How To Get More Witnesses Helium

This is a general explanation of how gamers are stealing HNT on the network. This is not a "how to". Most of the states putting upward Helium Hotspots accept no idea how the system works. It can feel frustrating to be cheated and not understand it. Allow's go through a few of the more common methods. These methods are getting easier for Helium Inc (and the community at big) to detect, but are withal very difficult to stop with a set of programmatic rules in the code.

Earlier you go howling that I'k "giving away the keys to the castle", please know I accept run this past various experts. There's null in here that is tiptop secret or will give gamers an reward.

Let's get-go with what cheaters usually target, which is Witness rewards. A Hotspot earns HNT based mostly (~75%) on how often it Witnesses Beacons. This is documented over on Helium's web log, here.

The obvious incentive is to Witness as much equally you can. Most of usa do that by getting our antennas in the correct location and upwards high to provide crawly coverage, often at considerable expense and effort. Some members of the community cheat. Here's an example of a blacklisted Hotspot's witness advantage breakup (courtesy of the Hotspotty app for the visual).

Now, to exist clear, just because a Hotspot is earning a huge amount of rewards from Witnessing doesn't automatically mean information technology's cheating. It's only 1 of a few warning signs.

In contrast, here'due south a more normal breakdown of what rewards wait similar.

Gamers crook in iii main ways: Attenuation, Witness Stuffing, and Supplementary Witnessing. Those can also exist split up into Hardware and Software hacks. Hardware hacks are ones using hardware, similar an attenuator, or antenna trickery. Software hacks exploit irresolute the communication (manipulating the metadata) between the parcel forwarder and the miner.

Yeah, I'ma explain all this. Permit's starting time with Attenuation, which is a hardware cheat.

The validity of a beacon is determined by comparing the forcefulness of the beacon as received to what it should accept been theoretically. If the output power of the radio is known, (the native radio power output minus the cable loss plus the antenna gain) information technology's a straightforward equation to calculate what the signal strength should be on the receiving end.

And so, how practice you cheat that? One of the most common means is to use hardware. You put multiple hotspots in a room and adhere "attenuators" to their antennas. Attenuators decrease the betoken past some known corporeality; say i dB, or 5 dB, or 10 dB etc. Gamers will falsely assert where the hotspots are, summate what the received indicate strength should exist at that distance, and attach an attenuator to the antenna to produce that result.

It's adequately simple to do at scale, and with a few technical bits of wizardry to cloak the location of the hotspot, hard to stop. It's non, even so, hard to Run across. In lodge for all the hotspots in the room to receive the "correctly contradistinct" signals, they demand to be placed at unusually regular distances from each other on the map. Yous've seen that if you lot've ever looked at Helium Explorer maps and seen "too perfect" deployments.

This was the biggest problem Helium Inc (NOT the Helium Customs at large) had to solve in late 2021, when they moved unilaterally and in secret in guild to deny thousands of Hotspots HNT who were clearly gaming with this technique. Helium Inc could come across it, but they felt the customs couldn't motion fast enough to stop it. The ethics of that decision were hotly debated. For now, permit's just focus on the cheaters.

The second cheating method is known as Witness Stuffing. This is a software cheat. It'southward where you take a grouping of Hotspots that are all in the same general area and share all of the Beacons whatsoever of them Witness between them. In essence, when any one of them Witnesses a Buoy, it turns effectually and "stuffs" that same beacon into the remainder of the group of Hotspots. The rest of the group doesn't have to actually Witness that beacon in order to earn from it.

That multiplies the power of one Witnessed Beacon.

Call back, if a Beacon is Witnessed by more than than xiv hotspots, the rewards are randomly assigned to simply 14 Hotspots out of that group. A Hotspot can only get rewarded one time per Beacon Witnessed. In this case, the cheater is increasing the take chances that one of the Hotspots information technology's continued to will be in that grouping of 14 winners.

A cheater tin "juice this up" by placing extra packet forwarders, not Hotspots, to report even more beacons. A packet forwarder is the radio role of the hotspot (every bit opposed to the computer, or miner part) of the Hotspot. By using packet forwarders to share duplicated Witnessed Beacons, the gamer is running a variation of witness stuffing. Information technology's a very clever motion, gives a clear advantage, and is completely dishonest.

Equally a point of clarification, just using multiple parcel forwarders doesn't make you a cheater. For instance, yous might accept multiple directional antennas on a edifice top, each with a bundle forwarder, all sending their Witnesses to one miner. That's probably more effort and technological expertise than anyone should get to, but information technology wouldn't be cheating.

For now, I'd consider the following to be cheating:
one) Using packet forwarders to stuff copies of packets into miners
two) Using multiple hotspots per packet forwarder to stuff packets into miners.

That brings us to a similar grift, which is Supplementary Witnessing. In this example, y'all have multiple Hotspots hooked upward to ane well placed antenna. Through the use of radio geekery to manipulate the signal force, you take whatsoever signal received from that antenna and "report information technology twice", once to each Hotspot.

Recall that only xiv Hotspots tin can earn from a beaconed bundle. If fifty hotspot Witness a package, just 14 will get rewarded. If yous can "supplement" your chances to witness that package past adding an extra Hotspot into that potential winners group, you can cheat a true provider of coverage out of their rightful risk to earn HNT.

This method allows both (or all) Hotspots connected to the antenna the risk to earn rewards. This is sometimes referred to every bit "buying extra tickets to the raffle." In addition to stealing by adding unfair probability to earning more HNT for a given antenna placement, it's not useful to the Network. That's because two Hotspots hooked to 1 antenna provide duplicate coverage.

Keep in mind, "duplicate" is non the same as "redundant". Duplicate is an EXACT match. Redundancy is a backup. An example of redundancy is you and your neighbour a block away are both providing coverage. That coverage is slightly different, but overlapping. If one of you goes downward, the other can encompass, merely yous get rewarded for providing your own unique coverage.

Duplicate coverage is using two machines to practice the job of one. Information technology's a waste of resources and sucks HNT unfairly out of the reward puddle.

And so, those are the large 3 ways gamers accept been cheating. None of them are difficult for experts to run across, but they tin can be very difficult for the community to cease. This is, in part what HIP 40 is virtually; making upward a list of cheaters that the community agrees on, and stopping those cheaters from earning. It won't be perfect, simply it'll exist an excellent step in the right direction of a robust Network, able to properly reward good actors and punish bad ones.

There are other HIPs beingness adult to stop gaming, bank check out HIP 42 and HIP 44. The DeWi Foundation is extremely interested in combatting gaming and has enough money to buy several modest countries AND pay you to gear up gaming. If you're an anti-gaming wizard, or a quondam crook who's ready to put your skills towards useful structure, consider applying for a grant.

If you'd like to watch a video of gaming experts discussing the HIPs mentioned above, we recorded a live session here. Keep in mind this was recorded right earlier the beingness of a denylist was made public, and that denylist had Non been shared with these experts. Helium Inc kept it top secret, probably to the detriment of the efforts to stop gaming.

The attempt to stop gaming is one of cat & mouse. We'll never hem 'em all upward, but nosotros tin continue it to a tolerable level if we work together. If you'd similar to report a suspected cheating hotspot, head over to suspots.com and continue the spotlight on 'em!

If you'd similar to stay in the know when it comes to the latest in Helium, consider joining the Gristle Crüe, where we run across weekly to discuss what's going on and how to best build the Network. Rock on!