A Massive Spam Attack Is Ruining Public 'Among Us' Games (engadget.com) 60
Just days after US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us to an audience of more than 435,000 viewers, InnerSloth, the developer of the popular multiplayer title, is struggling to contain a spam attack that is affecting most of the game's community. Engadget reports: The hack started to spread through the game's userbase on Thursday evening. It causes players to spam their match's text chat with messages that direct people to the YouTube and Discord channels of a person who goes by the pseudonym "Eris Loris," threatening them if they don't subscribe. For good measure, some of the messages also promote President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign.
InnerSloth said it's "super duper aware of the current hacking issue" and that it had planned to roll out an emergency server-side update to address the spam. Forest Willard, one of three developers who make up the InnerSloth team, said they had begun rolling out the update at some point in the middle of the night, but it doesn't seem to have addressed the issue; new reports of spam-filled matches continue to flood Twitter. The studio is advising people to play private games with friends while it works to solve the problem.
As for the hacker, it appears their primary motive in all of this was to troll people. "I was curious to see what would happen, and personally I found it funny," they told Kotaku. "The anger and hatred is the part that makes it funny. If you care about a game and are willing to go and spam dislike some random dude on the internet because you cant [sic] play it for three minutes, it's stupid."
InnerSloth said it's "super duper aware of the current hacking issue" and that it had planned to roll out an emergency server-side update to address the spam. Forest Willard, one of three developers who make up the InnerSloth team, said they had begun rolling out the update at some point in the middle of the night, but it doesn't seem to have addressed the issue; new reports of spam-filled matches continue to flood Twitter. The studio is advising people to play private games with friends while it works to solve the problem.
As for the hacker, it appears their primary motive in all of this was to troll people. "I was curious to see what would happen, and personally I found it funny," they told Kotaku. "The anger and hatred is the part that makes it funny. If you care about a game and are willing to go and spam dislike some random dude on the internet because you cant [sic] play it for three minutes, it's stupid."
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Yes.. Yes.. We already saw the fascist propaganda above, no need to repeat.
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Yeh it just you, because you’re a pathetic incel right wing oxygen thief.
Now they just need to find the imposter (Score:3)
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Only after voting out two crewmates first. Otherwise there's no drama.
Eris loris is a joke (Score:3, Informative)
Itâ(TM)s Latin for dumb sloth (inner sloth is the name of the company that makes the game).
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No he's a troll. His name is a joke.
You never had any privacy online! (Score:2)
Cuelaiders gonna harm the innocent for the lulz! (Score:1)
Just another day of the reich-wing politicizing everything and we wonder why we can't have anything nice.
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This is just someone evening the score.
So, they had a popular Republican senator do a livestream of a game he/she really enjoys? Because that'd be the equivalent of what AOC did, not this immature troll fest shit.
Here's an idea, the next time some far-leftists burn down a city - do the same. Gotta keep that score even, amiright?
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Isn't this a response to someone else politicising playing the game?
You can't use a game to promote your politics and not expect a response.
Insensitive (Score:5, Funny)
The studio is advising people to play private games with friends while it works to solve the problem.
I don't have friends, you insensitive clod.
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You did have friends. They unfriended you. :P
Odd definition of humor... (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out why creating a low level of annoyance for tons of people would make you laugh. Even in a narcistic sort of way. "Behold, my power to run a script."
Sadly, there's little study of the psychology of trolling. Granted, it's probably nigh impossible to do, but given how common it is, it is worth a shot.
Re:Odd definition of humor... (Score:4, Insightful)
The distance and anonymity of the internet brings out people's true nature.
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https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
Or:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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But what is the correct explanation? Is this motivated by a rival company?
Valve is having a similar sort of issue with Team Fortress 2, or at least was recently.
How big of a set of explanations are there? Can any dipshit do this? If any dipshit can do this, then the explanation may be right there, that its because they are a dipshit.
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TeamFortress -> WeaponsFactory -> EnemyTeamFortress -> NOW WHAT?>? It isn't TF2.
Re:Odd definition of humor... (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, there's little study of the psychology of trolling. Granted, it's probably nigh impossible to do, but given how common it is, it is worth a shot.
Here ya go buddy. https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
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I'm guessing Covid-19 layoffs/hour reductions have given some of these people a bit more free time than they'd typically otherwise have. Idle hands, and all that.
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Re:Odd definition of humor... (Score:4, Insightful)
Drive a nice car and somebody will key it. Run a business downtown and they will firebomb it. Develop an online game and it will be spamed.
Sadly, there's little study of the psychology of trolling.
Perhaps we should capture some of these people and put them where they can be studied.
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Even in a narcistic sort of way. "Behold, my power to run a script."
It's more like: "I can upset you and there's nothing you can do about it". It's just a tiny little power trip, like bullying someone or brake-checking someone on the road, except less likely to get you punched in the face.
Re: Odd definition of humor... (Score:3, Interesting)
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What do you expect from a Trump supporter?
"Fuck your feelings"
"Triggered Snowflake"
"etc"
If Kotaku knows who the hacker is (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Game developer here. I only know the rudiments of this game, but exactly how the hell are hackers doing all this? Like, changing people's names and killing them in-game, etc. There are apparently a lot of cheats for the game beyond this particular spam attack.
The first rule of multi-player game development is to NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. Pretty sure that's the second and third rule as well. Did the developers just not understand this rule, or am I missing something? This just sounds like amateur hour otherwise.
Re: Okay... what? (Score:4)
Among Us was a small indie game that blew up unexpectedly. So no, they didn't
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The first rule of multi-player game development is to NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. Pretty sure that's the second and third rule as well.
That’s the first, second, and third rule of most any type of coding - yet we keep seeing exploit after exploit where yet another person who should have known better fell into that trap. Why should game developers be immune?
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Game developer here. I only know the rudiments of this game, but exactly how the hell are hackers doing all this? Like, changing people's names and killing them in-game, etc. There are apparently a lot of cheats for the game beyond this particular spam attack.
The first rule of multi-player game development is to NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. Pretty sure that's the second and third rule as well. Did the developers just not understand this rule, or am I missing something? This just sounds like amateur hour otherwise.
On the one hand, yes it is a small indie game that became immensely popular, so there would be some expected growing pains. On the other hand, AAA games like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have had issues with modders from day one and continue to have multiplayer sessions ruined by modders to this day. However, in Rockstar's case I believe they only care if modders attempt to drop cash in the game as it competes with their overpriced official currency transactions. Among Us 2 was recently cancelled so tha
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The first rule of multi-player game development is to NOT TRUST THE CLIENT.
They don't trust clients, which is why this is an attack directly on the server.
Is the second rule of multi-player game development to only write perfect and bug free code? Because I've yet to see someone do that.
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That's a tautology. ALL multi-player game hacks are attacks on the server. In this case, according to other people's descriptions, it sounds like a lot of easily abused commands were left active on the live servers. That's a pretty amateurish mistake to make, and naturally is going to be exploited. And it's *exactly* what I mean when I say "don't trust the client".
This has nothing to do with buggy code. It's *exactly* what I suspected it was - naive programmers designing insecure server protocols and c
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That's a tautology. ALL multi-player game hacks are attacks on the server.
No they aren't. A hell of a lot of them are client side precisely because there are games that still used to trust clients. \
Also don't trust the client it too broad of a statement. You always need a certain amount of trust in the client, it is after all responsible for sending you the current player's information. The question is how bug free is *that* code? When the client sends you information that the player fired a hand gun and you're counting rounds, great. Did you also check to see if the client corr
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THEY DON'T CHECK CLIENT VERSION. Or at least they didn't when The Spiffing Brit demonstrated that he could join games with Release version players, while himself playing on a Beta client that has hacks built right in -- and although he could not start a new game, he could inherit one if the original owner left, and then change the settings for the game FOR HIMSELF and other Beta players (of which there were none) only. So he could have a 10 second kill timeout while everyone else had 45, he could see like a
good (Score:2)
This does accidental good: I am tired of the fanboys of that game invading every single subreddit I frequent.
It's an old story (Score:2)
Usenet, e-mail, IRC, the Web. It all gets ruined by intrusive, and often illegal, advertising.
Sad, sad little people (Score:1)
thanks (Score:1)