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Anti cheat software because one needs to play with people one does not trust and so attempts to get good behavior from strangers by force. Should Magnus Carlse

by j-bos 2y ago

Anti cheat software because one needs to play with people one does not trust and so attempts to get good behavior from strangers by force. Should Magnus Carlsen have required Niemman to get a cavity search? When tons of kids have neuralink implants, should they be polygraphed before taking a spelling test? Cheating is not a technical problem, it's a people problem.

neandrake 2y ago
I mean, the same goes for all crime being a people problem. The anti-cheat keeps honest people honest as they say.
- j-bos 2y ago
  > I mean, the same goes for all crime being a people problem. Yes, and technical solutions are usually a bad sign. How nice is the neighborhood that locks pharmacy razors vs the one that doesn't?
baby 2y ago
I too wish we didn’t have to encrypt every communication over the Internet
- j-bos 2y ago
  That's a good point. Though I feel there's a significant difference between defenfing comms from external and intermediary parties as opposed to forcing the behavior of the parties one chooses to interact with.
npteljes 2y ago
I think this underestimates the problem. Yes it's a people problem, but a game doesn't have the people-means to solve it, it only has technology. >Anti cheat software because one needs to play with people one does not trust and so attempts to get good behavior from strangers by force. Same could be said about laws. Goes to show that we don't have it solved it, at all. Every single system that we have has active bad actors in it, with no chance for us to catch them, by any means that we have, technological or not. To add to this even more, it's not even a people problem, it's an animal problem - some of them also give out fake signals, in order to gain something.
- j-bos 2y ago
  I see your parallel with laws. My point is that laws force behavior in a society that we are obligated to share, whereas online games are a choice to share with certain people. The level of intrusion applied to protect a game seems over the top. Especially given many ways to enforce laws are often considered over the top, despite protecting more importent matters. If the match includes cheaters, it's a bad match.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    >The level of intrusion applied to protect a game seems over the top I agree on a theoretical level, like, if it's my general purpose computer, then everything that runs on it should also answer to me, not other parties. This applies to anti-cheat, and also to DRM and other concepts like Trusted Computing and Secure Boot even, to a degree. I don't see how one could prevent cheating, if one allows a software abstraction layer between the game, and the user. If a software is allowed to manipulate another software, then that other software cannot have proof that it's not being manipulated. On one hand, this is the beauty of computing, but on a practical level, this makes cheating in online games very easy and undetectable. So, because I like playing online, I made the compromise that somehow this level of intrusion is okay.
Levitating 2y ago
So instead of developing anticheat measures, you argue game developers should fix the human race instead?
- j-bos 2y ago
  No, I'm saying that the level of enforcement applied to a game is not proportional with the triviality of it being, a game.

by j-bos 2y ago

neandrake 2y ago

I mean, the same goes for all crime being a people problem. The anti-cheat keeps honest people honest as they say.

j-bos 2y ago
> I mean, the same goes for all crime being a people problem. Yes, and technical solutions are usually a bad sign. How nice is the neighborhood that locks pharmacy razors vs the one that doesn't?

baby 2y ago

I too wish we didn’t have to encrypt every communication over the Internet

j-bos 2y ago
That's a good point. Though I feel there's a significant difference between defenfing comms from external and intermediary parties as opposed to forcing the behavior of the parties one chooses to interact with.

npteljes 2y ago

I think this underestimates the problem. Yes it's a people problem, but a game doesn't have the people-means to solve it, it only has technology. >Anti cheat software because one needs to play with people one does not trust and so attempts to get good behavior from strangers by force. Same could be said about laws. Goes to show that we don't have it solved it, at all. Every single system that we have has active bad actors in it, with no chance for us to catch them, by any means that we have, technological or not. To add to this even more, it's not even a people problem, it's an animal problem - some of them also give out fake signals, in order to gain something.

j-bos 2y ago
I see your parallel with laws. My point is that laws force behavior in a society that we are obligated to share, whereas online games are a choice to share with certain people. The level of intrusion applied to protect a game seems over the top. Especially given many ways to enforce laws are often considered over the top, despite protecting more importent matters. If the match includes cheaters, it's a bad match.
- npteljes 2y ago
  >The level of intrusion applied to protect a game seems over the top I agree on a theoretical level, like, if it's my general purpose computer, then everything that runs on it should also answer to me, not other parties. This applies to anti-cheat, and also to DRM and other concepts like Trusted Computing and Secure Boot even, to a degree. I don't see how one could prevent cheating, if one allows a software abstraction layer between the game, and the user. If a software is allowed to manipulate another software, then that other software cannot have proof that it's not being manipulated. On one hand, this is the beauty of computing, but on a practical level, this makes cheating in online games very easy and undetectable. So, because I like playing online, I made the compromise that somehow this level of intrusion is okay.

Levitating 2y ago

So instead of developing anticheat measures, you argue game developers should fix the human race instead?

j-bos 2y ago
No, I'm saying that the level of enforcement applied to a game is not proportional with the triviality of it being, a game.