How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics • Hacker News Board

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#141

Post by m4rtink » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 11:33 AM UTC

neodymiumphish wrote: post #125

crazygringo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandboxing prevents code from getting out of a sandbox. It doesn't prevent outside code (i.e. your cheat software) getting in. As long as you control the computer running the sandbox, you can have it do whatever you want.

Yeah, but I think his issue is with the anti-cheat software. If the anti-cheat is sandboxed, it can't see any other memory or processes that are running. It's a fair privacy concern.

This is what I mean - putting the game and all it's "anticheat" malware into a sandbox, so it has not chance to interact with the rest of the system for privacy and security reasons.

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#142

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

mnowicki wrote: post #117

matheusmoreira wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the game's just too boring and making a bot for it is actually much more fun. I had this experience with some mobile games and their little daily tasks. I realized they were trying to instill a daily login habit in me so I wrote a small client that'd log in and do the tasks. I turned their predatory design into a fun little project. Ironically, due to the way the game was designed the behavior of the bot is…

I feel like there's an important message somewhere in this post

Two.

1. Hacking the game can be more interesting than playing the game.

2. There's absolutely nothing wrong with hacking games with immoral game design.

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#143

Post by Can_Not » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #2

Serious question for you gamers out there: Why would a person go to such great lengths to cheat at a video game? Is there a monetary incentive? Otherwise, it seems like a lot of effort just to increase one's standing on a leader board.

Sometimes "cheating" is just fixing broken things the devs make really dumb decisions about. In RA2, online matchmaking required you to use the smallest resolution possible, which is dumb when you just beat the full game at a normal resolution. In DotA2, you can't zoom out. I just played LoL instead of "cheating" though (a.k.a. making the game playable). In Dawn of War I used a zoom out mod once but honestly the game already let you zoom out reasonably enough anyways. But these weren't for getting an unfair advantage, this was for solving claustrophobia and not-having-the-camera-right-in-the-dirt.

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#144

Post by Can_Not » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

mnowicki wrote: post #110

lmilcin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making mistake by trying to explain somebody elses motives for cheating by using your value system. First, these are not great lengths when all you need to do is download and install an application. Second, some people don't get as much kick from playing a game as from dominating other players. They want to win the game in any way possible, but don't consider winning fairly to be any more satisfying than winn…

I think that's only one subset of cheaters, many people use cheats in non-pvp games or use cheats in a specific server where everyone has the same cheats. It's often just a way to get more replayability out of a game someone really enjoys. In monster hunter, the speedrunning community is migrating to PC because the ability to use cheats to negate the huge amount of RNG present in the game. Cheating is usually looked…

> use cheats in a specific server where everyone has the same cheats

I would call this a mod, not a cheat.

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#145

Post by rhodo » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

mantap wrote: post #49

pastrami_panda wrote: post #46

Speaking in terms of fps games I believe it to be very easy for any human to detect aimbots when reviewing gameplay footage. Wallhacks are a bit trickier to detect, and probably requires longer reviews, but I'd estimate that above average players could quite accurately detect this hack as well. This leads me to believe this should be quite a good fit for machine learning, no? It just seems like a problem that lives i…

By that logic you could also use AI to create an undetectable aimbot that mimics a very good human player.

You definitely could

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#146

Post by bashmelek » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #2

Serious question for you gamers out there: Why would a person go to such great lengths to cheat at a video game? Is there a monetary incentive? Otherwise, it seems like a lot of effort just to increase one's standing on a leader board.

There is also the market for selling digital goods. People wanting to make real money outside of the game will automate farming gold, items, sell an account with a great character or one that unlocked a lot of perks from wins

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#147

Post by smileybarry » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #128

smileybarry wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some games -- recently Overwatch -- send hotfixes as live hotpatches. Those couldn't be scrutinized by anyone except the developer until they're included in the next formal patch.

You say that like people aren't capable of converting the current memory space back into an executable.

Of course you can dump the current executable from memory (with varying effort depending on anti-tamper tech), but the point is that you can't examine them ahead of time. They're pulled & applied right before a match starts and the relevant code is used immediately.

Re: How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

#148

Post by galkk » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #67

papreclip wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make cheats for money, for online infamy, and for the challenge of it People use cheats because it makes the game more enjoyable. In FPS, someone can shoot you before you have time to react. In RTS, someone can step out of the darkness with an army that traps yours at just the right moment. Cheats replace those unpleasant experiences with pleasant ones where you ambush the enemy and fight them with an advantag…

"People make cheats for money, for online infamy , and for the challenge of it" In all seriousness, I think there's a non-trivial aspect to it where human psychology is misfiring in the modern era. Certain people, mostly younger, have a drive to show off to potential mates, some more so than others, and superficially, spending lots of time creating cheats like this looks like it's leading to social approval and stand…

I think that you're underestimating what online fame, for being best, can bring to people.

High profile Fortnite/Apex Legends/CS:GO etc gamer could make significant money on streaming, and there were quite a high profile gamers caught using aimbots/wallhacks etc.