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Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

Hey all I've been working on a website called GamingHerd that has spawned from dealing with so many cheaters in Valve's Counter-Strike 2. Watch this video if you're interested into the different scales of cheats that can be used, pretty much undetectable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox1mBxrVulk&ab_channel=HaiX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox1mBxrVulk&ab_channel=HaiX Currently, Valve does not seem to have a viable solution for dealing with cheaters nor are they transparent about their intentions (I'm sure for good reason). I can only imagine the complexities they have to deal with, and at the same time there is a potential negative monetary impact. Valve makes boat loads of $$ from Counter-Strike through skins for weapons and models. It is its own economy. Banning people, even though they are cheaters, is money lost. Furthermore, some of the solutions to deal with cheaters are to play on 3rd party services (i.e. FACEIT) that require you to install an "anti-cheat" that gives kernel level access and is owned by some questionable folks (I won't get into the details of that you can do your own research). That brings us to GamingHerd. For now, my idea is to be Google for PC video game cheaters, smurfs (read this about smurfs https://www.idnow.io/glossary/smurfing/#:~:text=What%20is%20Smurfing%20in%20gaming,alternate%20account%20or%20multiple%20accounts https://www.idnow.io/glossary/smurfing/#:~:text=What%20is%20....), racists, throwers, etc. People you do not want to play video games with. Let me tell you, there are a lot, unfortunately. Currently, I am working to grow this into a community and build a matchmaking service around it. The matchmaking would obviously utilize the Toxic Gaming DB (TGDB) to never allow them to use the service. I'll also have community-driven moderation, you can read a bit more about that https://slash-lathe-f55.notion.site/GamingHerd-moderation-overview-230a8966544947a796d9de389405c9e6 https://slash-lathe-f55.notion.site/GamingHerd-moderation-ov.... In the perfect world this is a community of trusted gamers that you want to play video games with. Let me know what you all think. Look forward to your feedback. Cheers, Chris

dbalatero 2y ago
What can one do with this database?
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  Right now not much. If you do play Counter-Strike you could use it to cross check and give yourself sanity. In my post I mentioned a matchmaking service. So having this database will serve as a filter to prevent having to play with these toxic players.
cowthulhu 2y ago
I think a service like this is incredibly prone to false-positives and abuse, especially if you’re going to try to flag subjective things such as throwing or smurfing. It also seems like it could be damaging, and I’m skeptical of this the “proof” in all of these proof-based accusations of boosting I’m seeing on the site. If I can find the steam ID of the owner of the site, I know who my first totally-proof-based report of boosting will be against!
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  All the boosts had queued with cheaters. I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure. Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you? Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?
  - cowthulhu 2y ago
    How do you tell the difference between someone being boosted by a cheater, and someone playing with their friend, who they don’t know is a cheater? I think the distinction to me is whether there is reasonable doubt. If a player has a VAC ban, sure, not much doubt there. But queuing with cheaters seems murkier! I’m not sure how you’d prove boosting by watching a replay, but I could be missing something.
    - liamneesonsarm 2y ago
      Yes that’s a good question and something I’ll take into account when reviewing. TBH these reports are all the obvious ones. Like straight up aim lock or spinning. I basically just took people queuing with them because they 100% know they’re cheating. You’ll notice there are several that have “needs more evidence” and I personally viewed the stats and found them inconclusive. I tried a demo but it was expired so it got the needs more evidence status and I emailed the reported to add more context. If there is someone you see that you feel is misreported I’m happy to explain or delete it if wrong. Maybe I need a “contest report” feature so you can make your case for why it’s a false report.
John_Cena 2y ago
When you have a entry open and you click "show evidence", what is the user supposed to do from there? Looking at a player with all /////////// chars in their name. The evidence is a game they lost, in which they lost every clutch. Their k/d is not great. Aim metric looks to be maxed out, but I don't know the weight of that metric and most everyone in that match had near max aim stat. EDIT: There is a demo download in one of the horizontal toolbars.
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  Most pros have aim around 90. Anything going over 95 is absurd and highly unlikely. Some of the matches end up being “head v head” or HvH where it’s all hackers and so may the best cheat win. A bit of this is contextual. Also a lot of cheaters you’ll see have like aim in the 90 range and < 30 utility. That is a huge smell as well. You typically have that aim after thousands of hours and with that comes knowledge on utility.
AntiMS 2y ago
Billy Mitchell isn't even in this database. (Kidding. I know that's not quite what this site's for.)
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  lol I watched a documentary on that guy not too long ago. There’s competition for everything…
reactordev 2y ago
This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not. Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can continue their current iteration in perpetuity. It’s too easy for someone to pull out their credit card and buy a cheat than it is to catch them. I don’t play FPS games anymore because every lobby is full of them. Tracking behaviors and putting them into their own tier of matchmaking is one way. Detecting modifications of memory and banning is another. The issue is that most game devs are using an engine and the engines themselves are vulnerable. Private servers, self-hosted servers, are the way. You get admin control and you decide who you want to play with.
- username923409 2y ago
  CS2 (the topical game of the post) allows for playing exactly how you outlined to be the "ideal" way. however, this method of playing will never* come back to be the most popular way to play the game. so, i don't see the harm in this attempt at a contribution to counteract the largest problem with the most popular way of playing. * at least until there are so few players searching for matchmaking games that it never succeeds in finding a lobby, of course. see diabotical for example ;-(
  - liamneesonsarm 2y ago
    Appreciate the support. Yea the having enough people for matchmaking is for sure a challenge.
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  I played Counter Strike Source and that community experience is one of the drivers for my idea. I want to build a community that you can see as “friends” and people you can trust. From my experience it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare to organize groups and cost prohibitive to spin up servers. Yea we can typically get 5 but a full balanced 10 man is real hard. 100% agree you can’t rid of cheaters but this is the hope to just avoid them through a platform.
golergka 2y ago
> Furthermore, some of the solutions to deal with cheaters are to play on 3rd party services (i.e. FACEIT) that require you to install an "anti-cheat" that gives kernel level access and is owned by some questionable folks (I won't get into the details of that you can do your own research). I worked on one of these services, http://fastcup.net http://fastcup.net, and AFAIK that's all the service did — anti-cheat, although I must admit I didn't work on it myself. What questionable stuff have you heard about these services?
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  The service is owned by the Saudis…and in the Counter-Strike world there was a company called ESEA that is now owned by the same group and being merged into the FACEIT system. Well, esea was doing some nefarious bitcoin mining on people’s computers (https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4292672/esea-gaming-network-bitcoin-botnet https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4292672/esea-gaming-networ...). While that is old it’s one of the issues with allowing a kernel level cheat. The amount of data that also could potentially be collected.
inemesitaffia 2y ago
Hope you have money for a defamation lawsuit
- itsrebel 2y ago
  That's not at all how defamation suits work, in order to have any ground to file a defamation lawsuit you need to be able to easily prove that a statement is false or unprivileged. each person marked as cheaters in his website have specific evidence showing that they were either cheating or or stacked with an obvious cheater. I'd love to see someone find a lawyer that would be willing to file a suit like this. Not to mention they would also have to show evidence that this "verdict" lead to decreased/loss of income, or tarnished reputation while still proving that the statement the website made was false. You can't just sue for defamation whenever someone says something about you online.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    The UK claims global jurisdiction
jwalton 2y ago
Back in the day, I spent a good month playing the original CS non stop. By the end of that, it was common for someone to accuse me of using wall hacks or otherwise cheating. Cheating in these games is definitely a problem, but I’m skeptical this is a good solution.
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  Yea there is a review process when a report is submitted. They’re not automatically guilty by default. Evidence is required and must have 100% proof of cheating. These days you can pretty much easily capture gameplay footage through demos that you can replay in the game.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
RecycledEle 2y ago
This reminds me of Evony's ransom/black mail shakedown where they made a demand for payment, or they would contact someone's employer if they did not pay.
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  Well I have no intentions of finding their personal information quite the opposite I want to avoid these people at all costs.

dbalatero 2y ago

What can one do with this database?

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
Right now not much. If you do play Counter-Strike you could use it to cross check and give yourself sanity. In my post I mentioned a matchmaking service. So having this database will serve as a filter to prevent having to play with these toxic players.

cowthulhu 2y ago

I think a service like this is incredibly prone to false-positives and abuse, especially if you’re going to try to flag subjective things such as throwing or smurfing. It also seems like it could be damaging, and I’m skeptical of this the “proof” in all of these proof-based accusations of boosting I’m seeing on the site. If I can find the steam ID of the owner of the site, I know who my first totally-proof-based report of boosting will be against!

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
All the boosts had queued with cheaters. I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure. Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you? Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?
- cowthulhu 2y ago
  How do you tell the difference between someone being boosted by a cheater, and someone playing with their friend, who they don’t know is a cheater? I think the distinction to me is whether there is reasonable doubt. If a player has a VAC ban, sure, not much doubt there. But queuing with cheaters seems murkier! I’m not sure how you’d prove boosting by watching a replay, but I could be missing something.
  - liamneesonsarm 2y ago
    Yes that’s a good question and something I’ll take into account when reviewing. TBH these reports are all the obvious ones. Like straight up aim lock or spinning. I basically just took people queuing with them because they 100% know they’re cheating. You’ll notice there are several that have “needs more evidence” and I personally viewed the stats and found them inconclusive. I tried a demo but it was expired so it got the needs more evidence status and I emailed the reported to add more context. If there is someone you see that you feel is misreported I’m happy to explain or delete it if wrong. Maybe I need a “contest report” feature so you can make your case for why it’s a false report.

John_Cena 2y ago

When you have a entry open and you click "show evidence", what is the user supposed to do from there? Looking at a player with all /////////// chars in their name. The evidence is a game they lost, in which they lost every clutch. Their k/d is not great. Aim metric looks to be maxed out, but I don't know the weight of that metric and most everyone in that match had near max aim stat. EDIT: There is a demo download in one of the horizontal toolbars.

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
Most pros have aim around 90. Anything going over 95 is absurd and highly unlikely. Some of the matches end up being “head v head” or HvH where it’s all hackers and so may the best cheat win. A bit of this is contextual. Also a lot of cheaters you’ll see have like aim in the 90 range and < 30 utility. That is a huge smell as well. You typically have that aim after thousands of hours and with that comes knowledge on utility.

AntiMS 2y ago

Billy Mitchell isn't even in this database. (Kidding. I know that's not quite what this site's for.)

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
lol I watched a documentary on that guy not too long ago. There’s competition for everything…

reactordev 2y ago

This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not. Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can continue their current iteration in perpetuity. It’s too easy for someone to pull out their credit card and buy a cheat than it is to catch them. I don’t play FPS games anymore because every lobby is full of them. Tracking behaviors and putting them into their own tier of matchmaking is one way. Detecting modifications of memory and banning is another. The issue is that most game devs are using an engine and the engines themselves are vulnerable. Private servers, self-hosted servers, are the way. You get admin control and you decide who you want to play with.

username923409 2y ago
CS2 (the topical game of the post) allows for playing exactly how you outlined to be the "ideal" way. however, this method of playing will never* come back to be the most popular way to play the game. so, i don't see the harm in this attempt at a contribution to counteract the largest problem with the most popular way of playing. * at least until there are so few players searching for matchmaking games that it never succeeds in finding a lobby, of course. see diabotical for example ;-(
- liamneesonsarm 2y ago
  Appreciate the support. Yea the having enough people for matchmaking is for sure a challenge.
liamneesonsarm 2y ago
I played Counter Strike Source and that community experience is one of the drivers for my idea. I want to build a community that you can see as “friends” and people you can trust. From my experience it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare to organize groups and cost prohibitive to spin up servers. Yea we can typically get 5 but a full balanced 10 man is real hard. 100% agree you can’t rid of cheaters but this is the hope to just avoid them through a platform.

golergka 2y ago

> Furthermore, some of the solutions to deal with cheaters are to play on 3rd party services (i.e. FACEIT) that require you to install an "anti-cheat" that gives kernel level access and is owned by some questionable folks (I won't get into the details of that you can do your own research). I worked on one of these services, http://fastcup.net http://fastcup.net, and AFAIK that's all the service did — anti-cheat, although I must admit I didn't work on it myself. What questionable stuff have you heard about these services?

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
The service is owned by the Saudis…and in the Counter-Strike world there was a company called ESEA that is now owned by the same group and being merged into the FACEIT system. Well, esea was doing some nefarious bitcoin mining on people’s computers (https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4292672/esea-gaming-network-bitcoin-botnet https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4292672/esea-gaming-networ...). While that is old it’s one of the issues with allowing a kernel level cheat. The amount of data that also could potentially be collected.

inemesitaffia 2y ago

Hope you have money for a defamation lawsuit

itsrebel 2y ago
That's not at all how defamation suits work, in order to have any ground to file a defamation lawsuit you need to be able to easily prove that a statement is false or unprivileged. each person marked as cheaters in his website have specific evidence showing that they were either cheating or or stacked with an obvious cheater. I'd love to see someone find a lawyer that would be willing to file a suit like this. Not to mention they would also have to show evidence that this "verdict" lead to decreased/loss of income, or tarnished reputation while still proving that the statement the website made was false. You can't just sue for defamation whenever someone says something about you online.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  The UK claims global jurisdiction

jwalton 2y ago

Back in the day, I spent a good month playing the original CS non stop. By the end of that, it was common for someone to accuse me of using wall hacks or otherwise cheating. Cheating in these games is definitely a problem, but I’m skeptical this is a good solution.

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
Yea there is a review process when a report is submitted. They’re not automatically guilty by default. Evidence is required and must have 100% proof of cheating. These days you can pretty much easily capture gameplay footage through demos that you can replay in the game.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

RecycledEle 2y ago

This reminds me of Evony's ransom/black mail shakedown where they made a demand for payment, or they would contact someone's employer if they did not pay.

liamneesonsarm 2y ago
Well I have no intentions of finding their personal information quite the opposite I want to avoid these people at all costs.