...making people, the general public aware of this bug, give Bungie a bad reputation for a simple flaw.

Bungie glassed these exploiters a week ago already.  
The exploiters reset their daily challenges knowing it was ban worthy (unless they were mentally challenged, then they should write an email to bungie with a doctor's report :D).  
The exploiters didn't get banned they just got their credits reset and had a 1 day ban on gaining more credits. I don't see how resetting exploiters is a bad thing?  
Also, fanboys suck.

Is Bungie to blame for the exploit happening though?

No I have no problem.
the exploit existed not in the game but in the fact you could remove your ethernet cable and get challenges over and over and over.  Bungie couldn't have patched such a thing out and could never have found out such a thing I mean who would think hey I just got a challenge okay pull out ethernet cable plug it back in..ect.
But they credit banned and reset the ranks of people that did do it I mean you gotta be pretty stupid not to figure out hey I am influencing network traffic by doing this...which is a bannable offense.

" Yeah as seeing the Developers most days and how keen they are on the level of quality of their work, its suprising that something so glaringly obvious would be passed over and left un corrected! More than likely it was a situation where they were aware of it and felt it wasnt a major issue and now because its come to light regarding the 'exploit' they've had to take action! "

If the exploit affects other players negatively like map glitches, etc. then the players should be punished. If they are just getting points to make their character's appearance look different (i.e. no actual in-game advantage) then who cares? Why should they be banned for using an exploit at their own personal gain without affecting anyone else? Still, if it does affect others, ban em.

They could have tested the bale in/out thing because on a game i have previously worked on, we had a dedicated team of 15 guys loading up the game, pulling the cable, checking every result against what should and shouldnt happen and different stages, checking XP etc and that game was a comparitivly much smaller release, so i'm more than sure Bungie would have done this on an even larger scale for a game of the calibur of Halo Reach.

People exploit, people cheat, people ruin the game and take away fun from others in some cases.
 
But worst of all, people have the goddamn nerve to become mad if action is taken against them.
I have no sympathy for anyone who got his stuff taken from him in this case, it's really fricking hard to get banned nowadays, the lines are very clear.
 
So it's all their own fault.
Bungie just takes care of their own, like more companies should.

"

They could have tested the bale in/out thing because on a game i have previously worked on, we had a dedicated team of 15 guys loading up the game, pulling the cable, checking every result against what should and shouldnt happen and different stages, checking XP etc and that game was a comparitivly much smaller release, so i'm more than sure Bungie would have done this on an even larger scale for a game of the calibur of Halo Reach.

"

Yeah i agree to some extent with TaliciaDragonsong, just for the record, i'm not one of these people! However if it happened to me, i'd feel that its a suitable punishment, i just guess looking from the outside in, it seems a little harsh when its something Bungie could have rectified before release..or instead of realising their mistake and then warning people not to use it, just put the patch out sooner! Its kinda like having a big bag of sweets and ya little sister really wanting some, so you say, "i'm gonna put these on the table infront of you, but if you touch them, i'll kick you!" You KNOW that its your fault for puttin them on the table, so its your fault if they get eaten, you cant just threaten people with a kick or in this case a credit removal!   
If it wasn't there in the first place, there wouldnt need to be a patch or action taken. This is my point, that Bungie, on one of their biggest releases, made such a fundemental mistake.

People were warned. Bungie said that people would be punished if they gained cR through network manipulation - they could farm credits any other way, by playing tons of gruntpocalypse, by exploiting that checkpoint in Sword Base for the target locater, anything. Just not through network manipulation. 
 
Connecting and disconnecting from the internet to constantly reset challenges is manipulating your network to farm cR. So they got their credits reset. I don't see the angle you're coming from - it's not Bungie's fault that these people were stupid enough to ignore the warning, got caught, and then whined that they had to face the consequences.  
 
EDIT: Also, your argument of 'If it's there in the game, it's bungie's fault people exploit it!!' is just stupid. That'd be like a a guy robbing a bank, getting caught, and then saying to the police "It's not my fault, it's the bank's! They put that money there and they let me steal it! I'm innocent!". Bungie only 'look bad in the public eye' over this if you're moronic enough to go for this sort of moral view of things.

" Yeah as seeing the Developers most days and how keen they are on the level of quality of their work, its suprising that something so glaringly obvious would be passed over and left un corrected! More than likely it was a situation where they were aware of it and felt it wasnt a major issue and now because its come to light regarding the 'exploit' they've had to take action! "

Bungie is right.
Exploiters are wrong.
there,I simplified it for you.

I imagine if someone took the effort to go through the EULA it would explicitly state that using exploits or glitches in the game to gain an unfair advantage may jeopardise your account. 
 
Practically every game out there says the same thing, don't be dicks and use exploits. Report them and avoid them where possible so when a time comes like this where a developer swings the banhammer you don't go and find yourself caught by it. 
 
And lets be fair. Bungie can afford to ban a few thousands Halo players. It's not like the franchise is lacking in fans and support ;)

" @YodaShinoda said:

...making people, the general public aware of this bug, give Bungie a bad reputation for a simple flaw.

 I couldn't care less about Bungie

" Yeah as seeing the Developers most days and how keen they are on the level of quality of their work, its suprising that something so glaringly obvious would be passed over and left un corrected! More than likely it was a situation where they were aware of it and felt it wasnt a major issue and now because its come to light regarding the 'exploit' they've had to take action! "

"Bungie is right. Exploiters are wrong. there,I simplified it for you."

"WilliamRLBaker, apologies, only just noticed that you did indeed put this on here, apologies for the PM..Ursus_Veritas, its nothing like robbing a bank and you have taken my concept and turned it on its head so much that it didnt even make sense, IF Bungie knew it was there and they did know because they told people not to do it, then they have admitted a flaw, admitted that its something that shouldnt happen and needs fixing, they just dont want people doing it..fair do's but removing all credits due to a fault of their own, no matter how small seems alittle OTT. Look at Firefight..you can tweak and customise your own Firefights to harvest about 5/6 achievements..that go towards unlocking armour..now people have used that to there advantage and recieved no such ban, so if the public can find a 'glitch/exploit or bug' that allows them to BUY armour..thats wrong!? Little bit of confusion here i feel guys! Whats right and whats wrong!? "

Bungie is in the right. 
Every game has its fair share of bugs. A lot of updates are released to fix those bugs/exploits that were overlooked in its pre-released state. Bungie warned the exploiters, now they are punishing the players that refused to heed to those warnings. 
 

I think Bungie is doing the right thing by issuing the credit bans. From someone who earned his Lt. Colonel Grade 3 by playing numerous rounds of Gruntpocalypse, I think it's a cheap way to make bank while doing absolutely nothing in game. The fact that you can hit the daily credit limit in just a couple of hours, while others are slaving away on multiplayer just to get 20,000 cR just isn't fair, and Bungie realized that. It's not like they're pushing away any of their audience who did get banned, either. Everyone I know that got cR banned began to play more after they lost all their credits in attempt to get all of them back before the cap is lifted. Overall, if you're gonna cheat to rank up, you knew this was coming.

As someone who works in the game industry I'm surprised you're not aware of this:
 
When I finish a game and sit through the credits (which I ALWAYS do out of respect to those who created a great experience for me) I can usually get through the credits, even with all the long lists of testers in under 10 minutes.
 
Tonight, playing Reach there were 300,000 people online (and that's just a subset of all Reach players). Do you really think a group of a hundred or so testers is going to find the same sorts of problems 300,000+ people can find?
 
Cheaters should be banned, particularly cheaters who are so amazingly stupid that they continued to do so after they were warned not to. This isn't even a gray area. It's very black and white.

Even if this was a glaring bug that should have been caught by testers (which it isn't...i don't really know how you can think this is an obvious flaw) that still doesn't give people a right to cheat.
Ass hat boosters in MW2 really weren't affecting me but was it annoying? Hell yes it was, part of the reason i stopped playing that damn game. 
Good on Bungie for supporting this game and dealing with said ass hats.
I have no sympathy.

I totally support Bungie and their banhammer at all times.

Network Manipulation is a ban worthy offence.  Challenge resetting is Network manipulating.  Hence they got banned.  Even if it has no effect on Gameplay it's the fact that they are in breach of the terms of conduct that matters, if you start making exceptions to the rules then where do you stop making exceptions? (Camels nose and the Tent principal). 

Bungie is in the right. I think everyone should adopt a zero tolerance policy regarding glitching and cheating. If you cheat or glitch online you deserve whatever the punishment is.

i think its very stupid to just take away all the credits from these people. what does that exploit give you? money to buy purely cosmetic armor upgrades. nothing else.  maybe if those credits could be used to get an unfair advantage in the game, it would be absolutely within bungies power to punish them. but credits do nothing for you except make electricity shoot out of you when you die or have some weird helmet. its not that big of a deal at all. i think bungie could use their time better than this

" i think its very stupid to just take away all the credits from these people. what does that exploit give you? money to buy purely cosmetic armor upgrades. nothing else.  maybe if those credits could be used to get an unfair advantage in the game, it would be absolutely within bungies power to punish them. but credits do nothing for you except make electricity shoot out of you when you die or have some weird helmet. its not that big of a deal at all. i think bungie could use their time better than this "

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say i doubt they really extensively beta tested the campaign to the extent it would need to find glitches like this one,  I'm guessing they spent more time with full on multiplayer gameplay and balance the different abilities and guns. 
 
Story and mechanics aside, Bungie is one of the few developers these days that actively manage it's games after the release, this rises them above most these days. Most companies throw a game out the door and only look back if a bug in the game is hurting sales.  I know people who did the exploit knowing full well it might be fixed or they might take a hit in some way, its the risk people take when they walk the gray line. 
 
I think the upgrade system is screwed to begin with, your buying completely cosmetic goods that effect other then eP, but thats another rant. 

" @mano521 said:

" i think its very stupid to just take away all the credits from these people. what does that exploit give you? money to buy purely cosmetic armor upgrades. nothing else.  maybe if those credits could be used to get an unfair advantage in the game, it would be absolutely within bungies power to punish them. but credits do nothing for you except make electricity shoot out of you when you die or have some weird helmet. its not that big of a deal at all. i think bungie could use their time better than this "

If the thing they're cheating for is useless and not a big deal, why exactly are they cheating in the first place? "

What you're talking about is a specific exploit that is obviously not part of the game.  They're daily challenges for a reason, and that reason being that you're not supposed to do 50 of the same one in a single day by switching your region.  Bungie didn't fix the problem before release.  That's entirely their fault.  However, it is also entirely within their right to fix the cheat by negating all progress made by people who used it.  The cheat is hidden enough that you have to know exactly what you're doing when you do it so it's not like there are innocent people just playing the game in their own way and getting banned for it.  I think it's also Bungie sending a clear message to all potential cheaters and that message is detailed as a mantra all over their site: "You have no rights.  Play nice."

" If someone buys a game and doesn't alter it, then they should play it however the fuck they want to.  I don't buy Bungie's shameless attempt to shift the blame for their failure onto people who used their product. "

Does somebody not understand what's the difference between grinding gruntpocalypse and doing network manipulation to get a daily (as in once per day) challenge done 50 times?

Ban those bastards.

They're definitely right to do so.

It's not like they're banning people abusing game modes like Gruntpocalypse, their banning people using network manipulation to outright break the game.  It's not even like they're being banned, they're just losing their rank, cR and having to start again.  They gambled by trying to cheat the system and lost.  Suck it up.

" @Terjay:   Perhaps Bungie should consider tailoring the game to their rules, then.  If there's some problem with the software that they sent out, then they should fix it.  Punishing those who use the software until they do is absurd.  "

" @ChristOnIce said:

" @Terjay:   Perhaps Bungie should consider tailoring the game to their rules, then.  If there's some problem with the software that they sent out, then they should fix it.  Punishing those who use the software until they do is absurd.  "

Bungie are in the right in this case.  There's a wealth of difference between an issue which inconveniences people and an exploit where people take advantage of by design practices for 'net connectivity to their own nefarious ends.  Bungie are responsible for the state in which their software is delivered and maintained but then people who exploit the software are also responsible for their own actions.  This isn't an issue which can be easily patched as the game can't just brutally deny earned credits when the Internet connection goes down, that would be unfair and unreasonable, so until there's 100% Uptime Internet for all, issues like this (and in turn the exploits that follow) will crop up from to time.   I personally commend Bungie for not only taking note of the issue but also for taking the time to investigate it and deal with customers on a case by case basis. "