Speculation On Future Bans, early releases etc (This thread only) Options

[Mozbius]

Hi,

I was thinking lately perhaps we should start to get prepapred for a new ban hammer session soon.

My thoughts are particularly aimed to the fact that games do get "released" more and more in advance of the official release date. Now that could be explained by a rampant and growing number of leaks but than again... Is it possible that some releases are actually traps setup to catch some Live players red handed?

What do you think?


NOTE FOR MODS: This is what I guess we could call theory/speculation post. But then again the thread that was supposed to be setup for such purpose is not properly setup. At http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=604431 it says to follow the link to post but then when you get at http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=648108 it says we should only post ban experience in that specific thread. So if this post is wrong altogether then you can go ahead and delete it.

This post has been edited by Chancer: Oct 24 2008, 03:50 PM

[Chancer]

I will let this be, as long as we don't have the naming of releases or release groups or scene releases. Generalised discussion is fine but please don't turn this into pirates playground. If you have a theory on it then good but let's please use this constructively.
Any deviation or rule breaking & squabbling will result in closure of this thread without any more warnings.
Note
This is the one thread linked in the sticky and the title has been edited to make the thread more wide ranging

Notes on wording.
If you have played a game early and subsequently feel the weight of the Ban Hammer it is sufficient to inform us that you played a game before release and believe this is the ban result.
The detail is not required and I can draw the assumption that your mate at blockbusters sold you the game before release. It's not confessing to piracy unless you make it clear that you are. Please don't take that route.

This post has been edited by Chancer: Oct 24 2008, 03:54 PM

[Spartiku5]

I think MS should release "tagged" ISO's on all the pirate sites then when people download them illegally MS can pick up who is using these pirates and ban the acordingly

kills 2 birds with one stone those who chose to back up thier own games are safe and catches a huge wave of pirates everytime they download the tagged ISO

[smithmr8]

Interesting idea.. however, it wouldn't take long before there was a way of patching or removing this "tag". There's always a loop-hole in most protection techniques.

[skier354]

I think MS should release "tagged" ISO's on all the pirate sites then when people download them illegally MS can pick up who is using these pirates and ban the acordingly

kills 2 birds with one stone those who chose to back up thier own games are safe and catches a huge wave of pirates everytime they download the tagged ISO

I agree, very interesting idea. But I think that the success of banning pirates from live would be overshadowed by ms greatly contributing to the pirate scene by supplying working releases and bandwidth. It would kinda shoot the developers in the foot while helping weed out pirates on live. Who knows, maybe it would work. I think ms will just find a better way of detecting backup discs, or maybe offline disc checks.

[lostboyz]

thats a lot of paranoia, the most recent leaks were a guy who worked at Technicolor stole copies and uploaded them. If a company put something of theres up on to a pirate site they couldnt prosecute. They would find out pirates and ban them, but that only cuts their profit from live.

[Devedander]

Gotta say I am worried about the dash update, but I am kind of hoping against hope that ixtreme has got it nailed down so well that there really are no certain methods to detect it anymore.

After MS got bitten last time by the bad press of banning people wrongly I would think they will be pretty wary in the future how sure they really are of a ban.

For those who follow the mirc (or wherever the devs get together to chat now) has there been increased talk from the firmware crowd ramping up to this? I assume logs will be checked when the new dash comes out to see if any new info is being collected?



This post has been edited by Devedander: Oct 25 2008, 10:13 AM

[Chancer]

I don't for a moment think that MS uploads any games before release to catch anyone out. I think more likely when major release is due, there is an influx of people playing non original games on XBL. This presents the chance to attempt to discover who is doing this. If they find a successful way the ban hammer drops as all people logging on are then checked. Plenty will then be caught playing other backup discs that fall outside the criteria of checks. I reckon at a guess the next big one may be hitting just after GOW2 is released publicly.

[Devedander]

I don't for a moment think that MS uploads any games before release to catch anyone out. I think more likely when major release is due, there is an influx of people playing non original games on XBL. This presents the chance to attempt to discover who is doing this. If they find a successful way the ban hammer drops as all people logging on are then checked. Plenty will then be caught playing other backup discs that fall outside the criteria of checks. I reckon at a guess the next big one may be hitting just after GOW2 is released publicly.

So you are saying you think MS uses people playing games early as a kind of tag to watch more cloesly those accounts and hopes that those users pop in a backup that is not properly stealthed and then ban them?

But if MS has an automated detection system (which they pretty much have to) why do they need to flag people? Wouldn't those people just be caught using their bad backups sooner later anyway?

Or are you just saying MS keeps it's ban hammer hidden until big release time so as to catch the most fish with it's net?

Either way it still seems like people with detectable backups will be caught by a system that can catch them, waiting for releases makes for big numbers during a certain time period but doesn't seem to offer much benefit in percentage of detections.

This post has been edited by Devedander: Oct 25 2008, 10:25 AM

[Chancer]

So you are saying you think MS uses people playing games early as a kind of tag to watch more cloesly those accounts and hopes that those users pop in a backup that is not properly stealthed and then ban them?

But if MS has an automated detection system (which they pretty much have to) why do they need to flag people? Wouldn't those people just be caught using their bad backups sooner later anyway?

Or are you just saying MS keeps it's ban hammer hidden until big release time so as to catch the most fish with it's net?

Either way it still seems like people with detectable backups will be caught by a system that can catch them, waiting for releases makes for big numbers during a certain time period but doesn't seem to offer much benefit in percentage of detections.

I don't think MS would be in good standing legally by taking part in file sharing. Uploading a rigged copy to a torrent network would be entrapment and any action taken could be strongly challenged.
I just believe they wait until they will get maximum returns in their sweep. Odd numbers here and there do not send out as big a message as lots of users at once.

This post has been edited by Chancer: Oct 25 2008, 10:31 AM

[Devedander]

I don't think MS would be in good standing legally by taking part in file sharing. Uploading a rigged copy to a torrent network would be entrapment and any action taken could be strongly challenged.
I just believe they wait until they will get maximum returns in their sweep

Wouldn't MS have to actually try to get you to download to be entrapment? Like they would have to put a popup link to a torrent and then catch you dowloading it? Maybe on your side of the pond it's different but I think over here a cop can sell you crack and it's not entrapment, they have to try to provoke you to buy crack to make it entrapment.

Either way MS releasing working copies of their own games does seem far stretched... but then again I do recall rumors of the RIAA flooding torrents with bogus files.



This post has been edited by Devedander: Oct 25 2008, 10:33 AM

[KamelRed]

I know little of how backups work with stealth and all that jazz but wouldn't installing games to the HDD make it easier for MS to check and see if its legit or not and ban you on the results?

[pcrazy99]

I want to use a hard drive from a modded console with some game saves from backups. Do I risk a ban using it on an unmodded console on live playing original games?

[kingchipo]

I Dont think ms would release a "tagged" iso. As thats pretty illegal itself


But i do believe theres going to be a new detection system in the fall dashboard update. I dont believe ms would release such a huuuugeeee software update without increasing secuirty and mod detection.



Oh and one more thing

I dont think people will be download these pirated games too much longer due to an ingenious thing the makers of gears 2 came up with and im sure you all heard of it. Only new copies of gears 2 come with the map code to unlock 5 of the maps they can only be used once so each person must buy their own copy. I think most companies are going to jump into this as well and start putting codes to "unlock" their games. for example buy at walmart put the disc in run it it will ask for an unlock code to play certain features such as story line mode or multiplayer or even the whole disc.

Could wipe out game pirating dramaticly

This post has been edited by kingchipo: Nov 8 2008, 08:45 AM

[dangerouseddy]

locking the whole game with a keycode is a no go if you need an internet connection to unlock it.

This post has been edited by dangerouseddy: Nov 8 2008, 03:59 PM