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Anticheat Update Tracking

not-matthias.github.io

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Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#51

Post by cobbal »

ethan_smith wrote: post #8
nulld3v wrote: post #4

Very nice walk-through on the reverse engineering process. Also, they linked this post that made my jaw drop: https://www.unknowncheats.me/forum/anti-cheat-bypass/667333-... Apparantly BattleEye anti-cheat had an exploit where hackers could permanently ban any player they wanted. BattleEye allowed anybody to log in as a "game server" so hackers simply booted up a fake server, told BattleEye that "player X has logged…

This BattleEye exploit demonstrates a classic failure of trust boundary definition - they effectively created a system where client attestation was accepted without proper authentication or verification.

Fortunately they have a solution for trusting untrusted clients already! They just need to run an anti-cheat for their anti-cheat.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#52

Post by Hikikomori »

zamalek wrote: post #43
Boltgolt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what's being done, but you do not want everything server side over a network delay that is almost always more than the time between frames. Only server side physics would mean a lot of visual jank. It's now usually a model where the client and server make the calculation and the server "rolls back" the client of they do not match. Data is being limited though, like not sending opponent location data un…

> Data is being limited though, like not sending opponent location data unless the client can see them So far as AAA games go this is pretty rare in practice. I guess there could be some problems to solve, e.g. you'd need to be conservative because a player could appear around a corner between server ticks, or the fact that RTS games usually operate by running a shared simulation[1]. [1]: https://www.gamedeveloper.co…

Csgo and Valorant has done it for years, but they have fairly simple maps. Scum also did it and had the pop in problem.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#53

Post by Hikikomori »

varun_ch wrote: post #13

Forgive my ignorance, but why don’t game developers put more effort into limiting the amount of data accessible to the client (restricting it only to what’s reasonably necessary)? For example, couldn’t more movement physics be validated or handled server side? Cheats might still be able to read some data from the game process, but ideally, they’d be limited to issuing inputs like any other player, based only on the s…

Doesn't work because of the delay.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#54

Post by Hikikomori »

maeln wrote: post #10
7bit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most online Games require kernel Level anti Cheat.

No, very few of them actually use kernel level anti cheat. Really the only game that use them is Riot's games and Counter Strike private league FACEIT (as far as I remember).

Battleye and EAC are he biggest 3rd party AC and they've been in kernel for many years.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#55

Post by pxc »

MisterTea wrote: post #46
pxc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of amusing to me how some PC gamers act superior to console gamers because PC gamers run their games on a flexible, customizable, general-purpose machine that the user controls rather than an appliance... and then immediately hand over control to half a dozen companies at a level that reduces "their" PC to a vendor-owned appliance anyway. If you are a PC gamer and run anti-cheat software like this, you shou…

> and then immediately hand over control to half a dozen companies at a level that reduces "their" PC to a vendor-owned appliance anyway. This was not always the case. Also, the publishers lie about how invasive their software is - see the Sony rootkit fiasco.

> This was not always the case.

I know. :(

(Though, unfortunately, the SecuROM fiasco shows that this has sadly been going on a long time.)

I say it's amusing, but it's a bitter thing for me, too.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#56

Post by maccard »

nichochar wrote: post #50

This was super interesting. Unsurprisingly, I see he didn't have much to say about faceit and esea. I think CSGO anti-cheats are a league above the rest (I'm not sure why, maybe because the scene is more competitive?)

I don’t have any inside info, but I’d comfortably bet $20 that it’s phone number verification.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#57

Post by reginald78 »

maccard wrote: post #56
nichochar wrote: post #50

This was super interesting. Unsurprisingly, I see he didn't have much to say about faceit and esea. I think CSGO anti-cheats are a league above the rest (I'm not sure why, maybe because the scene is more competitive?)

I don’t have any inside info, but I’d comfortably bet $20 that it’s phone number verification.

F2P creates this problem. If you're eating $20-60 per account every time your anti-cheat is burned it isn't much fun anymore. But if you can roll new accounts for free, there's nothing to lose.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#59

Post by ragequittah »

pxc wrote: post #32
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy that people allow this stuff to effectively run as root. One of these companies is going to have a vulnerability that lets other players run code on your machine in kernel mode.

It's kind of amusing to me how some PC gamers act superior to console gamers because PC gamers run their games on a flexible, customizable, general-purpose machine that the user controls rather than an appliance... and then immediately hand over control to half a dozen companies at a level that reduces "their" PC to a vendor-owned appliance anyway. If you are a PC gamer and run anti-cheat software like this, you shou…

You just dual boot. Windows is a joke itself even without the anticheat shenanigans so I use it like a toy. Any real work gets done in Luks encrypted Linux inaccessible to the Chinese company with a rootkit in my windows. Hopefully.

Re: Anticheat Update Tracking

#60

Post by whoisyc »

pxc wrote: post #32
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy that people allow this stuff to effectively run as root. One of these companies is going to have a vulnerability that lets other players run code on your machine in kernel mode.

It's kind of amusing to me how some PC gamers act superior to console gamers because PC gamers run their games on a flexible, customizable, general-purpose machine that the user controls rather than an appliance... and then immediately hand over control to half a dozen companies at a level that reduces "their" PC to a vendor-owned appliance anyway. If you are a PC gamer and run anti-cheat software like this, you shou…

What makes you think the PC gamers who do the PC master race things are the same people as the ones playing games with invasive anticheat? Just because they both game on PCs? Your assumption tells more about yourself than those mythical “PC gamers”, whoever they are.
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