6 ms·

>>Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). I th

by patmcc 4y ago

>>Online chess is bigger than ever, and some kind of botting/cheating is possible for virtually every e-sport (indeed I'd say many are easier than chess). I think it's the other way, chess is about as easy to cheat as it gets. With chess you can have a perfectly usable cheating system that isn't on the same computer at all - computer A is clean, and is where you actually play on chess.com, computer B is where you enter the moves into the chess engine. That doesn't work for something like CS:GO or League of Legends or whatever, cheating or botting needs to be in real-time and on the same computer.

kadoban 4y ago
For shooters, bots or assists that only use vision and normal input (special mouse/keyboard) aren't hard to imagine and I'm positive already exist. I know specifically I read a while back about mice that do recoil correction to improve aim, and things like "click when something that looks like a head is in the crosshairs" would be a weekend project at most for a bored college student. Strategy games may be harder, but still not going to take too long before those exist.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Those have been common for decades and are pretty much the lowest bar for detection.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    Using computer vision on the video stream (eg via a capture card) and then sending valid mouse and keyboard inputs most definitely has not been around for decades. It's a mechanism to cheat that has zero binaries running on the host computer.
    - eru 4y ago
      You could do statistical analysis on the mouse and keyboard inputs to try and detect this. (Very similar to how you might detect chess cheaters, actually.)
      - erwincoumans 4y ago
        You can use (the data of) statistical analysis to train a deep neural network to avoid detection. That may also help avoiding chess detection cheaters, so the moves are not perfect anymore.
        eru 4y ago
        Yes. You can't make cheating impossible, but you can make it harder to pull off.
- patmcc 4y ago
  It's not hard to make cheating tools, it's hard to run them on the same hardware as the game and not get caught. Chess cheating tools don't need to be on the same hardware, so they're not detectable in the same ways.
  - krageon 4y ago
    It is not hard to run cheats for basically any game that uses video on another machine. Just a little more expensive (i.e. it is harder for someone in high school, but not anyone over 20).
    - Orothrim 4y ago
      Due to the need for real-time input that's just not true.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        There are/have been elaborate cheating setups for online shooters that involved a second computer using the VGA or HDMI video stream. It’s doable to get around kernel detection tools.
        mminer237 4y ago
        Splitting the video stream to a second computer to run real-time video analysis and then send back commands through an emulated mouse may be doable, but it's certainly harder for anyone to do than copying chess moves on your phone.
        bombcar 4y ago
        Certainly! But it does show the amount of effort people will go to cheat - though lots of the "online shooter" cheating is people selling cheating tools/kits to idiots who want to win (basically turning games into pay to win). The number of people who can build that kind of system from scratch is small. But anyone can cheat at chess online.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  I doubt that since a weekend project. You need to analyze a video stream of hundreds fps in real time with very low latency requirments. You'd probably need an FPGA to do that. Custom training an AI to only trigger on heads.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    No, it's trivial these days, and this very task is one of the introductory tutorials to Google's Coral AI Tensorflow boards: https://coral.ai/models/object-detection/ https://coral.ai/models/object-detection/ Which you can buy as a USB stick for $59: https://coral.ai/products/accelerator/ https://coral.ai/products/accelerator/ Sure, it's a little more complex if you want to train on specific heads as opposed to a generic model, but not hugely so. The biggest challenge would likely be downsampling the video stream into something the model can process quickly enough.
    - rowanG077 4y ago
      That's a generic AI. I would be very surprised you could get it to work accurately for games and hyper specific the heads of (possibly non-human)models. The box you see in the marketing material is completely useless for this use case. Besides how do you get the data to your standard second PC, scale the input the USB thing expects. Send it over USB and back, and then you have to send it to a custom mouse that receives the click command over bluetooth? I don't think 7ms just for the inference step is going to cut it. A weekend project were you have to design an ultra low-latency software + hardware stack, a custom mouse and train a custom AI. I would be incredible if anyone manages this in a weekend.
      - barrkel 4y ago
        7ms isn't going to be the bar. Human reaction times are in the 150+ms range, you have 20x your budget. I agree it's still tough though, most I/O paths on generic hardware will have buffers at every step that you'll have to fight to eliminate.
        4y ago
- perth 4y ago
  Funny thing, there are already YOLOv3 derived aimbots, and a lot of anti cheat now scans pci-e cards to try to detect them. They intercept video input and act as mouse and keyboard devices, acting almost completely independent of the host computer.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    Yeah that's not far at all from just running as a separate machine, either grabbing the hdmi output or going full webcam pointed at the screen.
jimmySixDOF 4y ago
It's not just AI and e-sports either Fishermen Team Accused of Cheating by Stuffing Fish With Weights https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2022/10/01/fishermen-team-accused-of-cheating-by-stuffing-fish-with-weights https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2022/10/01/fishermen-team-a...
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  This however is easily detectable. It is undetectable whether I have a second device showing me calculations of a different engine.
  - headsoup 4y ago
    From the article they describe many ways they can cheat in fishing (e.g. putting ice in that then melts) that aren't so easy to catch. If there is a way to cheat, someone will inevitably give it a go with enough incentives. Cheating is the meta-sport and I would think no sport could ever be completely free of it.
  - matwood 4y ago
    Depends. Some fish tournaments, like bass, are typically catch and release after weighing. This makes it harder to examine the fish if the goal is to release. Others like kingfish are catch and kill, though people cheat by other means like catching a fish earlier in the week. The big money tournaments like bill fish, where millions of dollars can change hands, are usually catch and release on the spot but entrants have a judge on board to measure any fish caught. I've done competitive king fishing in the past, and cheating or suspicion of cheating has been around for decades.
picsao 4y ago
noxvilleza 4y ago
Yeah chess is the perfect type of game for cheating - it has a tiny (relatively) gamestate, perfect information, and it's turn-based. At the level of chess player we're talking about it's sorta trivial for them to almost immediately memorize a boardstate.
- OJFord 4y ago
  > At the level of chess player we're talking about it's sorta trivial for them to almost immediately memorize a boardstate. And the rest! I'm pretty crap (hovering 750-850 on chess.com, idk if I play enough for it to be accurate though, probably lower) but I was still thoroughly impressed when I got thrashed by someone (~1200) playing the entire game in their head. As in I had a local game running on my phone, called out my moves, entered his, and he never saw the board, just held it in his head. Thrashed me. (And there was background conversation going he'd occasionally chime into, ordering pizzas, etc. Ridiculous.)
  - thefringthing 4y ago
    Surely that kind of play would indicate a rating considerably above 1200.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      1200 rapid if that makes a difference? Also, I suppose it's.. certainly not orthogonal, but it's not dead parallel either - can have a good/bad memory and play well/not well.
      - howling 4y ago
        I'm 1800 rapid on chess.com and can't play blindfold beyond the opening.
        codyb 4y ago
        Memory is different than chess ability, maybe his friend just has more effective techniques for memorization or visualization or both.
lr1970 4y ago
You can point a camera on the first computer screen to capture and analyze GO board and second computer will provide suggestions. No need to memorize anything.
- dspillett 4y ago
  Or if the system allows live spectators, just log another machine in as one of those and scrape the data that way, possibly more reliable than adding machine vision into the mix. That won't work for contests that have a broadcast delay though.

by patmcc 4y ago

kadoban 4y ago

For shooters, bots or assists that only use vision and normal input (special mouse/keyboard) aren't hard to imagine and I'm positive already exist. I know specifically I read a while back about mice that do recoil correction to improve aim, and things like "click when something that looks like a head is in the crosshairs" would be a weekend project at most for a bored college student. Strategy games may be harder, but still not going to take too long before those exist.

Semaphor 4y ago
Those have been common for decades and are pretty much the lowest bar for detection.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  Using computer vision on the video stream (eg via a capture card) and then sending valid mouse and keyboard inputs most definitely has not been around for decades. It's a mechanism to cheat that has zero binaries running on the host computer.
  - eru 4y ago
    You could do statistical analysis on the mouse and keyboard inputs to try and detect this. (Very similar to how you might detect chess cheaters, actually.)
    - erwincoumans 4y ago
      You can use (the data of) statistical analysis to train a deep neural network to avoid detection. That may also help avoiding chess detection cheaters, so the moves are not perfect anymore.
      - eru 4y ago
        Yes. You can't make cheating impossible, but you can make it harder to pull off.
patmcc 4y ago
It's not hard to make cheating tools, it's hard to run them on the same hardware as the game and not get caught. Chess cheating tools don't need to be on the same hardware, so they're not detectable in the same ways.
- krageon 4y ago
  It is not hard to run cheats for basically any game that uses video on another machine. Just a little more expensive (i.e. it is harder for someone in high school, but not anyone over 20).
  - Orothrim 4y ago
    Due to the need for real-time input that's just not true.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      There are/have been elaborate cheating setups for online shooters that involved a second computer using the VGA or HDMI video stream. It’s doable to get around kernel detection tools.
      - mminer237 4y ago
        Splitting the video stream to a second computer to run real-time video analysis and then send back commands through an emulated mouse may be doable, but it's certainly harder for anyone to do than copying chess moves on your phone.
        bombcar 4y ago
        Certainly! But it does show the amount of effort people will go to cheat - though lots of the "online shooter" cheating is people selling cheating tools/kits to idiots who want to win (basically turning games into pay to win). The number of people who can build that kind of system from scratch is small. But anyone can cheat at chess online.
rowanG077 4y ago
I doubt that since a weekend project. You need to analyze a video stream of hundreds fps in real time with very low latency requirments. You'd probably need an FPGA to do that. Custom training an AI to only trigger on heads.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  No, it's trivial these days, and this very task is one of the introductory tutorials to Google's Coral AI Tensorflow boards: https://coral.ai/models/object-detection/ https://coral.ai/models/object-detection/ Which you can buy as a USB stick for $59: https://coral.ai/products/accelerator/ https://coral.ai/products/accelerator/ Sure, it's a little more complex if you want to train on specific heads as opposed to a generic model, but not hugely so. The biggest challenge would likely be downsampling the video stream into something the model can process quickly enough.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    That's a generic AI. I would be very surprised you could get it to work accurately for games and hyper specific the heads of (possibly non-human)models. The box you see in the marketing material is completely useless for this use case. Besides how do you get the data to your standard second PC, scale the input the USB thing expects. Send it over USB and back, and then you have to send it to a custom mouse that receives the click command over bluetooth? I don't think 7ms just for the inference step is going to cut it. A weekend project were you have to design an ultra low-latency software + hardware stack, a custom mouse and train a custom AI. I would be incredible if anyone manages this in a weekend.
    - barrkel 4y ago
      7ms isn't going to be the bar. Human reaction times are in the 150+ms range, you have 20x your budget. I agree it's still tough though, most I/O paths on generic hardware will have buffers at every step that you'll have to fight to eliminate.
      - 4y ago
perth 4y ago
Funny thing, there are already YOLOv3 derived aimbots, and a lot of anti cheat now scans pci-e cards to try to detect them. They intercept video input and act as mouse and keyboard devices, acting almost completely independent of the host computer.
- kadoban 4y ago
  Yeah that's not far at all from just running as a separate machine, either grabbing the hdmi output or going full webcam pointed at the screen.

jimmySixDOF 4y ago

It's not just AI and e-sports either Fishermen Team Accused of Cheating by Stuffing Fish With Weights https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2022/10/01/fishermen-team-accused-of-cheating-by-stuffing-fish-with-weights https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2022/10/01/fishermen-team-a...

johannes1234321 4y ago
This however is easily detectable. It is undetectable whether I have a second device showing me calculations of a different engine.
- headsoup 4y ago
  From the article they describe many ways they can cheat in fishing (e.g. putting ice in that then melts) that aren't so easy to catch. If there is a way to cheat, someone will inevitably give it a go with enough incentives. Cheating is the meta-sport and I would think no sport could ever be completely free of it.
- matwood 4y ago
  Depends. Some fish tournaments, like bass, are typically catch and release after weighing. This makes it harder to examine the fish if the goal is to release. Others like kingfish are catch and kill, though people cheat by other means like catching a fish earlier in the week. The big money tournaments like bill fish, where millions of dollars can change hands, are usually catch and release on the spot but entrants have a judge on board to measure any fish caught. I've done competitive king fishing in the past, and cheating or suspicion of cheating has been around for decades.

picsao 4y ago

noxvilleza 4y ago

Yeah chess is the perfect type of game for cheating - it has a tiny (relatively) gamestate, perfect information, and it's turn-based. At the level of chess player we're talking about it's sorta trivial for them to almost immediately memorize a boardstate.

OJFord 4y ago
> At the level of chess player we're talking about it's sorta trivial for them to almost immediately memorize a boardstate. And the rest! I'm pretty crap (hovering 750-850 on chess.com, idk if I play enough for it to be accurate though, probably lower) but I was still thoroughly impressed when I got thrashed by someone (~1200) playing the entire game in their head. As in I had a local game running on my phone, called out my moves, entered his, and he never saw the board, just held it in his head. Thrashed me. (And there was background conversation going he'd occasionally chime into, ordering pizzas, etc. Ridiculous.)
- thefringthing 4y ago
  Surely that kind of play would indicate a rating considerably above 1200.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    1200 rapid if that makes a difference? Also, I suppose it's.. certainly not orthogonal, but it's not dead parallel either - can have a good/bad memory and play well/not well.
    - howling 4y ago
      I'm 1800 rapid on chess.com and can't play blindfold beyond the opening.
      - codyb 4y ago
        Memory is different than chess ability, maybe his friend just has more effective techniques for memorization or visualization or both.

lr1970 4y ago

You can point a camera on the first computer screen to capture and analyze GO board and second computer will provide suggestions. No need to memorize anything.

dspillett 4y ago
Or if the system allows live spectators, just log another machine in as one of those and scrape the data that way, possibly more reliable than adding machine vision into the mix. That won't work for contests that have a broadcast delay though.