v2.8 (August 20th, 2009)
When this tutorial was first put together, it was simply intended to
help a few people here whom had asked for various bits of advice in
the area of researching player accounts from the America's Army
game. The biggest point of contention that always used to arise was
the problematic issues of connected player accounts. Guess some
things never change! 
Just as before, this tutorial will be laid out for beginners, as well as those who’ve been doing checks for years. And, again, we will error on the side of caution and present this as if this is your first time doing a background check. Some things to keep in mind are not all of the necessary information will always be available to you. Sometimes you will simply have to proceed with what you have available and work with that in order to reach the most educated conclusion possible. That fact itself presents different issues for different people. If you are a staff member here, then chances are you only deal with facts, and so you're work becomes more simplified. However, if you are doing a B/C on your own, then it can get a bit more complicated.
Sometimes people do B/C's on potential clan recruits or to help out a friend. But most often, people simply pursue player background checks in an attempt to confirm what they are already completely sure of... That the player is a cheater of some sort. And when that notion strikes someone, that person will search to the ends of the earth to find that proof. If they haven't found it by then, you can be sure they will soon be filling out a request at NASA or somewhere else so they can continue their hunt far beyond earth. My advice to the person who is 100% positive that a player is a cheater is this: LET SOMEONE ELSE DO THE CHECKING. This is because there are plenty of people just as qualified and knowledgeable as you, if not more so, who can approach the issue of research much more objectively than you.
The sections of this tutorial cascade from novice to pro, so if you are just beginning, you can read as much you like, go try some things at the basic level, and come back to learn more later. Or, you can just burn through the whole thing and start doing the most thorough checks possible. However, the worst possible thing you can do is just take few things away from this and call it a day. This is because, without knowing how or why you are doing what you are doing, you will defeat half of the purpose of doing it, and thus, risk screwing up the actual results of your check.
Finally, if you read this all the way through, you will notice some things repeated throughout the tutorial. This is not only for emphasis, but for the sake of those who will simply hop and skip through this in a big hurry to "get to the good stuff."
NOTE: A bit of advice for those not yet familiar with doing basic Background Checks, please get familiar with the basics before rushing out and attempting to build a CIA dossier on somebody. If you are NOT familiar with the basics and simply rush out to just collect whatever information falls on to your screen, you WILL bungle the results. It's as plain and simple as that.
No two accounts can exist at the same time with the exact same name. A player's account history only consists of information that is publicly available. That information can come from a few different sources, including servers that are streaming to ACI, and through information sharing and cooperation with other communities. Sometimes not all of a player's information makes it in to our records, or anybody else's for that matter. So, sometimes an account history check will return very little or no information. This a very important thing, because just as one persons account might be linked to many other accounts that are not theirs, another persons account may be linked to nothing and even contain little or no information, yet that does not prove that person to be an honest player.
Many times accounts are linked together that have very little in common other than a shared IP address. But that linking of accounts can be very misleading. If you do nothing more than enter one piece of information and proceed with only the first results you get, then you will have nothing but what recorded account history exists for the information you entered. If you run a check in that fashion, and proceed in that fashion, then you can completely and totally disregard any accounts that might appear linked. This is because those linked accounts are listed there for reference only. They are only a starting point for those who actually choose to do a Background check. If you plan to proceed with the first results you get, you are not doing a background check, you are doing an account history look-up and that is all.
Because AA does not use a CD Key like many other retail games, the GUID is a unique, alpha-numeric sequence that is generated by PB and AA based on a combination of your registration information (i.e. - user name, registration date, etc.). And, since a valid PunkBuster account is required to play on PB enabled servers, players are assigned an account number from Punkbuster, known as a Globally Unique Identifier, or GUID. This GUID, much like your Army UID will not change no matter how times a player changes the player name on an account. However, unlike your Army UID, each GUID is unique to a players account and is not recycled. If a new account is created, a new GUID will be assigned from PB, but the old one will forever be registered to the account it was first registered to, regardless of name changes and regardless of how many new accounts a person makes. Every time you connect to an authorized server, you will see a PB message that states:
PunkBuster Client: PB Server assigned GUID =
81621a4febc43125ad4680479c52cd31
This is your own personal GUID and it will never change unless you change
accounts.
1.3) The IP Address (IPv4, or IP version 4)
An IP address is the Internet Protocol (IP) address given to every computer
connected to the Internet - it pretty much works as a street address or PO box.
IP addresses do not belong to the people that use them, and therefore are
subject to change at anytime.
Keep in mind that MAC addresses can be spoofed, or made to look like something
other than what they really are. IP addresses, on the other hand, are pretty
solid in this respect.
So, now that we know where the IP address comes from and where it goes, let's take a look at how it is used by people. There are various means to connect to the internet and various speeds at which it can be done. But it all happens the same way. So how come some people have only one IP address listed for them, while others might have many? That is because, due to the limited amount of numbers that an ISP is given to work with (they can only use numbers in the range they are assigned) the ISP's are sometimes forced to recycle numbers randomly or on a set schedule. This is known as a Dynamic IP address, because it is always changing. Sometimes people are fortunate, and their ISP has assigned them an IP address which will remain with them for a very long time, or sometimes even permanently. This is known as a Static IP Address, because it is constant.
This is why some players will only have one IP address connected to their AA Player History and why others will have many. Even more, this exactly why many players will appear as being linked to various other accounts. Not because they are the same person, but because they may be in the same geographic location or simply have the same ISP that is recycling it's IP addresses. And it also the biggest reason why you should make no assumptions when you see one account linked to one or more other accounts that have bans on them.
All this shifting is not the general rule, it is the exception. But it is something that needs to be understood. Because, If I have a dynamic IP address, somewhere in my history of recorded IP addresses, I might show an IP address I only used one time in my life. But, that same IP address might have also been used by someone else who lives in England and who also plays AA, and thus our accounts have become forever linked together. Again, we are a world apart, yet we appear to be the same person.
With the clarification of IP addresses, we no longer need to assume someone is a cheater simply because they have had the misfortune of using an IP address that some other person cheated on at some point in time. The linked accounts are only provided as a starting point.
1.3.1) IP Locations: How to determine where the IP addresses are located
There are many ways to go about finding where an IP address originates from. This can be helpful because sometimes it will show you two accounts connected by IP, but separated by a large geographic difference. This can be used to show that, unless a person moved 500 or 1,000 miles away to a new home or new internet connection, the two linked accounts are not the same person and have only used a shared IP, usually via an ISP with dynamic IP's for it's customers.
For the purpose of this tutorial, a simple explanation should suffice. The difference between "Static" IP addresses and "Dynamic" IP addresses is simple. Static IP addresses rarely change, and even when they do, the first two sets of numbers usually don't change. (Example: 76.189.4.135, 76.189.4.223, 76.189.9.147, 76.189.11.229, 76.189.30.168, 76.189.56.86). However, a dynamic IP address changes often, usually about every 24-hours unless a computer owner does something to make it happens sooner.
It can also come in handy when doing a B/C and finding someone linked to 10 different accounts. If you trace the IP and find it belongs to an ISP in the Netherlands, you will realize that there are about 25 times more gamers in the Netherlands than there is ISP's, thus, people there have no choice but to be linked to other accounts by IP alone.
There are many ways to go about resolving an IP address. One those that is most helpful is the rDNS lookup, or Reverse Domain Name Server look up. Reverse DNS turns an IP address into a hostname -- for example, it might turn 192.0.2.25 into host.example.com. This, often accompanied by other information, such as the ISP that maintains the DNS which hosts that IP address. This type of search generally turns up information because RFC 1912 says that all hosts on the Internet should have a valid rDNS entry. This is an international standard set forth by ICANN, or The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
For a list of websites where you can do these searches and learn more about how internet protocols work, see the "Tool Locations" section at the end of this tutorial. There is no "Best" place or way to perform these types of searches. Each website offering these types of services will have it's own look, it's own feel, and it's own services. It's up to you to decide what you prefer. And because services offered can change at any site at anytime the site owners see fit, it's usually good to be familiar with a few different websites offering these services.
1.3.1.1) Other Useful Information
Other types of information gathering can be used to gain intelligence about your target. Be it an IP address they logged on to Teamspeak with or a post they made in a forum (which will also record their IP address on most forums.) Even if it's not your TS or your forums. Do you know the owner? Would they look up this information and give it to you if you asked them to? What about a certain server they logged in to? Would the owner look that up for you? Did you check the Log-In History tool for that? Did they send an email or can you get them to reply to an email from you? You can trace an email address back to it's IP very easily by looking in the header for where the email originated from.
We'll try to keep this as simple as we can. A Media Access Control Address, or MAC address, is the physical address of an item used to connect to the internet via the IP provided to a person. Now we already know each person uses an IP address (or street address) to identify it's connection location to the internet. Each connection is identified at it's "Street Address" by it's own MAC address. If we can think of an IP Address as a street address, then we can think of the MAC Address as a persons name. For example, you can have many different people at one street address, but if they all have different names, then they are easy to identify, e.g., Steve connected to the game server from 1501 Maple Street.
Most pieces of hardware have a preset MAC address which is set at the factory and is set within a range specific to the manufacturer of that piece of hardware. Usually the MAC address for a machine is located in the network interface on the motherboard or in a NIC card installed in their computer. That means, unless manually changed by the computers owner, it will be the same no matter how many modems, routers, etc., that they use or have used.
And this is where a bump in the road can occur for us. If I live in the U.S. and No^AmP lives in Belgium, but we both happen to have a popular motherboard hooked up to our machine, then the chances of us having a similar MAC address have just increased geometrically. Now, considering that most manufactures of popular hardware only use a certain range of addresses, the chances of us having the same MAC address have increased greatly. So, judging by MAC address alone, we appear to be the same person with two different accounts. But yet, we are a world apart. This is why accounts linked via MAC address can be misleading, and thus, why they should NOT be heavily relied on. This is also why we put such an emphasis on research, and stress why you should not just perform "fire and forget" searches.
Now, when it comes to doing searches, etc., using the AA Account History Tool, you will always find a players MAC address has the last two octets replaced with XX. This is done to protect the integrity of that players account and to prevent those with malicious intent from duplicating that MAC address. This narrows the possibility of causing trouble for that player at some point later on when some lazy-ass server admin comes along and just looks at the information presented instead of bothering themselves to actually learn what the information presented is supposed to mean.
1.4.1) People Obsessed With MAC Addresses
Some people may not have their MAC address recorded when they connect to a server. This can be for any number of reasons. However, the most important thing to realize is that CHEATERS RARELY USE THIS AS A TACTIC TO HIDE THEMSELVES. Why would they? There's far too many other things they can do to achieve that. The result of a MAC address NOT being recorded is usually due to something far less sinister.
Whether it is the type of motherboard they have in their machine, the type of network interface they are using, or some sort of compatibility issue in the America's Army software, the simple truth is that it means absolutely NOTHING about the integrity of that player.
Here's an example: Recently there was player who was having problems with his MAC address not being recorded. This raised a concern for some Admins from a pretty good clan. So, instead of just assuming the worst, they began asking questions of the player and around the AA community. While the player didn't care one way or the other about his MAC address, he did like playing on that clan's server. So, he was as cooperative as he could be. Turns out, his modem was connected to his computer via a USB port. And since MAC's are only assigned to NIC interfaces or to NIC cards, there was no MAC for to be recorded. Eventually he was able to set up a regular connection between his modem and his computer via Ethernet cable, and voila... He had a MAC address! A fine example of what good Admins do when they DON'T KNOW something.
Does this mean people should now have a license to go around banning players who are connected via USB instead of Ethernet? If you think so, you really are as much of a detriment to this community as the cheaters themselves. MAC addresses simply add an extra means of identification to a players account, nothing more, nothing less. The presence or non-presence of a MAC address has no effect on the system requirements necessary to play America's Army, and therefore, are no indication of anything, cheating or otherwise.
Just take a second to look at the other side of the coin... If a cheater has a VALID MAC ADDRESS recorded, does that make them an honest player? No. Just the same, an un-recorded MAC address for any other player does NOT automatically make them a cheater, either.
Please note, I have purposefully left out information regarding the spoofing and/or changing of MAC addresses. Regardless of how easy it is or how harmless it is, to print that information here would probably be much more harmful than helpful to those who just can't resist experimenting.
One problem you might run in to when doing a background check on a player is that you know this player exists, yet you cannot find any information about their account. This can happen for a few reasons. One reason may be that they have never played AA before today. Another reason can be that they have never played on any streamed servers, so their account information has never been recorded yet. Finally, even though you know they were on a server that is streaming to ACI, they still might not have had their information recorded before today. And, even when a server is streaming, it can take up to 24 hours before streamed data is available. The time until player information is processed for servers running AutoBan is significantly less. That is because, while streaming servers are sending a copy of the Punkbuster log from that server (a large file that needs to be searched for specific information), AutoBan servers only send that specific information.
But what about screenshots and people caught cheating by Punkbuster or ACI scripts? Account information and PBSS data are available immediately for the PBSS Submission Tool for servers that are streaming. That is because when a screenshot is submitted, the log is automatically searched for the account information of that one player. However, violations, kicks, and restrictions are only updated once daily for the previous day. Violations that are always bannable are banned instantaneously, but the violation line still will not appear on the player's account history until somewhere between 12 and 24 hours later.
One of the largest and most useful tools you will come across is the America's Army Account History tool created by Rifle[Hazard]. It is used in many ways as you will see in the following sections.
This first section, just goes over the interface of the AA Account History tool .
The first page you will see is this page.
Now, we'll break down the page for you so that way you can easily navigate and with help from following sections, utilize all this to do your own background checks.
On the main page, you will see the banner and toolbar. This is your
central place of knowledge on this page. It has all the links to all
the pages you will need to conduct a thorough background check. Also, take note that this
main page is the 
link on the banner.
The next section you will see is the Search Box. This box is how you can search for any player you want to try and find in AA.
You can then use the drop down menu next to "Type:" to select what variable you are searching for. You can search using Punkbuster GUID, 8-Digit Punkbuster GUID, Current Username, Previous Username, IP Address, Previous IP Address, and MAC Address.
After that, you see the Results area. This box is where your results will pop up once you have clicked search in the Search Box.
And lastly, you see the legend.
This explains what the colors you will see on an account are. When you search, your results will pop up in the Results Box and will be color coded, based upon whether the player has:
"No current bans on account" Blue
"Account has at least one ban by ACI" Red
"Account has at least one ban by an anticheat
organization other than ACI". Orange
The next link on the top banner is the Violation History. The Violation History Page looks like this.
The only difference on this page is the search box is now for searching for violations in a players history.
The purpose of the Violation History page is to show you what this player was kicked by PB from a server for. This could be useful when trying to find out if a player has any bannable violations. (Link: Violations - Bannable and Not Bannable)
This is an example of violations listed on the page. (All the violations are in red as the account is banned by ACI.)
As you can see, it is broken down by:
This column is the user's User Name.
This
column is the user's GUID.
This
column is the user's IP address.
This
column is the logline logged. This is the exact kick violation that
PB kicked the player for.
This
column is the Server IP the player was kicked from.
This
column is the time and date that the player was kicked from the
server.
This is an example of a bannable violation (#120119). This is a known cheat and has been appealed unsuccessfully many times before to both ACI and Evenbalance. This is also the reason this particular player is banned by ACI.
You can also search by Log Line or Server IP.
The Log Line search can be good to see who has a violation that you are looking for. This example is the #120119 violation that is a known cheat violation. It shows the violations in order from the earliest one recorded. You can use the search start and search end dates to specify a certain time frame.
You can also select whether you want to show those banned by ACI or not.
The Server IP search could be good to show what violations take place on a certain server. Maybe you want to check your own server and see who has been kicked and for what. This is also a good place to check your server violations against the ban list to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. You can see in this example that this player is banned, either because of this violation or one before it.
This page works the same way as the Violation History page, except it shows all kicks by PB, whether a violation or not.
The Login History and Login Compare Tool pages are another very huge part of the America's Army Account History tool and conducting a background check. First we'll go over the page layout.
As you'll notice, the search box is pretty similar, except you have a few more options via drop down menus. Your first option is using the first drop down menu. You can search by GUID, Server IP, and Time. As you'll see, the GUID search turns up the logins for the GUID, starting from the latest login. It shows the IP logged in at, the Server IP logged onto and the date and time.
You can also use the second drop down to select the source of the information. Most recent entries can be found using either ACI logs or Autoban2 logs. Switching between them sometimes yields different results. The ACI logs go back further than those of the Autoban2 logs.
The next search option on the first drop down menu is the Server IP option. You can put in any server IP that is streaming or running Autoban to see all the logins. You can search by date frame or just leave all the options default and search the last logins to a server.
The last option that you can search by is Time/Date. You can put in a date and search for all logins on a specific date. It lists them all by last login on that Date/Time and shows the Username, GUID, Player IP, and Server IP.
This section will go over the Login Compare Tool. This is the section you will use to verify or disprove a linked account. You can input two different GUID's to compare their logins. This will be able to show you if there is any overlap in logins, as in a player is logging in from the same IP on two different GUID's at the same time. The first thing you will see when you click search is the Linking Information block. This is where you can see if there is any linked IP's or MAC's. The Login Compare Tool DOES NOT link accounts by MAC address. It only links by IP and then see's if there are any MAC's in common.
As you can see from the example, I used my GUID and a banned GUID. Obviously there is no links between the two. If there were, it would show linked IP's up top in this block. Using the banned account and an account that is showing as linked to him, you can see the IP's at the top. BE CAREFUL: Just because they are linked at the top DOES NOT mean they are linked to each other.
If you go through the actual logins, you can see if you notice any overlaps in IP. When going through the links, the accounts will always keep the same color for that account. You'll also notice that every time an IP changes color, it's a different IP. When the IP color stays the same and the account changes, that's an overlap in an IP. On this example you'll notice there are NONE.
On this one, you'll notice there are overlapping IP links (highlighted in yellow):
From this you can tell that the account, SexyVirginia (GUID=BEC4643E1DF9DBBF0866A732C716A536) is linked via by multiple IP overlaps to .tru.Mule(GUID=DE980CB4CAD023D38F7A90D6210C8D31). This is how you can tell that the second account, SexyVirgina, is positively linked to .tru.Mule.
There are 4 more links at the top of the America's Army Account History banner. These links are there as support tools to help you. They are Streaming Servers, PunkBuster Violations, PunkBuster Scripts, and Frequently Asked Questions.
The Streaming Server section shows all the servers that are
streaming to ACI. It lists the name of the server, the server IP,
the version running on that server, the server admin name, and the
date/time last updated. If you notice, there is also 3 links at the
end of each server line. These links are: 
Shows the logins for that server. 
Shows the Violations for that server. 
Shows the Kicks for that server.
The PunkBuster Violations section is a reference to show all the known PB violations and whether they are bannable or not. Just click the violation your looking up and it will take you to it. It shows the Description, Example (of the kick line), and whether Always Bannable, Sometimes Bannable, or Never Bannable.
The Punkbuster Scripts is a page that is still Under Construction at the time of this tutorial. These are public checks that you can implement on your server for the security of your server. In order to get more in depth scripts, you will need to apply to one of the Anticheat Communities to get access to them.
This page is dedicated to simple frequently asked questions answered by Rifle[Hazard] himself.
The player profile is one you will probably see the most in using this tool. This is probably the page you are looking for the most if you are trying to search for a player or do a background check. The profile is what has all the information needed on a player to accurately conduct a background check. The page will look something like this:
You will see the 4 sections on the profile, which are: Player History, Linked Accounts, Previous Violations, and Bulletin Board Code Copy and Paste. These all play into you background check.
The player history shows players specific gaming info. It will show you: Name, GUID, IP, MAC, and Last Seen Date. This is all the important info to conduct the basic background check.
You can also use click the IP in the main information to pull up a DNS lookup on that IP. Same goes for the MAC, except you can find out the Manufacturer of the hardware pushing the MAC.
Click the IP:
View the DNS page to see where the IP originates from. This is useful to check to see if two IP's are originating out of the same geographical area. This also help connect two accounts together.
Same goes for the MAC address, click on the MAC:
You can then view the manufacturer of the MAC hardware.
It will also show: Other Names, Other IP's, and Other MAC's. These reflect all the previous names, IP's, and MAC'S the player has used since the tool has started tracking. All these "others" are for only this GUID.
The last group you will see is the symbols below the Player's Info.
The first two symbols, 
,
represent the player's honor and country of origin.
Just hover over the symbol's to see the exact honor.
The next 2 symbols are actually links to other valuable pieces of
information. The first, 
,
is the link to the player's tracker profile. If
they don't have a tracker page or it is private, it will not display
anything. The
second,
,
is the link to the player's MBS page. And lastly,
it will show whether the player has any bans or not. 
If they do have bans, it will show which organization they are
banned by and it will be clickable to take you to that organizations
webpage.
2.7.2) Stored PunkBuster Screen Shots
This section shows us every Punkbuster Screenshot that was submitted to -ACI- whether it was approved or not. If anyone submits a screenshot and it is denied for lack of evidence or even for being overwritten, it is saved and attached to the players history. This is due to the way the whole system is setup to show the banned PBSS, it unfortunately shows some non-banned PBSS.
This is how it looks expanded. (You can expand it by clicking the little (+) plus sign).
When looking at the PBSS, make sure you look at the bottom left to see if it has either: A. Banned - ACI-PBSS-BOT or B. Not Banned. Obviously, the player's account this PBSS is showing for directly reflects that. You also want to check that it is a valid screenshot.
The biggest thing to remember is that just because a PBSS is showing, does not mean that they are banned or a cheater. Make sure to check the bottom left of the screenshot to verify.
The next section shows the linked accounts to the player. Some may only have 1 account listed and it is this specific account. Others may have just a couple second accounts. Sometimes you will see a lot of accounts. This is usually due to them having a dynamic IP.
As you can see in the above example, there are 3 other accounts linked to this player: socom_NINJA,{Sl}Pink_Robot, and Chunaker. The other is the actual account you are looking up. You will also notice on the .tru.Fal)e.2.l3lack and socom_NINJA accounts, there is the green color. That coloring represents the same value, as in this case, the same MAC addresses. Sometimes you will see this on IP's as well.
The last thing you will see in this section is the View Link Info buttons. Each account has one and you can click the one for the account you are looking up to bring up another window with the Login Compare Tool for the Main Account and the second account your clicking on.
Just because they're linked doesn't mean they are guilty. It is important to know how and why accounts can seem to be linked together. Accounts are only linked by IP Address.
When someone does a background check, depending on the tool(s) they use, they can find various accounts that seemed to have used the same IP address at one time or another. This can be confusing because the people who have dynamic IP addresses are subject to having a new IP address every 24 hours or every time they get on the internet. Some people with a dynamic IP address will be lucky and only cycle through a small series of addresses. Others can be unlucky and end up having as many as 100 different IP addresses in their history.
And some of us are lucky enough to have static IP addresses, which means we will almost always have the same IP address in our history. This is good for an honest player, but bad for a dishonest one.
Also, sometimes you will find MAC addresses that match multiple accounts, but this is not to be taken at face value only. This can be an indicator of accounts being played from the same computer or it can mean that it is the one player with multiple accounts. However, many things need to be taken in to consideration before deciding that it is the same person or the same player.
Now, of course, there are many ways to circumvent or modify MAC addresses and IP addresses, but this isn't the time nor place for that discussion. Just needed to mention that before I was gently overwhelmed with reminders about how easy it is to do this or do that.
So, when we get our B/C results, we see we have a person linked to a few accounts or, depending on your tool of choice, you might just have a list of names, or a list of GUID's and a list of IP addresses, as well. What we need to keep in mind is that never 100% proof of anything after the GUID. Names can fluctuate between accounts as simple as taking banned account X and renaming it to Y, so that a second account can be named X. And though extremely rare, even an exact IP match and an exact MAC match between two accounts can still be two different people ( as one gentleman from Canada found out when he discovered that he was linked by both IP and MAC addresses to another player from Poland.) Though, that matter was quickly clarified in writing, it still appears to be him, unless someone takes the necessary steps to sort out the connection. Which in that case was a simple matter of rDNS look-up's.
This section shows all the previous violations that this player has had. It places them right here in the Player Profile so that you don't have to go searching for them.
Most of the time, these violations are all harmless violations that do not mean anything other than a faulty connection or a corrupted file. Occasionally you will see a bannable violation in the previous violations. Hopefully they are already banned if your seeing it, but, it may be fresh and they are not banned at that very moment.
2.7.5) Bulletin Board Code Copy and Paste
This box is a useful Copy and Paste box that will allow you to post the player's profile to a forum. All you have to do is click in the box, press Ctrl-A to select all and Ctrl-C to copy. Once you are on the forum you are trying to post to, press Ctrl-V to paste the information.
If you would like to see how a Back Ground Check is done, ACI does offer a 30 min Video to it's private membership, if you are
not a private member or server owner you can apply by visiting the thread provided. It shows you how to perform the basic
back ground check in real time.
More info on Gaining access to the -ACI-BG Video
Battletracker provides the community with many great services. One of those is the ability to build a viewable history for your account. Among the many benefits that come from that, it also provides a giant benefit to the anti-cheat community. It gives us the ability, sometimes, to see a different perspective on a player's account history. Surprisingly, a lot of cheaters just can't seem to let go of that 2.3 Frag-Rate. So when they are suspected of cheating or get banned, they simply change their Tracker account name to reflect their new Army Game account, thus keeping their precious Frag-Rate. Have doubts about this? Just look at the ridiculous postings in any appeals section at ANY anti-cheat site. People know they were caught red-handed, but they will put up the effort to fight a ban with the silliest excuses. Why bother? It's all in the hopes of re-gaining that high honor account of theirs. Well, the same goes for Frag-Rate's. And that combination of greed and ego provides us an opportunity to know more about them. If we know where to look...
If we already have a link to our targets Tracker account, then this step can be skipped. The first thing we do is see if our target has an existing account at Tracker. So we visit Tracker's website, and we do a quick search for a User account with that name. To do this navigate your way along the top navbar until you find SEARCH.
After clicking on this link, we see the search box, and we input our target's account name and check the EXACT USERNAME box, if that is his exact username. Players country is not needed.
And if an account with that exact name exists, it will appear in your results. So, we click on the player name and begin gathering information from the account page.
Now, what if we we're not sure of the exact spelling of the account name? Or maybe we want to search to see if there are any accounts with a similar name or clan tag. Well, then we input the first few letters of the name or clan tag in the PLAYERNAME box and we leave the EXACT USERNAME box unselected, we then click on search and wait to see if we get any hits for similar names.
Ok, so we find our target, and maybe some similar names. If any of the names strike you as being a spin-off of the original name you searched for, take note of this, as you may want to investigate those accounts as well. Now, this doesn't mean similar names that appear to bear a clan tag. But, rather, names that may be the same, e.g., Reaper-ACI- or R34P3R-ACI-. Ok, so we find an account with our target's name. Let's click on it...
If the username is hyperlinked then by clicking on it, it will take us to the accounts previous name changes. The hyperlink is highlighted by the red outline on the following screenshot...
3.1.1) Find the User Account by GUID
Using the following link : http://battletracker.com/index.php?page=AAOPlayerStats&guid=Place-Player-GUID-Here you can easily track someone's account. Please keep in mind that sometimes this method does not work as the player might not have entered his/her GUID in BattleTrackers database.
3.2) Find the Username Changes
If we click on that magical username, a new window will pop open, and it will tell us how many different Usernames have been used to represent that account.
This is extremely useful, because whether a person changed their Army game account name and then changed it here or simply created a new Army game account and then changed it here, any name they have used for this Tracker account will be shown here. And this is golden if you are looking for an Army game account name that you think may have been associated with this person at one point in time. If you found a banned account you think might belong to your target and you find the exact banned account name here in this list, you should hear alarm bells going off by now. The chances that this is a mere coincidence are very poor. At this point, you can safely say this is the same person.
However, if you found no matches, then compare this list to the list of names in your targets account history. Not just those for the present account, but also compare it to the linked accounts and their various names. You just might find something that starts a new hunt all over again. And if you find nothing there, try running some of these names through the account history tool and see if you get any new leads. You might find a banned account that wasn't even linked because of some drastic change in your targets history, such as a geographic re-location (he moved from one city to another,) or any other number of things that could cause two accounts not to be linked.
Also, bear in mind that this is a good opportunity to compare your targets Tracker account with another account you may suspect of belonging to your target. Compare things like the amount of time spent playing on various servers, and especially the types of servers. Even more, usually a big indicator can be seen in the maps played. Are both accounts that of an SF Hospital fanatic or a Bridge junkie? Do they both prefer only a few maps or are the two accounts reflective of two totally different maps? None of this is solid evidence of anything. But as you gather information on your target, you will begin to get a feeling about them. And simple things like the type of maps played can be just enough to make you raise an eyebrow as you either begin to suspect that this account may or may not appear to belong to your target. And whether it does or not, you should be running checks on every name found in the Tracker Username History box, just to make sure there are no overlaps between the accounts outside of some similarities between Tracker accounts.
What if you have a persons name, but nothing else to work with? If they belong to a clan, finding the clan account can be useful because you might find your targets correct name spelling or whatever on the Clan's Tracker page, and thus, be able to narrow your search down. Or, you may find another member of that clan with the same name as one of the names you are searching for. Which would open more doors for you. Or maybe you want to visit that clan's website. Most clan's have their Roster or Members list readily available for public viewing. What if your target has one name for his AA account but has something similar, but slightly different at his clan's website? Is the slightly different name the one you've been searching for?
I recently did a search for a player named -Cru$h-. I could not find anything about this guy anywhere to link him to the account (-Cru$heR-) that I swore up and down was his. Finally, one of the last things I did out of habit was, when on -Cru$heR-'s clans Tracker page, to check to see if they had a valid website listed on their Tracker page. And sure enough they did. So, I went to their clan's website. And there, voila, I found I player named -Cru$h- listed on their player roster. And being the great clan they are, they were nice enough to provide links to all their members Tracker accounts. So, on a whim, I clicked on the link for -Cru$h-'s Tracker account. And guess who it linked back to. Yup! Ding-Ding-Ding We have a winner folks! Found my proof by the dumbest and least expected means possible.
Many different things can lead you to your answer, it's just a matter of where you look. So let's take a look at how to find a clan account.
The first thing we do is see if we can find an existing account at Tracker. So we visit Tracker's website, and we do a quick search for a User account with that name. There are two ways we can do this. If we know the exact spelling of the account name, then we go across the top navbar, click SEARCH and then SEARCH CLAN.
After clicking on this link, we see the search box, and we input our clan tag or symbols in to the CLAN TAG search field, and leave the box unchecked if you do not know the whole tag.
And if there are any clan's listed with Tracker with that tag, we will get results that look similar to this. We are looking for the Americas Army Clan, which has the tag "-ACI"
Or, if we don't know the clan's tag, but we know it's name, we can begin a brand new search here, which will later lead us back to the history tool's and such, just as soon as we know the exact User Name of our target. So, we would then enter our information in the CLAN NAME CONTAINS box and we click on search.
And if there is clan with that name you will see results similar to this.
So we click on that clans name, and there we see it's members listed.
And perhaps we see our targets name on there. Perfect! Now we have the correct spelling for their name. That will help us with our other searches. So, we click on the name and we begin the rest of our search.
3.4) Searching by email, skype, etc
One nice feature of BattleTracker is the ability to search for players why their Email, Website, Skype, AIM, and more!
If you have information on a player such as their Email address, Website, Skype, XFire, ICQ, AIM, YIM or Windows Live address you can search to see if the player has an account at Battletracker and if they do, you can then search to see if they have a tracked Americas Army account. This can be crucial when conducting an in-depth background check and you cannot find a tracked account for the player. For example, you know have been asked to conduct a background check on a player, he is known to use the following email address: Reaper@anticheatinc.com He does not appear to have a tracked account by using the method of inputting the GUID into the URL. He has changed name recently and you can no longer find his account. These are the steps taken to find the account. We should firstly click SEARCH on the top navbar.
Insert the email address, website, Skype, etc into the correct field and click search. Since we are using email, we will copy and paste it in as shown...
If the member is found within the BattleTracker database it will display the members which use that email. It will bring up his forum account. This is the part we are interested in.
And now we have his Americas Army tracked account without his username or clan, as some cheaters may change their tracked name so they can hide previous banned accounts, but they will not change their email or other IM accounts.
The AA MBS, or the America's Army Master Browser System, is a database system that is based upon the actual database which records all official account information. That is easily achieved, since the AA MBS is brought to us by Pragmatic Solutions, the very people who maintain the official player accounts for the Army Game Project. The AA MBS can be a powerful tool for tracking and maintaining the status of any player in America's Army. Unlike AAO: Tracker, the AA MBS tracks players as soon as they get an official AA account, whereas a person actually has to register at Tracker's website in order for you to follow them around. Also, unlike Tracker, it does not maintain a history of the player, does not track username changes, and does not show the last server or servers that a player was seen on. So, it is not meant as a replacement for Tracker at all. The AA MBS and AAO: Tracker are two completely different, yet complimentary, services.
The AA MBS, however, is very similar to AAO: Tracker in a few ways. It will allow you to search for any server, player or map by name, server IP, or skill level. It gives you the ability to keep track of your favorite servers and to maintain a buddy list. It allows you to see the details of any players on a given server at any time, allowing you the ability to join a server where the Honor levels of players there might be better balanced to your liking.
But... That is where the similarities end. Unlike other services offering similar tools, the AA MBS has some options that are very useful for the Anti-Cheating community. One of those, possibly the best in my opinion, is the ability to add a player to your buddy list completely anonymously. Other services with such an option allow for the viewing of who is watching you or keeping track of you. Not so with the AA MBS. You will have to find that player currently playing on a server in order to add them to your list. And if they are online, this can be achieved using the Player Search function. But once found, They are easily added to your Buddy list. And once added, you can check your buddy list at anytime to see the status of that player and where they are playing if they are online. And it doesn't matter if they have a Tracker account or not, since it is based off the official AA database. That means that no valid AA account can hide from the MBS. Period. No matter what account it is. Even if they are playing on a server that is not Tracked or listed with AAO: Tracker. Face it, if you know the account name, or even part of the account name, they can't hide from you.
Now that you've found them, what to do with this information? Well, I used to suggest that clan leaders use it to check their potential recruits. Because of the unique availability of data from the provider of this service, besides normal player stat's such as honor, it shows a lot more information than the average server browser is capable of showing. Lets take a look at some examples and how they can be used.
First, we have the search. Do we know the player's name or part of it? If they have a Tracker account, we can use that to see if and when they are online, thus narrowing our search down even more. If we know that, we can just go to the AA MBS site and enter the sever name or server IP and pull that info right up. From there we can begin to gather our other information about the player, as well as add them to our Buddy List. If it seems like a server they frequent a lot, we might even add it to our Favorite Server List. This is helpful once we know a little bit about the player. Perhaps, for what ever reasons, they come here under another name sometimes. Well, if we have them linked to another account, and we just happen to see that account playing on the server at times when the primary account is not seen, then we have another possible lead to follow. Remember, if both accounts show up on the server at the same time, then we can be pretty sure that it isn't the same player. It is possible, but not likely. But this can also help us if we're trying to rule out the possibility of both accounts belonging to the same person.
But what if our target has no Tracker account. Well, if we know part of the name, we can do a search for it. From this search, we will have to pick out the correct name from a list of similar possibilities. Or if we know the name, and search for it directly, we will only get one result if the player is online at the time of the search. When it is not know if the player is online, this can take repeated searches at random times of the day or night to attempt to locate this player. Now, assuming our search results found our player. Below is an example of what your search results will look like. I picked a player at random, whom I already knew was online. Here are the results I got. Notice the name willi31 just above the information box about which server he is currently playing on.
So from here, it's pretty simple. we're just going to click on the highlighted name of the server on which we located our target. From that click, we are presented with a new table of the information about the server on which our target is currently playing. It will look like the image below, except that I've obviously added some quick tips to point out what each column of information represents.
Now you have a plethora of information available about your player at your fingertips. From the above list we can see some important details. The two most useful of these being the player's location and the date on which their account was activated. These can be useful for many reasons used during your search, and maybe even answer some questions along the way. But you must take care to remember this information is only circumstantial information, as it fits in to your search and is in no way 100% solid. It is the equivalent of having a puzzle with too many puzzle pieces, so that you must sort them out, to see what belongs in the picture and what doesn't. With that said, does your target have a current, or past, name on their Tracker account (assuming they have one) or in their player history that closely resembles one listed here? Is the Honor level exactly the same here as it is on Tracker? Does the start date of their Tracker account reflect the date shown here that their account was activated? What about an old Tracker account found that you suspect may have been theirs... Does it's start date match the one shown here? None of these questions, except the player name can be almost or close, they must be exact. And even then, this is proof of nothing at all. Just more pieces in your puzzle. Once again, it is up to you to follow your instincts. If you create connections or manufacture some distorted idea of this being the same person, then you will get distorted results from your distorted thinking. That means don't spend a month with a calculator in one hand and the I-Ching in the other trying to find a connection through patterns in the night time stars. Simply gather your information, make your comparisons, and move on. The more you think about it, the more you will be able to invent all sorts of things. Just get your info and move on.
One notable thing for server owners, is being able to find a name-changer on your server.
Though they can use their special software to spoof your game server in to thinking that their name has changed, they cannot fool the official database that tracks and records player info. Therefore, they can change their in game name to reflect anything they want on a server, but the original account they log in with still be shown here. Now, for you, this isn't as simple as it may sound. Using this method in real time would require you comparing a list of players currently playing on a server against a list of players shown here. If you want to do it based on an after the fact incident, it will not work because the player is probably gone by the time you get around to gathering your information and looking here. However, you can sort it out rather quickly, during or after the fact, if you do one of two things. One, visit this site and find the server in question to show the players currently playing on it, and take a screenshot capture of your desktop (if you have the software installed to do that.) or... Two, start at the bottom of the table that displays all the players currently on the server, and using your mouse cursor, highlight the player names from top to bottom and then select copy. Now open notepad and select paste. This will paste a copy of the players currently playing on that server in to a text format for you. It will look a bit different than it does on the web page, but the player names are distinguishable and easy to pick out, none the less. Now if you go to any web-spectator, such as the one located at AAO: Tracker and do the same thing, you will have a copy of the server's idea of player names present. If you simply compare these two lists within seconds of each other, you might see a discrepancy in names. And if you do, you might have a name changer on your server. This is not proof that will get that person banned anywhere. But it is proof enough for you alone if you feel you need to begin an investigation in to this players activities.
4.3) Name Changers & Other Resources
Now, if you are in game, you can also do something very similar to this. First, remember that all everything that appears on your screen will also appear in your armyops.log file, in your AA folder on your PC. So, if you suspect a name changer is present on your server... Go in to your game console type the words pb_plist and as soon as that list scrolls across your screen, type in your console playerlist and let it scroll by. Now, navigate to the folder in which you AA game is installed, go in to the System folder and open the armyops.log file. It is a text file and will usually open in notepad by default. Scroll down until you find the two lists you just asked PB for and compare the names on those lists. If you have a name changer present, one of those names will be different. If a name shows up in the pb_plist request that is NOT shown in the playerlist, then there is your name-changer.
Some of you may or may not already be familiar with the Redsack website, so here's a brief introduction. Created back around 2005, the Redsack database has been collecting information by querying various servers from almost every game server provider offering America's Army. All sorts of things became possible after that had begun. But the thing most people are familiar with is the ability to see where currently banned accounts are playing. Commonly known as Cheater Watch - Online, this browser utility has been providing people with information about cheaters for a long time now.
Some highlights about Cheater Watch - Online is the amount of information and relevant links offered on it's interface. Just a brief overview of these is Server Name which will take you to a web spectator for that server so you can see a full list of who is playing on that server, as well as other relevant server information. Then there is the magnifying glass image which will let you view last few screen shots of that player. Next is the Player GUID with which you can view information about the player, who banned them and why, etc., (see below.) Next is the organization that banned them under the heading of AC which is a direct link to information about that player from the organization that banned them. And, finally, we have the PBSS area, where you will usually find any or all of three PBSS options... These are the "eye" image, which will let you view last twenty pictures of all players on that server, the "list" image, which will let you view a complete list of all player screenshots (pbsvss.htm page) from that server, and the "100" image, which will let you view the last 100 screen shots for that server.
So, now that you're familiar with the reason for Redsack.com's popularity, let's move on to some other very useful functions.
In this area, we simply enter the name of a player, and click the magic button. If that player's name is found, or some variant of it, it will displayed in the search results.
Because the search function will also return partial results, we are able to search by either clan tag or player name or both.
Here we see the results for a partial search of the player name "Duster":
And here we see the results of a partial search for the clan tag "{ECU}":
Now, sometimes there is an account name that was recorded on a server, however, for one reason or another, no other information was able to be recorded about that player. But, for the results that do have information recorded, the GUID associated with that account will usually appear as a web link. And when you click on that GUID, you are then redirected to a page which displays the most current information recorded for that player account.
Here we are presented with information from this account which has been recorded and stored. This information will include any names associated with that account, when that name was recorded as being used, where it was seen, and what the honor level of that account was at that time. Finally, all player account information recorded and stored by the Redsack database, whether temporarily or permanently, is compared to a multi-organizational ban list, which is collected and combined daily from all the major Anti-Cheat organizations. So, if the player account you are viewing has been banned by any major organization for any reason, it will be shown here.
Here is how an account with a ban attached to it would appear:
What you will see when a ban is attached to an account is the confirmation that This player has been banned by 1 Anti-Cheat Organisation. (If you're wondering why the word "Organisation" is spelled like it is, you should probably be researching world languages instead of player accounts.) Underneath of that confirmation you will see the first known instance of who banned the player account and why. You can also click on the name of that organization and be taken to their website to get further information about that ban.
Again, we are presented with any information associated with this account that has been recorded and stored. This information will, again, include any names associated with that account, when that name was recorded as being used, where it was seen, and what the honor level of that account was at that time.
And, once again, as stated above all player account information is compared to a multi-organizational ban list, so if this account has any bans attached to it, you would again see the same information as above that lists the ban information for this account.
While the AA Account History Tool also includes other names associated with an account, it is limited to the information available in that database. Yet, while the Redsack database is much larger, it also not intended to be as comprehensive as the AA Account History Tool. The trade-off is the availability of more information being available versus the availability of more comprehensive account information. Neither tool is meant to be better than the other, as they were both designed with two completely different functions in mind. That's why the two search tools used in conjunction with each other can make a very powerful asset in your investigative arsenal.
Last but not least, the Master Ban List that I referred to above, also known as the RMBL, is more than just another all-in-one ban list. You can download the list or if you create an account, you will receive an email each time the ban list is updated showing you what group added / removed bans, and server administrators can even have the ban list automatically transferred to their game servers via FTP at a specific time of day with notification when completed.
Visit the main site for more information on the many other tools,
information, and options available athttp://www.redsack.com/AAstat/aa.htm
Disclaimer: You will be seeing hacks and possibly links to hacks in this tutorial, do not ever test them out, download or use them!
You probably never thought about it, but Google can produce some wondrous results. You are probably thinking "How will I find anything useful to make a better background check in a giant searching system like Google?". Well, keep in mind that this doesn't work all the time as sometimes you won't find any results but in case it works it will give you important and crucial information. Take a look at the following steps:
Let's say a suspicious player joins your server by the name of "Wesley18", you do a hazard check but it returns nothing.
This is where "Google" can come into play. Search for "Wesley18" in Google.
Now let's watch the results:
Obviously this search wasn't random but as you can see you will find interesting results. At first there appears nothing, and maybe even good things. He is registered at ACI. But when we look farther down we see a known hack site right next to his name. Keep in mind that they may have the same name but may not be the same people - you may mix your information to get accurate results.
Sometimes people uses their real name in their clan's websites, etc., so sometimes you can get very nice information from that. Imagine that player "X" used his real life name in an old clan's website and after that, the player got caught using cheats in the game. The "X" player account was banned so he decided to create a new account and joined a new clan. If that player is using his real life name to communicate with his new clan mates, you'll find a trace to connect him with his past. This can happen with the player's email too.
By searching for the player's email you may be able to find almost every website that he has a registration at (as most people use the same email for everything).
You may use searching-combinations like the following ones in order to find interesting results:
You may also give your searches a try in here : http://www.live.com/ as it is easier to find email-related results.
DRAAT - America's Army 2.5 Tracker
Another place to look when you are either thin on resources or just simply curious is DRAAT, otherwise known as the America's Army 2.5 Tracker. While this may seem like an outdated version of AA and probably only a small community, you might be shocked to discover that DRAAT has around 260 tracked servers with almost 7,000 players tracked at last count.
Do we have your attention, now?
DRAAT has been in operation since December 12th, 2006. Retaining almost two-years of data, it might provide that missing link you haven't been able to find elsewhere. Imagine how many players used to play 2.6 as well as the current version of AA... Well, there are quite a few people that also play 2.5 as well as the current version of AA, not to mention those that simply played that version until they could afford to upgrade their machines to the required spec's for the current version of AA.
While DRAAT does not offer as many search options as AAO Tracker, nor does it make available as much information, it still has some perks. One of those is it's ability to do partial text searches. Another is the ability to search for multiple keywords and get results for any matches containing those words or initials. This means you can actually do two searches in one. If you enter a players account name with a clan tag on it, but you place a space between the clan tag and the player name, you will get results showing all accounts with that clan tag, as well as any accounts that have that players name in them, including results with any other clan tag attached to that players name, too!
DRAAT may not always be practical for conventional searching, but when it is used, it has the potential to yield some very nice results. More often than not, you will probably not find any data on a player you searching for with DRAAT, however, it can still be somewhere to turn to for fairly new accounts or accounts that just don't return much data through conventional searching.
Here's a link to the search area for DRAAT:http://draat.net/playersearch
There are 4 types of account bans that players may come across in America's Army. While these may seem obvious to some, there may be others who are not aware of what they are, why they occur, or what can be done about them. Therefore, it is necessary to offer a brief explanation on account bans.
This is when a server Admin, or group of server Admins decided they no longer wish to see a player on their server. So they have banned that AA Name or that Player GUID, or both. The way to become un-banned on those servers is to make an appeal with that server owner, or group of server owners. This type of ban only prevents a player from playing on those specific servers.
This is when a player has given sufficient reason to an Anti-Cheat organization to ban that account. In order to achieve this, they were CLEARLY using something to gain an unfair advantage in the game. This usually means an extra program, such as an aimbot or radar program. Or they have tampered with the game files sufficiently enough to make them beyond their intended state of playing ability. Anti-Cheat organizations do not ban on suggestion or rumor. They do not ban because they do not like somebody. They ban because of CLEAR evidence, such as seen in many PB screenshots, or based on evidence from the log file of a "streaming" server. The way to become un-banned on this list is to make an appeal to the organization that banned you. This type of ban prevents a player from playing on any server that subscribes to a ban list from the organization that banned the players account.
This is when Punkbuster has found a clear and known cheat in use and
has permanently banned a player's current account. This does not
mean they are permanently banned from the game. But it means the
account that used a cheat is banned permanently. There are only 2
solutions to this ban. A player can appeal the ban to Punkbuster
directly by going tohttp://www.evenbalance.com/troubleticket/new_ticket.php?game=aao
Or they can simply start from scratch, get a new account, and play
with integrity from this point on.
This means a player's computer has been banned from the game by
Punkbuster. This results from very serious violations only. A player
can appeal the ban to Punkbuster directly by going tohttp://www.evenbalance.com/troubleticket/new_ticket.php?game=aao
Or they can simply start from scratch, get a new computer, get a new
account, and play with integrity from this point on.
One common question from server owners is:
I have a new server guest/clan recruit/friend with an exceptionally high honor. How may I be sure that it is legitimate?
You may ask: how or why would someone cheat his honor level? Many players feel that a high honor is necessary to join an 'elite' clan or team. Some may think that it demonstrates a certain level of skill. Others might do it just to show off. As for the 'why', there are probably as many answers as there are honor cheats. How do they do it? Without getting into the specifics, honor may be cheated by exploiting honor server loopholes or via the use of a third-party program. Whatever the method, an honor cheat is an increase in experience points earned over a set period of time beyond that which is attainable by normal game play.
9.1) Honor Points and Player Accounts
Now, we will get to the fun part: mathematics!
Do not fret! All of the 'math' which follows is as simple as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The Windows calculator will work quite nicely, or any cheap four-function calculator for that matter.
To identify an honor cheat, there are two words from its definition which must be observed: Experience Points and Time.
The experience points for an America's Army account is simply that amount of points that the player earns from killing OpFor, accomplishing objectives, winning rounds, etc. The points are directly reflected by the account honor level, and honor is harder to accrue is it increases. For example, to go from honor 13 to honor 14, you would need 500 experience points. To go from honor 92 to 93, you need to accumulate 83,000 experience points. Here are the exact numbers:
The chart above is the experience points needed for an increase in honor.
The chart above is the experience points needed for each honor level.
Now that we know what experience points are and how they directly affect a player's honor level, where do we find them? A helpful tool is the America's Army Master Browser System (MBS). To find the MBS info for any player, it is as simple as clicking the 'MBS' icon in any Hazard account history:
See what turns up...
Things to note:
1. The player's honor level (82 in this case)
2. The year of account creation (2005)
3. Total experience (691,295)
You may note the other information, such as rounds/time played, kills, deaths, matches, and other miscellaneous combat statistics. This may sometimes be handy information, but it is best not to rely on it, as the Browser System often contains incomplete information. It is best to focus on the main three.
When you examine the example account, note that it is about 3 years old. It is possible to know the exact date of account creation, but we will get to that in a bit. For now, you can note that the example account has gained 691,295 experience points over three years, or
691,295 xp / 3 years = 230,000 xp per year (rounded)
230,000 xp/year / 365 days/year = 630 xp/day.
Now, let us say for the sake of example that a player has 2,000,000 experience points as of June 2008 with an account created in 2008.
2,000,000 xp / 6 months = 333,000 xp/month (rounded)
333,000 xp/month / 30 days/month = 11,100 xp/day
Seems fishy, but how can we know for sure? It is often helpful to check a player's AAO: Tracker account (if applicable) to see if the account was actually used that much over the time given. The best way, however, is to request a check from your helpful, neighborhood Background Staff... (Link: -ACI- Background Checks)
A handy tool which can clarify most cases of high honor gain versus a true honor cheat and give the exact date of account creation is available to -ACI- staff members. It contains information gathered from the Hazard database, and it matches specific server log-ins to the account experience points. You must request this check in the Background Checks Forum. Here is an example of a table generated from an honor-cheated account:
The illegitimate honor gains are highlighted in red. The columns are titled in self-explanatory headers. In this case, 'Delta' refers to the overall change in experience points for the account. Each log-in is compared to the one before it, the difference is the 'Delta'.
The tables are nice because they automatically break the log-ins down and calculate the experience per hour. You may notice the term '(Adjusted)' for some of the columns. (Adjusted) simply is a reference to the fact that every account may gain a 3% experience point buff for watching four Real-Heroes videos inside the in-game Virtual Recruiting Station or VRS for short. This is a one-time-only buff, but it is factored into each calculation in the honor tool.
Well there you have it. With a little snooping on the part of a concerned player accompanied by a check by an -ACI- staff member, and (bam!) a cheater is exposed!
Now, you should be pretty comfortable with the basics of a background check. But what good is a well-run background if no one is able to interpret your results? Consider making a simple skeleton for your background checks. This will help you to gather information and present it in an easily understandable manner.
A little practice is necessary to become familiar with forum codes with regards to color or bolded, italicized, or underlined text. Here is an example of a blank rubric that may be used. It is short, sweet, and to the point. Most importantly, you may modify it as each background check requires.
[color=lime][b]Player Name:
Player GUID:
[i]Result[/i][/color][/b]
[color=lime][b]The player is linked to the following accounts via overlapping IP logins ([i]Clean[/i]):
Player Name:
Player GUID:
Player Name:
Player GUID:
Player Name:
Player GUID: [/color][/b]
[color=red][b]The player is linked to the following accounts via overlapping IP logins ([i]Dirty[/i]):
Player Name:
Player GUID:
Banned By:
Player Name:
Player GUID:
Banned By:
Player Name:
Player GUID:
Banned By: [/color][/b]
One more forum tools which is supported by some VBulletin forums (-ACI-
in particular) is the ability to post information in tables. A table
is often helpful to construct in order to cleanly present data
regarding logins from various accounts or information about a
particular ban. You will find a tutorial already exists in the -ACI-
forum:-ACI-
Guide to Table Format
Screen Shot
Submission Tool
View Punkbuster Screenshots
Submitted to ACI
Manual
Submission Bot
Streaming
Server Check
-ACI- Member
Tools
-ACI- Ban
Search
Redsack
AAO Repo Depot
AA Account History
AA MBS
Fragnader's Public Tools
Battle Tracker
BattleTracker Advanced
Player Search
BattleTracker Advanced Clan
Search
Battle Tracker Member Search
AON Ban Search
AASA Ban Search
Tool
PunksBusted
Repository Player Index
PBBans Master Bans Index
-ACI- Ban
Search
10.2.5) IP and DNS Tools
(Make sure to search for more tool locations on your own, because
these might not always be available.)
OpenRBL IP Search
All Net Tools - Tool Box
DNS tools, WHOIS, traceroute, ping, and
other network tools
Traceroute, Ping, (DNS) Lookup, WHOIS,
and DNS Records Lookup
Resolving IP addresses
into DNS names
WHOIS, Ping, Port Scanner,
NSlookup and Traceroute Online Server Tools
Punkbuster
Name Registry Search
GameTracker
GameTracker Search
Game-Monitor
ServerSpy
HOOAH Tracker @ HOOAH.COM
Round Table of America's Army Admins
TWL:
Competition list
Miscellaneous
List of Tools & Resources
(Warning: This is an old thread and some of the links may no longer
work.)
This Background Check Tutorial was conceived, made possible, written, compiled and complimented by every single member who contributes suggestion, help, and advice on the -ACI- forums.
Thanks to all of you for helping the AA Gaming Community.
This Tutorial has been reviewed and updated by the :
-ACI- BACKGROUND CHECK TEAM
and
-ACI- GRAPHICS TEAM
And also, an extra special amount of thanks and gratitude goes to everyone involved for their time
spent sorting through various details, updating, re-writing,
revising, and basically bringing this tutorial back to life!
