Put an end to DC hacking.

Im sorry if this isnt allowed, I've tried PMing some staff, but I haven't recieved a response. If this is against your rules, please remove it.

I've created a website to help combat the DC exploit that many of us have suffered from. Whether you've been DCed at horntail, zakum, PB, or during times when you're using family 2x buffs, it's something that most of us have experienced, and its time that somethings done about it.

The link to the website ishttp://dc.forthewindian.net/. Its a clean website, if someone wants they can scan it or whatever. If you don't trust the site, I've provided a copy of the text below:

Project Patch DC!

As you may or may not know, DC hacks have been disturbing maplers across all servers. Please submit this ticket to Nexon America and help patch DC hacks for good!!

Dear Nexon America's Technical Support Team, Over the past few months, an exploit in your game 'MapleStory' has been affecting many maplers across all the servers. Its a game exploit we've called 'Disconnect Hack' or DC hack for short.

We, the maplers have deducted that the root of this DC hack comes directly from the use of an illegal third party program called a Packet Editor. This hack, or exploit commences when a user opens the packet editor and starts sending an influx of packets to the targeted user. This hack is unique because it sends an overflow of packets at an extremely high rate until the targeted user disconnects from the game.

This hack has prevented many of us from completing daily activities such as Zakum, Horntail and Pink Bean, but the hack is not limited to the small high level populous, as it can be hypothetically used on anyone at any level.

This exploit has made many maplers quit entirely, even more contemplate quitting and the majority of us have become so unmotivated to train, or even attempt to boss. We want whats best for the community, who supports the company which is Nexon America, and we want Nexon America to stay strong to provide us with important updates and security patches.

Please take the time to review this ticket, and others like it, and put an end to the Disconnect Hack indefinitely.

Sincerely,

[INSERT THE FULL NAME (last and first name) THAT YOU REGISTERED YOUR NEXON AMERICA ACCOUNT WITH]

Frequently Asked Questions



Q: How do I submit a ticket?
A: First, simply login into Nexon.NET by using your Nexon Passport. From there, hover over 'Support' and click on Customer Service. Next, click on the tab entitled 'Log a Ticket'.

Q: What should I title my ticket, and what category does it belong in?
A: You will want to name your ticket somthing that has to do with the subject. I recommend using the title: 'Disconnect Hack Exploit.'. You will want to choose the following game, category and subcategory to ensure your ticket ends up in the right section:

-Maplestory
-Tech Support/ Bug Report
-Cconnectivity

Q: How will I know if my tickets been read or closed?
A: If you click on the tab 'View Tickets' it will show your tickets status and underneath, you will see any related comments that Nexon's Customer Support team has posted.

Q: It says the server is offline or is currently experiencing difficulties!
A: Simply press the 'Back' button on your browser to return to the ticket submition screen. Do this as many times as it takes to select your tickets game/category, and to submit the ticket. It will eventually work.

Basically what I'm asking is, if you have time, to copy paste the part in bold above and send it off to Nexon America through the ticket system. You may or may not get a response, and you might think its a completely useless idea, but its worth a shot and there's nothing to lose.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to have your support on patching DC hacks for good!

I'm pretty sure they know about it already, due to the largeeee number of people that have been complaining about it for so long. They've been pretty reactive lately so I wouldn't put it beyond them.

Perhaps the method that they use to D/C users is a little trickier to patch than other things (which I could understand).

Submitted one, I am in full support of this being fixed

I'm pretty sure they know how they're game is run.....>.>

I'm pretty sure they know how their game is run.....>.>

1st: if that were the case, then the game wouldnt be a festering pile of fecal excrement run by twits with the half-a-brain of a siberian monkey.
2nd: this is Nexon we're talking about.

I'm pretty sure they know how they're game is run.....>.>

Can you take a moment to think before you post? Just a moment. He's just bringing more awareness to hopefully get this hack patched as soon as possible. The more people who send in tickets the more nexon realizes what a problem it actually is.

Can you take a moment to think before you post? Just a moment. He's just bringing more awareness to hopefully get this hack patched as soon as possible. The more people who send in tickets the more nexon realizes what a problem it actually is.

Exactly, 1,000 angry customers sending them tickets is better than maybe 30-40.

Can you take a moment to think before you post? Just a moment. He's just bringing more awareness to hopefully get this hack patched as soon as possible. The more people who send in tickets the more nexon realizes what a problem it actually is.

[COLOR="White"]Can YOU take a moment to think before you post? >.>

Since when did bringing awareness come in the form of telling Nexon how their game works? You can just as easily bring awareness by posting it, telling misinformed Maplers how the DC hack is being performed, and telling people to send in tickets regarding the issue. In no way shape or form do you have to elaborate in the ticket how people are hacking their systems.

Just because they're Nexon, doesn't mean they're complete retards.
"LOLNEXON R MONKEYS." Seriously. Since when did people even take that seriously?
If you want to critizice Nexon's intelligence, go ahead. But if I ask you to get a team of experts to create 4 (is it 5 now?) different games, and you back down, don't come crying to me.[/COLOR]

lol, You just need to reread his original post.

i guess is a good idea, remind me of EOS crusade against the elemental weapons that didnt have the penalty, and guess what! now they do, so i agree is better 1000 angry costumers than 30 ~40.

Since when did bringing awareness come in the form of telling Nexon how their game works?

Eos said staffs / wands were wrong... Nexon said NO, in the end after a bunch of complains guess what?...

i guess is a good idea, remind me of EOS crusade against the elemental weapons that didnt have the penalty, and guess what! now they do, so i agree is better 1000 angry costumers than 30 ~40.



Eos said staffs / wands were wrong... Nexon said NO, in the end after a bunch of complains guess what?...

[COLOR="White"]This cannot be used as a valid argument.
Nexon said that the wands were intended to have the penalty. People complained. Nexon, then decided to change it because of all of the complaints.

I don't get how that relates.
Elaborate please.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]I think I remember discussing this with Fiel or someone a while ago...the way it's set now, the whispers go to the client, and the client looks to see if your whispers are blocked or not, so even if your whispers do happen to be blocked, you're still being spammed packets asking whether they are or not.

Nexon would have to change it so that differentiation is made server side, (i.e. making it so when you block whispers, they stop at the server instead of spamming you.

This would take up several metric s[B]hit tons of server space...I don't think Nexon's willing to do it. Good luck though. [/B][/COLOR]

Exactly, 1,000 angry customers sending them tickets is better than maybe 30-40.

Actually 5 people reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and/or the Federal Trade Commission would have more impact than 100,000 people logging a ticket.

Nexon, then decided to change it because of all of the complaints.

Actually their engineering department admitted a mistake there - they weren't testing correctly and kept coming back with "It's working the way it's supposed to" until we provided them the test case scenario they weren't using and they realized they'd only fixed it half ass. It wasn't changed "because we the people it", it was changed because it wasn't actually working the way they thought it was.

I think I remember discussing this with Fiel or someone a while ago...the way it's set now, the whispers go to the client, and the client looks to see if your whispers are blocked or not, so even if your whispers do happen to be blocked, you're still being spammed packets asking whether they are or not.

This is somewhat incorrect. The flood attack is still being done using the server as an intermediary - The packet editor sends the whisper packets to the server for delivery to the target. If it were client to client you'd show the IP address of the attacker while one is occurring, not the IP address of the channel you're logged into.

Since all that traffic is passing through the server anyway the server could be configured to cut it off and auto ban the attacker the instant they exceed a threshold that no legitimate player can send in a given period. Even just DCing them and purging all messages from them that are still in transmissions would be enough, I just favor autobans because as long as the threshold is appropriately high there is absolutely no way to trigger it on accident.

[COLOR="Red"]I think I remember discussing this with Fiel or someone a while ago...the way it's set now, the whispers go to the client, and the client looks to see if your whispers are blocked or not, so even if your whispers do happen to be blocked, you're still being spammed packets asking whether they are or not.

Nexon would have to change it so that differentiation is made server side, (i.e. making it so when you block whispers, they stop at the server instead of spamming you.

This would take up several metric s[B]hit tons of server space...I don't think Nexon's willing to do it. Good luck though. [/B][/COLOR]

I Remember something like that:

 Spoiler

http://www.southperry.net/forums/showpos...stcount=21

I Remember something like that:

 Spoiler

http://www.southperry.net/forums/showpos...stcount=21

Actually that post is somewhat mistaken.
In an object oriented server each character, while active, exists in RAM as an object with a pointer to the client. That's how the server tracks where you are, how much XP you have, what your hp/mp are and all the other info about you. There are no database reads the way it's implying. The database only stores inactive data and rollbacks.

Example sequence -

• Character logs in - Info is read from DB and now resides in RAM
• Character is periodically saved to DB during play on certain events such as CC, trade, drop, etc.
  
• Character logs off - Saved back to DB again
  
  

Every time someone sends you a whisper the server already has to hit your location in RAM to verify your name is even logged in. If it were reading/writing that to the DB every single moment that would be massive I/O they'd have to deal to prevent lag. Think of your PC trying to write and rewrite several hundred thousand files, nonstop.

It searches it's active memory for any player matching the name it was given, then "follows" that player's info to their client.

It's incredibly simple for them to include a single bit, a nice little 1 byte yes/no, on that representation of the character that says whether or not whispers are enabled and the nanosecond it looks you up, it checks that field and either accepts or rejects the message.

Not only is it easier, it's also better for system performance for the Nexon servers for the simple fact it reduces round trip communication.

Instead of going from Player A -> Server (Whisper) -> Player B (Accepting?) -> Server -> Player B (Repeat Whisper) it simply would go Player A -> Server (Whisper/Check) -> Player B

The way it's programmed now is inordinantly more complex, gains absolutely nothing (unless you consider having your profile behave differently on different machines to be a benefit) and is sloppy, wasteful and poses obvious security issues players are forced to suffer through.

It's incredibly simple for them to include a single bit, a nice little 1 byte yes/no, on that representation of the character that says whether or not whispers are enabled and the nanosecond it looks you up, it checks that field and either accepts or rejects the message.

exactly, but Nexon apparently prefers to use a client->server build.

exactly, but Nexon apparently prefers to use a client->server build.

On a separate tangent there they can even retain their client by client setting issue by just having the client send it's setting to the server during login and then if they log in on client A) It'd keep the options one way, and if they log in on client B) it'd set them another.

Nexon's biggest problem is Wizet wrote MapleStory with out a single clue on how a client server relationship was supposed to work - they tried offloading everything to the client and now years later they're still surprised when players break the rules by changing what the files on their own machine say to rewrite the rules.

On a separate tangent there they can even retain their client by client setting issue by just having the client send it's setting to the server during login and then if they log in on client A) It'd keep the options one way, and if they log in on client B) it'd set them another.

Nexon's biggest problem is Wizet wrote MapleStory with out a single clue on how a client server relationship was supposed to work - they tried offloading everything to the client and now years later they're still surprised when players break the rules by changing what the files on their own machine say to rewrite the rules.

Now they're writing check after check after check (or whatever you call it) when they could've just made the server handle this simple pomegranate in the first place.

Is there a reason for them doing this? Ignorance or...? I'd think it wouldn't be much/any harder to write it to be handled by the server than by the client...

Also, the bit that checks to see if the player is spamming messages beyond normal user limits...isn't it true that when you lag, the client builds up all the messages you tried sending, then sends them at all once whenever the hiccup passes? Could cause issues, I think? Then again, they could set the limit pretty high, since packets are spammed much faster/at a greater quantity than normal human type-speech.

Just my 2 cents. *Waits to be WRONGED* P:

Is there a reason for them doing this? Ignorance or...? I'd think it wouldn't be much/any harder to write it to be handled by the server than by the client...

"It worked for 10 people, surely 10,000,000 people will be fine this way..."

Also, the bit that checks to see if the player is spamming messages beyond normal user limits...isn't it true that when you lag, the client builds up all the messages you tried sending, then sends them at all once whenever the hiccup passes? Could cause issues, I think? Then again, they could set the limit pretty high, since packets are spammed much faster/at a greater quantity than normal human type-speech.

Depends on the issue you're experiencing and to some extent your network setup. Even if you have some nasty lag the normal communication pent up from a full 5 minutes of suppressed messages is less than 1/10th the volume a DC spammer is sending you in a single minute.

Realistically you'd have had to lag longer than the server would've let you stay connected to send out that degree of info.

Depends on the issue you're experiencing and to some extent your network setup. Even if you have some nasty lag the normal communication pent up from a full 5 minutes of suppressed messages is less than 1/10th the volume a DC spammer is sending you in a single minute.

Realistically you'd have had to lag longer than the server would've let you stay connected to send out that degree of info.

Heh. It's probably more like 1/100th...they generally can spam like 5,000 packets in 5 seconds or so. But yeah, I figured it was something like that. I guess it just depends on what you're typing on each time you press enter.

The server boots you after a certain amount of lag, or your network connections does? :f6:. I wasn't aware there was a timer for disconnection. (Sorry, just found that interesting).

Hurf. LF > Call to Action board.