My main problems with the game

[MAKAIROSI]

is that i've already played the similar game we all probably already know of, and this seems like a different yet somewhat easier version of that. I'm not going to compare, i'm just going to say my problems with this.

1. Deleting logs

A log is always left when you disconnect so the company already knows your ip. Yet if you rm * you're pretty much safe. But if anyone looked at your logs, they would know where the connection came from and would investigate you. This hasn't happened yet at least.

2. Lack of upgrades

You can't upgrade your machine by completing contracts, and yet everyone talks about how they get money from them. You however have no account, no nothing, so do you really do all of this for free? The only "upgrades" you get are programs that you actually need in order to progress.

3. Following ips

So you get to a proxy, and in the logs you find people that have routed through that proxy. Try to connect to those ips (that have nothing to do with the storyline btw) and it says that it wasn't found. I get it, it wasn't found because it has nothing to do with the story, but shouldn't it be found, at least as an easter egg?

4. You can do nothing with the info you find in other people's computers

My point is that the only reason for digging in their random files is for easter eggs, but there is no other thing you can do. You can't find the people talking, you can't do anything. Also, they don't provide any relevant information for the story, or for its progress, for simple atmosphere. The only thing i thought rewarded me for my digging in was the whole x-server thing.

5. Other hackers can route through proxies, but you can't

Well not that you need to apparently but why not? And if not, why include it? And if they are that good that they route through proxies, then why are they so "dumb" as to leave their logs untouched? i mean, deleting logs is hacking 101 in this game, this is literally the only defense you have against passive tracking. And since you can't route, you don't even need to go to any other routes to delete logs from them.

I'm not saying this is a bad game, far from it. But if you are going to include currency, routing through proxies, random ips etc etc, then at least include them for the player, or not at all. It ruins the immersion. That's all :)

[trainerstar3]

Originally posted by MAKAIROSI:

is that i've already played the similar game we all probably already know of, and this seems like a different yet somewhat easier version of that. I'm not going to compare, i'm just going to say my problems with this.

1. Deleting logs

A log is always left when you disconnect so the company already knows your ip. Yet if you rm * you're pretty much safe. But if anyone looked at your logs, they would know where the connection came from and would investigate you. This hasn't happened yet at least.

2. Lack of upgrades

You can't upgrade your machine by completing contracts, and yet everyone talks about how they get money from them. You however have no account, no nothing, so do you really do all of this for free? The only "upgrades" you get are programs that you actually need in order to progress.

3. Following ips

So you get to a proxy, and in the logs you find people that have routed through that proxy. Try to connect to those ips (that have nothing to do with the storyline btw) and it says that it wasn't found. I get it, it wasn't found because it has nothing to do with the story, but shouldn't it be found, at least as an easter egg?

4. You can do nothing with the info you find in other people's computers

My point is that the only reason for digging in their random files is for easter eggs, but there is no other thing you can do. You can't find the people talking, you can't do anything. Also, they don't provide any relevant information for the story, or for its progress, for simple atmosphere. The only thing i thought rewarded me for my digging in was the whole x-server thing.

5. Other hackers can route through proxies, but you can't

Well not that you need to apparently but why not? And if not, why include it? And if they are that good that they route through proxies, then why are they so "dumb" as to leave their logs untouched? i mean, deleting logs is hacking 101 in this game, this is literally the only defense you have against passive tracking. And since you can't route, you don't even need to go to any other routes to delete logs from them.

I'm not saying this is a bad game, far from it. But if you are going to include currency, routing through proxies, random ips etc etc, then at least include them for the player, or not at all. It ruins the immersion. That's all :)

1. That's only in the main game. Better get used to forkbombing instead of disconnecting if you want to play the high difficulty mods.

2. You're running a VM, how the hell are you going to do hardware updates?

3. Defunct IPs are a thing in Hacknet, according to Labyrinths. You should be able to track quite a few people though.

4. Most of the stuff you find in home/, unless it's put there manually, is randomly generated.

5. I think the VM does that automatically. It IS advanced enough that it can use ETAS.

[unknown]

Originally posted by trainerstar3:

Originally posted by MAKAIROSI:

is that i've already played the similar game we all probably already know of, and this seems like a different yet somewhat easier version of that. I'm not going to compare, i'm just going to say my problems with this.

1. Deleting logs

A log is always left when you disconnect so the company already knows your ip. Yet if you rm * you're pretty much safe. But if anyone looked at your logs, they would know where the connection came from and would investigate you. This hasn't happened yet at least.

2. Lack of upgrades

You can't upgrade your machine by completing contracts, and yet everyone talks about how they get money from them. You however have no account, no nothing, so do you really do all of this for free? The only "upgrades" you get are programs that you actually need in order to progress.

3. Following ips

So you get to a proxy, and in the logs you find people that have routed through that proxy. Try to connect to those ips (that have nothing to do with the storyline btw) and it says that it wasn't found. I get it, it wasn't found because it has nothing to do with the story, but shouldn't it be found, at least as an easter egg?

4. You can do nothing with the info you find in other people's computers

My point is that the only reason for digging in their random files is for easter eggs, but there is no other thing you can do. You can't find the people talking, you can't do anything. Also, they don't provide any relevant information for the story, or for its progress, for simple atmosphere. The only thing i thought rewarded me for my digging in was the whole x-server thing.

5. Other hackers can route through proxies, but you can't

Well not that you need to apparently but why not? And if not, why include it? And if they are that good that they route through proxies, then why are they so "dumb" as to leave their logs untouched? i mean, deleting logs is hacking 101 in this game, this is literally the only defense you have against passive tracking. And since you can't route, you don't even need to go to any other routes to delete logs from them.

I'm not saying this is a bad game, far from it. But if you are going to include currency, routing through proxies, random ips etc etc, then at least include them for the player, or not at all. It ruins the immersion. That's all :)

1. That's only in the main game. Better get used to forkbombing instead of disconnecting if you want to play the high difficulty mods.

2. You're running a VM, how the hell are you going to do hardware updates?

3. Defunct IPs are a thing in Hacknet, according to Labyrinths. You should be able to track quite a few people though.

4. Most of the stuff you find in home/, unless it's put there manually, is randomly generated.

5. I think the VM does that automatically. It IS advanced enough that it can use ETAS.

1. when looking at logs especialy when concerning a company such as entech they generaly are constantly watching the logs and monitoring them so if they do have a random connection that is not recognized then they will investigate which means the second you connect they already have your ip address even if you delete it since they will probibly write it down or call about it.

2. well a vm is a virtual machine that uses the hardware on your computer so upgrading your personal pc's ram would allow you to allocate more to the virtual machine and i have to admitt that this concept would be a fun idea.

3. yea it is in there but i think the op wanted more of it, but it id definitly in there and there was quite a bit of it in labrynth.

4. breing able to access the home directory and other files in peoples computers tells you what kind of a person is using the pc ex: someone who is security conscious would nto have much on there of value and just include generic stuff that is borderline unusable while a soccer mom would have tons of pictures of here kids, and a gamer would of course have a lot of game and othe programs...it makes the world feel more alive and insentivizes you to explore more

5.a vm doesn't protect you from having your ip reveald to hackers. A vm will make sure if you do get counter hacked or download a virus you can deltet it and restart it without the risk of it infecting your computer but if you hack someone without a proxy/vpn then you are telagraphing you actual ip to them and while hackers like naix uses a proxy to rout his connections through which you follow him through you dont which is not very smart in the hacking world...or at least the illegal hacking world since the legal side is usualy just ctf events and there is realy no need to hide your ip since many of those events cluster people through a vpn or are on site hiding your ip form other hackers...but still even in that you ip is usualy hidden...no matter how advanced your vm is it cannot cover its ip since that is assigned to you by your internet service provider and the only way to hide it is to route your connection t hrough something else like a vpn along side thousands-millions of other people.


so basicly just wanted to point out some inaccuracies in what you are saying as many of his points are valid and i definitly love the game, but i did notice this also which wasn't game breaking or anything but it would have made the game a lot better than it already is which would have moved it up from my 4th favorite game of all time to i woudl say my 2nd (nothign can touch the witcher 3 im sorry it was too well done XD)

[trainerstar3]

Originally posted by anonymous:

Originally posted by trainerstar3:

1. That's only in the main game. Better get used to forkbombing instead of disconnecting if you want to play the high difficulty mods.

2. You're running a VM, how the hell are you going to do hardware updates?

3. Defunct IPs are a thing in Hacknet, according to Labyrinths. You should be able to track quite a few people though.

4. Most of the stuff you find in home/, unless it's put there manually, is randomly generated.

5. I think the VM does that automatically. It IS advanced enough that it can use ETAS.

1. when looking at logs especialy when concerning a company such as entech they generaly are constantly watching the logs and monitoring them so if they do have a random connection that is not recognized then they will investigate which means the second you connect they already have your ip address even if you delete it since they will probibly write it down or call about it.

2. well a vm is a virtual machine that uses the hardware on your computer so upgrading your personal pc's ram would allow you to allocate more to the virtual machine and i have to admitt that this concept would be a fun idea.

3. yea it is in there but i think the op wanted more of it, but it id definitly in there and there was quite a bit of it in labrynth.

4. breing able to access the home directory and other files in peoples computers tells you what kind of a person is using the pc ex: someone who is security conscious would nto have much on there of value and just include generic stuff that is borderline unusable while a soccer mom would have tons of pictures of here kids, and a gamer would of course have a lot of game and othe programs...it makes the world feel more alive and insentivizes you to explore more

5.a vm doesn't protect you from having your ip reveald to hackers. A vm will make sure if you do get counter hacked or download a virus you can deltet it and restart it without the risk of it infecting your computer but if you hack someone without a proxy/vpn then you are telagraphing you actual ip to them and while hackers like naix uses a proxy to rout his connections through which you follow him through you dont which is not very smart in the hacking world...or at least the illegal hacking world since the legal side is usualy just ctf events and there is realy no need to hide your ip since many of those events cluster people through a vpn or are on site hiding your ip form other hackers...but still even in that you ip is usualy hidden...no matter how advanced your vm is it cannot cover its ip since that is assigned to you by your internet service provider and the only way to hide it is to route your connection t hrough something else like a vpn along side thousands-millions of other people.


so basicly just wanted to point out some inaccuracies in what you are saying as many of his points are valid and i definitly love the game, but i did notice this also which wasn't game breaking or anything but it would have made the game a lot better than it already is which would have moved it up from my 4th favorite game of all time to i woudl say my 2nd (nothign can touch the witcher 3 im sorry it was too well done XD)

1. They're busy during the attempt itself trying to track you down. Besides, it's most likely something to prevent the base game from being TOO hard.

2. You would be surprised with how light VMs can be. A Linux VM only takes around 150 mb of RAM, so i would say Hacknet runs with about 1GB. This topic has a bit more info about it.

3. Fair enough.

4. All not-specified stuff in /home is just stuff Matt found and decided to throw it in. Making every single computer unique would take FOREVER. He already has MP to take care of. But i do see where you're coming from.

5. Hacknet is ungodly powerful. ETAS works by killing the ping of a scan the moment it arrives, but before it can send a return. According to the educational archives server you get, that is something that is theoretically possible, but no computer in the game's world EVER managed to pull it off.

And yet a VM does, which speaks a lot about Bit and the other hackers who worked at the project. Doesn't seem that far-fetched that it can automatically route through proxies.

Keep in mind this game was made by ONE person.

[unknown]

Originally posted by trainerstar3:

Originally posted by anonymous:

1. when looking at logs especialy when concerning a company such as entech they generaly are constantly watching the logs and monitoring them so if they do have a random connection that is not recognized then they will investigate which means the second you connect they already have your ip address even if you delete it since they will probibly write it down or call about it.

2. well a vm is a virtual machine that uses the hardware on your computer so upgrading your personal pc's ram would allow you to allocate more to the virtual machine and i have to admitt that this concept would be a fun idea.

3. yea it is in there but i think the op wanted more of it, but it id definitly in there and there was quite a bit of it in labrynth.

4. breing able to access the home directory and other files in peoples computers tells you what kind of a person is using the pc ex: someone who is security conscious would nto have much on there of value and just include generic stuff that is borderline unusable while a soccer mom would have tons of pictures of here kids, and a gamer would of course have a lot of game and othe programs...it makes the world feel more alive and insentivizes you to explore more

5.a vm doesn't protect you from having your ip reveald to hackers. A vm will make sure if you do get counter hacked or download a virus you can deltet it and restart it without the risk of it infecting your computer but if you hack someone without a proxy/vpn then you are telagraphing you actual ip to them and while hackers like naix uses a proxy to rout his connections through which you follow him through you dont which is not very smart in the hacking world...or at least the illegal hacking world since the legal side is usualy just ctf events and there is realy no need to hide your ip since many of those events cluster people through a vpn or are on site hiding your ip form other hackers...but still even in that you ip is usualy hidden...no matter how advanced your vm is it cannot cover its ip since that is assigned to you by your internet service provider and the only way to hide it is to route your connection t hrough something else like a vpn along side thousands-millions of other people.


so basicly just wanted to point out some inaccuracies in what you are saying as many of his points are valid and i definitly love the game, but i did notice this also which wasn't game breaking or anything but it would have made the game a lot better than it already is which would have moved it up from my 4th favorite game of all time to i woudl say my 2nd (nothign can touch the witcher 3 im sorry it was too well done XD)

1. They're busy during the attempt itself trying to track you down. Besides, it's most likely something to prevent the base game from being TOO hard.

2. You would be surprised with how light VMs can be. A Linux VM only takes around 150 mb of RAM, so i would say Hacknet runs with about 1GB. This topic has a bit more info about it.

3. Fair enough.

4. All not-specified stuff in /home is just stuff Matt found and decided to throw it in. Making every single computer unique would take FOREVER. He already has MP to take care of. But i do see where you're coming from.

5. Hacknet is ungodly powerful. ETAS works by killing the ping of a scan the moment it arrives, but before it can send a return. According to the educational archives server you get, that is something that is theoretically possible, but no computer in the game's world EVER managed to pull it off.

And yet a VM does, which speaks a lot about Bit and the other hackers who worked at the project. Doesn't seem that far-fetched that it can automatically route through proxies.

Keep in mind this game was made by ONE person.

1. true. although if you are going for aunthenticity you would more or less be using vpns and proxies to keep you safe and oncd you are discovered you cover your tracks through the vpn/proxy not necessarly deleting your logs on the hacked machine however deleting yoru specific logs makes it harder for a company to figure out its being hacked and forkbombing would be considered sloppy in the real world but this is a game and the idea is to make it so you cant just sit and hack basicly with no time limit however what would have been interesting is a dynamic trace where the odds of a trace activating was based on chance and completelty inevitable if you stayed in a computer for a long time, but that would be a tramendosly complex thing to code but it would be awesome

2.i know how much ram linux as i am currently in the middle of developing a fun hacknet inspired vpn which teaches people the basics of hacking and i currenly have a server capable of running 60 debian linux server distros which will be hosting a variety of chalanges you can check it out if you want the discord is https://discord.gg/JH4CDGp but if you are using a laptop with 3-4 gb of ram you will probibly only allocate a gig to keep your computer from slowing down to a crawl and to reduce bottelnecking

3. we aggree on this lol

4. very true as it would take a lot of time and it does as i am doing this in may custom hacknet extention which will lead people to my training vpn but as for point 1 it would be awesome and add a realy nice touch making the game that much better, however i do understand that it is a single dev project and if we wanted it to release at all we would not be able to have this

5. you know i did forget about what is said on the education server, and the hacknet os itselve is an absolutly godly hacking machine and it is true that this could theroredicaly work, but many have tried this and all have failed that we know of and the reality of this is that a vm isnt for hiding your ip address but keeping your personal computer isolated and their are eazier ways of hiding your ip address like hiding behind tor encryption or being a part of a vpn that does not keep logs and accepts bit coin payment making it impossible to figure out who the attacker was and it is completely legal for the company that can hide behind the "we are not responsivle for tha actions of our customers and we respect anonymaty and if a few bad apples want to use this for hacking and not anonymous internet web browsing then we cant do anything about it" argument and it is realy but as far as hackers go the mantality is that the simpleist solution is always the best and simply using procies is simply simpler and eazier to do and perfectly safe and while there is what you said and how advanced the system is it is simply unnecessarly complex and most hackers woudl simply use a proxy as it isnt hard or time consuming to do.

anyway this has been a fun discussion so far hopefully it continues :)