Packet Sniffing

[humpfry]

I was reading over my MMORPGS EULA, and I came across the term "packet sniffing". The company says it is cheating/hacking the game; I am wondering why this is, and how the game company would even know you are maliciously using the "packet sniffer"?

 

[Nothinman]

Probably because they assume you're trying to reverse engineer their game's protocol and looking for ways to inject your own data into the stream. The game itself could look to see if the card is in promisc mode, but you don't have to put it in promisc mode to sniff traffic to/from your machine.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Probably because they assume you're trying to reverse engineer their game's protocol and looking for ways to inject your own data into the stream. The game itself could look to see if the card is in promisc mode, but you don't have to put it in promisc mode to sniff traffic to/from your machine.

Nor can they tell from another computer :evil:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: humpfry
I was reading over my MMORPGS EULA, and I came across the term "packet sniffing". The company says it is cheating/hacking the game; I am wondering why this is, and how the game company would even know you are maliciously using the "packet sniffer"?

They couldn't - they're just trying to scare you into not hacking/cheating the game. I don't recommend doing that either, although I have to say that any game that allows client-side control over the world (and not just processed player actions), is broke, broke, broke.
(Once apon a time, I worked for a company writing one of the first MMORPGs. So I do have some background with that.)

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Probably because they assume you're trying to reverse engineer their game's protocol and looking for ways to inject your own data into the stream. The game itself could look to see if the card is in promisc mode, but you don't have to put it in promisc mode to sniff traffic to/from your machine.

that would be my guess as well - man you really nailed it there. Bravo!
:thumbsup: