Bug [Leaderboards] Black Hole and 4 BILLION scores

[jaredmorgs]

Just noticed this today when competing on an off-line personal friends leaderboard spreadsheet.

When I opened the FS Leaderboard in-app, and looked at black hole, I notices some seriously high scores. I was at around 900 on the leaderboard.

To reproduce:

1. Log onto the leaderboard in-app.
2. Select "All Time" on the left flipper menu.
3. Select "My Score" on the right flipper menu.
4. Note your high score is represented in the Billions, not millions

I know for a fact that my high score is about 1.5 million on that table. Not 4 Billion +.

I have reported this to support@pinballarcade.com and await clarification.

 

[Worf]

People figured out how to hack the high score table, nothing more. I guess they'll have to come around and delete those cheating scores.

Let me guess that the scores are around 4,294,967,295? Which is a very special number.

 

[Korven]

Edit: nah

 

[jaredmorgs]

People figured out how to hack the high score table, nothing more. I guess they'll have to come around and delete those cheating scores.

Let me guess that the scores are around 4,294,967,295? Which is a very special number.

Why is that number, in particular, special. You are correct, they are hovering around this value.

Also, I just heard back from support@pinballarcade and they weren't aware of the issue. They will look into this immediately.

 

[Worf]

4.2 billion (or that exact figure I gave) is the maximum value an unsigned 32-bit integer can be. Hence why it's special - when you're hacking high score tables, you don't know how they're going to be represented internally - they could be string of text digits (unlikely), or it's probably going to be stored as a regular integer. Thus the maximum high score one would use would be the maximum such an integer could hold. These days, it'll either be a 32-bit (signed - 2.1B, unsigned 4.2B) or 64-bit integer (really obvious - it's a freaking huge number) as they are native datatypes to modern processors. By using those values, you ensure you're "stuck" at that high score because you add one and you're back at zero (being only 32 bits, add one and it requires 33 bits to store which is usually ignored).

 

[jaredmorgs]

4.2 billion (or that exact figure I gave) is the maximum value an unsigned 32-bit integer can be. Hence why it's special - when you're hacking high score tables, you don't know how they're going to be represented internally - they could be string of text digits (unlikely), or it's probably going to be stored as a regular integer. Thus the maximum high score one would use would be the maximum such an integer could hold. These days, it'll either be a 32-bit (signed - 2.1B, unsigned 4.2B) or 64-bit integer (really obvious - it's a freaking huge number) as they are native datatypes to modern processors. By using those values, you ensure you're "stuck" at that high score because you add one and you're back at zero (being only 32 bits, add one and it requires 33 bits to store which is usually ignored).

Thanks for that explanation Worf. I learned something today. Either way, expect these scores to be changed in the near future (which is good news for us honest players).

 

[Worf]

Well, good thing that the cheaters don't realize that pinball scores aren't that random and it's easy to tell. And that billions in scores tend to be quite rare - sure some tables are set up for low scores in the millions at best, others where you're scoring hundreds of millions, but billions is rare.

Hell, any score not ending in "0" is pretty much a dead giveaway - there aren't many tables (and none in TPA) that have matches based on the ones digits. It's usually been the tens.

 

[trachea]

I thought it was known that the scores for one other table (Theater of Magic I think) got mixed up with the Black Hole leaderboards.

Edit: Obviously there's more going on. Check out the 1st place score on Gorgar and Black Knight. Leaderboards are pretty much just a joke at this point in time.