BattlEye Responds To Hackshield Crises

GMAIL OVERVIEW OF EVENTS IN PLAIN-TEXT
=====================================================
BattlEye Support <support@battleye.com>
Oct 2, 2017

to me

Dear Kevin,
Thank you for contacting BattlEye support, we have received your request #351721. Please read the following section(s) corresponding to the type of your request to get immediate information.

Technical Problems
==================

Please carefully read our FAQ first: http://www.battleye.com/support/faq/. Most issues can quickly be solved by following the instructions posted there.

Global Bans
===========

If you are globally banned without having attempted to cheat, please include your exact (!) global ban ID and the name of the game. The ID is shown in your global ban message ("Global Ban #ID"). If no global ban IDs are shown in your game, please provide your game account name. Without this information we won't be able to process your request.

Note that we reserve the right not to discuss valid global bans. If you did attempt to cheat please understand that your global ban will not be lifted by us. We do not accept any excuses for why you used cheats. Valid global bans are permanent and no exceptions can be made.


CD-Key-related Issues
=====================

The cd-key system is not administrated by us, so we cannot help you with such issues. Please contact the game developers for help. If you know or suspect that your cd-key was stolen and you got possibly banned as a result please contact them as well.


Admin Bans (including BEC "GameHack #X" bans)
=============================================

Those are third-party bans and we cannot assist you in any way with them. Please contact the server admin or community for help.


Game-related Issues/Questions
=============================

Please understand that we can only assist you with BE-related issues, so please contact the game developers for help.


All Other Issues/Questions
==========================

We will try to get back to you ASAP. Please understand that due to great volume it can sometimes take a few days for us to get back to you.


Your BattlEye Support Team

If you wish to provide additional comments or information regarding the issue, please reply to this email.
===================================================================================================================
BattlEye Support <support@battleye.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to me

Dear Kevin,
Thanks for the info.

Specifically, did you use this: https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor? We are still investigating, but we believe that this might be able to trigger the ban we have seen here. One problem in the whole process was that you never mentioned such an ARK-related tool anywhere and you were the only person with that specific log. Not blaming you or giving excuses of course.

Your BattlEye Support Team

We hope this response has sufficiently answered your questions. If not, please reply to this email.
========================
Kevin Harris <kevin.b.harris.2015@gmail.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to BattlEye

OMG! I am using it now on ravenispurty! I told my entire tribe to use it too!


okay, do I tell my tribe to stop using it!?
====================================================================================================================
Kevin Harris <kevin.b.harris.2015@gmail.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to BattlEye

Oh; btw... at this point there aren't any excuses or blames to be passed around. that steam account is dead. All that is left is review. So; lets be open-minded please.

Yes; I use that tool. I didn't list that tool because it did not dawn on me to be a culprit. I barely new what I was doing with that tool as I do now. It didn't dawn to me as a culprit since it was listed on the game-wiki as an application to use. With it listed; and with me having that tool installed and me trying to learn how to use it... I had not a know-better to consider it. Especially with never-dealing with a banning before. I do now though.

I can definitely let you deal with the problem at hand; but it may result in the delay of our ice-cave raid. It was also mega-frustrating to go through that experience.

kevinbharris; on steam can be considered dead. If the application is foul-play it will be removed, and if the word is to never spill regardless of my relation to my tribe then the secret is ours. At this point; I need to know what to do about the account ravenispurrty. That is the big problem here. It has been opened; and ran under that steam account to. Especially as of recently.

Please tell me what is better in regards to the greatest common good.

Thank You.
==============================================
Kevin Harris <kevin.b.harris.2015@gmail.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to BattlEye

I'm opting to hold-out on my tribe while BE does the investigation because I ran mine in Visual Studio's debugger and was taking note of the exceptions that the application was throwing for futuristic redesign/repair. Sorry about my rant. It was just a moment to me. I think what made it unique for me is that I am a dev, depending on the version of the compiler the MCIL of the program maybe subject to change. Visual Studio 2017 was released March 7, 2017. I have reformatted since; but my upgrade from 2015 - 2017 was offset from its release date a bit. C# 7.0 and C# 7.1 were both released in 2017. C# 7.0 was released in March. C# 7.1 was released in August.


C# 7.0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-7-0
C# 7.1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-7-1


I wonder if this had an affect on the intermediate language that the compiler compiled the solution down to; thus changing signatures. So; this maybe relevant to only-me being that my college was reliant on updated versions of programming software and that this source is a C# source.


I hope that helps the investigation.
==============================================

BattlEye Support <support@battleye.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to me

Dear Kevin,
Thanks for confirming.

And don't worry, this tool won't cause any problems to anyone else, especially now. It appears certain circumstances led to this being logged as a cheat for you which it normally doesn't. Since we only saw this log from you and no one else, we weren't aware of its existence and hence were convinced that it was caused by a privately coded hack.

Obviously it's pointless to apologize endlessly at this point, since nothing will fix it and as you said it doesn't matter now - unfortunately. We made a mistake and even if it doesn't seem like it, but rest assured we take false positives quite seriously which is why we still respond to you now.

I think you also mentioned getting banned in Arma 3 as well in the past - which made things even more "clear" from our perspective. Our data showed that you used a method to disable BE back then and we are pretty sure that this was not caused by a false positive. Any thoughts on this?
=========================================
Kevin Harris <kevin.b.harris.2015@gmail.com>
Nov 22, 2017

to BattlEye

BattlEye Support:

This is a general outline of the emails that I found were important today before drawing the conclusions that I had drawn.

In that post I am actually complementing the fact that you followed through the complex series of events that led to my banning and ultimately the termination of that steam account. Even though there is nothing that can be restored; your follow-up is completely suffice to satisfy me. I created that twitter moment today after reading any email that you had found useful (which appeared to be the things that you responded to)

@10:00 AM: "Specifically, did you use this: https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor? We are still investigating, but we believe that this might be able to trigger the ban we have seen here. One problem in the whole process was that you never mentioned such an ARK-related tool anywhere and you were the only person with that specific log. Not blaming you or giving excuses of course." ~BattlEye

@10:34 AM: "Oh; btw... at this point there aren't any excuses or blames to be passed around. that steam account is dead. All that is left is review. So; lets be open-minded please.

Yes; I use that tool. I didn't list that tool because it did not dawn on me to be a culprit. I barely new what I was doing with that tool as I do now. It didn't dawn to me as a culprit since it was listed on the game-wiki as an application to use. With it listed; and with me having that tool installed and me trying to learn how to use it... I had not a know-better to consider it. Especially with never-dealing with a banning before. I do now though.

I can definitely let you deal with the problem at hand; but it may result in the delay of our ice-cave raid. It was also mega-frustrating to go through that experience.

kevinbharris; on steam can be considered dead. If the application is foul-play it will be removed, and if the word is to never spill regardless of my relation to my tribe then the secret is ours. At this point; I need to know what to do about the account ravenispurrty. That is the big problem here. It has been opened; and ran under that steam account to. Especially as of recently.

Please tell me what is better in regards to the greatest common good." ~Kevin B. Harris

@11:22 AM: "I'm opting to hold-out on my tribe while BE does the investigation because I ran mine in Visual Studio's debugger and was taking note of the exceptions that the application was throwing for futuristic redesign/repair. Sorry about my rant. It was just a moment to me. I think what made it unique for me is that I am a dev, depending on the version of the compiler the MCIL of the program maybe subject to change. Visual Studio 2017 was released March 7, 2017. I have reformatted since; but my upgrade from 2015 - 2017 was offset from its release date a bit. C# 7.0 and C# 7.1 were both released in 2017. C# 7.0 was released in March. C# 7.1 was released in August.


C# 7.0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-7-0
C# 7.1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-7-1


I wonder if this had an affect on the intermediate language that the compiler compiled the solution down to; thus changing signatures. So; this maybe relevant to only-me being that my college was reliant on updated versions of programming software and that this source is a C# source.


I hope that helps the investigation." ~ Kevin B. Harris

@11:25 AM: "If true; that would mean that this isn't your fault or my fault but rather a liability of the trade. thank you for reaching out." ~ Kevin B. Harris

@11:36 AM: "Thanks for confirming.

And don't worry, this tool won't cause any problems to anyone else, especially now. It appears certain circumstances led to this being logged as a cheat for you which it normally doesn't. Since we only saw this log from you and no one else, we weren't aware of its existence and hence were convinced that it was caused by a privately coded hack.

Obviously it's pointless to apologize endlessly at this point, since nothing will fix it and as you said it doesn't matter now - unfortunately. We made a mistake and even if it doesn't seem like it, but rest assured we take false positives quite seriously which is why we still respond to you now.

I think you also mentioned getting banned in Arma 3 as well in the past - which made things even more "clear" from our perspective. Our data showed that you used a method to disable BE back then and we are pretty sure that this was not caused by a false positive. Any thoughts on this?" ~The BattlEye


@AFTER:
Never owned Arma 3 or anything from DayZ. Ark: Survival Evolved was the only game that I seriously played. Rest of that thread ended up.... NULL to me.