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View Full Version : How to catch a hacker - Everything you need to know



Toxin
13 May 2009, 04:03pm
Introduction

Didn't we all have a moment while playing CS:S when we were really asking ourselves "Isn't that guy totally hacking?". While experienced hackers are very hard to reveal, they do sometimes make mistakes and with some experience you can catch them.

First of all, very many players that have been accused of hacking are simply extremely good, and that has to be cosindered. Only a tiny portion of players out their use cheats and hacks to gain an unfair advantage.




First time hackers

Let's say you see a person come into the server and gets his butt owned. The next day he comes back and suddenly dominates the server... Random? I don't think so. Either that person has become extremely good overnight, or - in most cases - has gotten himself some cheats to not get picked on etc. This 'First time hackers are easy to catch.
How to spot a first time hacker:
First time hackers usually have little experience on how to operate cheat/hacks and will most likely just stand in spawn for a few seconds trying to modify the hack. That is easy to spot and you should be always supiscous, should this happend multiple times.
Also, an unexperienced hacker will most likely use the hacks without care, such as spraying his/her weapon the whole time or get a headshot over a long distance while moving. Another very obvious way to catch newbie hackers is by spectating them and looking out if the shoot trough walls or doors. Many of them will usually lock onto the target and stay locked eventhough the target disppears out of his/her view. Many very new hackers will set their Hacks too high and will spin around very frequently, as if knowing that someone is about to ambush them. That can either be done with wallhacks, radarhacks or simply aimbot.




An experienced hacker
Experienced hackers are a whole new category. They know how to use their hacks and usually come in with the hacks prepared. They usually don't make many visible mistakes and usually seem friendly to not get suspiscous. However, they do several mistakes that newbies also do. One way to catch them is if they just randomly spray when they win the round or when they are bored, then look exactly how and where the bullets hit and maybe you can catch them with a no-spray-hack.
Experienced hackers never shoot trough walls but use the knowledge the wall hack provides them to their advantage by avoiding the enemy and ambushing him. One obvious way to catch hackers is by spectating them and looking out if they have recoil. Should the screen show that they have recoil but they always land in the same place, you know ist hacks.





I hope this helped. I was bored and tried to do something productive for the community.

DoubleSb
13 May 2009, 06:29pm
Dr. Hacks.

Troy
13 May 2009, 07:43pm
NIce guide :happy:, you probaly know what hackers do.

Pancake Batter
13 May 2009, 07:56pm
Cool guide, I use to report hackers all the time back in '07. I'd start doing it again but I lost interest in sitting around in spec all the time.

XeNo
13 May 2009, 08:10pm
There's a lot more to it than that.

Tricks of the trade, my friend.


The obvious ones will always be exactly that, obvious, their crosshair will shake, they'll get near impossible headshots, they'll play like an idiot but get kills all the time.

Catching good hackers is all about practice, learning how to spot one, what certain traits give them away, ect. ect.


Really catching hackers is almost like a job, the more you work at it, the easier it is.

Wrathek
14 May 2009, 07:58am
There's a lot more to it than that.

Tricks of the trade, my friend.


The obvious ones will always be exactly that, obvious, their crosshair will shake, they'll get near impossible headshots, they'll play like an idiot but get kills all the time.

Catching good hackers is all about practice, learning how to spot one, what certain traits give them away, ect. ect.


Really catching hackers is almost like a job, the more you work at it, the easier it is.

I do that shit all the time and I don't hack :(

Chobber
14 May 2009, 09:06am
I do that shit all the time and I don't hack :(

But thats just pure darn luck! :D

FightingRooster
14 May 2009, 02:53pm
Although I don't play many games where hacks are useful (Deathrun, minigames), I'll keep this in mind ;)

Dracula
14 May 2009, 02:58pm
As XeNo said watch for shaking, the hackers who either buy their hacks or make them will not shake to violently [just a small amount] but its still detectable.

SneakySnake
14 May 2009, 08:06pm
Just let VAC do the work.

DoubleSb
14 May 2009, 08:21pm
Just let VAC do the work.

Vac doesn't do their shit till like 2 weeks later =P

Dracula
14 May 2009, 08:27pm
Just let VAC do the work.

Your trust in VAC is miss-placed.

XeNo
14 May 2009, 08:35pm
I do that shit all the time and I don't hack :(
Lol,

No you don't.

Just let VAC do the work.
I used to hack, my account wasn't banned until the Winamp ban vac so conveniently put into 1.5 that detects Winamp and a few other MP3 players at the time as a hack, and mass-banned a ton of accounts.

Vac is useless to keep up with hacks. Especially on old games.

Huwajux
15 May 2009, 04:32pm
You can also clearly spot a hacker if you spec him and his screen is turned upside down. A bit obvious but it all helps.

Shadowex3
16 May 2009, 01:39am
So much misinformation I want to cry...

Credentials: Worked at and with Counter-Hack from the time that aimbots used neon red and green and a seperate program to detect those colors and wallhacks were glitched Asus drivers all the way through XQZ2 revolutionising hacking with Hooks and "smart" aimbots with OGC, Myg0t, MPC, and Source Industries picking up the slack.

Right. Now. 99% of what you think is aimbotting or wallhacking isn't. The sooner you admit that the happier you'll be. I don't care if you suck and play without mouselook or if you're Cal-I and regularly go 2-3:1 even on your off days.

If someone is hacking and they're good you'll never know because they won't ever track, they'll "act" surprised by someone coming around a wall, their shots won't land in patterns, and if they have an aimbot they will only ever toggle it after MANUALLY getting onto the player's body and firing the first shot so any jerking looks like it's just recoil. Trust me on this, during Counter-Mole me and a bunch of other people were given generic names and the best of the admin world from United Admins to CAL's guys were invited to try and figure out who was hacking. Despite using a wallhack, an aimbot, and being able to see red/blue lines showing where other players were aiming I was never detected. Neither was Joolz.

If they suck on the other hand, there won't be ANY doubt because the screen doesn't do anything but the BULLETS do. The old shaky screen being a guarantee is kinda a myth, lift your mouse ~1cm off the pad and watch it jitter to see why, but there are still extremely obvious giveaways on the newbs.

The most obvious being multiple shots in a row or defined patterns (every 5th shot hits the head) landing on his opponent's body. In normal CSS the random conefire makes that happen one time out of FIFTY at anything other than point blank range. To a spectator an aimbot will look like the guy aiming normally, you may not even see him doing anything, but you'll see a zombie for example being hit by 10+ shots in a row and FLYING away. Being upside-down isn't even a hack, you can do that with clientside scripts. It's been around since half-life1 where it was used to tilt your hitboxes at a 45deg angle so that TFC's sentryguns couldn't hit you.

And ANY time ANY subsequent shots from a non-scoped rifle lands in the same exact spot while spraying it's BS since the random conefire is literally impossible for a human to predict.


[edit]

And one last warning: Spectator view is NOT truly accurate. Aside from the increased lag and often lower amount of data being sent to you to conserve server resources (you're dead anyway) it doesn't show a lot of first person stuff accurately. Someone may be able to see over something and on your screen you can't, in Insurgency for example spectating doesn't show leaning or where the free-aim is pointing.

Jazz
16 May 2009, 05:17am
So much misinformation I want to cry...

Credentials: Worked at and with Counter-Hack from the time that aimbots used neon red and green and a seperate program to detect those colors and wallhacks were glitched Asus drivers all the way through XQZ2 revolutionising hacking with Hooks and "smart" aimbots with OGC, Myg0t, MPC, and Source Industries picking up the slack.

Right. Now. 99% of what you think is aimbotting or wallhacking isn't. The sooner you admit that the happier you'll be. I don't care if you suck and play without mouselook or if you're Cal-I and regularly go 2-3:1 even on your off days.

If someone is hacking and they're good you'll never know because they won't ever track, they'll "act" surprised by someone coming around a wall, their shots won't land in patterns, and if they have an aimbot they will only ever toggle it after MANUALLY getting onto the player's body and firing the first shot so any jerking looks like it's just recoil. Trust me on this, during Counter-Mole me and a bunch of other people were given generic names and the best of the admin world from United Admins to CAL's guys were invited to try and figure out who was hacking. Despite using a wallhack, an aimbot, and being able to see red/blue lines showing where other players were aiming I was never detected. Neither was Joolz.

If they suck on the other hand, there won't be ANY doubt because the screen doesn't do anything but the BULLETS do. The old shaky screen being a guarantee is kinda a myth, lift your mouse ~1cm off the pad and watch it jitter to see why, but there are still extremely obvious giveaways on the newbs.

The most obvious being multiple shots in a row or defined patterns (every 5th shot hits the head) landing on his opponent's body. In normal CSS the random conefire makes that happen one time out of FIFTY at anything other than point blank range. To a spectator an aimbot will look like the guy aiming normally, you may not even see him doing anything, but you'll see a zombie for example being hit by 10+ shots in a row and FLYING away. Being upside-down isn't even a hack, you can do that with clientside scripts. It's been around since half-life1 where it was used to tilt your hitboxes at a 45deg angle so that TFC's sentryguns couldn't hit you.

And ANY time ANY subsequent shots from a non-scoped rifle lands in the same exact spot while spraying it's BS since the random conefire is literally impossible for a human to predict.


[edit]

And one last warning: Spectator view is NOT truly accurate. Aside from the increased lag and often lower amount of data being sent to you to conserve server resources (you're dead anyway) it doesn't show a lot of first person stuff accurately. Someone may be able to see over something and on your screen you can't, in Insurgency for example spectating doesn't show leaning or where the free-aim is pointing.

uhh... Shit i'm not going to read that. I think Toxin's info was good enough. Thanks!

Shadowex3
16 May 2009, 06:00pm
Fine, TLDR version: Real hacks are capable of making shots land in the same spot even if the screen shows normal recoil and spraying, something no human can do since CS:S uses randomized conefire. Anything else and chances are almost certain it's not an aimbot.

Toxin
16 May 2009, 10:55pm
Added just a few facts, thanks for the information!

connor
17 May 2009, 11:58pm
Ty toxin

Henrik
18 May 2009, 12:02am
3 of my friends is hacking....

Harbor
18 May 2009, 09:52pm
Your trust in VAC is miss-placed.

that sounds like fucking yoda

and good guide dood ill keep it mind

im still trying to catch trogdor and his surf hacks:toung:

Shadowex3
19 May 2009, 08:23am
I hacked your mom last night...

Dracula
19 May 2009, 12:46pm
So much misinformation I want to cry...

Credentials: Worked at and with Counter-Hack from the time that aimbots used neon red and green and a seperate program to detect those colors and wallhacks were glitched Asus drivers all the way through XQZ2 revolutionising hacking with Hooks and "smart" aimbots with OGC, Myg0t, MPC, and Source Industries picking up the slack.

Right. Now. 99% of what you think is aimbotting or wallhacking isn't. The sooner you admit that the happier you'll be. I don't care if you suck and play without mouselook or if you're Cal-I and regularly go 2-3:1 even on your off days.

If someone is hacking and they're good you'll never know because they won't ever track, they'll "act" surprised by someone coming around a wall, their shots won't land in patterns, and if they have an aimbot they will only ever toggle it after MANUALLY getting onto the player's body and firing the first shot so any jerking looks like it's just recoil. Trust me on this, during Counter-Mole me and a bunch of other people were given generic names and the best of the admin world from United Admins to CAL's guys were invited to try and figure out who was hacking. Despite using a wallhack, an aimbot, and being able to see red/blue lines showing where other players were aiming I was never detected. Neither was Joolz.

If they suck on the other hand, there won't be ANY doubt because the screen doesn't do anything but the BULLETS do. The old shaky screen being a guarantee is kinda a myth, lift your mouse ~1cm off the pad and watch it jitter to see why, but there are still extremely obvious giveaways on the newbs.

The most obvious being multiple shots in a row or defined patterns (every 5th shot hits the head) landing on his opponent's body. In normal CSS the random conefire makes that happen one time out of FIFTY at anything other than point blank range. To a spectator an aimbot will look like the guy aiming normally, you may not even see him doing anything, but you'll see a zombie for example being hit by 10+ shots in a row and FLYING away. Being upside-down isn't even a hack, you can do that with clientside scripts. It's been around since half-life1 where it was used to tilt your hitboxes at a 45deg angle so that TFC's sentryguns couldn't hit you.

And ANY time ANY subsequent shots from a non-scoped rifle lands in the same exact spot while spraying it's BS since the random conefire is literally impossible for a human to predict.


[edit]

And one last warning: Spectator view is NOT truly accurate. Aside from the increased lag and often lower amount of data being sent to you to conserve server resources (you're dead anyway) it doesn't show a lot of first person stuff accurately. Someone may be able to see over something and on your screen you can't, in Insurgency for example spectating doesn't show leaning or where the free-aim is pointing.

Very good post. [You should have made this thread]