Whatever happened to BnetD?

[ildon]

It seems bnetd.org is down, and the only thing useful I could find on google was this: http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/

But it doesn't contain the results of any trial or anything (or if it has even begun yet). Anyone have the inside scoop?

[Taem]

In a round-about way, isisnt this the same as a "hack"? I've never heard it mentioned on the LL before and I'm not sure if they'd be too pleased with this question, or perhaps they don't care. For those that don't know, BnetD is a Battle.net emulation that runs Diablo 2 and Warcraft. I think it even saves your characters. Some hackers "somehow" decompiled enough coding from games, (maybe inside sources), and reading packets to create the emulator. Now their in a lawsuit... :lol: Go figure. The only place I can find info about that is on hack sites, which I WILL NOT give out addresses too, so your outta luck.

[WarLocke]

There was some discussion about it when it was announced/released, but after the first round of lawsuits the topics pretty much died out.

It did make possible Seven Lances though, which AFAIK is still running. But I'm fairly sure 7L discussion takes place mostly on the Phrozen Keep's fora.

[Quark]

Sevenlances is still up and running (with Sanctuary, formerly Threewave), but we're completely independent now ... http://www.sevenlances.com

We've somewhat expanded, also having realm members involved in M:tG via Apprentice and NWN. I'm helping with the NWN development (but I've been slacking lately, ugh).

And yes, it doesn't even need to be said that FoxBat was a little more than peeved when bnetd went down due to Blizzard.

[Jarulf]

It seems bnetd.org is down, and the only thing useful I could find on google was this: http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/

But it doesn't contain the results of any trial or anything (or if it has even begun yet). Anyone have the inside scoop?

>The only place I can find info about that is on hack
>sites, which I WILL NOT give out addresses too, so
>your outta luck.


ildon allready gave a link to a good site with information on. Appearantly you now seem to have a pretty hiloarious view on what "hack site" means calling eff's site a hack site. But then, we still don't know how you define or use "hack/hacker".

As seen on the page, the trial seem to not yet have occured. It will include some interesting "topics" though, since one relatively large part of it seems to be the validity of licence agreements for games (or software in general actually). There are many other aspcest of interest to it as well.

>In a round-about way, isisnt this the same as a "hack"?

Huh? You define emulators as hacks? Or if not, would you care to share your definition of hack with us? I can't see how one can come up with this concusion though. But then, people use the "hack" word today to mean basically anything.

> I think it even saves your characters.

It wouldn't be a good emulator if it didn't, now would it :)

>Some hackers

Again, enlighten us on your use of this word. You seem to toss it arround without knowing what you really are using it on.


>"somehow" decompiled enough coding from games, (maybe inside sources), and reading packets to create the emulator.

Decompiling something is easy, there is no "somehow" to it. You can use a waste veriety of decompiler programs that exists. (No idea about your inside sources reference though, what do you mean? Or are you just tossing out wild ideas pretending it is probably true and wanting to give others a non biased opinion on it? As for how to emulate bnet (the chat part at least), you really don't need to decomplie anything. You just listen to the traffic going out and in to your computer.Nothing wrong with that. That is actually quite common. Sure, you can USE it for various more or less good reasons. Some have used it to find ways to cheat the game, others have used it to write an emulator, or really, a mathc making service for various Blizzard games.

[Pren]

Well, Jarulf, hacking is defined as 'cyber-terrorism', so BnetD had to be taken down to prevent funding Osama.

[Quark]

And here I remember when "hacking" was a good thing ...

[Obi2Kenobi]

Too true, too true... Hacking seems to be thrown around these days without many knowing what it means... if someone on Battle.net has an ith, they are called hackers... when that is an insult to the true hackers of the world. They are merely cheaters. I believe that "cracker" is the word they mean sometimes... :(

[NiteFox]

And here I remember when "hacking" was a good thing ...

Anyone else here still peeved by the ignorant inability of most to fail to file seperate definitions for "hacking" and "cracking" or is this old curmudgeon the only one left?

And to answer the original question in a suitably geeky way: BnetD is the Stormtrooper, Blizzard's lawyer is the Jedi. That's really all you need to know to guess what the conclusion is going to be.

[Taem]

Har har, jokes on me. Please allow me to defend myself with reasoning as to why I wrote that. Yes, I wrote that quickly without re-reading what I wrote. It's obviously not a “hack”, but it is a “crack”, so <smack> my <rack> and show me some <slack> :P . In the Lurker Lounges RULES tab, it clearly states it's Anti-Cheat policy. I ask you, what is a cheat? Is a cheat a ‘hack’ or a ‘crack’ or both or is it something else? I think its clearly defined on battle.net here: http://www.blizzard.com/inblizz/genfaq.shtml, and in your User License Agreement where it says the use of any third party program is a “CHEAT”. I was trying to uphold the integrity of the Lurker Lounge standards with what I wrote. There are many programs that are not ‘hacks’ in the conventional sense of the word, nor do they allow you to ‘cheat’ in game, but I still don't believe any of these programs would be allowed for discussion here at the LL - such as:

D2LOADER - Which allows you to play Diablo off of your hard-drive and blocks the windows key from popping up - also is customizable for uploading "hacks" such as maphack and color hack
D2CDKEY - Which allows you to play multiple copies of Diablo on one computer (if you have VALID CD-Keys only!)
REALM MONITOR - Check to see if the realm is up without opening D2
'VARIOUS' SNIFFER PROGRAMS - Used to sniff out packets sent too and from battle.net
ETC.

Why don't I feel these programs would be allowed on the Lurker Lounge? Because the RULES for using Battle.net say the use of any third party program used while on Battle.net is a CHEAT, however there are also programs I feel are not “cheats” according to blizzard because they aren't used on Battle.net such as:

JAMELLA'S EDITOR - Character editor
SHADOWMASTER - Character editor
SHOW CDKEY - Run this to find out your installed cdkeys in case you lost them
VARIOUS MODS - Modifications of a game
ETC.

What does BnetD do? It emulates Battle.net. How did they go about doing this? It required “hackers” to “sniff” a multitude of packets (legit or non-legit - what do you say? Sniffers have lead to 90% of all the “hacks” on Battle.net, which is why most people don't have them), reconstruct the code for battle.net (legal? We will find out in this latest court battle soon), and decompile D2 and WC3 (unproven - other then what I've read on various sites where they said they DID decompile these games – but from what I've been told, this is illegal).

Excuse me for trying to abide by the rules of the L.L., but I do respect this place and its Administrators. By supporting BnetD, even though its an emulator (which isn’t a cheat as defined by Blizzard), the methods they used to make this emulator was derived from programs clearly labeled as “cheats”, both by Blizzard and the L.L., so by supporting BnetD, your supporting “cheaters”. Sound ludicrous? Perhaps it is, but at least that’s what went through my mind when I first wrote my initial post.

[ildon]

The very link you provided does not back up your statements. You seem to have grossly misinterpreted Blizzard's policy, as stated here: http://www.battle.net/tou.shtml

(v) use any third-party software to modify Battle.net to change game play, including, but not limited to cheats and/or hacks;

The key part is "to change gameplay". Obviously programs fitting under this description would be taboo on this forum per its rules. A server emulator certainly does not fit under this description, nor does a passive packet sniffer used in its creation.

[Xergon]

Some of you are getting way to anal about whatever you perceive as hacking. He was asking for results of a trial.

They outlawed smoking in California bars...and pretty soon there will be no drinking an no talking!

Apply that how you will.

[Taem]

"Har har, jokes on me.&nbsp; Please allow me to defend myself with reasoning as to why I wrote that."

"Sound ludicrous?&nbsp; Perhaps it is, but at least that’s what went through my mind when I first wrote my initial post."

I thought I made it clear that I was simply stating the reason why I put that post in the first place, not defending my position.

Second, the link I provided is battle.nets RULES. The User Liscense Agreement has a seperate list of rules. They are different for every game. Check yours in regards to Diablo and use of Battle.net. I know plenty of people who were banned for just having D2loader without using color hack!

[Jarulf]

so <smack> my <rack> and show me some <slack> :P .

*hands MEAT some slack* :D


too bussy at work to comment the post now, will update it later

[Occhidiangela]

EDITED: Hit reply instead of Preview, sorry. :(

IMO, it was due to the compromise of the The WC III Beta Test/Hype Vehicle. What happened was this: whether or not the folks who developed BNETD in order to be ableto create private realms intended for any harm to come to Blizzard or not, the BNETD product was used by a number of folks to run illegit WC III Beta realms during Blizzard's Beta for WC III. That activity got in the way of Blizzard's official "whatever the hell they were trying to get out of that beta" project. Over at WCiii.net the flame wars between "real beta players" and those who had cracked CD's and played on privately run realms, in explicit contravention to Blizzard's WC III Beta policy, cropped up now and again. The expansion of the Beta beyond their control is, IMO, what pissed Blizzard off. I may not have that completely right, but I am pretty sure they felt damage done to the sanctity of their Beta/Hype for WC III.

Setting up Diablo II LAN parties and Diablo II TCP/IP games is legit. Setting up a private realm is also, IMO, so long as no harm is done to Blizz. It takes money, time and effort, and is similar to running a big TCP/IP set of games. Folks who go to this effort are most likely NOT PLAYING BNET anyway due to the environment, or due to a preference for mods. I played some SevenLances, but then went to other things due to time issues and not ever seeming to be on when other 7 Lancers were on. Given the problems with client and server behaviour in TCP/IP games, a faux realm is a reasonable solution, providing it does not

1. Interfere with Battlenet
2. Compete with it.

Folks playing mods won't be playing on bnet anyway, so a private realm can hardly be adjudged, IMO, to be a competitor to BNET. Blizzard's arguments early on concerning the reverse engineering and the Millenium whatever act are likely to help their case in court.

On BNETD as a method for running private Realms. Running BNETD on private realms such as the SevenLances Realm hardly does harm to Blizzard. It allows folks to enjoy a Blizzard game, usually in the form of a Mod, rather THAN PLAYING SOME COMPETITOR's game in that amount of free time.

Do you condisder a Mod as a cheat? Bolty does not, and nor do, as I recall, any of the other mods or Admins on this Board. So, discussing this at the Lounge probably is not a foul. BNETD is not Maphack, as it does not influence Realms Play: the folks on a private Realms are, by default, unable to influence Blizzard Realms.

The previous discussions on the Lounge regarding BNETD were pretty charged, but they were full of some great insights by folks who knew far better than I what they were talking about on a "down in the weeds" level, and included some great legal commentary and good links to legal arguments on both sides of the issue. I wish I had those threads back, they were pretty good.

[aurikan]

A good resource on the legality of reverse engineering can be found at Chilling Effects: Reverse Engineering.

There were several complaints in the lawsuit, IIRC.

One was that BnetD infringed the trademark of VU/Blizzard by using "BnetD" as their name. That claim seemed fairly strong, as I think Blizzard has "B.NET" trademarked, and obviously BnetD and B.NET operate in the same market: there is a fair case that the names are confusingly similar.

Another was that the BnetD software circumvented content protection mechanisms (that is, the CD-KEY check). The argument goes basically along these lines: Blizzard encouraged people to obtain the software legally by offering a service to those who can verify the legality of their copies. When an independant provides a similar service and does not verify the legality of their copies, they are allowing those without legal copies to circumvent the barrier of needing a valid CD-KEY.

Whether or not this would stand up in court is yet to be determined; I can see it going either way. One could easily argue that the implication of this argument is that under this principle, any company would essentially be free from any kind of competition relating to matchmaking services. Since the CD-KEYs are verified only server-side at BNet (and nobody has found such code in the client-side binary), it is impossible to reverse engineer, and thus necessarily one cannot implement the access protection mechanism without the blessing of Blizzard. However, the court may find that the right to make interoperable products through reverse engineering precedes application of the anti-circumvention clauses. There is at least one late-80s ruling regarding access protection for consoles that would support this -- consoles have forever been exersizing technological lock-out -- but I can't remember the details, except that Nintendo partially lost. I think the court found a 3rd party developer had the right to reverse engineer the lock-out scheme, and I believe defeating the lock-out scheme even mean including a "copyrighted" bank of data. However, the court also found that the 3rd party developer obtained the bank of data through duplicitous means, so they lost anyway. If this is a proper precedent, the courts could find that if Blizzard refuses to allow 3rd party matchmaking services to verify CD-KEYs, then the 3rd party matchmaking services no longer need to fulfill this requirement, and thus are not circumventing the access protection mechanism.

A third argument VU/Bliz put forward was that the developers of BnetD copied code and distributed it. I've had a good, long look at the BnetD code, and the only place I can see that may fit that bill is the password verification scheme. When you enter your password and send it off to the realm for validation, the Diablo software encrypts it client side. This is to prevent someone discovering passwords in a network by listening to packets which aren't theirs.

The funny thing is that the password encryption scheme isn't really necessary for matchmaking services. As far as I can tell, it is only to enable telnet or other "plain-text" entry. This branch of code is not used at all for the enabling of the matchmaking services. Furthermore, I think it is kind of rediculous to suggest the code was copied. For one, the code in the Diablo2 executable is in machine-code format, and the similar code in BnetD is in C. There isn't a simple bijection between the 2: obviously the algorithm represented in the machine code has been re-implemented in C, not copied from the executable. Secondly, it is easy enough to reverse engineer (it took me 8 hours to reverse it from scratch, and I'm not fast or experienced at reverse engineering) so I seriously doubt that the BnetD developers obtained it through an insider, or hacking the Blizzard servers to get the source, the only other ways the code could be found to be "copied". Finally, algorithms do not qualify for copyright, only for patents, and I am unaware of any patents on their method of encrypting passwords.

I'm sure there were a dozen more claims they made. However, the bulk of them were against the people that developed BnetD, not the code itself. It may well be that BnetD is legal, while the actions of the developers were not.

I wish this lawsuit would hurry up, though. With every day that passes, VU/Blizz win: who cares if they lose in court if they can kill it through litigation?

[Bolty]

Here we go again. :)

My OPINION (note: Bolty's opinion does not represent official stance of the Lurker Lounge and you will not be banned for disagreeing with him, a.k.a. "the standard disclaimer" that he wishes he didn't have to say) is that BNetD was a good thing, which was used for bad purposes (i.e. the Warcraft III beta problem). The moment BNetD was used to circumvent Blizzard's Warcraft III beta program, it was doomed. And it deserved it. Blizzard spends a huge amount of money on the hype machines that are their betas, and BNetD trashed that.

Peer-to-peer software is along the same lines - great software that's misused, and the RIAA has every right to crack down on it. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms, and I should keep this thread on topic. :)

-Bolty

[WarLocke]

Another was that the BnetD software circumvented content protection mechanisms (that is, the CD-KEY check).

That really doesn't hold water, though. At the time, the BNetD people asked Blizzard for their key-checking system, or at least a way to direct BNetD logins to Blizzard's verification servers, but as I understand it Blizzard not only did not cooperate, they never replied to the requests at all.

So Blizzard used a 'crack' that they wouldn't help the developers close as one of the complaints in the lawsuit(s)? That seems pretty childish, IMO.

Edit:

Peer-to-peer software is along the same lines - great software that's misused, and the RIAA has every right to crack down on it. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms

I can't resist, Bolt. ;)

I saw a clip on the Daily Show the other day (yeah, I know, fake news - but the clip was real, if out-of-context) of an RIAA rep. His little blurb was something along the lines of "These file-sharers need to learn not to bite the hand... that makes the music."

I can just imagine him wanting to finish with "that feeds them" and hastily deciding not to after realizing what kind of backlash that would get for the RIAA. Also, I predist in 15 or 20 years when the music industry is bunk and everyone downloads their favorite group's music from their site for free, we'll be laughing (bitterly) at the fat capitalists that couldn't resist sueing their own customer base...

[aurikan]

I totally agree with you WarLocke: if I were the judge, I would contend that the good faith effort by the BnetD devs to work with Blizzard in order to implement the access control mechanism fulfills the obligations of the 3rd party to Blizzard under the DMCA. I'm not the judge, however, and US judges have lately shown quite the propensity to disagree with my logic. We'll have to wait and see.

Aside to Bolty: You've hit the nail on the head here. What we have is software that enables people to do Bad Things, be it mass copying of copyrighted media, or circumvent access controls a la using BnetD with a pirated copy of a Blizzard game. However, I would opine that the people the law should target for such naughtiness are the people engaging in the act: the people running WC3Beta pirate servers, the people running WC3Beta pirate client software, the people distributing the WC3Beta pirate software, the people downloading copyright material without permission, and people uploading copyright material without verifying the destination has permission to possess the material. What's wrong is the people's actions, not the technology that makes it feasible.

[ildon]

MEAT: I was basically trying to say that your argument was extremely poorly constructed and your link in no way supported your argument. If you actually read the page nowhere does it have any "general battle.net rules", it's simply a general FAQ about all aspects of Blizzard's business.

I looked for a "battle.net rules" page and the only thing that comes close is the TOU which is the TOU for all of battle.net. Furthermore, The TOU is not even a liscense per se, it is simply a list of conditions for using battle.net, the infringement of which Blizzard responds to by simply disallowing the use of battle.net. Not only that, if you link to the terms of use from the Arreat Summit, it points to exactly the same page.

Maybe somewhere you read some press release or something on diabloii.net about Blizzard "treating all third party programs as hacks". That is certainly within reason, although I couldn't find it, but it still does not support your case as it is not a double implication. All "hacks" may be third party, but not all third party software are hacks.

Sorry but it just really frustrates me when people use faulty logic and don't even take the time to read their own sources.