Cheating

Cheating is the use of an unfair advantage by various means in competition to do better than other players. The Odamex client and WAD files may be modified, and some players choose to modify them to cheat. Our community is against cheating and takes active measures to prevent, detect and eliminate cheats.

Types of Cheats

Wallhack

This is a modification of the client for a visual advantage, most commonly to be granted the ability to see another player through a wall to know where he or she is located most of the time.

Speedhack

This is often achieved by a stand-alone process that boosts one's CPU speed in order to accomplish the usual goal of a speedhack, hence the name applied to this cheat, to boost up one's local speed to be faster than that of other players.

Aimbot

This is a common cheat that is often produced by modifying the client and that uses automatic aiming algorithms in order to attain superior aim.

Exploit

An engine exploit may in rare cases be used to cheat.

Rejected solutions

Closing the source

Security through obscurity leads to both insecurity and obscurity. This:

• Stagnates development
• Reduces number of eyes checking the code for bugs
• Encourages binary cheat distribution
• Has been shown to fail countless times
• Limits the target platforms

An open source project under a viral license forces source code to be made available of any derived works (including cheats).

Blacklisting

Some have proposed banning all cheaters. This is a bad idea because:

• A ban can only lock out a computer address, not the individual
• Long ban lists require much storage and maintenance
• If used sparingly, some innocent players would also be banned by mistake
• Reduces the scope for testing countermeasures

However, in specific cases, bans remain a useful deterrent.

Whitelisting

A global login system was proposed in order to enforce nicknames. This would, in theory, cut down on the number of potential spoofing and DDoS problems by only accepting connections from a list of signed-up members. It would also make user-tracking easier. However it has not been implemented because:

• It would require far more storage and maintenance than even a blacklist
• It would provide a single point of failure

What you can do

When you believe that another player has used an unfair advantage against you, report that player to the server administrator or the odamex team.