As of June 30, 2004, Even Balance has incorporated the usage of unique hardware identifiers to permanently ban players from all PunkBuster enabled servers who raise a violation that corresponds to hacking or interfering with PunkBuster's normal operation and therefore violating the EULA.
Even Balance uses multiple private one-way hashes so that no serial number information for individual computers can be determined by admins or anyone else who may try to obtain this information from a hardware GUID.
PunkBuster only gives a hardware ban if memory scans show that a cheat that is known to circumvent or disrupt PunkBuster's normal operation or its facilities is activated. Because of the size of the memory footprint of modern cheats and the use of a unique hash to identify that cheat.
As with previous PunkBuster GUID global bans, the new hardware GUID bans are permanent and will not be lifted. Even Balance has not disclosed which hardware parts are used to ban players, but trial and error has shown that the hardware GUID is based on the serial numbers of all available hard drives and the MAC addresses (which can be changed with a simple fix in the Windows registry) of all available network interfaces.
According to their EULA, Even Balance has the final say in matters of banning.
Last edited by I'm Jamesey (2007-07-29 11:28:51)
