exploiting some of the party netcode to send payloads to clients
is nothing that gamerdude does by accident. Message talks about remote code execution on server side, that’s more severe than just using exisiting, server-side infra to make it display any text message like ‘hey there, go to XXXX’ (e.g. a message service sideloading with any string).
gaining access rights to make the program execute arbitrary code, that’s a different beast. In the worst case (best case for provider of service), you have to prepare binary op-code to place in RAM, make the server interpret it and do what you want it to do (i.e. requires probably escalation of privileges as well). In the best case (for hacker) you just provide a script file text which is executed as is, no checks applied.
The former is obv serious hacker stuff, the latter massive oversight (though could be forbidden easily - question then is, what does it break, and why was it used that way? but i digress…)
tl;dr,
kinda doubt … WANT to doubt … that this is gamerkidz doing dumb stuff, post portem of what went down there would be interesting to read!
Oh, yeah, to be clear I think this is probably some black hats who think they’re showing how “lazy” Respawn are or have an axe to grind about Apex etc. not just any gamers, but the message hack definitely was gamer “””activism”””
Fully agree, that’s why it would be interesting to hear a post mortem, to gauge how serious someone was about figuring out how to do it
(kinda like figuring out how to pull off a trick in speedrunning, is it just a ‘jump here and hope it works!’ kind of thing, or is it a ‘doing crazy inputs until you have written a jump address in memory that the console executes to draw the YOU ARE A WINNER screen’ job.
The latter i absolutely love, obv, because of my love for embedded computing! )
even if this is completely disconnected than the gamers who have been lobbying for titanfall fixes, the game probably became a target because of the press around that work.
An old school Hot Rod, aspirated a Roots blower mounted low ahead of the radiator, sucking in air and dust in near equal proportion and therefore sporting the second-to-last pair of pantyhose in Christendom as a filter.
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