This test includes the following hacks:
Stats hack - making your opponent's minerals visible
Map hack - turning of the fog of war (making you able to see the whole map)
Name spoof - changing your name to anything preferred in battle.net channels
Stay alive hack - keeping you alive after you have been eliminated
Lag defender - making you able to write while your opponent is lagging
We want to assure you that we used these programs for this test purpose only, and all of the hacks were deleted from our harddrives immediately after the test was done.
BWScanner is a program created by TravelToAiur. Its a small program you put into your Starcraft folder which connects to a bot through the European Battle.net gateway. You must be logged into Battle.net in order to have the program work - the program does not work on any local area networks (LANs).Both players must have BWScanner client started in order to use the program. To check another player (in this case me), you simply write /w BWScanner check Mazor-sG and the bot will report back to you whether the user is connected or not and if he or she is hacking. When connecting to BWScanner, the program reads your Battle.net username from windows (regedit). The hack checks start every other minute and will send a message to the hacking players opponent about this.
For example, say I'm playing a 1on1 (in this case versus TravelToAiur) and he turns a maphack on. I will be automatically informed about him hacking and therefore I do not have to use the "check" command every now and then.
Also, if my opponent is disconnecting from the BWScanner client, I will immediately be informed about it.
How safe is it?
Every single map hack (which is consider the worst kind of hacking) we tested to cheat BWScanner with, was detected. We tried over a dozen of them and every single map hack attempt was reported to the hacking players opponent. Impressive!
Notice that neither BWScanner, nor any of the other anti hacking programs, actually stop the hacking, they only detects it and inform the opponent.
However, other hacking tools such as Stay alive hack, Lag Defender and even Stats hack were working without BWScanner detecting them. Stats hack is probably the one which is considered "dangerous" in a game meanwhile neither Lag Defender nor Stay alive hack really affect the game much. Stay alive hack is quite useless in 1on1 games, since most of them are played with "Use map settings" where anyone can leave without getting loss. Stats hack did work, but its a windows based program meaning we had to tab to windows everytime we wanted to see our opponent's amount of minerals.
Summary and judgement
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Overall, BWScanner has a very nice user interface and a revolutionary way to detect map hacking. Its the anti hacking device we've been waiting for during all these years, and now its finally here - here to stay. It detected our map hacks every single time and the creator, TravelToAiur, even promised to have a look at all the minor hacking tools we informed him about, and hopefully they will be detected in upcoming versions of BWScanner. Why we didn't give the program a 10 / 10 is because of the somewhat messy installation and the fact that some hacking tools were left undetected. GosuGamers, however, really recommend this program to be used at bigger tournaments and leagues - 9 out of 10 points in our test.+ Stops all kinds of map hacking
+ Great user interface and nice design
+ Live program
+ Warns everyone connected about a cheater
- Does not detect minor hacking programs
What is a "suspicious move"?
Suspicious move is when a player selects his opponents units without having the vision to do this. Every action (including selects, move etc) is saved in the replay file and can later on be shown in a program - in this case BWChart. BWChart does automatically display every suspicious action in the game - what and when something has been selected without vision.
This is how it looks (red indicates suspicious moves):
However, Starcraft's built-in system makes a delay of these moves and therefore some moves can not be 100% determined whether they were with or without vision. Therefore, its called "suspicious move" and not "hack proof". Suspicious move is not a 100% proof of map hack!
Since
jca developed the suspicious move technique, it has been less and less effective. Every maphacker knows that they will be busted if they select units they can not see without the hack turned on. However, the technique is very useful to scan replays of games older than the technique - the suspicious moves used to be everywhere. Summary and judgement
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BWChart is not a live program. Every experienced map hacker knows not to select any unseen units or buildings. BWChart is not to be considered safe when it comes to detect hacking, and can not alone be relied on. Its still a great tool to check replays older than the technique, but when it comes to modern days it clearly fails. + Great user interface and replay handling.
+ Revolutionary technique ("suspicious move")
+ Detects maphack in older replays regardless of the date
- Not a live program
- Easy to cheat the program (i.e not selecting any unseen units or buildings)
- Does only work with map hacking
Notice that this is only a test of BWChart's anti hacking devices, not the whole program itself!
It uses the technique developed by jca and BWChart, "suspicious moves". There are two different modes in the program (A and B), where B is more accurate but also requires more computer speed. While your are in a game, BWAC checks if someone selects any unseen units or buildings and reports it immediately on your screen (ingame).
Summary and judgement
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Bwac uses BWChart's technique. Just the problem that you can not watch old replays - it only works live. The program is not safe at all. As mentioned previously; everyone knows not to select any unseen units. It does not detect any hacks at all and has a relatively bad accurancy. Compare this with a bad user interface and hardly any design at all. A useless ripoff. Not recommended.+ Stealth mode (Your opponent does not have to be aware of you using the program)
- Old technique (easily cheated)
- Bad user interface
- Not 100% accurate
- Only live
- Requires a lot of computer power to be accurate
- Does not stop any hacking
