Is this really the way things are with the pro level markers?

[SlartyBartFast]

At least cheating well is a skill... full auto is a joke. Every 12 year old, E-Spyder nub's dream come true... he too can shoot as fast as the pros!

What? Cheating with most boards/markers is as simple as settings and trigger adjustments. There's no skill in cheating with what's allowed on the field these days.

[hitech]

So, you're hoping that nobody ever shakes your hand or otherwise notices that big lump in your glove with the wires running down your wrist and arm to the battery pack.

So, your 'easy' cheat involves programming, board development, sewing, and spy like maneuvers to hide your equipment from any and all observation.

There would be no wires running to a battery pack. The current and voltage requirements of a basic stamp and simple coil are small. There are flexible batteries that are paper thin that are capable of providing the necessary voltage/current. Hiding the basic stamp under the plastic shield on the back of some gloves isn't that hard either. But, yeah, you would also need to know basic sewing. Something anyone could learn in an hour.

I'm positive that I could build it and keep it hidden. Unless your going to confiscate ALL my equipment and clothes, I'd be able to do it. If I can figure out how to do this, imagine what someone who is actually on a "pro" team and wants to cheat can do.

The bottom line is that catching cheating with electronically controlled markers is EXTREMELY difficult. That doesn't mean "we" shouldn't try. However, attempting to examine every marker's software and electronics just isn't a good answer...

Mechanical markers would solve all of this.

[hitech]

What? Cheating with most boards/markers is as simple as settings and trigger adjustments. There's no skill in cheating with what's allowed on the field these days.

Ahmen!

[Jaremy Rykker]

I heard an idea in another thread of giving everybody the same hopper. For example, give everybody a Revvy or Reloader, and give 'em whatever rate of fire they want, even if its full auto. They can't outshoot their hopper, so it avoids problems there.

Once again... fields hate it. No pain(t)=No (fiscal) gain.

[Tapper]

This cheating topic was talked about in detail in a couple of threads a few months back. If I remember, you are one of the people that gives me a headache reading your posts. If I were you I would avoid commenting on this subject, you do not understand it on many levels. Yes, really. You do not. And most of you cannot except for the engineers and some sharp people who frequent these forums. Most of you simply do not have the foundation to begin understanding the problems that stem from the technology and are sputtering absolute nonsense - and you do not have the foundation to understand this very sentence and how it is true, and probably find it insulting.

Ok, let me repeat what I have said before.

You only need one person with the know-how to create a means for cheating. Distributing it is easy. Software or instructions on how to cheat can be dispursed through the Internet or however. To continue the usage of a cheat, it would be wise to keep it contained within a team or whatever small group.

There are two main types of cheater software in my mind. One kind can defeat every existing and anticipated trigger test and the other has adjustments that can be dialed in to change its behavior ie: the misunderstood topic of the "debounce" setting which to me is nearly equivalent to a "turbo" setting because that is what they really are on all the popular cheater markers and boards but people are too dumb to realize this because there is a different label. A rose by any other name. The first type of software none of you will probably have access to and is the kind that will not be caught. The second is a description of popular boards and software available for public consumption which is easily caught even moreso with the new testing machines.

I will not explain how this is done, but I can set up my marker such that the cheater board is in my loader and I toggle it on and off by licking my hopper lid. Do not think for one second that I am joking. Licking two metal leads will complete a circuit.

Go ahead and check my gun! Trace my PCB! Reverse engineer the software on my security locked microchip which does not have the cheater code on it in the first place! The good news is you could probably outsource the project to electrical and computer engineers from India or South Africa if you would like to save on costs. You would have to seize my marker to do this and study it - too bad it is my hopper that is actually the illegal component. I am sure people would love the NPPL stealing your marker for a few months and shipping it to India for investigation as a form of random check.

You do not even need to use software to enduce electronic cheating. What is needed is a method to change the electronic logic which is what software does but is not a requirement to have software to do this.

New testing devices can curtail some of the cheating but it will be ineffective against those with access to markers purposely setup to defeat the system. They are out there - can you guess who is using them?

Well there actually is a solution to the cheating problem - a saline solution and a bucket.

[Meph]

Can sum this up down to a trend I've sort of noticed during the years.

Back in say... late 90's and start of new millenium. What was the max anybody shot? About 10-13 balls per second. Even if there was a 'full auto' switch on the marker or a turbo-ramp they still couldn't outshoot the hopper.

Suddenly Halo came along. And Egg2. What happened? That paint limiting factor suddenly was broken, and the marker could cycle faster with paint keeping up. From a limited 12bps now to 18bps, then newer technology and programming pumping it up to now 35bps.


Not exactly a "solution" but damn closest and easiest to enforce since no special coding would have to be re-done on markers. Have a hopper limited back to gravity, or a 13bps force feed (making it pointless almost). And voila. Who cares if they ramp, that ramp is no faster than what everybody else can shoot any ways!


But it'll never happen. Politics + Money in the tournament world have corrupt it beyond repair. And since the players try and take as much leverage they can get via having their sponsors make them special cheater boards... rather than standing up for what's right with the 1-finger salute to those greedy promoters. Nothing will ever change. The players are the ones who really have the ability to make change, but they will never do it.

[GoatBoy]

Funny post Tapper... of course, I think licking your hopper mid-game might be a dead giveaway... Unless you were to develop a hopper that used a tasty candy shell...

I thought about what you said with the logic. I think I have a vague idea of what you're talking about. Much better than anything I have previously come up with.

So, you start by agreeing with my base principle. Makes the rest of your post which seems to vehemently opposed to my suggestions rather bizarre. The most cheating is from average paintballers using the cheats built into the standard software and failures in design of the hardware. Not big budget teams with access programming, development and (willing to cheat) factory support.

Here, let me clear the confusion up for you then. We call them 'script kiddies' in the computer world.

And this thread was started specifically in regards to cheats presumably coming from companies. Although I would say that they don't need to.

Not only did you add that, but you added a page full of other notable additions to this rather simple little task. We've already said code doesn't need to be flashed.

We have names for people who know circuits and programming. They're called electrical engineers. I happen to be one. Tapper might be one also. Or something with a physics background?

And finally, we see that it's not so simple, and probably not so cheap, to check these "piddling" paintball guns.

From what I can tell, most people, not just me, are ripping your posts up. I didn't start "mocking" you until you decided to engage in the "garbage" of my post. You can roll your eyes, but it's only because you haven't come back with anything effective. Maybe you should stop giving us material to work with.

I like that rider at the end... I think you emphasized the wrong word though, maybe it should have been "cheating isn't that far advanced YET."

Again with the software. Oh, and now we're talking about encapsulating boards! Whatever happened to putting a big sticker on the board? You realize that encapsulating boards is just a fancy tamper-proof sticker, right?


While you talk of throwing out the rule book, you might want to check the thread about the NXL rule change. Why did the rule change (if indeed it's true)? Because people wanted it that way.

Reading comprehension time: I never said human desire can't be curbed. Plenty of people still speed every day. Try another analogy; there are actually ones that could help your argument, but this one doesn't work.

The chronographs that I'm around are used by people who want to follow the rules, and I'm thankful that they're there for that purpose. With cheats like dwell time and such on these boards, they won't catch people trying to really cheat, unless they develop something better. The only way to do this so far is in-game on-gun monitoring. You know, that whole "invasive garbage" argument.


No, you see, I don't think you read the post with my "invasive garbage" in it. Either that, or you didn't understand it.

I'm going to space it out so you can see it a little better.












We have an atmosphere which is way too conducive to this sort of behavior. The tools? They're plentiful, I think you'd do well to stop arguing this. People like cheaters, and they want to cheat. Companies are aware of this. And if they're not explicitly supporting the behavior, they're tacitly doing so by not doing anything to help us out.

If you really want it to stop, this has to change. And it won't change by forcing some really poorly thought out overly complex yet sadly ineffective technical scheme onto players and companies that refuse to conform in the first place.

The solution is to create an atmosphere where cheating is NOT tolerated. Everything has to follow that, not the other way around. It should be badly ostracized, and if a company contributes to the problem then you should walk away from them as well. All too many times I hear people complaining about really flagrantly wrong things that happen at fields, yet they keep going back and giving them their money.

It's a tough problem.













Yikes. I'm going to assume this was a rhetorical question.



I dunno, I've pulled a lot of stickers off in tact. Most of the examples that you cited (barring the racing example, I'll admit I have no experience with that) I HAVE pulled off in tact. Hell I could just destroy the product in order to carefully take the sticker off and put it on something else if need be. Yeah, great, it's got a serial number on it. And it will have that exact serial number on it when I put it on the new device. I'll look into the racing thing if I have time, it does sound interesting. And I will google it, but you need to keep in mind the application you are trying to protect, and really think if a tamper resistant sticker's going to offer real protection.

On top of that, a tamper resistant sticker doesn't necessarily need to be destroyed or removed to be circumvented for our purposes.

[Brophog]

People like cheaters, and they want to cheat. Companies are aware of this. And if they're not explicitly supporting the behavior, they're tacitly doing so by not doing anything to help us out.

Woah. I stayed out of this so far, due to the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Have we gone so far as a country as to make the above statement true. Think about the ramifications, not just in paintball, of that particular statement.

[FallNAngel]

It would take almost nothing to do something like this. Hell, I can. Yes, something in glove or crotch could work. A radio frequency switch, that switches the code rom cheat to non cheat or semi to full auto, and you trigger it by hidden buttons on your pocket or crotch or whatever

..which would require modification to the board... which would be seen during inspection.

I will not explain how this is done, but I can set up my marker such that the cheater board is in my loader and I toggle it on and off by licking my hopper lid. Do not think for one second that I am joking. Licking two metal leads will complete a circuit.

Go ahead and check my gun! Trace my PCB! Reverse engineer the software on my security locked microchip which does not have the cheater code on it in the first place! The good news is you could probably outsource the project to electrical and computer engineers from India or South Africa if you would like to save on costs. You would have to seize my marker to do this and study it - too bad it is my hopper that is actually the illegal component. I am sure people would love the NPPL stealing your marker for a few months and shipping it to India for investigation as a form of random check.

OK... so you have this circuit in your hopper that you activate by licking it. That I buy. Somehow, that's going to have to modify the logic on the board somehow. On inspection, I would certainly hope they'd notice there'd wires running from the gun to the loader or a RF receiver attached to the board.

Standardized boards that are reflashable, are the way to go IMO. It's the easiest way to make sure that all of the boards are all the same and have the same code.

[Enemy]

ok ive read all of this and i know im not really well informed yet i do know enough so here goes...

how hard would it be to make a machine that fires a trigger x amount of times...if marker fires y amount of times then there is something wrong!!! nppl started this but they had a main focus more for ramping velocity then ramping firing. its hard to tell but skilled people know when they are pulling the trigger and when they arent the line gets blurred now adays cuz what we are used to be one shot one pull is infact more than that.. debounce is turbo mode guess who really started turbo mode, i believe it was sp in the shocker turbo where they noticed a switch would send offmultiple signals off of one pull up until then those bouncing signals were ignored but sp programed the boards to recognize those signals as another pull and fire the marker!!!under the current rules it was legal because the switch was being actuated bye the triggers bounce so there wasnt much done to stop it and the shockers were capped like all markers at 13 bps. ok i also know of cheater boards that before the game a preprogramed series of taps on the trigger or switch would turn on the cheat and then if the marker set unfired for a certain time the boarde would revert back to its legal mode..when i ref at my field i make it a point to shoot everything that comes throw the cronny if the owner will allow me ive caught e a5s on response mode and i told the guy to turn it off after 30 minutes of arguing my buddy checked the gun and said i was crazy cuz he didnt know what he was looking for i did..its all good the a5 saw little action as i gunned him down almost every round after that. the fact is too many people dont know what to look/feel for i got no help from anyone but myself and that didnt help matters at all!! now cheater boards are here and i do believe that dm4s may very well have a simple one stock on them as it is very easy to rip a consistent stream out of one of those and i myself hadent really walked any other marker in my life!! my new xmag is hard to rip a cosistant stream out of but with practice im getting better hmm maybe it is one shot one pull!! no all of the enforcement out there is a moot point the realliaty of the subject is that governing bodies need to start taking away cheater products that will help bye making cheats less accessable just like hacks are today..but there will still be cheaters out there so the next way at looking at it is if they are going to do it to me then i will do it back and that attitude is where we are at today so until the tourneys start finding methods of catching all cheats then everyone will have to accept that they are there and play on trying to help in anyone they can to find a way to stop it...thats all i have to say goodnight all

[teufelhunden]

What? Cheating with most boards/markers is as simple as settings and trigger adjustments. There's no skill in cheating with what's allowed on the field these days.

Uh, duhhhh? That's not cheating well, that's playing with your board. Cheating well is taking it onto the field and not getting caught.

[Tapper]

..which would require modification to the board... which would be seen during inspection.



OK... so you have this circuit in your hopper that you activate by licking it. That I buy. Somehow, that's going to have to modify the logic on the board somehow. On inspection, I would certainly hope they'd notice there'd wires running from the gun to the loader or a RF receiver attached to the board.

Standardized boards that are reflashable, are the way to go IMO. It's the easiest way to make sure that all of the boards are all the same and have the same code.

Hey goober. Reread my post and review how I noted how it is not necessary at all to use cheater software on the marker's board to cheat which was the point of my reference to an illegal loader - one of many many obscure ways you can cheat. This demonstrates the limited understanding of the masses that I mentioned earlier wasting our time on this subject by regurgitating the same misconceptions.

[Tapper]

..which would require modification to the board... which would be seen during inspection.

Agreed. An inspection done by outsourced labor force in India or perhaps Sri Lanka, take your pick. And the cheat does not have to be located on the board. The first problem is you will not even know where to look. The second is if you did you'd need an expert to figure it out and it could take him an unpractical amount of time.

[Tapper]

OK... so you have this circuit in your hopper that you activate by licking it. That I buy. Somehow, that's going to have to modify the logic on the board somehow. On inspection, I would certainly hope they'd notice there'd wires running from the gun to the loader or a RF receiver attached to the board.

It's called an Intellifeed cable.

[Jack & Coke]

What? Cheating with most boards/markers is as simple as settings and trigger adjustments. There's no skill in cheating with what's allowed on the field these days.

SlartyBartFast is correct.