Punkbuster

[trust]

Just seen this on Punksbusted website :D :D

From the Even Balance web site today:

"The cost of cheating on PunkBuster servers has just gone up significantly.

PunkBuster now computes Hardware GUIDs for various pieces of hardware on players' systems while playing on PunkBuster servers. We use multiple private one-way hashes so that no serial number information for individual computers can be determined by admins or anyone else who may try to obtain this information from a Hardware GUID (and as always, no personal information of any kind is examined, stored or transmitted by PunkBuster).

When players raise a violation that corresponds to cheating or interfering with PunkBuster's normal operation, we now (in addition to Global PB GUID bans) are Globally banning the new Hardware GUIDs across all games supported by PunkBuster (including games supported in the future.) So punks who are...
...determined to cheat so badly on PB-enabled servers that they try to cheat PunkBuster may now need a new computer in addition to a new cdkey in order to return to PunkBuster servers.

As with previous PB GUID Global bans, the new Hardware GUID bans are permanent and will not be lifted. As always, players who are affected by these Global bans will still be able to play on non-PB servers.

Honest users should never "test" cheats that claim to interfere with PunkBuster.

We have successfully tested this new feature set over the past few weeks for a few supported games and will be rolling it out to all supported games over the next few days and weeks. Additionally, PunkBuster servers will be updated to signify whether kicks for Global bans are for PB GUIDs or the new Hardware GUIDs."

Read more about Punk Buster anti cheat software at Even Balance

[willofgod]

Although I think cheats deserve this kind of harsh punishment...

Anyone know how it works? Is it some kind of automated process that PB itself handles?

Because if an admin can do it, whats to stop some malicious piece of work inflicting this on some poor honest individual they've suddenly taken a disliking too...

[trust]

This is not just hard drives as originally thought, what this appears to be, is the Hardware GUID will take several serial numbers of the cheaters hardware, select a combination of them and then ban.

So cheater A: could be hardware banned by Hard drive and motherboard, Cheater B could be motherboard and graphics card, cheater C may be Graphics card, soundcard and Modem, cheater D may be everything.

So if a player cheats and gets caught, he builds a new PC but keeps his graphics card, but buys a new game, he may well still receive a new ban because of the serial number of his graphics card is still listed.