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Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#92

This is basically the classic "analog hole." I remember over a decade ago doing something far less sophisticated to "cheat" in a turn-based projectile physics game --- I used a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomogram printed on transparency and just put it on the monitor to quickly calculate parameters between turns.

At a LAN party a few years ago one of the games being played was Modern Warfare 2, a game where your gun is almost always going to hit in exactly the centre of the screen, but that’s made more difficult by requiring you to look down the sights to get an aim point, which slows you down.

One of the people near me worked around that by taking a few shots down the sights and then sticking a blob of blue tack on his monitor where the shots hit, creating an instant targeting reticle available at all times.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#94
post #3

One may wonder what exactly is the point in a human watching this auto-playing game system, and whether they'd be better off watching a movie... But another way to look at it is as a preview of the future. Just picture this: a world of machines battling it out for supremacy, and somewhere off to the side there is an almost forgotten human brain. It seems to serve no discernible purpose, and yet it is actually the rea…

Said primates have a dopamine down if they realize their life has no meaning, so the AI must provide them some meaning (illusion) so that they get back to the desired dopamine levels

EDIT: for example by pretending they are just crappy machines and they need a human to be really good at doing things

EDIT2: oh too much snow, I can't drive, please human help me out!

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#95
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheats are about two things: money or prestige. People want to get back at the players who so rudely beat them normally, and get high competitive rankings that make them look better than other players in that games community. Or, they use the cheats to create high ranking game accounts to sell to players who want to look good, or they simply cheat to win prize money. It should go without saying that this kind of acti…

First, people who cheat in multiplayer games are awful, and it's unethical and unconscionable. However, cheating in single-player games is perfectly okay in my book. When I'm cheating in a solo FPS or other game, I still enjoy the game. The cheating is a way to tackle some aspect of the game that I don't enjoy, while still enjoying the rest. I can actually put on god-mode and unlimited everything and still enjoy movi…

I agree, I should have clarified that I was talking about multiplayer games, particularly the competitive ones. In single player, the only experience you can spoil is your own, so whatever people enjoy is fine to do.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#96
post #91

Maybe we can finally agree kernel level anti cheat is useless and unjustified?

Just record video of your screen, with your hands, and record movements of your mouse. It's enough to reproduce movements, measure reaction, and match them with game replay.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#97
post #79
post #69

If a game can be easily played by a computer maybe it's time to start playing a more complicated game, worthy of your human brain

Tell that to all the chess players ...

Interesting that Alpha Zero, by playing itself, has come up with some new approaches which are feeding back into the professional game.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#98

This is just one example of the "analogue hole" [1] problem shared by all anti-cheat/DRM systems. At least in theory, there is no technology that can prevent exploits like this short of dystopian levels of surveillance and locking down computing devices even further. By that I mean encrypted communication on all computer buses (including USB, HDMI), and only allowing access to those busses via physically hardened "se…

On a way more simple level, back in my days I wrote bots for flash/browser games basically by detecting specific pixels on the screen and acting according to it. Sounds stupid, but with simple games this could work very well.

I never got 'detected' how would they? And some of my bots easily got more skills than I ever had

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#100

I wonder if the anti-cheat system could insert ghost enemies for a few frames, or about 20-30ms, fast enough that humans wouldn't really notice. If players are shooting too often at ghosts, that may be a good reason to ban.

20-30ms would be noticeable to a trained eye. Speedrunners often hit buttons frame perfect during a 1/30th or 1/60th second window. Many people today are playing on 120-240hz monitors. Additionally, if you're training on gameplay from X game and that game has theoretical ghost frames that the player doesn't see / shoot at, then the hack shouldn't shoot at it either. It's a bit of a chicken an egg problem.

Speedrunners are anticipating the events though, and perform a remembered sequence of inputs in response to an earlier stimulus. Nobody can react to a random event within 1/60th of a second (17 milliseconds) - average human reaction time is 200-300ms. But I guess you would still visually notice a visual artifact of enemies flickering in and out of existence at 20-30ms.
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