The online golf tournament sector was rocked by money scandals during the first half of February. Sources reveal that Incredible Technologies has ejected eight ranked players following investigation into the manipulation of scores.
The use of either a software or firmware system to deceive the ITS network has been found. This news carries far-reaching implications for the IT tournament, and also for similar online systems.
GlobalVR is launching its own investigation into dubious scorers. As GVR performs spot-checks on certain operations in the field, the Stinger Report breaks this major story.
"Whenever you gather together individuals towards the use of skill to win money, there will be a component of that assembled crowd that will do everything in their power to defraud those with the purse!"
An obvious statement and one paraphrased from an 1800 bookmaker specializing in boxing. But the principle applies equally to conning a bookmaker 200 years ago, or exploiting security loopholes in a twenty-first century network gaming system. Whereas the bookmaker believed in various forms of security to ensure that only those that had lawfully achieved their success was rewarded, The Stinger Report can reveal that the two most publicized networked prize based golfing systems have been the victim to players employing cheats and hacks of the two game systems to win prizes and falsely boost their league ranking - Such blatant fraud has opened up serious doubts about the whole tournament structure.
The areas that have raised concerns regarding the integrity of the golf amusement prize tournaments are as follows:
The way that the tournament prize systems are operated, it is possible for identity theft to take place. This involves players willingly swapping their game ID so that good players can help raise the ranking of poorer players, or multiple identities for single players. The way that Golden Tee operates an 'update' download at a set time a day or night means that some players can manipulate their ranking by skillful play of one persona against a high scoring alternative. (A constantly-connected machine could help prevent this type of manipulation, but IT's once-a-day dialup method is - in computer industry terms - an ancient remnant of the prehistoric 1995 modem era.)
One of the greatest bug-bears of the IT system has been a small but intransigent number of private machine operators, players that like the game so much that they have purchased machines for their home use (paying a higher price), and have gone as far as connect them to the ITS. In recent months this unfair advantage has been called into question, regarding the possibility for fraudulent manipulation of the games in their keep, and the obvious danger of these owners dissecting their machines towards hacking the software. IT had reported to certain sources that they felt secure that they could spot the home owners from the official operators on their tournament system, and that they were excluded, but current problems have been linked to home players. Recent software updates ('Golden Tee Fore! 2005') hope to whittle out any private operators' basement games from official "on public location" machines.
A game of the stature of the Golden Tee series is bound to incorporate peculiarities and foibles that are unique. Though not cheats they represent undocumented features that have unusual effects to the play of a game. There are however a number of special moves that can be executed that will affect the power or direction of various swings, these special combinations are known only by the top players, but are being circulated, and have not really been attributed to their high ranking but are just added elements of the game. But recently there has been some talk of 'Maximum Drive' - best described as the ability to exceed the trackball mechanism's performance envelope to achieve the best possible power to a swing. Efforts to exceed this interface's limits has led to a series of bizarre experiments on personally owned machines ranging from a Belt Sander or even the drive wheel of a motor scooter employed to max out the track ball. At the same time, informed speculation suggests that the lack of encrypting the gaming data on the actual hard drive of the machines could also be accessed and manipulated (or modified).
There has been considerable staff movement from GlobalVR and IT in recent months, many employees leaving under a cloud due to bad feeling over certain management decisions, joining companies that IT may view as competitors. It is in this climate that possible sensitive information on the tournament operational procedure could have been circulated and could also be vulnerable to malicious intent. New software downloads are hoped to be disseminated to machines in the field, but this takes time to be enacted - IT and GVR have instigated changes into their player rules that will limit those that can participate in the tournaments or claim prizes - and open the door to prosecution if players are linked to sensitive information from ex-employees or those distributors and servicing representatives.
The situation came to a head on the first of February 2004. Thanks to the excellent fan website Underdogsports.com - as if it was not for this resource it is most likely the information would have been hushed up - It was reported that six names had appeared on the tournament ranking that had achieved near identical distance shots and so five of the individuals catapulted themselves to the top Gold ranking of the game tournament.
Alarm bells started to ring as players from across the country questioned the ability for these players to achieve such scores, and in particular in a near identical long course. A spurious excuse of executing a game feature (max drive - see cheats) was initially claimed for the duplication of the scores, but soon it became painfully obvious that a previously alluded to fraud had been perpetrated on the Incredible Technologies International Tournament Systems (ITS).
'Player Power' proved to be the instigator of the investigation into these spurious rankings long before the IT administrative machinery started to work. The situation was brought to IT's attention and calls for an investigation on the 6th of that month, IT having done nothing to that point. It was revealed that fans had drawn IT's attention to a possible discrepancy in ranking as far back as December of 2003. IT personnel were forcibly made aware of allegations of hardware tampering linked to the ease of hard drive and code manipulation. IT had down played the situation as they attempted to locate means to monitor such infractions of their software environment - but things came to a head in February.
Early speculation (while the industry waits for an official announcement from IT) is that certain individuals may have used knowledge of the GT software from access to home machines to best defraud the system. It is alleged that there are two loopholes being employed. The first is that these fraudsters may have created a firmware mechanism that emulates the movement of the trackball and talks to the game board, so able to generate the optimum power and direction for shots.
The other fraud allegation is far more worrisome: that these fraudsters have gained access to the hard drive of a GT machine and create spurious tournament scores that are fed through a connected GT machine to the central IT database. The possibility that software could be used to 'record' the movements on the interface and then replay them at will offers a glimpse into how this deception is being played. Sources speaking in confidence claim that information to these two firmware hacks are being made available over the Internet for money.
This information is still highly speculative. But if it is true that these two hi-tech fraud schemes are underway, then it's likely that the eight player names pulled from the Tournament list on the 4th of February 2004, and dropped by IT, could simply be the dumbest of fraudsters...and meanwhile a raft of more crafty deception goes unchecked.
Obviously, if confirmed this would make a mess of the tournament structure and place in question a list of scores and subsequent prize payouts - possibly going back for years!Initial claims were thrown about of possible fraudsters amassing $50,000, with seven fake scores per month, with that group usually taking the $2,500 first prize, and six others that average between $700-$1000 over an eight month period. However speculation suggests that rather than eight months these fraudsters may have been employing this fraud for much longer.
From the manufacturer's point of view - action was swift when legitimate players drew their attention to the issue. The eight individuals have been removed from the tournament, and all online and live events involved with Golden Tee. Also the machines that were implicated have been disconnected from the online tournament and have been disabled - never to be able to play connected again.
That last measure raised eyebrows in the community, meaning that there are over eight machines that could appear on the second-hand market that are 'damaged goods'. In the long run however there was the implication of more than eight culprits, with fan sites pointing figures to at least 20 'dubious' scores over the last couple of months. Proposals to check players' ranking numbers will see IT engineers having to physically check machines in the field to interrogate play stats (using a proven fraudulent play file against other scores).
Beyond the possibility of manipulation by fraudulent players there is the wider implication that certain operators have been culpable in the instigation of this crime. It became evident that a possible syndicate may have been in action when it became known that GloablVR's 'EA Sports PGA Golf: Tournament Edition II' had been the victim of a similar fraud. The use of a mechanism that overrides the cabinet trackball interface with the false input works on the similar PGA cabinet as with the GT system. The confirmation that GlobalVR was concerned of spurious (incredible) ranking was made when GVR posted this information - "In response to recent events, we are going beyond our usual monitoring programs. We have launched a full and detailed review of suspicious play data."
The need to take action continued with GlobalVR being the first golf tournament operator to ban the use of 'Privately Operated Machines' (Home Ownership). The company confirmed that they will be carrying out 'spot checks' of facilities that run connected tournament machines in order to ascertain proper placement of the system. The major news is that for the first time the forfeiting of tournament fee and more importantly tournament prize money previously won on incorrectly placed systems is being proposed (that could see venues that have improperly installed hardware re-paying thousands of dollars).
The areas of evaluation that these spot checks will ascertain include the assurance that machines are able to be played by walk-up traffic, and are operated in a publicly accessible locations. Any that are found not to be installed thus will be disconnected from the tournament and returned to GlobalVR at the operator's expense. Those that carry-out spot-check are to also ascertain the suitability of the operation as a public facility. From the Stinger Report's perspective this announcement confirms the degree of shock and unrest experienced by the manufacturers who have perhaps been defrauded.
Clearly, the factories are worried that revelations of long-term, online fraud and money scams could undermine their credibility severely. With a calculated 2,500 connected tournament units this will still be easier for GlobalVR to execute, while the ease of IT carrying out a 30,000 machine site check will be more daunting, especially as the company has profited from encouraging home ownership.
Some time ago, TSR item #273 outlined efforts that manufacturers could/should undertake to combat a different type of player fraud. This counsel now applies more strongly than ever. To recap, some unscrupulous players have reportedly been using "Mods" (software modification of the original code) to deceive the manufacturer's servers. The danger of large tournament prize systems and close player relationships is the incentive that draws criminality. The fraudsters possibly encouraged to take the risk that led to their detection as part of a syndicate sharing the Mods' via email - but over extended their stake due to the changes in the tournament prize payout (Stinger #257).
It remains an open question as to what type of data security firewalls (if any) these video game manufacturers have actually set up to guard their online tournaments. If the later method of tournament manipulation (via software rather than firmware) has indeed been used by cheating players, then the question of why the play data has not been encrypted comes to the fore. The basic integrity of two online tournament networks is open to question. How prevalent is fraud within the various scoring systems? The danger exists that IT may be paying out prizes to thieves, and that certain operators may be complicit in the crime.
This brings us to the question, what's next? IT nor GVR has not commented on how the eight individuals would be treated beyond their exclusion from these product events, the obvious need for legal investigation - if not prosecution - seems to have been avoided, though a number of observers to the Stinger propose that this is a case for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) as the offenses crossed State lines, and also violate portions of the Federal Wire Act. The similarity to a recent fake Horse racing ticket scandal was mentioned which saw FBI involvement.
It is obvious however that with prize tournament schemes run by Incredible Technology, Merit, uWink, GlobalVR, PhotoPlay and TAB-Austria, the fall-out from a media and legal witch-hunt into the credibility of the scoring could have immense ramifications that impact this emerging effort (see Stinger #253 for additional detail). Opening this can of worms could also prompt certain State governments to change their definitions of gambling, citing possible lax security protection and previous 'low-key' infiltration and subversion of video skill tournaments.
The final question remains that we live in a culture where viruses abound, and it seems nearly impossible to protect a machine from electronic vandalism especially if there is financial gain to be made. It now seems that the ball is in the manufacturer's court to come up with proper protection (but, truly effective measures could go beyond the measures they are prepared to support). But that's just the tip of the iceberg. A larger problem could be that security measures that are strong enough to screen cheaters out of video tournaments, could also be so harsh as to risk alienating the legitimate player supported by resentment on restrictions in paying multiple prizes to individual sites, and a possible 12 week delay between prize payout - against previous 4 to 5 weeks).
Having broken the news the Stinger Report continues to follow developments closely. It should be said for the record that the Stinger gave GVR and IT ample opportunities to comment on these questions. However, as this report went to press, both companies had yet to issue any extensive official comments.
The Stinger Report is provided to Highwaygames by Kevin Williams, the publisher of "The Stinger Report". To read the full articles and information, please visit
www.thestingerreport.com
