My origin account was hacked a few years ago and the hacker was using an aimbot which resulted in a ban on bf4db. According to one of the stickied threads, I cannot appeal this. That's fine since the game is so cheap, but can I buy another copy on a new origin account since it's relatively inexpensive without the new account being linked to the banned account? Thanks.

If what you are saying is correct, i.e. your account was really hacked/stolen, then BF4DB won't "hunt" your new account

They will ban every new account you make even if u didnt. 

is the ban based on something persistent like mac address?

However, hackers tend to make a false excuse like  "I was not a really cheater. my account had been stolen by a hacker"

Then BF4DB hunt their second account as well

@tomopcver As per their sticky post, it sounds like they are not differentiating. That is, I can't appeal and say account was hacked although I could provide some proof from origin when I recovered my account. So in this case, is there any way to know how they will treat my other account?

DB admins are able to make their decision apart from origin since they gather information from their streaming server

Therefore, they can distinguish innocent hack victims from real cheaters
And when they issue bans for "linked account", all data they have are also checked
So, if you are really innocent "hacked account" victim, they won't ban you

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like they are saying being hacked is not a valid reason to overturn a ban. I assume if they have the ability to differentiate between a hacked account and a normal one that they would be willing/able to overturn the ban.

here's the part of the stickied post that I am mentioning:

Ultimately, your account is your responsibility and there’s no excuse with all of the security tools out there to have a vulnerable account. As such, any appeal that is based on the premise that the account has been hacked will be denied.

I can fake these Origin proofs very easily. Use my laptop, get some VPN, imitate a few login attempts (as if I am bruteforcing or something), get into the account, install games, use cheats, play for some time. Then a few weeks later open a ticket from my main machine to EA and say "account was hacked". They will look into their logs and confirm that. And here is your "proof". Everything can be faked. 

Regardless, account that was used for cheating will not get unbanned. Our policy states that any new linked accounts will be banned too. We would not "hunt" them, yes. But if someone reports it and we can confirm the data then the ban will be issued

Yeah I am not trying to get the ban repealed as that is pretty clearly outlined in the stickied post. Thanks for the responses, though. My only follow up question if you guys don't mind is - how is account linkage determined?