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ASSS Questions - S2C Packet 0x02 Extension: Arena name

Cerium - Mon Aug 15, 2005 10:10 pm
Post subject: S2C Packet 0x02 Extension: Arena name

One thing I like about the 'entered arena' packet in chatnet is that it tells you what arena youre in, which is quite convenient in instances where the client cant tell what arena its in (full arenas/redirection/sendto, random public arenas, etc).

In the SS protocol, theres a 1 byte packet thats sent after a client changes arenas. ASSS should extend this packet and include the name of the arena at the end. If ctm/ss are coded like I hope they are, they would simply ignore the extra data, while new bots/clients could read the data to get the arena name rather than relying on sending ?arena upon entering.

CypherJF - Tue Aug 16, 2005 7:51 am
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Well, I hope so as well. Though if I am recalling correctly (maybe its Catid's servers that I'm thinking of) if a packet doesn't match it's specific size, it's ignored as an invalid packet.

But, if SS/CTM would accept this extra data, I could see it as a viable change.

Mr Ekted - Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:28 pm
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My stuff always checks for >= expected size.

Cyan~Fire - Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:36 pm
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MERV would definitely ignore it as an invalid packet. Of course, it could be changed, but it would kind of suck for old builds.

Cerium - Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:09 pm
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Well, I brought this up because I noticed something odd in my packet logs that led me to believe this was possible:

SSCX subgame seems to send a massive server key (whereas, all other protocol implementations -- including my own -- expect it to be 6 bytes long). It could be data ment specificly for continuum, but its damn near 150 bytes. I figure, and hope, that if the client allows a 144 byte descrepancy there, it would allow it in other places...

Edit:
Just for fun...

Code: Show/Hide

08.16.2005, 16:07:07 [TestBot, ID: 0] - 139 bytes> 00 02 C7 FA A6 2D 00 C6 6D 33 52 FB 7E 34 B1 C5 F1 8D E3 2C 06 90 E8 4E 90 F7 4A 75 B0 0D 00 4C 28 F5 5B 34 28 F4 62 91 2C 06 C0 0D 7F A2 E2 A5 3D 3E 7C DA 12 9F 31 80 6F 3E 4E 20 1D 18 11 CC 6A C6 45 B9 BB 74 E7 66 00 1D D1 FA B0 76 51 49 6A E3 16 4D 15 59 99 68 71 4D 84 43 B7 B5 99 3F 39 BE 46 48 D1 DE 3E 74 11 C2 64 DC C1 7B DD 73 96 50 1B 0A A5 65 4B 1C 20 D2 A7 65 F0 70 8A DD AA BF 16 77 75 76 7F 71 58 02 43

Grelminar - Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:04 am
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Those extra bytes are actually used by continuum. You can probably figure out what they're for if you think hard enough.

In general, one example of continuum not checking packet sizes does not imply that it won't check sizes in other places. The only way to tell if cont will accept this extension is to just try it. Which I'm surprised you haven't done yet: it would take about 30 seconds to make this change in asss. If you test it, and it works in recent versions of cont as well as SS 1.34, I'd be willing to include it in asss.

Cerium - Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:46 am
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I imagine it has something to do with encryption, since it is the server key packet, but thats a lot of data for the keys (68 bytes each?).

In any event, Smong was willing to sacrafice his server to it. With the extension Continuum just sits there at the "Entering Arena" screen. Smong got it working by sending the extended packet followed by a standard packet, but its still a hack at best.

Also, Smong noticed that continuum wont care if you decide to add custom packets for a zone-specific bot. Theyre thrown out completely; not even an entry in exception.log. Nifty.

Mine GO BOOM - Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:36 pm
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Cerium wrote:

I imagine it has something to do with encryption, since it is the server key packet, but thats a lot of data for the keys (68 bytes each?).

Actually, its to verify that the server you are connecting to is on the SSC billing server or not. There is also a few other things in there too.

Cerium wrote:

Also, Smong noticed that continuum wont care if you decide to add custom packets for a zone-specific bot. Theyre thrown out completely; not even an entry in exception.log. Nifty.

Thats because as new features are added to Continuum, when in testing phases, the old ones need to safely handle them. If you plan on adding your own packets, I'd recommend doing something on the higher end, such as 0xA0 and start from there, thus it will not conflict with any future packets.

Cerium - Thu Aug 18, 2005 4:58 pm
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Mine GO BOOM wrote:

Actually, its to verify that the server you are connecting to is on the SSC billing server or not. There is also a few other things in there too.

Hrmm, couldnt that information be spoofed relatively easily?

Also, what else is there? Anything that could be useful?

CypherJF - Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:36 pm
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I had always wondered if someone, at some point, would figure out what packet the biller sends to subgame to let it know it's on SSC. Or at least, I'd assume that's what it does.

Dr Brain - Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:39 pm
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IIRC, some of the other billing networks got their billers to do that. I think one of them was SSN with Macaub's biller.

Cerium - Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:57 pm
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what difference does it make? Does ctm do anything different when its not on SSC?

Mine GO BOOM - Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:16 pm
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It pops up with a box saying that the zone you are connecting to is not on the main billing server (SSC), and that you run the risk of someone stealing your password. It then asks if you should still log in with your current password or not, with a checkbox to say don't ask again for that zone.

Maverick - Fri Aug 19, 2005 6:27 am
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Would it also trigger the Signup form (on creating new names) when you let the client know (or "think") its on SSC ?

CypherJF - Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:04 am
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Maucab's biller didn't fake it afaik. I always told it to never ask me again.