If it is a HACK that means somehow got some sort of backdoor access to the MS Flight server which is highly unlkely. Also any benefit is to the player is unclear to me.
In my OPINION it is a problem with the multiplayer software on the MS Flight servers, most likely a mismatch introduced by a bad or marginal connection(s). One possibliity is that the front end cached data does not match the equivalent persistant storage for the particular multiplayer session. The 44 would then indicate a bad "link" or reference to a non-existent player in the session.
I could be wrong, but if you know of any details about the hack, I would appreciate knowing (in general terms) how it was done.