A Simple way to detect a spoofer account,
A Simple way to detect a spoofer account, a pattern that all spoofers have in common, all have private statistics. Why? Because the modified software does not register the cellphone's motion sensor, this means that it records the kilometers it moves, so it is easy to detect an account, just counting the approximate kilometers to obtain an lvl 8 account, in a future Update it would be great that statistics stop being private, and will detect all high-level spoofers accounts with a few kilometers, or that that information you see internally, but here we are already tired of fighting with spoofers, it is literally a lack of respect and consideration for your loyal players.
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Ok, let's debunk this...
1. Many people have their stats private for numerous reasons.
2. Trekker distance is counted Serverside. It counts distance between actions.
3. Many legit agents reach level 8 without having many kilometers just because they move between clusters of portals with a car.
Nothing of what you said identifies a spoofer.
A simple check on the use of motion sensors can solve the problem. But if cheaters learn to emulate this procedure ...
@XQlusioN - What is a legitimate user case for stats private post guardian era?
That feature majorly helps mask illicit play when an unknown account shows up somewhere. If stats were forced visible, you could make easier educated guesses on suspect accounts.
Literally all spoofers accounts have private statistics, here we have that problem for a long time, for example we have a spoofer that we have banned 3 times in a row and create a new account with the same name and only change one letter, the. He has said that it is a kamicaze account, as long as unlimited accounts can be created by phone, this will never end, if they would limit one to one per phone imei it would be something else, since when banning a user I would ban the Imei, which usually on a rooted phone they could modify it, have you seen the spoofers forums on reddit? They should learn from there, how to fight spoofers technically. Or with the Subscription Model, limiting the creation of mobile accounts, that would help.
You can determine if someone is in their "home area" by monitoring their unique counts. If it suddenly goes up, then they are likely on a trip somewhere. You can also use other statistics, such missions completed, portals captured, and agreements in a similar manner to track someone's activities. Others simply like the privacy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either. The problem with the "nothing to hide" fallacy is that the mere act of keeping one's data private becomes a presumption of guilt without actual proof.
Depends on how urban an environment played in. If it's in a highly public transportation environment, dead giveaway.
Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to tell by looking at someone's stats.
But it's not our responsibility to check if someone is a spoofer, it's Niantic's. If there is a certain set of stats that would indicate a definitive spoof, then by all means, implement it and ban accounts that have those stats.
But we all know that Ingress can be played in a vast amount of ways, there is no specific set of stats that isn't achievable by normal play.
There is no way to end spoofing. We have to accept that.
There are ways to mitigate the effects of spoofing. And that is where Niantic should focus their resources on.
If there were "a Simple way to detect a spoofer account" then Niantic would be using it. But there isn't.
Id suggest that Make agent stats private feature to be a subscription service only in the future so the free users will not be able to do it Right?
The only problem with requiring payment for privacy is the numerous civil rights laws in many different countries and how they are interpreted. Also, making stats private does not automatically guarantee a person being a spoofer. In today's day and age, people like things to be as personal and private to themselves as possible. They don't like their statistics being out there for all to see, even though they are a genuine rule-following Agent. If anything I'd like to see an option for things like a 'friends list' and making stats private except for those in my friends list, etc in addition to completely private stats.
When I was new I was told to hide my stats. I was told that one reason to do it is because other agents could get an idea of your play style by viewing it; implying that the less the opposition knows about me, the better. I’ve never spoofed, and I prefer to keep myself as much of a mystery as possible. There is no harm in stats being hidden, and I really don’t know how one would surmise a spoofer from stats. The badges alone tell you pretty much the same thing as the stats do. With that I’ve come to assume that my stats being hidden is rather pointless, but I also see no reason to unhide them. If a portal is quite literally unreachable, or if an agent/account moves between portals in a manner that would require a helicopter to do it, assuming it’s been spoofed becomes warranted.
A basic speed limit rule would be nice, but its more than obvious that they still don't use this. If an agent can perform an action then pop up several hundred miles away in less than an hour and perform another action, this is something that should be caught by Niantic's servers before that 2nd action even occurs. But it they don't apparently have that type of check in place. Even if they had something that could actually soft ban / flag the account after that 2nd action happens and send a report to NIA ops to check, would be nice, but it doesn't occur.
And before people say that is outside of something that could be done, it occurs elsewhere for other companies. Like you know, for Credit Card companies, and such. Even some restaurant companies use similar checks for certain things. It's completely doable if someone takes the time to implement it. It surely seems like it would be a very doable and low cost thing to do, to limit the amount of damage spoofers can/could do...
This: if there was a way to merge the goggle maps algorithm in the basic way to get from one point to another and calculate the average time it takes to get from point A to point B, as a rule, it would be great but the same It could be mocked, since from experience, we have already had several cases, of spoofers who know the roads very well and make the route as if they were on a bus, take the times, and make fun of any type of control, But, it does not appear in statistics, since from experience the majority of legal agents do not hide their statistics because it is a pride to show them, it is something worth showing, however the one who hides them feels shame, that their statistics reveal their way of making fun of the system, which in itself is an achievement, but there are many agents that abuse that "system" and cause real harm to legal players, here we have very aggressive spoofers, and yet they use kamikase accounts, who know they are going to ban them but believe other and the slight, that is why the imei ban is necessary, or the limitation of creation accounts by imei or another system that disables the phone to create accounts, although we have spoofers that have publicly declared that they play from PC
PoGo (and to an extent, Ingress) spoofers are willing to spend real money to buy apps used for spoofing. Locking that feature behind a paywall is only going to damage the f2p crowd.
Per my understanding only proper way to ban spoofers - grab current cellular info + wifi ap name, compare it with actions and if 2 actions happened between portals more than 3km away on same wifi spot or cellular antenna - auto ban. Niantic already implemented new Privacy policy that allows it to grab this info. Just implement it and you will see how much accounts actually spoofers now.
After implementation of 3 warnings rule our city completely ruined by spoofers, nobody wanna play, reports to Niantic actually do nothing. Trusted reps banned 1 of 6 spoofers within 1 week. It's too slow. Mostly game is dead in Minsk, Belarus
Cell towers range can be up to 70km
So that is a roughly 15000 square km area.
Basing your spoofing detection on that will get a lot of false positives
"I saw something on the people i don't like"
"That must be indicative of all cheaters!"
"Lets stop it, so I can see people cheating!"
Firstly, you can't hide badges, and it doesn't take much for bronze Trekker. Secondly, people hide their stats to hide their stats from the opposition. Things like longest held portal, mission history, being able to see where someone's focusing their attention etc, are insight that hiding stats can provide.
Secondly, if hiding stats is indicative of a spoofer, then the game is filled with spoofers, because more people hide their stats than don't. And if having a low trekker is indicative of a spoofer, modified software will simply make it register. It's even easier to register as walking as it is to spoof. People do it for PoGo all the time, to hatch eggs. Revealing stats won't stop spoofers. It'll simply make their software more complex.
If I was a software developer I would remove the option to hide the players stats. There should be no reason to hide your stats...
It's clear you're not a software developer, or more particularly a real world game developer, because then you'd know the plethora of legitimate reasons to hide your stats.
At least in my community, hiding statistics is a common pattern among spoofers, for example there is a bridge that connects an island with the city and is full of portals, one. Night magically appeared a beautiful art of a multilayer that the person who built it should have walked about 5 km to do it, was a new account and did not have a 1 km walked, how do you explain that? In addition, the bridge closes at 7 pm and that was **** after 12 o'clock. The point is: all spoofers at least hide their statistics here, since they do not mark km with their spoof software.
@VSSX While I agree spoofers do hide their stats, they are not the only ones, and there are plenty of people who have legitimate privacy concerns.
You're attempting to snipe the miscreants with a nuke.
That was funny, because that's what I try to fix, if Ingress Prime could detect the bypass of the moving km, it would save us a lot of time lost in reports and nia in reviewing them.
Sure, but preventing anyone from hiding stats will not allow you to fix that. You are not the Ingress Police. If you think someone's cheating, report them. If someone has black Translator and doesn't have bronze Trekker, report them.
Cheaters aways hide their stats. But not everybody who does it is a cheater.
But is really obvious when a new account appears, leveling up fast, making layers, capturing just the first reso and moving on, ignoring comm, playing aways in the same area that other spoofers did, destroing and creating specific strategically placed blocks, etc. Everybody see it, but the reports leads to nothing.
Is it so easy to fool Niantic? Or is it so hard to detect that x account has being logged in the same phone as y?
Yeah, but we need to improve the reporting system, or try imei ban, you know we have a spoofer that has been banned 5 times and he create another account with the same name only change a letter, he have made the game a tool for intimidation, its really hard to make a player banned and in the same day he create a new a account lvl6 so, the report system sux, we need imei banning with this kind of players.
Well yeah,if smb has zero trekker but L8 it's potentially spoofer.But better look other badges.If that account got for example ouroboros,sage etc (and guardian) but trekker is 0 or bronze - that's the multiaccount detector,at least.
Closed stats "smell bad" too.
But in general it's a point of trust or dis-trust.
There are a lot of us old guard agents who turned on privacy to protect our Guardian counts and simply never turned it off. Are we all cheaters too?
I don't think everyone who hides stats is a spoofer but it does seem everyone who spoofs hides stats
This brings up the question, why are player stats even visible to other players in the first place? It is not necessary for them to be visible in order to play.
All hardware sensor and satellite information can be spoofed.
Superb spoofing software and hardware exists that is nearly indistinguishable from legit data.
Perhaps the people behind the best software are the ones you'd least expect.
"There is no simple solution other than to buy items from the in game cash shop" - NiaBrian.