Another EAC problem (the actual one, related to image ghost)

[Haganu 105]

On 6/22/2023 at 5:30 PM, MonkaS said:

Can confirm I was banned for steam, discord, and chrome. 

At the same time, Reshade is allowed under EAC while blocked under BattleEye.

 

I'd suggest Custom Desktop Logo V2.2. Works like a charm.

[BlatMan 718]

I use the previous version of Custom Desktop Logo, v2.1. Works good enough for the symbol editor.

[Ichinose 64]

As someone who made countless apb customizations and designs for myself with a overlay, i can tell you this:

 

The safest monitor overlay software you can use is Rainmeter.

 

I've been using it ever since it's first release and its a fantastic tool to have overlays, widgets, anything you basically want on your screen.

 

[nndrei 129]

Rainmeter? whats that?

[Thial 176]

Depending on the screen mode you are using this kind of an app works differently. If you are in a window then you can create a screen overlay which doesn't care about APB. If you are in full screen on the other hand or if the software is written to pick a specific process then the overlay would need to be injected which is probably why EAC picked it up. LO also clearly stated which software can be used in APB without a risk of being banned so you just had to do a bit of research on how apps like that work and pick a non invasive one and also check which apps were allowed by LO. You can't expect a company to whitelist dodgy 10 year old programs especially without knowing the code as there could have been other malicious features in it.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Thial

[Swofford 5]

On 7/8/2023 at 9:47 PM, Thial said:

Depending on the screen mode you are using this kind of an app works differently. If you are in a window then you can create a screen overlay which doesn't care about APB. If you are in full screen on the other hand or if the software is written to pick a specific process then the overlay would need to be injected which is probably why EAC picked it up. LO also clearly stated which software can be used in APB without a risk of being banned so you just had to do a bit of research on how apps like that work and pick a non invasive one and also check which apps were allowed by LO. You can't expect a company to whitelist dodgy 10 year old programs especially without knowing the code as there could have been other malicious features in it.

This app existed back in 2012 and is older than LO and EAC

[Thial 176]

4 hours ago, Swofford said:

This app existed back in 2012 and is older than LO and EAC

That literally doesn't matter. LO stated which 3rd party software is safe to use. They also explicitly said that using something which was not officially approved might result in a ban. Also they won't whitelist something they don't have the source code of as there could be some hidden malicious features. Even the Advanced APB launcher was fully verified first before it was officially approved.

[KeyboardCommando 81]

18 hours ago, Thial said:

That literally doesn't matter. LO stated which 3rd party software is safe to use. They also explicitly said that using something which was not officially approved might result in a ban. Also they won't whitelist something they don't have the source code of as there could be some hidden malicious features. Even the Advanced APB launcher was fully verified first before it was officially approved.

And that's why honest players who have been playing this game for more than 10 years need to be taken and just banished? While in the game there are real violators using all kinds of macros for fast shooting, cheats, aimassist, as well as completely remove the effects of smoke, and make the graphics clay (potato). No wonder this game has so many haters, go to the general area and you will see the symbols with the crossed out LO logo.

[Thial 176]

4 hours ago, KeyboardCommando said:

And that's why honest players who have been playing this game for more than 10 years need to be taken and just banished? While in the game there are real violators using all kinds of macros for fast shooting, cheats, aimassist, as well as completely remove the effects of smoke, and make the graphics clay (potato). No wonder this game has so many haters, go to the general area and you will see the symbols with the crossed out LO logo.

If you got stopped for violating traffic laws and said that 10 years ago the law was different do you think that the police would say "oh I see, you are free to go". No, they would say that ignorance is not an excuse, give you a ticket and send you on your way. 

It's irrelevant how other things are being handled. In this particular case it is 100% the fault of the player by using dodgy apps while it was explicitly stated not to do so therefore they got banned.

[KeyboardCommando 81]

On 7/13/2023 at 1:59 AM, Thial said:

If you got stopped for violating traffic laws and said that 10 years ago the law was different do you think that the police would say "oh I see, you are free to go". No, they would say that ignorance is not an excuse, give you a ticket and send you on your way. 

It's irrelevant how other things are being handled. In this particular case it is 100% the fault of the player by using dodgy apps while it was explicitly stated not to do so therefore they got banned.

The rules have not changed in 10 years, many, including me, have used this stencil to create symbols during the previous years. No one, including me, was aware that this program, with the advent of a new anti-cheat, could somehow be banned. There is no and to this day there is not a single list where a complete list of prohibited programs would be indicated, this is a LO error. Because of this mistake, ordinary players who have spent a lot of time and effort are paying. Now you are just trying to justify my blocking, but I am more than sure that if you were in my place, you would speak differently. As I have said repeatedly, there are a lot of problems in the game in the form of players changing game files and dealing with toxicity, but none of them has been punished to this day, this is real hypocrisy and Little Orbit's indifference to its audience.

Edited July 28, 2023 by KeyboardCommando

[cowhorseman 441]

42 minutes ago, KeyboardCommando said:

The rules have not changed in 10 years, many, including me, have used this stencil to create symbols during the previous years. No one, including me, was aware that this program, with the advent of a new anti-cheat, could somehow be banned. There is no and to this day there is not a single list where a complete list of prohibited programs would be indicated, this is a LO error. Because of this mistake, ordinary players who have spent a lot of time and effort are paying. Now you are just trying to justify my blocking, but I am more than sure that if you were in my place, you would speak differently. As I have said repeatedly, there are a lot of problems in the game in the form of players changing game files and dealing with toxicity, but none of them has been punished to this day, this is real hypocrisy and Little Orbit's indifference to its audience.

i see your name fits the bill

[vsb 6174]

18 minutes ago, KeyboardCommando said:

The rules have not changed in 10 years, many, including me, have used this stencil to create symbols during the previous years. No one, including me, was aware that this program, with the advent of a new anti-cheat, could somehow be banned. There is no and to this day there is not a single list where a complete list of prohibited programs would be indicated, this is a LO error. Because of this mistake, ordinary players who have spent a lot of time and effort are paying. Now you are just trying to justify my blocking, but I am more than sure that if you were in my place, you would speak differently. As I have said repeatedly, there are a lot of problems in the game in the form of players changing game files and dealing with toxicity, but none of them has been punished to this day, this is real hypocrisy and Little Orbit's indifference to its audience.

the rules have always been pretty clear that all 3rd party programs that affect the game are at risk of triggering bans - the rule is overly broad specifically to cover situations like this where a program may or may not be malicious but still triggers the anticheat

 

there's never going to be a complete list of all disallowed programs, because no anticheat or developer can account for every random custom coded and distributed program like your stencil tool

[CookiePuss 5382]

People go on and on about APBs in game customization, but a large portion of APBs customization is nothing without overlays. 

Hopefully a solution can be found soon, because I know Im not making any more symbols til I know it’s safe. 
 

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by CookiePuss

[KeyboardCommando 81]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:48 PM, cowhorseman said:

i see your name fits the bill

Yes, I absolutely like my name. Your photo says that you are a very toxic person.

 

Merged.

 

On 7/28/2023 at 8:52 PM, vsb said:

the rules have always been pretty clear that all 3rd party programs that affect the game are at risk of triggering bans - the rule is overly broad specifically to cover situations like this where a program may or may not be malicious but still triggers the anticheat

 

there's never going to be a complete list of all disallowed programs, because no anticheat or developer can account for every random custom coded and distributed program like your stencil tool

Why is no one talking about game file changes? After all, this is also prohibited, yesterday I went to twitch and saw that out of 10 streamers only two play on a normal schedule and honestly. The rest use clay graphics with smoke and explosion effects disabled. One streamer from twitch had an aimassist at all, but for some reason no one bans them. Alas, I can't throw off the links to these violators, as this violates Little Orbit's privacy rules. You say that there will never be a complete list of prohibited programs, in which case any player risks being blocked for any program, for a reamer a program that regulates fan speeds or a program that goes along with a master card or for a regular dryer for your printer, this is the problem of Little Orbit and the developers of the anti-cheat EAC that they alone cannot provide a list of programs that an APB player can use, be it the same stencil or advanced launcher, and others cannot provide a list of prohibited programs. Well, you claim that all programs are obviously malicious and risk being banned, according to the same logic, they should be blocked for using Advanced APB Launcher, although it is not prohibited. This primitive stencil, which has been more than 10 years old, cannot influence the game in any way, by the way, it was also not banned in any way. Other stencils are not prohibited either, but they can also turn out to be "malicious" and risk causing blocking according to your own logic.  All these are your fantasies. I see here only another attempt to justify Little Orbit.

[cowhorseman 441]

12 hours ago, KeyboardCommando said:

Yes, I absolutely like my name. Your photo says that you are a very toxic person.

well not really. nice try i just enjoy dicking with people who play apb as there senstive to everything and it's quite funny to me to watch them go off on stupid things and yell about how mad i am or what ever.

[vsb 6174]

13 hours ago, KeyboardCommando said:

You say that there will never be a complete list of prohibited programs, in which case any player risks being blocked for any program, for a reamer a program that regulates fan speeds or a program that goes along with a master card or for a regular dryer for your printer,

yeah pretty much, back when we first got battleye, players couldn't use stuff like msi afterburner 

advanced launcher is officially allowed and distributed by little orbit, its available on their website

 

 

[BlatMan 718]

14 hours ago, KeyboardCommando said:

Why is no one talking about game file changes? After all, this is also prohibited, yesterday I went to twitch and saw that out of 10 streamers only two play on a normal schedule and honestly. The rest use clay graphics with smoke and explosion effects disabled. One streamer from twitch had an aimassist at all, but for some reason no one bans them. Alas, I can't throw off the links to these violators, as this violates Little Orbit's privacy rules. You say that there will never be a complete list of prohibited programs, in which case any player risks being blocked for any program, for a reamer a program that regulates fan speeds or a program that goes along with a master card or for a regular dryer for your printer, this is the problem of Little Orbit and the developers of the anti-cheat EAC that they alone cannot provide a list of programs that an APB player can use, be it the same stencil or advanced launcher, and others cannot provide a list of prohibited programs. Well, you claim that all programs are obviously malicious and risk being banned, according to the same logic, they should be blocked for using Advanced APB Launcher, although it is not prohibited. This primitive stencil, which has been more than 10 years old, cannot influence the game in any way, by the way, it was also not banned in any way. Other stencils are not prohibited either, but they can also turn out to be "malicious" and risk causing blocking according to your own logic.  All these are your fantasies. I see here only another attempt to justify Little Orbit.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I feel like I need to speak. I've talked about these file modifications too many times. I report Twitch and Youtube channels for aimbotting, using videos on their own channels as evidence. LO's support is useless as far as handling cheating. They seem to only care about words people say in district chat.

 

On the flip side, LO added some features to negate the need for some file modifications, like mute death themes and disable fog. I wish all the options would have been added to the graphics menu, because some of those settings I was unaware of, like disabling garbage collection during missions.

 

These anti-cheats usually kick, not ban, for known problematic software that has legitimate use. I If it hooks into the game in a way that's often used by cheats, then I can see it triggering a ban. Ideally, besides players not cheating, these anti-cheats would favor kick rather than ban, even if it detects a known cheat. This would cause the least impact for legit players, but it would make it easy for cheaters to test their cheats.

 

Regardless, reaching out to EAC is probably the best thing to do if this really is a false ban. Spamming each ban thread with the same thing makes me think you're lying, but that's my bias from irl experiences.

[Nerima 61]

It's been a while but the time wasn't wasted. I assume it would be fair to make an update and talk a bit. Thanks to everyone who replied (even these who was making jokes) - I believe it played a role

 

First of all - my friend got his accounts back! It was indeed a falseban and every my assumption in the original post turned out to be correct. Image ghost remains in the grey area and I would not recommend anyone using it - but EAC wasn't supposed to ban players for such stuff. It was indeed setted up incorrectly and been protecting the game not from actual cheats but pretty much from everything. And yes, cases like "banned for opening telegram" Indeed took place.

 

Investigation and sorting continued until the end of last year. I got in touch with many players with similar cases (image ghost specifically and other bans that looked random at first), and as far as i know, everyone got their unbans.

 

So I'd call this a succes. Thanks everytone once again.

 

Now a few commentaries:

On 6/13/2023 at 7:12 PM, vsb said:

why use an unknown program to do this when there are multiple free software options that do the same thing?

This is not "unknown", the oppsite - it is wery weill known in the creators community. Every single APB designer I know persnally used it at least once.

About "free software" - image ghost was created in the era on windows 7 and basically had no analogs at that time. And been lying on everyone's harddrives every since. Imagine - creating stuff is the only reason you play this game. You've been inactive for a while and finally decide to hop into social and make some symbols, what would you do:

 

A) Run the simple program you've been using for ten years that you have on your hands and there is never been a single case of it being bannable or prohibited

OR

B) For some reason go google the alternatives just becuase why not?

 

On 6/14/2023 at 9:34 AM, Yapopal said:

LO warned about this here on the forum. The problem is that the forum exists separately from the game and most players do not go to it. Such news should be promptly communicated to the players. In game chat, on loading screens, in the launcher. LO communicate with the players! You put branches in your own wheels!

Anti-cheat would be useful if it fought macros, potato graphics.

I may be wrong, but I never seen any warnings. Just common "don't use 3d party software" is not a warning in this case. But I do agree with you on the "communication" point.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 12:54 PM, Gateron said:

It's not little orbits fault. The tool probably hooks in a malicious way into the game. 10 years ago we didn't have a anti cheat well it was there but, it let everything trough.

 

Well all i can say is good luck trying to get the account unbanned.

This tool does not hook into anything. It does only 2 thigs - make an image above all windows and make the window semi-transparent. It doesnt even work when running the game fullscreen. As turned out - image ghost was just "one of" - many players got banned for other random stuff. Anticheat is not a magic button - you need to work with it.

 

On 6/22/2023 at 4:45 PM, Spillra said:

why do you need 3rd party software for this, there are plenty of ways to do it without risking you account

When you eat oranges for 10 years you dont consider sudden death from citrus allergy as a risk.

 

On 6/22/2023 at 5:38 PM, CookiePuss said:

As you’ve no doubt been told, any time you use a 3rd party program you risk your account. It’s always been this way. 

I have like 20 3rd party programs running in the background every time a play, and every and each one of them has as much nothing to do with the game as image ghost. If i'm risking my account every time i dont use separate clean OS without anything but apb installed - i'd rather not play the game at all, you know?

 

On 6/22/2023 at 5:38 PM, CookiePuss said:

That being said, APB customization is nothing without overlays so hopefully something can be done about this. In the meantime I’m not making any symbols, too much risk, and that’s the advice I give to everyone. 

Yes, discussion of an existing and serious problem was the perfect place for silly jokes. To be clear - the vast majority of my creations throughout these years were original - i wouldnt be a tiny bit bothered if this tool became prohibited. This topic wasn't about whinning for my friend or this exact program specifically, but about overall incorrectly implemented anti cheat, poor communication, irresponsibility, and development team indifference. In the end all my guesses were confirmed and the problem was solved. But cookie being sarcastic and mocking everyone insted of trying to help is the perfect reflection of everything I was talking about. That's sad and dissapointing.

 

On 6/23/2023 at 3:12 AM, cowhorseman said:

it feels like to me there trying to figure out how to shut the game down without shutting it down because that would cost money and what not.  of course i could see them also doing that because they keep getting made fun of in and outside of the game

Don't look for a double bottom here, that's called i n c o m p e t e n c e

[PingOVER9000 189]

1 hour ago, Nerima said:

my friend got his accounts back!

happy for you both... it was probabily about time if I was in his shoes

 

I bet also LO didnt excuse or give anything in return... but oh well

Edited February 3 by PingOVER9000

[Spillra 135]

On 2/3/2024 at 9:32 PM, Nerima said:

When you eat oranges for 10 years you dont consider sudden death from citrus allergy as a risk.

Fair enough, and seeing recent events i don't think necessarily thinks this should have been flagged. 
i do hope you get unbanned if you haven't been already

[Nerima 61]

 

On 2/4/2024 at 1:16 AM, PingOVER9000 said:

I bet also LO didnt excuse or give anything in return... but oh well

 

They did excuse, but it sounded more like a joke, considering the fact that he was banned for the entire summer (best time to play). All he got for a few months of being unfairly banned and wrecking his nerves trying to reach out at least to someone was the mail saying "we apologize for the inconvenience".  Everyone else got the same mails.