver that is causing it, but there are people with ATI cards on the banlist and so that seems a dead end as well. Bitdefender is the only common factor right now but it can be hard to judge whether this is the actual trigger for the violation. As soon as we learn anything we will share it here.

Thanks for the update, brezmans.

To all other affected users, again, I strongly encourage you to report any information to punkbuster and/or us. Especially if any of you do not have bitdefender and still were banned, it'd be very helpful for you to inform the pb staff and us! (In other words: *bump*)

I got an answer to my ticket from the evenbalance guys:

Note #3: The supplied GUID has been associated with hacking or interfering with the normal operation of our PunkBuster software and has therefore been compromised resulting in a global ban from PunkBuster enabled game servers. We have no way of knowing who was actually playing with this GUID at the time the violation was triggered. We also have no way to know if the violation was triggered on your specific computer. Our system does not collect personal information and furthermore we have no way to attach a cheat/hack violation to a specific person. This ban will not be lifted as then the person who did trigger the violation would again be able to join PunkBuster Servers using this GUID.

To be clear: we are not saying that you cheated as we have no way to know who triggered the violation. If it is certain that no one playing on your computer ever had a cheat/hack violation triggered by PunkBuster, then your GUID (cdkey and/or game account password) has been stolen by or leaked to someone who has used it on a different computer to trigger the violation. We do not have the means to help you find out who is responsible for compromising your GUID.

Looks like they are not really interested in that... I'm quite pissed right now.

That's the standard copy&paste reply that this Alex guy is giving everyone that ever gets banned from punkbuster, don't pay too much attention to it, he is not worth it.

Ok - but do the other guys take care of that if the ticket is closed?
An easy way to test if this issue is bitdefender related would be if they just unban my account and I'll try playing without a running bitdefender...

'[KSK wrote:Eichhoernsche;1898497']Ok - but do the other guys take care of that if the ticket is closed?
An easy way to test if this issue is bitdefender related would be if they just unban my account and I'll try playing without a running bitdefender...

But you could have also removed another program ops:

Just playing devils advocate.


As Brezmans has said pbbans and evenbalance are trying to replicate the scenario that is causing the bans - the more information people can give about their hw/sw configuration the better as they can ascertain any commonality between people who have been banned.

What would be good information is the platform the game is.

Like:
-Steam Download
-Origin Download
-Retail

They would never do that, Eichhoernsche, because of the reason Noddy listed here.

From past false positives, this is how pb and pbbans handle the situation:

1. IF the possibility of a false positive is discovered, punkbuster will remove ALL violations that are related to this exact anti-cheat measure that delivered the false positive. This happened about a month ago in COD4.

2. Pbbans will then get an update from pb that it is possible that these violations were triggered by non-cheat software

3. Pbbans will remove the bans that pbbans has issued because of these violations.


This has been the process for this in the past. The thing that they are testing now is whether these violations could have happened in error, which is a tedious process which involves constantly installing and reinstalling versions of software that they believe could have caused this to try and replicate the violation. This can take weeks if no false positive is found right away. This is why it is extremely important to provide them with as much accurate information as possible: it will make the process of elimination faster and will let patterns emerge faster.

Understand also that it is pointless and even counterproductive to submit false information, like claiming to be running a certain piece of software, ie bitdefender, which others were running too to try and get your own account unbanned. These violations usually don't get removed on a per-account basis but an entire ban-wave will be reversed if there is even a slight possibility that non-cheat software has triggered it. Submitting false information to 'jump on the bandwagon' won't do anyone any good since no violations will be removed until punkbuster is actually able to reproduce the false positive themselves.

One of the evenbalance (pb) staff has also asked for the guid of one player who is not banned but who is also running bitdefender. My guess is that they are checking with their own logs if this guid has been flagged on their end for the same violation yet or not, all to try and narrow down whether this is a false positive or not.

I hope this clears things up a little bit, Eichhoernsche.

Arab wrote:What would be good information is the platform the game is.

Like:
-Steam Download
-Origin Download
-Retail

Mine was official retail cd image installed via daemon tools, and applied licensed serial number bought in one of the online gaming shops.

@brezmns: thx for explaining how the procedure works.

Same for me - it was also a retail installation.

Have the bans only happened in the CIA server?

Was just about to download the latest Nvidia update. Glad I did not install it.

Hopefully, all bans of innocent users will be lifted.

The graphics driver was ruled out as the cause of the ban. The latest suspect is bitdefender.

Hokunin wrote:Mine was official retail cd image installed via daemon tools, and applied licensed serial number bought in one of the online gaming shops.

Do you run Bitdefender?

Arab wrote:Do you run Bitdefender?

Yes. "Bitdefender Windows 8 Security" I mentioned that in earlier posts. Its build version: 16.30.0.1843

One of our members got banned aswell. He also suspects it to be because of BitDefender.

Yeah, saw that yesterday on NEW nate. This is soo sad I hope most of them are reading this and waiting for a fix. I hope nobody gives up and stops playing PR because of this.

I have kinda stopped playing PR because of this.

played entire day yesterday but it still scares me that I might be banned. even if Im not using bitdefender.

hopefully evenbalance can recreate this ban and remove all of them.

A question to tech savvy guys. Will I be also banned in BF3 if I'll try to play it, If I'm banned in BF2? I mean the conditions in PC software list, one of which might have caused BF2 ban haven't changed(i dont want to uninstal my bitdefender antivirus). Will it apply to all the games with punkbuster or from games to games it regarded as a different environment and different ban patterns and ban triggers applied? I just don't wanna lose BF3 too, not playing it out of fear.