Sins - Sins is not ShowEQ (1 Viewer)

[daemonrebel]

Links to this site been floating around recently and I want to know if someone can get this program up and running if it works. It's supposed to be like a slightly safer version of Mq2 and RedQuest, mostly because it's like similar to ShowEQ on how it reads the packets and basically converts them to information that you can you use to track mobs, loot, etc, anything you want. It elminates a reason to ever box a tracker. People say you can use this program and never get banned. I'm seeking someone brave enough set it up, test it out, then report back to us to tell us the deal.

http://sins.sourceforge.net/

Now plenty of people have said that sony is not worried about people using linux to do their dirty deeds, they're worried about people using windows. Why? Because everyone knows how to use windows, any idiot can do it, but linux/unix is only for the elite.


"Sins is desgined for the Linux operating system and does not run on windows."

"Sins automatically detects the IP addresses of any computer running EQ that you would like to monitor so there is no need to edit any configuration files."

I once had a contact who is a used to be a gm and claimed that because of the way the program is designed, that there's nothing they can do. True or false? is this really a hoax or not?

 

[EvenLessSpam]

Links to this site been floating around recently

This is old old old old old If someone is floating those links around now then they're living like 4 years in the past :p

It's supposed to be like a slightly safer version of Mq2 and RedQuest, mostly because it's like similar to ShowEQ on how it reads the packets and basically converts them to information that you can you use to track mobs, loot, etc, anything you want.

It works EXACTLY like MQ2Map for MQ2. It works EXACTLY like ShowEQ. It can't track loots and haven't been able to for many years (since Luclin iirc). Only thing it tracks is spawns, just like MQ2Map.

Safer? Yes and no. A vanilla MQ2 compile is just as safe as this, that is as long as SOE doesn't put in a sentinel-like sniffer like Blizzard uses for WoW.

It elminates a reason to ever box a tracker.

You will still need a character in the zone you wish to get information about. You can't just tell this program "Hey, show me what mobs are up in Qvic before I zone there".

People say you can use this program and never get banned.

Although I would like to agree, and "people" are almost right, then I'll just add that there's ALWAYS a chance of getting banned if you don't think. Rogue enters zone, waits a moment, than arrows in a bee-line straight to some named roamer and kills it.. GM watching and this will look very suspicious, but they can't detect it any more than they can detect you having your Map window open in EQ.

I once had a contact who is a used to be a gm and claimed that because of the way the program is designed, that there's nothing they can do. True or false? is this really a hoax or not?

There was something they did at one time. They encrypted the data transmitted between the EQ servers and the EQ client. The key was changed everytime you zoned. To get around this the people at ShowEQ created a sniffer program to run on the machine which EQ was running on, and would then show you the key to paste into ShowEQ.. This was a bit more automated later on.

As it is SOE can't detect ShowEQ or SINS, because it does nothing to change the flow of data between the EQ client or the EQ server, all it does is read and interpret the data going back and forth.


Now, today it's pretty hard to get a program like this working unless you run it on your gateway machine or have a non-switching hub. Why? Let me explain..

Normally a program cannot read the TCP/IP packets that isn't destined for another machine, that is because the Network Adapter reads the destination of a packet and says "This isn't addressed for me" and throws it away. To get past that a administrative user (root on linux) can make the Network Adapter go into promiscious mode, and it will then read anything and everything coming it's way wheter it's adressed for it or not. Then it's up to the programs/applications to decided what to do with the data.

Great, now we know that. That wasn't hard. Here's the first roadblock:

In the olden days where switches weren't that common you had non-switching hubs instead which couldn't tell the difference between packet A or packet B, so it would just throw all data to all connections that it had, in effect broadcasting everything. It would cause a nice amount of collision (packets colliding and then getting nowhere and thereby needed to be sent again), so speeds weren't that great. Now the great thing about these olden non-switching hubs (or not so great from a security perspective) was that you could just put your Network Adapter in promiscious mode and you could see what everyone else on your network were doing (if you were smart enough to know how to capture and decipher the packets).

Fast forward to today...

A switching hub or a router (which usually have a switching hub built-in) doesn't send data to the wrong recipient. It only sends data to the machine for which it is addressed for. This means if 3 computers (we call them 1, 2 and 3) are connected to a switch (we call it S), then when 1 sends to 2 through S, 3 will never know what was sent or recieved because it wasn't addressed to 3.

So how do you get around this?

There are a few ways.

1. Get a non-switching hub (bad idea, it gives piss-poor network performance) and connect your EQ machine and your SINS machine to it.
2. Install 2 Network Adapters in your SINS machine and set it up to act as a bridge or gateway between your EQ machine and the internet (router, wall jack, whatever).


Summa summarum:

ShowEQ and SINS is IMO a waste of time. If you're worried about being detected then stay with the vanilla MQ2 and stay away from active hacks, and first and foremost always think before you act

 

[Mirloc]

ShowEQ and SINS is IMO a waste of time. If you're worried about being detected then stay with the vanilla MQ2 and stay away from active hacks, and first and foremost always think before you act

Couldn't agree more. Both SINS and SEQ require far more effort to maintain than MQ2, and frankly isn't nearly as good a product over all.

I used SEQ for years until it got to be more of a hassle than it was worth to compile, run an sniffer on the EQ machine, etc etc. That's when I turned to MQ - a far more efficient and useful tool.

Incidentally, the GM tactics to catch SEQ users were the same as the tactics to catch MQ2 users. Wait for the person to screw up and say something in /gu or /g that there was no way for their character to have knowledge of.

The moral is be smart and you can use MQ2 just about anywhere without problem.

 

[daemonrebel]

thanks guys. this broaden's my horizon alot. gives me a ideal about how things work.

yeah i find that in game or even out of game, "less is more" type of attitude is very effect ive about keeping a low profile.

 

[daemonrebel]

Couldn't agree more. Both SINS and SEQ require far more effort to maintain than MQ2, and frankly isn't nearly as good a product over all.

I used SEQ for years until it got to be more of a hassle than it was worth to compile, run an sniffer on the EQ machine, etc etc. That's when I turned to MQ - a far more efficient and useful tool.

Incidentally, the GM tactics to catch SEQ users were the same as the tactics to catch MQ2 users. Wait for the person to screw up and say something in /gu or /g that there was no way for their character to have knowledge of.

The moral is be smart and you can use MQ2 just about anywhere without problem.

At this point when I made this post, I had never even tried mq2, and was a lil paranoid about trying something new. but after using mq2 for about a week, after 2 patches so far, I have long lost the idea of using anything else. mq2 is great, easy to use, and if you keep your actions minimal, not much threat of being caught.