A group of hackers has devised a method to hack Pokemon Go to reveal the exact location of characters around you
Pokemon Go is the game of the moment, going viral and attracting the attention of the media globally.
As players know, the precise location of nearby Pokemon isn’t always clear because the popular game only allows players to have a radar with an imprecise direction.
Of course, hackers are already working to overcome the limitation and find the exact location of the Pokemon characters. A group of hackers on the PokemonGoDev subreddit has devised a method to exploit Pokemon Go‘s server responses to draw a map that displays the position of hidden Pokemon in the player’s vicinity.
Experts have analyzed data sent and received by the Pokemon Go servers while using an API, and they were able to parse responses sent by the game. The hackers used basic protocol buffers to decipher the response acquired through an SSL tunnel, then developed a Python script to use the data and plot the hidden locations on a Google Maps picture of the nearby area.
Anyone can exploit the technique by following a step-by-step installation guide, but be aware, it violates the terms of service of the game. Niantic Lab can block the accounts exploiting the hack, but it could improve the security of its server to avoid any abuse.
“Already, people are trying to use this mapping data to crowdsource a complete, worldwide map of all in-game Pokémon. Other apps in the works can notify players when rare Pokémon pop up nearby, spoof GPS coordinates to fool the game into thinking you’re in other locations, or even automatically ‘farm‘ Pokémon from Pokéstops,” wrote Dan Goodin on Ars.
Asidefrom the technical aspects of hacking, using such tools is against the spirit of the game, essentially cheating and diluting the pleasure of playing.
(Security Affairs – Pokemon Go, hacking)
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