(An attempt at) The top 40 TPA players from leaderboard scores

[vikingerik]

Also in April, someone posted several scores under the username 'lnvitro' to these same four tables. I am requesting that you find out how someone could post scores under someone else's username.

I assume you notice that first character is a lowercase "L" and not a capital "I". Classic impersonation trick. He's not posting scores as your username at all. It's a different name and there's no expectation that Farsight would prevent that, although they might remove them manually.

 

[invitro]

I assume you notice that first character is a lowercase "L" and not a capital "I". Classic impersonation trick. He's not posting scores as your username at all. It's a different name and there's no expectation that Farsight would prevent that, although they might remove them manually.

v.e... I know... that was my reply to fromduc's original post notifying me of this, look back to page 20, post #483. The (first) four scores I mention are for "invitro", though. They can be verified by looking at the leaderboard webpage, or in-game.

I suppose my wording in the email may have been poor . The "lnvitro" scores happened first, then the false "invitro" scores.

This is the first I have known that a hacker has the ability to post a false score under someone else's username. It seems pretty serious... I can remove the false scores posted under "invitro" easily enough, but have no way of identifying those of any other username.

My legit scores on the four tables remain on the leaderboard. So while if I beat my leaderboard score, the old score gets removed, while these imposter scores did not make my score get removed. So Farsight's code -is- distinguishing one "invitro" from the other. If I'm thinking correctly...?

 

[invitro]

I'd like to have access to the csv files too, where can i get those?

I don't think they exist yet... in any case a link to them has not been posted here. I'm assuming you're referring to the ones that [MENTION=2570]LAW[/MENTION] mentioned.

 

[AntonR]

v.e... I know... that was my reply to fromduc's original post notifying me of this, look back to page 20, post #483. The (first) four scores I mention are for "invitro", though. They can be verified by looking at the leaderboard webpage, or in-game.

I suppose my wording in the email may have been poor . The "lnvitro" scores happened first, then the false "invitro" scores.

This is the first I have known that a hacker has the ability to post a false score under someone else's username. It seems pretty serious... I can remove the false scores posted under "invitro" easily enough, but have no way of identifying those of any other username.

My legit scores on the four tables remain on the leaderboard. So while if I beat my leaderboard score, the old score gets removed, while these imposter scores did not make my score get removed. So Farsight's code -is- distinguishing one "invitro" from the other. If I'm thinking correctly...?

Same thing happened to me last September.
I think I did mention about it in this thread, but I guess you didn't notice my message.

 

[invitro]

If I understood right the filter scores box on the site filters out obviously hacked scores as determined by farsight, right? A lot of those scores are included in your toplist calculations. I don't know if there's any easy way for you to determine if a score is filtered from the datadump you get or not, but I thought I'd let you know.

Ok... here are all of the scores with ranks higher than #500 that are filtered out by Farsight:

+----------+----------+-------+-------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| table_id | abbr     |  rank | username                |             score | platform |
+----------+----------+-------+-------------------------+-------------------+----------+
|        2 | ToM      |     1 | Tanico                  |    14078474451920 | PC       |
|        3 | BH       |     1 | Rudzge                  |        1549025135 | unknown  |
|        5 | MM       |     1 | FailSight               |     4540350587400 | PC       |
|        9 | Gorgar   |     1 | promec                  |        1672055480 | Android  |
|        9 | Gorgar   |     2 | klitschko               |         999999999 | Android  |
|       14 | EatPM    |     1 | faffoun                 |        2550483880*| PSN      |
|       16 | BigShot  |     1 | perseus2273             |         193278500 | PC       |
|       16 | BigShot  |     2 | Lupo23                  |          87703451 | iOS      |
|       16 | BigShot  |     3 | q-145e31b3-US-en        |          63038530 | PSN      |
|       16 | BigShot  |     4 | hamjin                  |          60715750 | Android  |
|       16 | BigShot  |     5 | Rob                     |          15251410 | Android  |
|       19 | STTNG    |     1 | www.vpforums.org        |     1890199057550*| iOS      |
|       21 | Genie    |     1 | HOIDA                   |         739001170 | Android  |
|       21 | Genie    |     2 | invitro                 |          66666660*| PC       |
|       23 | FirePwr  |     1 | ApA                     |         627774000 | unknown  |
|       23 | FirePwr  |     2 | FailSight               |         250000000 | PC       |
|       25 | CentPark |     1 | Lupo23                  |            211080 | iOS      |
|       35 | HH       |     1 | B.C.                    |          33017260*| PC       |
|       35 | HH       |     2 | mscscsc                 |          17649330*| PC       |
|       36 | TeedOff  |     1 | HUFMUF                  |       91139885780*| PSN      |
+----------+----------+-------+-------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| table_id | abbr     |  rank | username                |             score | platform |
+----------+----------+-------+-------------------------+-------------------+----------+
|       36 | TeedOff  |     2 | Tarek Oberdieck         |       42941613740*| PC       |
|       37 | Co1812   |     1 | Limitnsqueakerz         |       47805292750 | Android  |
|       40 | ElDor    |     1 | FailSight               |         360053650 | PC       |
|       43 | BK2K     |     1 | www.vpforums.org        |       71200687840 | PC       |
|       47 | LCA      |     1 | Ender                   |        2414679870 | Android  |
|       49 | Diner    |     1 | stevieboy               |       73998483500 | Android  |
|       51 | PotO     |     1 | klitschko               |        1399999999 | Android  |
|       53 | ES       |     1 | FailSight               |       44600654370 | PC       |
|       54 | SST      |     1 | innomines               |       19999999990*| Android  |
+----------+----------+-------+-------------------------+-------------------+----------+

The eight starred ones were not blocked in my last rankings. Some notes on them:

- EatPM, faffoun: Tarek's #2 is 1.436B. This is the user's only top-1000 score; he has two other top-10,000 scores.
- STTNG, www.vpforums.org: we've discussed this one.
- Genie, "invitro": this is my impersonator, and will be blocked from now on. Actually this score was just posted yesterday so did not factor in my last rankings.
- HH, B.C.: he has many other ranked scores, the next highest being (or close to) #651 on WWind.
- HH, mscscsc: he has many other ranked scores, the next highest being #33 on Black Hole, and two other top-100's.
- TeedOff, HUFMUF: Tee'd Off has the double-your-score-many-times feature, and HUFMUF is my #27 player. I don't think this should be filtered out.
- TeedOff, Tarek Oberdieck: Yes, they did indeed filter out one of Tarek's scores. This should not be filtered out, either.
- SST, innomines: we've discussed this one here and in the SST forum.

I haven't decided which of the six non-TeedOff scores to block for my rankings.

 

[invitro]

Same thing happened to me last September.
I think I did mention about it in this thread, but I guess you didn't notice my message.

I think I forgot, sorry. Thanks for the reminder. I sort of remember pinballwiz54b saying there was a score or more of his that he didn't make, too.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

- TeedOff, HUFMUF: Tee'd Off has the double-your-score-many-times feature, and HUFMUF is my #27 player. I don't think this should be filtered out.
- TeedOff, Tarek Oberdieck: Yes, they did indeed filter out one of Tarek's scores. This should not be filtered out, either.

Yes, I´ve noticed the same. My 42B is listed in the game leaderboard, not in the website leaderboard. When I login to the page I can see 42B in my personal scores. Should be fixed.

 

[JPelter]

I'd just go with Farsight's filter list personally unless there's a good reason to believe the score isn't bogus. Tarek's score is the only one in the list where I'd actually believe he got it. Vpforums should be blacklisted entirely in my opinion since he has a clearly bugged/hacked score and another one that's incredibly dubious. It's your toplist though so obviously the call is up to you on what to include.

I mean the filtered HH scores and the 96 billion or whatever on Tee'd Off are sort of kind of within the realm of possiblity but they're really pretty ridiculous considering what kind of other scores the people have. You can't just keep doubling tee'd off either since if you slam it over the 10B rollover Farsight ignores it and resets you back to 0 (which is a stupid bug in the system, but there you go). Getting to 96B would probably take nearly a week of hard playing. The 19 billion on SST is definitely possible to do as far as the amount of score goes, but TPA does not trunkate scores so "nining out" seems incredibly unplausible. It'd be nice if we actually had some info on the basis with which FS filters the scores.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

I'd just go with Farsight's filter list personally unless there's a good reason to believe the score isn't bogus. Tarek's score is the only one in the list where I'd actually believe he got it. Vpforums should be blacklisted entirely in my opinion since he has a clearly bugged/hacked score and another one that's incredibly dubious. It's your toplist though so obviously the call is up to you on what to include.

I mean the filtered HH scores and the 96 billion or whatever on Tee'd Off are sort of kind of within the realm of possiblity but they're really pretty ridiculous considering what kind of other scores the people have. You can't just keep doubling tee'd off either since if you slam it over the 10B rollover Farsight ignores it and resets you back to 0 (which is a stupid bug in the system, but there you go). Getting to 96B would probably take nearly a week of hard playing. The 19 billion on SST is definitely possible to do as far as the amount of score goes, but TPA does not trunkate scores so "nining out" seems incredibly unplausible. It'd be nice if we actually had some info on the basis with which FS filters the scores.

I can´t decide if the 91B is hacked or no. At least I think it´s possible but hard to reach. My 42B game is played without the Double Feature, I´ve lost many billions in an earlier game and won´t risk anything. This game went on 4-5 hours, 91B should be 8-10 hours. But as I said dont ask me...

 

[JPelter]

I can´t decide if the 91B is hacked or no. At least I think it´s possible but hard to reach. My 42B game is played without the Double Feature, I´ve lost many billions in an earlier game and won´t risk anything. This game went on 4-5 hours, 91B should be 8-10 hours. But as I said dont ask me...

Ok my bad on Tee'd Off then, clearly there's a scoring strategy I haven't figured out.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Ok my bad on Tee'd Off then, clearly there's a scoring strategy I haven't figured out.

No EB limit. Max. the lightning storm bonus in 15 balls - thats it.

 

[vikingerik]

Same here, I'm not sure whether that 91B on Teed Off seems legit. 91B is just on the edge of plausible, since EBs are unlimited, but actually going infinite is pretty hard since you have to complete the mode list every ball (like Funhouse's mirror) and also make the extra ball hurryup shot every time. HUFMUF has some reasonable high scores on other tables and doesn't seem to have any pattern of cheating, but 91B here is noticeably out of line compared to his other efforts.

The doubling could get you to 91B if everything worked properly, but it doesn't. The ROM doesn't have a ten-billions digit. TPA doesn't double its rollover count. And if you double any score where the billions digit is 5 or more, it's likely TPA will miss the rollover. So you can get at most 5B or so each time which isn't going to add up to 91B anytime soon.

As for strategies, there are many that can score a few billion each. Skins doubling. Lightning Storm as Tarek says. Pitch N Putt, raise the bonus to 250M, you can make 12+ shots for 3B total in the mode. Regular multiball can have the jackpot increased to a few hundred million. Go-Fore Par-Tee multiball lets you loop the center hole forever for 20M a shot, which is truly unlimited and doesn't run into any caps like the Lightning Storm bonus maximum or any rollover problems. So it would take a lot of all of these to add up to 91B, but it's not quite impossible.

 

[LAW]

Yes, I've noticed the same. My 42B is listed in the game leaderboard, not in the website leaderboard.

Fixed that, sorry. This filtering mechanism is largely on a table-by-table basis and on what seems to be 'reasonable' scores. There is no across the board algorithm that we've had any luck with, since scoring systems differ so widely and the top 10 scores can often skyrocket far beyond the rest of the user base. We are however creating better internal tools to make it easier for us to keep the leaderboards themselves clear and in identifying hackers/malicious users. Removing even one score up til now has been something of an ordeal (probably why it isn't tackled very often), but it will be much easier in the near future.

I think I forgot, sorry. Thanks for the reminder. I sort of remember pinballwiz54b saying there was a score or more of his that he didn't make, too.

I am not sure if support got back to you invitro, but we are aware of this issue, we know exactly why its occurring and are working on a way to resolve it, but it may be a 1-3 weeks, and then we'll have to go back and clean house.

Leaderboard CSV downloads will be available Monday (4-27), for the time being they will be open to the general public as links in the Leaderboards page. Sorry, no dates on the scores. Also, the filtering system does not run on them so all the false scores will be in there still until they are officially purged from the actual leaderboards, which is probably best for your uses anyway.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Fixed that, sorry. This filtering mechanism is largely on a table-by-table basis and on what seems to be 'reasonable' scores. There is no across the board algorithm that we've had any luck with, since scoring systems differ so widely and the top 10 scores can often skyrocket far beyond the rest of the user base. We are however creating better internal tools to make it easier for us to keep the leaderboards themselves clear and in identifying hackers/malicious users. Removing even one score up til now has been something of an ordeal (probably why it isn't tackled very often), but it will be much easier in the near future.

Thanks for the response but the problem still exist:

When I use the back button to the last scores I found my name mixed with somebody else:

As reported no problems in my personal scores:

 

[Tann]

As reported no problems in my personal scores:

How do you obtain this page?

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

How do you obtain this page?

Click on "My Account" and sign in with your leaderboard account. (email/password)

 

[Tann]

Click on "My Account" and sign in with your leaderboard account. (email/password)

Oh OK, so it seems there's a bug for PSN players then.

When I created my account, as screen name, I wanted to use my PSN ID (Ouazegaga) but it displays "Already registered" (why??) when I clicked on "Register".

So I shortened it to "Ouaz", but obviously, when I click on "My Scores", the page is empty.

And when I try to edit my account settings, the "screen name" field is unavailable (impossible to modify).



EDIT:

* PSN (Playstation Network, i.e. PS3, PSVita) users are not able to login through this interface at this time, although PSN user's scores are included in the online leaderboards.

It makes sense to not being able to log with the PSN e-mail/password, but why not allow to use only the ID, i.e. query the highscores for "PSN ID" in My Scores page? (as Ouazegaga is already registered anyway, and the Pinball Arcade website account is not tied to the screen name, but the E-mail).

[MENTION=2570]LAW[/MENTION], would it be possible to make the modification, please?

 

[LAW]

Thanks for the response but the problem still exist:
When I use the back button to the last scores I found my name mixed with somebody else:

The leaderboard page DOES break when scrolling in personalized mode (it jumps back into regular scrolling), we are working on making it scrollable. I'm not sure I follow you on your name being mixed though... is Tareks Evil Twin a duplicate account for you, or the account you were logged in as?

[MENTION=2570]LAW[/MENTION], would it be possible to make the modification, please?

When we originally set it up this turned out to be either impossible or impractical, but let me check back into it and see if it REALLY is. Also, yes we've temporarily disabled and will shortly be removing the ability to change the screen name through the website as it has just too much potential for abuse.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

The leaderboard page DOES break when scrolling in personalized mode (it jumps back into regular scrolling), we are working on making it scrollable. I'm not sure I follow you on your name being mixed though... is Tareks Evil Twin a duplicate account for you, or the account you were logged in as?

The screenshots are made without sign in, it´s the public view. I have no duplicate account and visited the page with IE, Firefox and Chrome - no 42B score...

 

[Flipperdeflip]

Also, yes we've temporarily disabled and will shortly be removing the ability to change the screen name through the website as it has just too much potential for abuse.

While you're working on the site, can you please add a sign out button?
Now my account is always logged in.