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Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

areweanticheatyet.com

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Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#181

Post by kuschku »

macNchz wrote: post #171
kuschku wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to force ever more restrictive and intrusive controls upon players won't solve cheating. The only way to "solve" cheating is with https://xkcd.com/810/ . Use statistical analysis and server-side controls (fog of war, lockstep calculations) to force cheaters to play indistinguishable from top human players. If you can't tell the difference, does it even matter? > the types of dongles used for this are likely de…

> Trying to force ever more restrictive and intrusive controls upon players won't solve cheating. I think it's not about "solving" cheating, so much as making it sufficiently annoying to maintain working cheats that fewer people try. Just as in cybersecurity, no individual security measure will "solve" hacking, but in concert they reduce the impact by making it more difficult: the "Swiss Cheese Method" / defense-in-d…

> Reading through game cheating boards, it seems many hardware devices have been detected over time. It's an arms race. Here's a discussion of how anticheat started to detect people using HID-emulating devices by forcing a disconnection event

That's a hack which only works for some devices in some specific state. At that point you're playing whack-a-mole, and you'll always lose.

> I think it's not about "solving" cheating, so much as making it sufficiently annoying to maintain working cheats that fewer people try

Annoying? I don't think you understand the hacker mentality. Breaking anticheat or DRM tickles the same nerv as CTFs or puzzle games. What you consider "annoying" is an activity others do for fun.

It's fun to break a system that's intentionally trying to keep you out. That's why I reverse engineer proprietary, obfuscated file formats and protocols. Whether that's brother plotters, blackmagic's input devices (which also function as license dongles), apple video codecs (actually still WIP) or my landlord's wireless water meter so I can add homeassistant support for it.

When kernel-level anticheat became a thing, I actually built a custom hardware aimbot out of an HDMI capture card and a custom Sandisk wireless clone that I was working on at the time. I've only used it once or twice, as I'm not a competitive gamer and don't actually have any use for it. The entire fun was in breaking the system.

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#182

Post by nurumaik »

snarfy wrote: post #145

If Apex Legends, CS, and Valorant has taught me anything, it's that anti cheat does not work. Once you start approaching a pro level, cheating becomes rampant. The cheaters don't make them, they buy them. It really needs a multi factor solution. The technical solution is not enough. Trying to buy cheats should be like trying to buy chemical precursors to illicit drugs. There should be a strong social stigma. Most che…

>Trying to buy cheats should be like trying to buy chemical precursors to illicit drugs

Totally agree, both should be absolutely legal and accepted

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#183

Post by macNchz »

kuschku wrote: post #181
macNchz wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trying to force ever more restrictive and intrusive controls upon players won't solve cheating. I think it's not about "solving" cheating, so much as making it sufficiently annoying to maintain working cheats that fewer people try. Just as in cybersecurity, no individual security measure will "solve" hacking, but in concert they reduce the impact by making it more difficult: the "Swiss Cheese Method" / defense-in-d…

> Reading through game cheating boards, it seems many hardware devices have been detected over time. It's an arms race. Here's a discussion of how anticheat started to detect people using HID-emulating devices by forcing a disconnection event That's a hack which only works for some devices in some specific state. At that point you're playing whack-a-mole, and you'll always lose. > I think it's not about "solving" che…

> At that point you're playing whack-a-mole, and you'll always lose.

That's just sort of fundamental to society at some level though, we play whack a mole with all sorts of misbehavior until we reach some sort of acceptable equilibrium.

I totally get the hacker mentality, I have a fully disassembled HP printer under my desk with some bullshit DRM that I've been desperate to break for some time, but I think your last line is really the key: breaking the system is fun for a small portion of people who are able to do it, but it's their users/customers who will be annoyed when their accounts keep getting banned and they need to buy new hardware.

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#184

Post by kurikuri »

soerxpso wrote: post #180
lousken wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the onclient kernel stuff. Just like with any website, any checking MUST be server side. Kernel stuff not only makes clients inherently less secure and stable, but also for cheat coders it's only a matter of finding vulnerable driver they can use to avoid being caught.

Empirically, it works. Look at Vanguard as an example. There's obviously a privacy tradeoff, but a lot of people would rather avoid cheaters than maintain tight control of their computers. It would be great if anticheat could all be serverside, but I'd love to hear a proposal for how to prevent aimhacking with serverside anticheat alone.

> There's obviously a privacy tradeoff, but a lot of people would rather avoid cheaters than maintain tight control of their computers.

I don’t agree. Instead, a lot of people allow the install because they have no say in the matter if they wish to continue playing the game. Even if it weren’t effective, I’m pretty sure most people would allow the installation of some form of not-yet-proven-to-be-dangerous malware if the alternative is cutting ties and accepting the sunk cost (be it in terms of in-game purchases, proprietary file format, etc).

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#186

Post by kachapopopow »

totaa wrote: post #65
kachapopopow wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overwatch does this just fine and deadlock actually.

> deadlock actually how do you know? has there been a technical deep dive published?

Opening the console and seeing rollback net-code pretty much says enough. Also the game itself feels great to play even with 160ms ping which is only really possible when using architecture similar to overwatch.

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#187

Post by Cloudef »

soerxpso wrote: post #180
lousken wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the onclient kernel stuff. Just like with any website, any checking MUST be server side. Kernel stuff not only makes clients inherently less secure and stable, but also for cheat coders it's only a matter of finding vulnerable driver they can use to avoid being caught.

Empirically, it works. Look at Vanguard as an example. There's obviously a privacy tradeoff, but a lot of people would rather avoid cheaters than maintain tight control of their computers. It would be great if anticheat could all be serverside, but I'd love to hear a proposal for how to prevent aimhacking with serverside anticheat alone.

Vanguard is good example of blocking even honest customers from playing. You basically need clean install of windows, clean drivers, no third party apps and modern hardware to even launch the game.

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#188

Post by roshankhan28 »

Draiken wrote: post #131
MaxikCZ wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that "best"? Seems pretty bad, if they dont reverse ban even after being informed of possible false positive. Having anticheat ban everyone doesnt make it good. What makes anticheat good is it banning cheaters while leaving honest players not.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, they're being ironic...

yes , i am being ironic.

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#189

Post by kuschku »

macNchz wrote: post #183
kuschku wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading through game cheating boards, it seems many hardware devices have been detected over time. It's an arms race. Here's a discussion of how anticheat started to detect people using HID-emulating devices by forcing a disconnection event That's a hack which only works for some devices in some specific state. At that point you're playing whack-a-mole, and you'll always lose. > I think it's not about "solving" che…

> At that point you're playing whack-a-mole, and you'll always lose. That's just sort of fundamental to society at some level though, we play whack a mole with all sorts of misbehavior until we reach some sort of acceptable equilibrium. I totally get the hacker mentality, I have a fully disassembled HP printer under my desk with some bullshit DRM that I've been desperate to break for some time, but I think your last…

> fully disassembled HP printer under my desk with some bullshit DRM that I've been desperate to break for some time

With my brother printers it turned out I could just remove the chips from the genuine toner cartridges, reset the counters, and hot glue them to the refurbished toner. Maybe that works for HP ink as well?

Re: Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?

#190

Post by rldjbpin »

very interesting side-effect of the nature of multiplayer competitive games.

to me, competitive video games are far gone like pro cycling in terms of the extent players go to feel "superior" than others.

many of these games remain broken with other things while raking in insane amounts of money, so regularly maintaining anti-cheat inside the game, if at all, is probably very low in their backlog.

the third-party ones are then used to not having to think about this, but even these providers are more focused on attracting game publishers than doing something meaningful.

personally, it should be possible for games that can be played in local multiplayer or with friends to have a way to play it without anti-cheat. don't allow competitive modes with it, but having an option will alleviate a lot of these issues.

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