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Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

dev.epicgames.com

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Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah except he's right, the vast majority of cheaters can be detected server side. Literally no game does this, because ?????

Sounds like a startup opportunity. Lookin' forward to the pitch deck!

What kind of massive startup ROI are you expecting to make from a highly niche bit of middleware?

Just because something is possible doesn't make it profitable.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those aren't even cheaters using a full DMA module and separate PC which is nearly impossible to detect if done properly.

Or worse machine-learning-to-bounding-box that takes the video stream through HDMI, identifies character heads, intercepts the USB HID mouse, and injects movement commands to move the center of the screen towards the nearest "head". Literally (not nearly) impossible to detect, there is no difference between this and just aiming by hand. The video is already out of the box, and the USB HID packets look the same as the…

>I wholeheartedly believe I could have played top 500 region online matches and gotten away with it

Unless you were already near the top, climbing rapidly up rankings (in a 3rd party ladder) is going to be very suspicious. Draw enough attention and I think it's not unlikely someone would find evidence (not evidence of how your system works, but video proof that shows cheating).

And if the humanization is so good that it can literally never be detected... then better players with more knowledge and game sense will consistently still win. You'd need to be a good player in the first place - which is actually where the danger lies. A pro player with an undetectable cheat they can toggle on momentarily, even just once a series at a crucial moment, could make all the difference.

I've given up relying on technical anti-cheat solutions for online games. If it is apparent someone is cheating by watching them play then that's enough for me (and I've seen some _very_ subtle cheaters get banned from leagues for the most minor of slip-ups.) The only way to be totally sure are if the game is played on a LAN and the equipment is sufficiently controlled.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh great, so you've solved the problem then. The entire industry just hasn't discovered your one simple trick. You should let them know.

Yeah except he's right, the vast majority of cheaters can be detected server side. Literally no game does this, because ?????

"vast majority" means? 60% or 99%?

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those aren't even cheaters using a full DMA module and separate PC which is nearly impossible to detect if done properly.

Or worse machine-learning-to-bounding-box that takes the video stream through HDMI, identifies character heads, intercepts the USB HID mouse, and injects movement commands to move the center of the screen towards the nearest "head". Literally (not nearly) impossible to detect, there is no difference between this and just aiming by hand. The video is already out of the box, and the USB HID packets look the same as the…

Once you start requiring external hardware setups like that, I think the barrier to entry for cheaters becomes high enough that they become far less prevalent.

The goal of good anti-cheat should never be to eradicate it entirely, since that is obviously impossible. You just need to make it so the vast majority of players rarely encounter it.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits.

Not 'arguably necessary'. Cheats can just as easily be detected from the server side through statistical analysis.

I think if this were true, somebody would have successfully done it by now.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can't prevent the client from auto-aiming or knowing the enemy player position behind a nearby wall Valorant and Edan.gg's defender [1] has the best fog of war system I've ever seen. CSGO has probably the worst; in fact, at one point, the game had NONE and sent player pos's to everyone at all times. I completely agree, but there are a lot of server-side mitigations that haven't been nearly as explored as I'd hop…

I'm a little skeptical that that's the case. When I cheated in CS:GO years ago (1856 days ago in 2016), I specifically remember being unable to see where people went at the beginning of the round, and sniping double-doors on dust2 showed people only when they were about to pass by the opening. This was on official competitive servers, so maybe you only mean self-hosted servers don't have FOW.

Another source engine cheat dev here. Source has had dormant entities at long ranges in culled-off areas [sectors of the map demarcated by func_areaportal] since... as long as I can remember.

Your cheat couldn't see those players because the server was doing a very cheap and primitive visibility calculation, deciding the player entities are dormant for you, and choosing to not send you the data for them.

This is different from the later-enabled player PVS system, which does more expensive ray casting once you get a certain distance away, which cut down on wallhack cheats a lot more [although they are still very useful]

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those aren't even cheaters using a full DMA module and separate PC which is nearly impossible to detect if done properly.

Or worse machine-learning-to-bounding-box that takes the video stream through HDMI, identifies character heads, intercepts the USB HID mouse, and injects movement commands to move the center of the screen towards the nearest "head". Literally (not nearly) impossible to detect, there is no difference between this and just aiming by hand. The video is already out of the box, and the USB HID packets look the same as the…

Congratulations on your fun project. Be careful about "literally impossible" though. If it's truly identical to aiming by hand, it won't help you. If it isn't, there might be some statistical (in)consistency that's detectable with enough play.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#158
post #61

This is great and all, but I feel like all of these client side cheat detection tools are basically a waste of time. Trying to enforce the trustworthiness of the client is basically an unwinnable arms race between anti-cheat and the cheat makers. A better approach is for the server to treat all clients as hostile and untrustworthy and use a combination of heuristics and statistics to ferret out malicious client behav…

> unwinnable It seems winnable so far if you look at the Xbox One and later, at least. I'm not aware of anyone successfully modifying game code on those consoles. The downside is that it a requires a completely locked down system.

Cheat dev here. Check out this prior art of someone utilizing PS4 jailbreak exploits to modify GTA V's scripting VM at runtime:

https://github.com/2much4u/PS4-GTA-V-Native-Caller

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#160
post #10

What permissions does this require? A kernel module? Something that watches all processes all the time? Messes with input settings or breaks assistive devices? On windows, a lot of the actions that "anti-cheat" software takes is indistinguishable from a rootkit.

Pssst! Don't give them ideas!
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