I found this little tidbit on the web tonight, and I didn’t even know that the cheaters and the trouble-makers had already made such a noticeable nuisance of themselves already..Well, the trouble makers I know for sure are out there, that is one of the unfortunate universal truths of online gaming. But I had no idea that the cheatin’ had already reached these headline-worthy proportions. I am glad to see this kind of vigilance, and the seemingly never ending war between the hacks and the counter hacks is fascinating to me.

From N4G.com….

It’s coming: Bungie is getting the Halo 3 ban-hammer ready

By Ben Kuchera | Published: October 22, 2007 - 10:34AM CT

If you’re a cheater or an online trouble-maker in Halo 3, Bungie has it in for you. Last Friday they posted a message—more of a threat, really—saying that they know who you are, and they’re not happy.

There are those of you doing things you shouldn’t be in Halo 3. Some of you have gotten a little too famous for your own good. This ain’t a church and there is no redemption or salvation once you have been judged. Apologies are now officially too late to save you.

The storm approaches.

Love, Bungie

The tongue-in-cheek message is clearly meant to send the online community into a frenzy of terrified squeals, but what’s really going on? A member of the Ars Technica forum community who happens to work at Bungie chimed in with what the message means saying that they’re “almost done dialing in the Banhammer, and a few people who helped us test Phase One are about to help us test Phase Two.” What are they looking for?

Network attacks, by and large. Hard to prevent, easy to detect, but we’ve had to wait and make sure there were no game issues that could be confused for abusive behavior.

Banning a false positive is worse than missing several legitimate bridgers, DDoS’ers, and their ilk. So our process has been pretty methodical so far.

You can’t run, you can’t hide, and your accounts are forfeit. The reckoning is coming….