How could I "hack" an online card game?

[digitalcloudy]

Basically an online game provider with people connecting from my country. It has multiple games and my target is especially Tichu.

How could I reveal other player's cards or even see what they will share with me?

Some days ago there was a guy who could see what we were sharing to him and always was clicking the "Grand Tichu" button, even from the first game I understood him that he was cheating but I said let's see what you got. Other players didn't even notice, but I had to make sure and played 3 games with him, 3/3 games he was cheating and pressing the Grand Tichu button which is pretty hard if you know the game. Then I genuinely asked him if he was doing it and he ofc said yes, stupid me didnt took it further to learn lol.

So now that I remembered it again how could I achieve sth like this? I believe he was pausing the script execution and then maybe changing the js code, for example display or visibility of the cards? I do not think you would need an external program for something like this, maybe I am wrong.

I could not find anything similar to it on a tutorial ofc lol. For educational purposes only

 

[Xplorneet]

It depends on how the game was built.

In most cases of a client/server game, the server is in full control and sends you ONLY data that is relevant to your own experience. This includes the identity of what cards YOU are permitted to see. You can't use code to reveal information that isn't sent to you.

If a server is sending over the identity for all cards and is depending on players not to look at the network data, then that would be a terrible game system. Usually if someone is smart enough to write the mechanics of a multiplayer game, they aren't going to make it -that- easy to cheat. That would be like a Ferrari dealership hanging all the dealership and car keys in an insecure box outside and saying. "We hope nobody notices this box."

Perhaps there is some other API call or parameter that is intended for debugging and the developer assumed nobody would know it, but this other person figured it out.

That said, having one more person cheating in a multiplayer game does not make things better. There are plenty of people who aren't cheating, so if you start doing it, then you're only harming the overall game and causing legitimate players to leave. If you want to cheat at single player games (which only affects your own fun), go for it (Cheat Engine is your friend there for basic memory hacking), but don't ruin things for others the way this other guy is.

Just report him to the developers and let them take care of it.