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Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

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Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#11

Post by henrebotha »

eGQjxkKF6fif wrote: post #7

When VAC was originally introduced, CPUs only had 32bit architecture, not that 64bit hindered anything; but you could inject cheats in a near infinite amount of way, or have cheats read from memory directly, or have cheats do things especially through video drivers. Hell, glitching your nvidia drivers and setting things like Negative LOD Bias would allow you to see through textures in some cases (wall hacks) It's bee…

Yet another reason why fighting games are the superior competitive scene. The only "cheat" you could realistically see at an offline event is macros, and the chances of a macro increasing your win rate are slim to none. And there are so, so many good offline events. Online there are more potential ways to cheat, but nobody really cares. Just blacklist the player and move on.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#12

Post by qualeed »

bob1029 wrote: post #5

I am not a fan of the signature-based techniques used by VAC, et. al. I've lost a few steam accounts to accurate but unintended (i.e., not actually cheating) detection of debugging tools attached to totally unrelated processes on the same machine. Having anything open like cheat engine or Tsearch while you join a lobby is a guaranteed ban no matter what. Ethical hacking and malicious hacking are indistinguishable fro…

>If someone at Valve had taken 10 seconds to review my stats

It seems super reasonable when it's a one-off thing for your own account. When you think about making it into policy and scaling it up to 1000s of interactions, it quickly becomes unreasonable.

>Statistical techniques can dramatically reduce false positives

For a period of time, anyways. Until the statistics get gamed by the cheaters (e.g. adjust accuracy of your auto-shoot from 100% to 85% or whatever).

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#13

Post by jmuguy »

Arriving at college back in 2001 my roommate and I setup a CS server. A lot of the freshman were getting their own computers for the first time, and had not ever played computer games before so we basically kickstarted a CS community. I think it took about a month before a lot of them started cheating. It is kind of ridiculous how much of a plague cheating is on competitive gaming. Back then we would just observe the players and then ban their IPs. Which was luckily enough given how the campus network worked.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#15

Post by MaxikCZ »

psini wrote: post #8
bob1029 wrote: post #5

I am not a fan of the signature-based techniques used by VAC, et. al. I've lost a few steam accounts to accurate but unintended (i.e., not actually cheating) detection of debugging tools attached to totally unrelated processes on the same machine. Having anything open like cheat engine or Tsearch while you join a lobby is a guaranteed ban no matter what. Ethical hacking and malicious hacking are indistinguishable fro…

I understand the sentiment but I can't bring myself to think valve is to blame or should be doing more. Getting a case of "Yes officer, I have an NO2 bottle in my trunk, but what it is plugged to is not actually the air intake for my car but something entirely unrelated, if you just take 2 hours to dig around and take it apart you'll also realize this"

Thats such a bad example. Ofc you can carry NO2 bottles plugged into something, if its not air intake of your car, and investigation should happen finding you not guilty.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#16

Post by eGQjxkKF6fif »

henrebotha wrote: post #11
eGQjxkKF6fif wrote: post #7

When VAC was originally introduced, CPUs only had 32bit architecture, not that 64bit hindered anything; but you could inject cheats in a near infinite amount of way, or have cheats read from memory directly, or have cheats do things especially through video drivers. Hell, glitching your nvidia drivers and setting things like Negative LOD Bias would allow you to see through textures in some cases (wall hacks) It's bee…

Yet another reason why fighting games are the superior competitive scene. The only "cheat" you could realistically see at an offline event is macros, and the chances of a macro increasing your win rate are slim to none. And there are so, so many good offline events. Online there are more potential ways to cheat, but nobody really cares. Just blacklist the player and move on.

Fucking agreed. But if you check out street fighter on youtube with 'Street Fighter mike ross tool assisted' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS3Kq5p77k

You can inject cheats directly in to the Xbox's back then directly through the fight sticks

You'd know though if somebody was cheating so not sure how crazy the SF scene had cheats but check out tool assisted; when I originally saw it I just put my head down

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#17

Post by rvnx »

snickerdoodle12 wrote: post #10

Remote Code Execution like loading DLLs from a server and executing them sounds like malware.

It's "just" an automatic update, like Chrome, etc.

It's one entry-point among others for RCE. If tomorrow NSA wants to gather any files on your computer, all they need to do is to ask Google to push an update for you through Google Omaha.

https://epic.org/wp-content/uploads/privacy/nsa/foia/NSA-Goo...

Google and NSA have a "partnership".

Valve could also have such partnership in theory, through VAC, though unlikely in practice.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#18

Post by phoronixrly »

snickerdoodle12 wrote: post #10

Remote Code Execution like loading DLLs from a server and executing them sounds like malware.

The other day I mentioned that it's not OK for games to be proprietary software and/or use unethical software like DRM (which tbh anti-cheats are as well). I got accused that I wanted game developers to starve to death.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#19

Post by mystified5016 »

psini wrote: post #8
bob1029 wrote: post #5

I am not a fan of the signature-based techniques used by VAC, et. al. I've lost a few steam accounts to accurate but unintended (i.e., not actually cheating) detection of debugging tools attached to totally unrelated processes on the same machine. Having anything open like cheat engine or Tsearch while you join a lobby is a guaranteed ban no matter what. Ethical hacking and malicious hacking are indistinguishable fro…

I understand the sentiment but I can't bring myself to think valve is to blame or should be doing more. Getting a case of "Yes officer, I have an NO2 bottle in my trunk, but what it is plugged to is not actually the air intake for my car but something entirely unrelated, if you just take 2 hours to dig around and take it apart you'll also realize this"

When you're accused of breaking the law, your accuser must prove you have broken the law. If they cannot, there are actions you can take to recoup your damages.

Valve can ban you for any or no reason with no means of recourse or refund.

Totally the same thing, yeah.

Re: Game Hacking – Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC)

#20

Post by altruios »

phoronixrly wrote: post #18
snickerdoodle12 wrote: post #10

Remote Code Execution like loading DLLs from a server and executing them sounds like malware.

The other day I mentioned that it's not OK for games to be proprietary software and/or use unethical software like DRM (which tbh anti-cheats are as well). I got accused that I wanted game developers to starve to death.

that's where you turn and say: well, the game developer executives however...

In all seriousness, DRM/anti-cheats => rootkits/rats. Don't fall for it. Demand better.

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