There is also a 'master ban list' server. Information on detected cheaters is sent to the ban list server on IP address 205.158.143.67 on port 27013, which was later changed to 27011. It can detect versions of 'OGC's OpenGl Hack', can detect OpenGL cheats, and also detects CD key changers as cheats.

ĭuring the early testing phase in 2002, some information was revealed about the program via the Half-Life Dedicated Server mailing lists. On November 17, 2006, they announced that 'new technology' had caught 'over 10,000' cheating attempts in the preceding week alone. VAC2 was announced in February 2005 and began beta testing the following month. The duration of the ban was increased over time players were banned for 1 year and 5 years, until VAC2 was released in 2005, when any new bans became permanent. During this initial release, the system only banned players for 24 hours. VAC's initial release was with Counter-Strike in 2002. Valve started working on a 'long-term solution' for cheating in 2001. Valve had also rejected business offers of integrating the technology directly into their games. In 2001, Even Balance Inc., the developers of the anti-cheat software PunkBuster designed for Counter-Strike and Half-Life mods, stopped supporting the games as they had no support from Valve. ĭuring the month of December 2018 over 600,000 accounts were banned. After the player is notified, access to online 'VAC protected' servers of the game the player cheated in is permanently revoked and additional restrictions are applied to the player's Steam account.ĭuring one week of November 2006, the system detected over 10,000 cheating attempts. No information such as date of detection or type of cheat detected is disclosed to the player.

It may kick players from the game if it detects errors in their system's memory or hardware. When the software detects a cheat on a player's system, it will ban them in the future, possibly days or weeks after the original detection. Valve Anti-Cheat ( VAC) is an anti-cheat software product developed by Valve as a component of the Steam platform, first released with Counter-Strike in 2002.

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