^^^^ See that video and read the description.
I work in mainly low-level database security and I also work as a programmer primarily in Ruby and I also do some MySQL stuff etc..
But in a few years, I’ve never seen an executable dish out such an incredible attack.
Explanation:
When opening the launcher, anyone, even on an extremely powerful PC like mine should be able to see (or even hear) that a sudden strain is put on your CPU. This is due to the GW2.exe launcher opening over 100+ connections per SECOND to over 150 different I.P. addresses and around 16555 Ports.. (The destination port doesn’t change but that doesn’t stop the launcher trying to open anything between 49000 & 65555 to try and communicate with 6112).
Seriously, what the KITTENS were you thinking NCSoft? You don’t need to have your launcher open that many connections per second! Not even 0.01% that many connections are needed to make a proper connection to servers. Seriously, 4 or 5 is fine. But over 100 per second, to over 150 different IPs and over 16k ports?
That’s what my boss would call a DDoS on a humongous scale! Whether or not this poses little to no threat on your servers, it puts a gigantic strain on the CPU and is in no way a ‘streamlined’ or efficient way of logging-in before connecting. Even after you get told that you couldn’t connect, the launcher is still trying to open connections in the background.
I’m really surprised that no one honestly picked up on this issue earlier, or that there was even a green light given to allow this sort of thing to be an accepted way to starting the game. Really, when I saw what huge CPU the launcher was using, I wanted to find out why exactly, so I monitored everything on my computer. Internet traffic, connection attempts, process threads. Everything.
The end result is a startling conclusion.
Honestly you guys at NCSoft need to sit down and seriously get to work on another launcher. This is absolutely unacceptable.
I’m seriously still shocked over this… I personally never disable peerblock for any instance, but for Guild Wars 2 I will make an exception. I’m running an extremely good rig, and nothing, almost nothing draws more than 20% of my CPUs attention. To have my temps go from suddenly 40C to 60C… it’s just unquestionably ridiculous. This is in no way, the ‘right’ way the launcher should work at all… there is no need for this ‘approach’ in communicating with the log-in servers.
