There is an easy way to cheat in MAME

[Mark Longridge]

Well, I'm sorry to bring this news to MARP, but it's only a matter
of time before you all know about it. Ever since MAME 35 it has
been possible to <FONT COLOR=Red>[CENSORED]</FONT>. It works
in all the versions of MAME 36 I've tried as well.

<p>

In a nutshell:

<p>

<FONT COLOR=Red>[CENSORED]</FONT>

<p>

etc, etc... a very bleak picture for INPs for all the high score
boards emerges

<p>

The MAME programmers should be told that this "feature" is no damned
good. It's up to the programmers here who truly care about high
scores to make a true tournament version of mame. I would
suggest starting with MAME 34. People are
starting to openingly question all the best INP files, a situation
I find distressing. I would also suggest that for Williams games,
and most games that a TG settings option be programmed as an option
in this new tournament edition.

<p>

Chris Moore is probably the best suited for the job. I'll help any
way I can. I've been fighting against fake scores since the
Guinness Book of World Records published 1,500,000+ for Joust with
5 men, a score most of us think is now false (this was in the 1986
edition). I would HATE to see another wave of fake scores.

<p>

Mark

--
cubeman@iname.com

[Chris Parsley]

Mark, two things.
One, thanks a lump for telling people how to do it. Most people here
didn't know that before you told it.
Two, I guess that makes MAME32 recordings clean and clear. Since they
don't involve the DOS prompt to select the settings, that kind of
thing wouldn't/couldn't happen on MAME32.

--
cparsley1@hotmail.com

[Aquatarkus]

Does the MAME team work for Blizzard???
<p>

Aside from fixing MAME, is anyone familiar enough with the other
emulators (like Retrocade) to know if there is any kind of option -
so at least some of the games might be "saved"

<p>

Aqua, who wonders what the next depressing news will be...

--
aquatarkus@digicron.com

[Dave Kaupp]

I take it there is no way to detect that a recording was created
with this method?

I think it should have been posted, security thrugh obscurity is not
the answer.

--
info@kaupp.cx

[Chad Hurwitz]

I think using mame34 or mame35bX only or win35+ would be an excellent
thing to do for tournament2. But clearly a header and tailer with
the start and end time encrypted is the way to secure inp files.
This would not only stop the cheat above but fps slowdowns. The only
problem with this is that this method is still not fullproof, a
debugger can pic out the encryption algorithm for someone to create
their own headers and tailers. We need to think of a way to securely
encrypt the system start and end time...

<p>

I'm sure many people know and have known about this cheat was
possible (even before mame35) so stateing it in a post isn't really
going to do a whole lot, but assuming everyone who reads here knows
it was kinda lame. There are other ways to cheat if people really
want to, but i believe most people don't cheat because they want know
what their true abilities are. but somepeople don't care about their
true abilities, so a fullproof encrypted mame would be very nice.

--
churritz@cts.com

[Tim Morrow]

It would be nice to contribute to this conversation. It is
unfortunately impossible to comment because the the mame flaw
reported by Mark is CENSORED. From some comments above several people
have actually read what this flaw is already. Why are the rest of us
being excluded? I (and others) have previously raised the slomo
flaw/issue which is undetectable in both DOS and WIN versions of MAME.
I had to seriously consider whether it was worth while making
recordings because the playing field did not appear to be level due
to the slomo. Now it looks like there is a terrible flaw in the DOS
version of MAME which from Mark's report appears to have been
introduced after MAME34. I'd like to know what it is so I can make an
informed decision on whether it is worthwhile submitting any other
recordings until it gets fixed. Now since the MAME DEV team are
unlikely to be interested, as Mark suggests, we may have to start
building MAME versions for MARP that incorporate a better encrypted,
more secure, more informative recording format with timestamping and
more profiling etc.
Tim

--
tjmorrow@bigpond.com

[Cicca]

As far as I understand, despite the censorship, there's a way (I
don't know how....seems to be via command line), to save state games.
Since I'm not telling how (because I <strong>DO NOT</strong> know),
I'm quite confident I won't be flamed...

<p>

Also pausing, IMO, is a way of cheating that should not be allowed,
if you want your scores run for TG book or whatever.

<p>

My idea is to suggest the MAME team to release "Competition Releases"
of MAME, maybe final versions only, in which both methods are
disabled (at least only when recording an .inp), and in which there
is not compatibility in the .inp format with the "non comp"
corresponding version.

<p>

Cicca

--
cicca@writeme.com

[MvdV]

My opinion on eg. the PAUSE possibility.
<p>

I dare to admit (and I'm absolutely not ashamed to do so) that I use
PAUSE frequently and for the following reason. Maybe other players
have the time to continuously play for hours but I haven't. Especially
when playing those long lasting games (naming a few at the moment:
Boulderdash, Block block, Pang, etc.). I have a family/children, I get
phone calls frequently, and so on, that causes me to pause the game.
So in my opinion there should be an encrypted playing time in the INP
file and NOT the start and end time of a play. In this way it doesn't
matter whether you pause the game or not. I know it's not possible to
pause your game when playing in the arcades but now I'm not in the
arcades, I'm at home.

<p>

Greetings MvdV

--
cypr135@knoware.nl

[Ben Jos Walbeehm]

We have gone through this pause key discussion before, and although
there are two distinct ways of using the pause key (1. Because
something came up that forced you to interrupt this game; 2. Using
pause to gain some kind of advantage in the game you are playing (use
your imagination; there are several cases in which using the pause key
definitely gives you an advantage)), I personally would not submit a
recording in which I used the pause key for ANY reason. If others do,
fine. I am not going to worry about it. People will always find ways
to cheat and I have better things to do with my time than to try and
catch them. As has been said several times before: Let those people
prove themselves on the real machine.

--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com