Why doesn't VAC ban IPs and HWIDs?

[люблю гейсекс]

I think that VAC would be much more effective if they just banned user's HWIDs and IPs instead of just their accounts. When a hacker gets banned, they make a new account.

[☯Rub A Dub Nub☯™]

Either can be bypassed,

[люблю гейсекс]

☯Rub A Dub Nub☯™ eredeti hozzászólása:

Either can be bypassed,

Still, it's better to have unbypassable protection against making new accounts instead of having no protection against it. Some people don't know how to bypass it.

[Wolf Knight]

they can be spoofed easily. also, it would ban entire businesses (cybercafes), universities, households for just one infraction.

people would also sell banned hardware.

the IP would ban the entire world in a month, it takes seconds to get a new IP

[Commander Makara]

There is a search function for these discussion boards.
This topic returns frequently.

There are multiple reasons against doing this, and no reasonable reason what it might achieve.
In summary:

1) Unreliable. Changing / Spoofing or masking IP address is easy enough for anyone who can download cheats.
2) Unreliable. Changing / spoofing hardware ID is easy enough for anyone that pays monthly subs for cheats.
3) Ineffective - due to #1, #2
4) Punishes users of IPs or Hardware which is not in line with the SSA which considers the issue with the account consequential for the account.
5) Disruptive and problematic for shared IP users, school, university, business, oil-rigs, prisons, shared accommodation etc. users.
6) Harmful for purveyors of 2nd-hand hardware
7) Problematic for those affected by ISP changes to IP and/or those affected by IP spoofing
8) Harmful to business as partner/affiliates' business would be driven away from the toxicity of bans for their potential customer market base through no activity that could impact their (the affiliate) revenue model due to #5, #6 and #7

In short, the problems and expense far outweighs any business value in doing this, it would not reduce, nor impact the visible cheats in-games significantly, but would drive many (affiliates as well as consumers) away from the Steam platform at a current time where competition is truly beginning a burgeoning phase.

PositroniX eredeti hozzászólása:

☯Rub A Dub Nub☯™ eredeti hozzászólása:

Either can be bypassed,

Still, it's better to have unbypassable protection against making new accounts instead of having no protection against it. Some people don't know how to bypass it.

Valve want people to make new, clean accounts.
Eventually, cheats lose interest, learn a lesson or otherwise identify new priorities in their life - whether due to ecomnomics, maturity or simple boredom. Therefore, the result with permanent VCA bans is that even those who habitually cheat on new accounts in F2P games for example, eventually tire of the hassle in account re-creation and cheat subs - ultimately, they leave Steam, leave videogames, or "go straight".
Valve's ideal is option #3 Valve's worst.case, is #1.
To allow them a new opportunity to register a new account, and play fairly engaging with the platform in positive manner is the best outcome.


Many people have extremely harsh views on videogame cheats (I am not giving opinion either way) but this must be tempered with the larger picture of the potential market and Valve's business.

By the time those habitual cheats "go straight", is it better they do this in Epic games, Origin games or Steam games? - You may have your opinion, Valve have theirs too.

[XXX]

PositroniX eredeti hozzászólása:

I think that VAC would be much more effective if they just banned user's HWIDs and IPs

You are very smart. Why dont you work for Valve ?

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

PositroniX eredeti hozzászólása:

☯Rub A Dub Nub☯™ eredeti hozzászólása:

Either can be bypassed,

Still, it's better to have unbypassable protection against making new accounts instead of having no protection against it. Some people don't know how to bypass it.

He literally just said that they can be bypassed and then you say "it's better to have unbypassable protection"

...as for not knowing how to bypass it, if you know how to use Google, you know how to bypass it. It takes seconds to change an IP address and about a minute to change hardware ID's

[The Giving One]

PositroniX eredeti hozzászólása:

Still, it's better to have unbypassable protection against making new accounts instead of having no protection against it. Some people don't know how to bypass it.

At this time in our lives, that is impossible.

You can ban an account, but not a human. And HWID bans and IP bans do not work, or would ban the wrong people.

Use the forum search, please. This has been gone over here many times so you can see we always give the same answers.

[Satoru]

1) IPs can be changed with little effort

2) HWId are only good for WHITELISTS which is how Mcirosoft uses them to activate computers. it is terrible for a blacklist, as it becomes trivial to bypass the blacklist by spoofing various IDs

[Jelly Donut]

PositroniX eredeti hozzászólása:

I think that VAC would be much more effective if they just banned user's HWIDs and IPs instead of just their accounts. When a hacker gets banned, they make a new account.

Well Valve would have done it already if it was that easy.

1) Most IPs are dynamic and changes every few hours or few days. No IP address is static unless it's a commercial line from the Internet Service Provider. It also doesn't make sense to ban an IP because it will interfere with more accounts that aren't involved in cheating. Besides, people can just use a VPN to bypass.

2) Like in (1), you can also get a new NIC to change the ID. So you render the ban meaningless.