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Not sending info about objects you can’t see is a fairly standard thing to do. Not to big up the lack of security (which is a problem in some cases) but games o

Not sending info about objects you can’t see is a fairly standard thing to do. Not to big up the lack of security (which is a problem in some cases) but games often have to balance sending over to much information against other concerns. For example in an FPS you could theoretically determine exact visibility but tend to send everything within a certain radius because you want to avoid sending information late both because the client is predicting and a half-round trip of latency before an enemy that appeared round a corner showing up is bad for gameplay. Not to mention that you want the server to run reasonably quickly and visibility determination is expensive. Hence “ESP” hacks. Then you have the mechanical helpers like aimbots that can’t be solved easily even if you perfectly restricted data sent across the network to that which was visible. So we’re kind of stuck with invasive programs trying to spot hacks and broad strokes statistic analysis.

zemnmez 7y ago
I agree with the gist of what you're saying, which is that it's not possible to fully 'solve' security in video games by good security architectural design – it's just that for 99% of games out there, there is not even an attempt to solve part of it. The discussion goes as you say – the gameplay would suffer if greater security is taken into account and due to this these problems rarely get the talent they might need if the problems were to be solved better.
- meheleventyone 7y ago
  In my experience that’s broadly unfair. Cheating is a big issue for the integrity of online games and something taken seriously. Although I’m coming at it from the other direction and might have been very lucky with the projects I’ve worked on. There is an obvious trade off between making a game that people want to play and making it secure. And that trade off gets stronger towards gameplay the more latency sensitive the game is. I guess what I’m actually saying is that good security design has to extend to the client in those cases. Defence in depth. I also think it’s unfair to suggest this is an issue due to lack of talent. Although I’d be open to knowing what you think is lacking in particular.
  - zemnmez 7y ago
    > I also think it’s unfair to suggest this is an issue due to lack of talent. Although I’d be open to knowing what you think is lacking in particular. I mean talent in the sense of hiring. Games companies don't hire security engineers by-and-large to work on their systems.
    - meheleventyone 7y ago
      Right but that suggests either there isn't a lack of talent and they don't need to hire security engineers or there is a lack of talent and hiring security engineers would fill that gap. Since you suggest there is a lack of talent I'm just curious what you think the gap is.

zemnmez 7y ago

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, which is that it's not possible to fully 'solve' security in video games by good security architectural design – it's just that for 99% of games out there, there is not even an attempt to solve part of it. The discussion goes as you say – the gameplay would suffer if greater security is taken into account and due to this these problems rarely get the talent they might need if the problems were to be solved better.

meheleventyone 7y ago
In my experience that’s broadly unfair. Cheating is a big issue for the integrity of online games and something taken seriously. Although I’m coming at it from the other direction and might have been very lucky with the projects I’ve worked on. There is an obvious trade off between making a game that people want to play and making it secure. And that trade off gets stronger towards gameplay the more latency sensitive the game is. I guess what I’m actually saying is that good security design has to extend to the client in those cases. Defence in depth. I also think it’s unfair to suggest this is an issue due to lack of talent. Although I’d be open to knowing what you think is lacking in particular.
- zemnmez 7y ago
  > I also think it’s unfair to suggest this is an issue due to lack of talent. Although I’d be open to knowing what you think is lacking in particular. I mean talent in the sense of hiring. Games companies don't hire security engineers by-and-large to work on their systems.
  - meheleventyone 7y ago
    Right but that suggests either there isn't a lack of talent and they don't need to hire security engineers or there is a lack of talent and hiring security engineers would fill that gap. Since you suggest there is a lack of talent I'm just curious what you think the gap is.