7 ms·

No matter how low-level they get in the OS, this is ultimately a losing battle. Aimbots have gone analog (src: https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/aimbot-does-it-i

No matter how low-level they get in the OS, this is ultimately a losing battle. Aimbots have gone analog (src: https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/aimbot-does-it-in-hardware/ https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/aimbot-does-it-in-hardware/) What can they do next? Demand webcam access with your mouse visible, I guess?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mentos 4y ago
I could see a webcam pointed at your hand/keyboard to verify input being something legit players would happily opt into.
- Retr0id 4y ago
  This is already the standard for speedruns and high-score records for certain games. Partly just because it makes the recording more interesting to watch, but increasingly it's for evidence of not-cheating.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Okay, but you couldn't just have a linux computer procedurally generating that video, then exposing itself to the host computer as a webcam over usb gadget driver? Not to mention that you would have to comb through all this footage to detect cheaters... It is honestly a laughable solution.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    Yes, but writing a program to synthetically generate correct images will take a while to come out in which players can play without cheaters ruining games.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      Creating a system to automatically verify correct videos will take a while to come out, not to mention that it is extremely invasive for the end user and requires that they own all this extra equipment and bandwidth. The cheater does not even really need to generate fake video like I've described. Aimbots can be as subtle as the cheater wants them to be, offering <5% precision adjustments which won't be visible on a webcam. Not to mention that half of cheating is just information assistance like wallhacks which this doesn't even cover.
      - mentos 4y ago
        What do you think is a better way to validate the input is legitimate?
        majewsky 4y ago
        The point is that the cheating problem is unsolvable at scale against sufficiently motivated attackers. It would be possible to solve if the incentives are not that strong to cheat, but the status game associated with multiplayer games takes care of the "sufficiently motivated part". It would be possible to solve at a small scale (e.g. at a tournament) by manually vetting hardware and manually reviewing footage. But preventing cheating at scale against motivated attackers is so expensive as to be uneconomical. The devs will probably try to install whatever malware they can get away with in order to demonstrate to their shareholders that they care about it, but I'm guessing even the devs will be relieved when Microsoft just blocks their kernel-level malware because they know the risks it entails.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- j245 4y ago
  So many problems with this idea.. Can you imagine your child saying “Mom / Dad I need to buy a webcam to play this game”. Alarm bells will be going off immediately. Financially speaking, every player needs to buy a webcam to play even a free to play game ? Do you need a camera of a specific quality ? What if the light in your room is off and the object detection can’t work out where your hand is ? Do you get kicked from the game because the sun went down and you didn’t turn on the light ? Can’t imagine the compute resources required to pull this off. The skins in the game will probably have to cost 10x more. This is just what comes to mind after thinking about this for 2 mins.
  - mentos 4y ago
    I imagine it would start with competitive leagues first and then slowly expand into mainstream if the technology proved itself.
    - j245 4y ago
      Can’t imagine a significant number of users ever accepting this solution, there’s too much hassle involved. Users who are not attempting world record attempts or playing tournaments where money or fame is on the line.. in other words.. 99.99% of the user base will have no incentive to bother with webcam hand recording anti-cheat systems. They will just move onto another less bothersome game that doesn’t require it, and that game will eat the webcam-required always recording game's market share.
      - mentos 4y ago
        There will always be servers for the players that don’t care about hackers to play on. For the ones that are sick of having their games ruined by hackers they’ll angle their webcam down at their hands (or use the app on their smartphone) and join the server that supports it.
maccard 4y ago
The difference in effort, for a cheater, between installing a cheat as a user process and a kernel driver is about one button click. I can decide to cheat, stick my CC info into a website and download a program in less than 5 minutes. To get hardware I need to provide my shipping info and wait a couple of days. If the hardware is banned, I need to wait a few days before my replacement hardware is there, or with software I just update and restart. It's not an all or nothing thing, it's a game of cat and mouse. The aim isn't to completely stamp out cheaters at any cost, it's to raise the bar sufficiently high to make it so that enough games aren't destroyed by cheaters.
- cowtools 4y ago
  How could the cheating hardware be banned? it is general-purpose, there is no change in the programming of the host computer that couldn't be combated by reprogramming the cheating device. Security-by-obscurity is a game of cat-and-mouse where the cat is blind and the mouse is invulnerable.
  - maccard 4y ago
    The hardware isn't banned, the player is banned if the anticheat detects the hardware being used. The hardware might be reprogrammable and self modifying at some point in the future, but until it is and it's widely available a root level anticheat is adequate protection.
    - blibble 4y ago
      > The hardware isn't banned, the player is banned if the anticheat detects the hardware being used. how? it can report itself as any pci device
      - maccard 4y ago
        The cheat software can report itself as any software, so that is the secret sauce. Can't say I'm privy to how exactly that is. The difference between "reports itself as X" and "reports itself as Y" are the same problem space.
drdaeman 4y ago
One dream is that I'll live long enough to see humans actually getting cybernetic enhancements and how much of a fuss that's gonna make on the gaming industry. In the same tune, I genuinely do want to see what Olympic Games could become if anything they consider "cheating" would be allowed - I honestly want to see what humans are actually capable of (though, of course, I won't be happy if people would ruin themselves over merely a silly goal of "winning"). I believe that - unlike most arms races in history (except the Space Race, I guess) - this kind of stuff is going to be actually beneficial for humanity. I'm not a smart guy, and probably there are some issues that I entirely miss (or maybe even not register as they don't match my beliefs), but that's a honest opinion. And yeah, I'm a sucker for science fiction.
smileybarry 4y ago
No, but the higher the moat the less cheaters you have. No anti-cheat is perfect or even blocks all cheaters, hell even console has aimbots thanks to console modding. It’s about reducing the amount, making it harder and preemptively banning people who go at it wrong, i.e.: using a known cheat. Better to have few cheaters than a million of them running baby’s-first-Python-script that just sends plain old WM_MOUSE.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mentos 4y ago

I could see a webcam pointed at your hand/keyboard to verify input being something legit players would happily opt into.

Retr0id 4y ago
This is already the standard for speedruns and high-score records for certain games. Partly just because it makes the recording more interesting to watch, but increasingly it's for evidence of not-cheating.
cowtools 4y ago
Okay, but you couldn't just have a linux computer procedurally generating that video, then exposing itself to the host computer as a webcam over usb gadget driver? Not to mention that you would have to comb through all this footage to detect cheaters... It is honestly a laughable solution.
- charcircuit 4y ago
  Yes, but writing a program to synthetically generate correct images will take a while to come out in which players can play without cheaters ruining games.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    Creating a system to automatically verify correct videos will take a while to come out, not to mention that it is extremely invasive for the end user and requires that they own all this extra equipment and bandwidth. The cheater does not even really need to generate fake video like I've described. Aimbots can be as subtle as the cheater wants them to be, offering <5% precision adjustments which won't be visible on a webcam. Not to mention that half of cheating is just information assistance like wallhacks which this doesn't even cover.
    - mentos 4y ago
      What do you think is a better way to validate the input is legitimate?
      - majewsky 4y ago
        The point is that the cheating problem is unsolvable at scale against sufficiently motivated attackers. It would be possible to solve if the incentives are not that strong to cheat, but the status game associated with multiplayer games takes care of the "sufficiently motivated part". It would be possible to solve at a small scale (e.g. at a tournament) by manually vetting hardware and manually reviewing footage. But preventing cheating at scale against motivated attackers is so expensive as to be uneconomical. The devs will probably try to install whatever malware they can get away with in order to demonstrate to their shareholders that they care about it, but I'm guessing even the devs will be relieved when Microsoft just blocks their kernel-level malware because they know the risks it entails.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
j245 4y ago
So many problems with this idea.. Can you imagine your child saying “Mom / Dad I need to buy a webcam to play this game”. Alarm bells will be going off immediately. Financially speaking, every player needs to buy a webcam to play even a free to play game ? Do you need a camera of a specific quality ? What if the light in your room is off and the object detection can’t work out where your hand is ? Do you get kicked from the game because the sun went down and you didn’t turn on the light ? Can’t imagine the compute resources required to pull this off. The skins in the game will probably have to cost 10x more. This is just what comes to mind after thinking about this for 2 mins.
- mentos 4y ago
  I imagine it would start with competitive leagues first and then slowly expand into mainstream if the technology proved itself.
  - j245 4y ago
    Can’t imagine a significant number of users ever accepting this solution, there’s too much hassle involved. Users who are not attempting world record attempts or playing tournaments where money or fame is on the line.. in other words.. 99.99% of the user base will have no incentive to bother with webcam hand recording anti-cheat systems. They will just move onto another less bothersome game that doesn’t require it, and that game will eat the webcam-required always recording game's market share.
    - mentos 4y ago
      There will always be servers for the players that don’t care about hackers to play on. For the ones that are sick of having their games ruined by hackers they’ll angle their webcam down at their hands (or use the app on their smartphone) and join the server that supports it.

maccard 4y ago

The difference in effort, for a cheater, between installing a cheat as a user process and a kernel driver is about one button click. I can decide to cheat, stick my CC info into a website and download a program in less than 5 minutes. To get hardware I need to provide my shipping info and wait a couple of days. If the hardware is banned, I need to wait a few days before my replacement hardware is there, or with software I just update and restart. It's not an all or nothing thing, it's a game of cat and mouse. The aim isn't to completely stamp out cheaters at any cost, it's to raise the bar sufficiently high to make it so that enough games aren't destroyed by cheaters.

cowtools 4y ago
How could the cheating hardware be banned? it is general-purpose, there is no change in the programming of the host computer that couldn't be combated by reprogramming the cheating device. Security-by-obscurity is a game of cat-and-mouse where the cat is blind and the mouse is invulnerable.
- maccard 4y ago
  The hardware isn't banned, the player is banned if the anticheat detects the hardware being used. The hardware might be reprogrammable and self modifying at some point in the future, but until it is and it's widely available a root level anticheat is adequate protection.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > The hardware isn't banned, the player is banned if the anticheat detects the hardware being used. how? it can report itself as any pci device
    - maccard 4y ago
      The cheat software can report itself as any software, so that is the secret sauce. Can't say I'm privy to how exactly that is. The difference between "reports itself as X" and "reports itself as Y" are the same problem space.

drdaeman 4y ago

One dream is that I'll live long enough to see humans actually getting cybernetic enhancements and how much of a fuss that's gonna make on the gaming industry. In the same tune, I genuinely do want to see what Olympic Games could become if anything they consider "cheating" would be allowed - I honestly want to see what humans are actually capable of (though, of course, I won't be happy if people would ruin themselves over merely a silly goal of "winning"). I believe that - unlike most arms races in history (except the Space Race, I guess) - this kind of stuff is going to be actually beneficial for humanity. I'm not a smart guy, and probably there are some issues that I entirely miss (or maybe even not register as they don't match my beliefs), but that's a honest opinion. And yeah, I'm a sucker for science fiction.

smileybarry 4y ago

No, but the higher the moat the less cheaters you have. No anti-cheat is perfect or even blocks all cheaters, hell even console has aimbots thanks to console modding. It’s about reducing the amount, making it harder and preemptively banning people who go at it wrong, i.e.: using a known cheat. Better to have few cheaters than a million of them running baby’s-first-Python-script that just sends plain old WM_MOUSE.