PBBans calling it quits ??

shatter05

After several years of providing anti-cheat support & banlists for several popular Punkbuster supported games, PBBans has called it quits. This comes on the heels of a recent denial of service attack on their site. Details are sketchy at this time as no official announcement has been made however the topic for their IRC channel states " PBBans 2003-2009 Farewell All--It has been a great ride!" Also after being asked how much money would fix it a top admin simply said " it's not just money anymore it's lack of time and willingness"

The loss of PBBans Master Player Index coupled with the recent loss of Yawn will make player tracking in ET increasingly difficult. Whether your a fan of PunkBuster or not this is truly a sad day for anticheat as PBBans provided a top notch service & will be missed by those who made use of it.

Hope this isnt the case It will be a great loss if its realy gone.

Krieg

Any source?

If so, Good riddance.
I found PB only ever caused me grief. Ive had problems running games despite doing updates etc because of it.
My copy of BF2142 got a GUID ban and trust me I don't cheat. After some research I found that a number of people got a GUID ban which was later attributed to someone creating a Keygen which when used would result in both parties (the paying customer & the pirate) getting GUID ban.

Spear

Krieg wrote: »

Any source?

If so, Good riddance.
I found PB only ever caused me grief. Ive had problems running games despite doing updates etc because of it.
My copy of BF2142 got a GUID ban and trust me I don't cheat. After some research I found that a number of people got a GUID ban which was later attributed to someone creating a Keygen which when used would result in both parties (the paying customer & the pirate) getting GUID ban.

PBBans isn't Punkbuster.

Krieg

Spear wrote: »

PBBans isn't Punkbuster.

Ah, I see...
Whats the relationship then? I cant seem to find much info, espeically since the site is down

But it looks like they aren't finished, just moving servers
http://twitter.com/PBBans

Moving to NYC

Temp hosting is online and DNS servers should be updated by morning

Please be reminded this move will not be cheap and donations will be greatly appreciated.

shatter05

PBBans wrote:I hate to have to report this news, but PBBans has closed its doors.

Over the past few weeks they have been being hit by a DDOS attack on their server. Today they had another attack and the hosting company would not help them overcome the attack. They would have to move to another hosting company to solve the problem which would cost a lot of money, time, and effort.

The time and effort put in by all the staff members at PBBans has been enormous. But a year or so back, they lost one of the two main coders for the website because Evenbalance would not fix a problem with Punkbuster that allowed for bans to be spoofed. This left MaydaX to code the website and keep it running. Him, along with the founder, Rodeobob, now want to get back to their families and lives, so they are closing the doors to PBBans.

shatter05

Krieg wrote: »

Ah, I see...
Whats the relationship then? I cant seem to find much info, espeically since the site is down

But it looks like they aren't finished, just moving servers
http://twitter.com/PBBans

now retired pbadmin also that address for paypal is hotmail admin doesnt use that for any type donations.

Hercule

What a shame - the only org with the ability to effectively catch cheaters on such a large scale. Using their banlists and checks my cod4 servers have caught 100s of hackers in the past 1 1/2 years. A lot for hacks which are otherwise undetectable by other AC sites.

Whats worse is hacking scum now have their copies of the game working /unbanned again on servers that dont/have never streamed to PBBANS, hopefully the community repository of pbbans is saved so at least existing bans stick.

The other AC support sites are poor - it Looks like the hack companies are gonna win the battle for the moment (again)

shatter05

Agree it was one largest online database for cheaters, as far as i know the original ban list still stands but its going to be more manual admin work to check screen shots and current list of previously banned accounts for a while at least.

Pitty our server have found several people cheating on our site over the past few weeks and no global list to add to at the moment. But the fight continues we flag all cheaters on our site but only for our server.

FMJ-squad
Poor dangerousdale our admin sat through a few thousand screen shots.

regards
shatter

Hercule

May not be dead yet - it wouldnt be the first time we have seen such a false alarm

Quoted from “PBBans-fozzer

PBBans will be moving its servers to NYC, so we are not dead just yet
The current hoster (calpop) were offering no viable support, so we are moving, lock stock and barrel to a hoster that is prepared to go that extra mile for its customers.
More details will follow but thats the situation in a nutshell.
The move is expected to take several days to complete, so sit tight and hold on.
I would expect at least a temp.website to appear soon to keep everyone informed of the exact status, but the bottom line is ………. PBBans will be back.

No data was corrupted, so everything is intact.
The news was not fake as such, this is the second time a move has been forced upon us and some staff needed reassurance that it was worth carrying on.
That has come in abundance from the admins that use our services, both vocal and in donations to help us get through this

twitter.com/PBBans

shatter05

Sooner it is up and running the better, if they just waiting on dns update from new server then usualy upto48hrs or more depending on the new provider. But it did advise several days hmm never recognised that admin either.

Otherwise as usual many people out there ready to take your money and pretend they are who they aren't so to speak.

how hard is it to set up a twitter with a name or take it over. If they getting hit for dos attack then there has to be people well aware of the issue.

just my taughts id rather it be true and they just moving but they have lost some admins who where running it.

shatter05

http://pbbans.com/

they is coming back and officialy moving all.

thank god for that. Noticed instant increase in our bans over the past few days at least we have global list from before the cut off. Soon will have updated global ban list again.

Less cheaters better gaming for all.

regards
shatter
FMJ-Squad.com