BF4DB plugin violates EA ToS

Battlefield 4 General Discussion
1

After hearing of illegitimate bans and seeing some sketchy stuff related to the BF4DB plugin, I decided to take a look at it and see what it was doing. I noticed it was coded to force admin team switches upon spawn for anyone flagged by BF4DB as a “cheater”, however admin team switching is supposed to be disallowed on Official servers. I noticed its using an undocumented command to team switch players on Official servers.

This is clearly in violation of the EA ToS (https://www.ea.com/terms-of-service#section6) section 6. Rules of Conduct that states: “When you access or use an EA Service, you agree that you will not:” bulletpoint #16 of that section then states: “Use exploits, cheats, undocumented features, design errors or problems in an EA Service.” The BF4DB team know that this is an exploit in violation of the ToS as you can see here in the bottom 2 posts on their forum: https://bf4db.com/forum/thread/bf4db-procon-plugin-support-122. Bulletpoint #18 under the same section 6 may also apply to their service: “Attempt to use an EA Service on or through any service that is not controlled or authorized by EA.”

They are blatantly violating the ToS and are simply relying on EA not to enforce it in regards to BF4, hoping EA abandoned it when BF1 came out. This is an exploit/undocumented feature and EA needs to put a stop to this and any Official servers violating the ToS using exploits/undocumented commands such as this.

When you make your server Official, you give up alot of control, but in return you get quick join players. So you can think of Official servers as servers run under EA/DICE rules, as opposed to Ranked servers which can do almost anything.

People joining Official servers expect that experience, not to be harrassed by a MadMin team switching them over and over or being unofficially banned on an Official server. If you want to do whatever you need to run a Ranked server, not Official, thats the way its been for years now and I think it works out good. Official servers run under EA/DICE rules are necessary because unfortunately there are quite alot of badmins out there, and having Official servers with limited control ensures people still get to play the game they paid for.

I used to be opposed to the way EA/DICE decided to implement the Rent a Server program in BF1 with regard to admin control, but after personally seeing these exploits/undocumented features being abused on Official servers, I have changed my mind and think they did the right thing in taking away RCON access and control over BF1 servers. Its unfortunate, but I now think it was necessary because the admin community abused their power so thoroughly.

If any EA staff or mod would like the command the plugin uses, I can provide it.

2

I agree with everything stated. I have also seen multiple illegitimate bans on official servers and it is quite angering. EA needs to fix this.

3

Theres so much wrong here I have no idea where to start…I just wont. * Opens door and leaves*

4

There’s a reason the command this plugin uses isn’t used by Procon itself. Because its undocumented and disallowed. Procon is a reputable tool, who’s developer was hired by EA/DICE, unlike this plugin.

5

BF4DB hacks the server, now they need to be BANNED!!!

6

Hey, BF4DB developer here. If you have any issues with bans that have been placed on you incorrectly please feel free to post it to our forums and provide tangible evidence that the report is incorrect. After reviewing the ban you initially talked about we have concluded that the player did infact cheat on an alternate account.

Cheers,
Rudd.

You invisible glitch and ruin the game for others, in my opinion its as bad as cheating and we should have kept your ban however we appealed it so that we maintain our integrity.

7

The purpose of this thread isn’t to discuss individual bans. Its to bring to EA’s and the community’s attention that the BF4DB plugin clearly violates the EA ToS.

Even the BF4DB group acknowledges that it does, but they don’t care because they believe EA has stopped enforcing the ToS with regards to BF4 (see posts from BF4DB representatives in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/6fq4w3/bf4db_plugin_violates_ea_tos/).

8

You were b u t t h u r t about your clan m8 being banned(which we proved to be a previous cheater), that is why you created this thread lets be honest. The punchline of the thread indicates this rather clearly.

9

Basically, you want BF4DB verified cheaters who, might I add, have an opportunity to appeal the ban, to be allowed to run free on “Official Servers” until they get what, PB banned, FF banned? If they are legitimately not cheating then they can appeal with evidence and TADA they will be reviewed. Maybe this feature was left in to allow people a little control over “Official Servers”, maybe it wasn’t, though to be honest the whole idea of “Official Servers” is pretty meh. Just my 2 cents :smile:

10

Undocumented does not automatically mean illegal to use and against the ToS..

11

Funny how all the posts are attempts to derail from the fact that the BF4DB plugin is in violation of the EA ToS.

I have a problem with this when applied to Official servers because no 3rd party group (this one happens to consist of a guy and his friends) should have the power to stop people from playing a game they purchased on Official servers, period.

That would give them the same control as EA/DICE over the game and that’s ridiculous, no “community” group should have that kind of control over the game.

There should always be servers people can play on who are not officially banned by one of the games official anti cheats.

“Verified cheaters” in this context is some guys opinion of the info he has, and if admins on Ranked servers decide to ban based on that, I have no problem with that. As I’ve said, I have no problems with admins running Ranked servers as they see fit.

Official servers however, as the name itself implies, are supposed to be run by Official rules. The official anti cheats are Punkbuster and Fairfight. If you don’t like that, don’t play on Official servers. This is an attempt to take away choice and make all servers Ranked.

12

Read the ToS section I described in the first post. The command used is not described in the server docs and is not used by Procon for a reason. It allows overriding a setting that was intentionally disabled on Official servers by EA/DICE.

13

Did not have my morning coffee yet… That was a brainfart… IF it is against the ToS, it’s chosing between “two evils”.. Would go with the lesser evil and take the one line of code which makes the game more pleasant for everyone… We’ll see what happens. Most likely not much. Both scenarios are extra publicity anyway.
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Have a good one!

14

Quick ban everybody that zouzous! Anyway since EA doesnt enforce bullet 16 of section 6 with enough force our website exists.