5 ms·

I think server side statistical analysis can go a long way to detect stuff like that. Obviously its always a cat and mouse game between devs and cheaters, and t

by plopz 2y ago

I think server side statistical analysis can go a long way to detect stuff like that. Obviously its always a cat and mouse game between devs and cheaters, and there are always workarounds, but theres a lot more the devs could be doing without relying on invasive client side detection.

evoke4908 2y ago
I think the problem is that that kind of work requires a good deal of developer resources for a long time. What company wants to pay upkeep on a shipped product? You could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by shipping a rootkit to players and not worrying about server security.
- vkazanov 2y ago
  Any company that makes big money on long-living multiplayer games?
- phito 2y ago
  It would not only take a lot of developer resources, but also computing power.
- a_wild_dandan 2y ago
  I suppose Valve, who trained a neural network to detect/ban cheaters exhibiting unnatural behavior.
  - babypuncher 2y ago
    It hasn't paid off very much, CS2 still has a rampant cheating problem. VAC has been a joke for years at this point.
    - nicce 2y ago
      It only needs to be good enough that people keep buying (or not) the Prime when their old account gets banned. There is good reason that it exist, also from cheating perspective.
    - lomase 2y ago
      Because CS2 does not have Overwatch, the AI VAC thing. As far as I know is only enabled on Dota. VAC is a joke until they ban players and all start to cry on reddit/discord.
butterfly42069 2y ago
BasicallyHomeless did a recent YouTube video on this.
emgeee 2y ago
I've always wondered about this too. It should be pretty easy to recognize statistical outliers. I'm sure cheaters would start to adapt but that adaptation might start to look more in-line with normal skill levels so at least the game wouldn't be utterly ruined
- alex_lav 2y ago
  This post is so interesting because it highlights the people that don't know anything about the requirements or state of cheats/anticheat. What you're describing is 10 years out of date. Every modern cheat has a toggle, and (almost) every modern cheater masks augmented behavior with misses/native behavior.
  - lifeformed 2y ago
    This thread is full of armchair developers who see a problem and immediately think, "Oh, it's easy, just do this simple thing I just thought of," as is there haven't been billions of dollars and decades of research spent on this problem.
    - elashri 2y ago
      According to the latest study [1] estimating how much money cheat developers make annually it is an upper limit of ~ $75M. I would say that the very liberal estimation of anti cheating efforts will cost maybe $100M annually. That does not include only research efforts but actual cost of tackle them (extra compute, reviewers...etc). This is unrealistic but even through to reach the point of billions (2-3 billions) you would say that Gaming companies were spending on average $100M since the beginning of personal computers era (on research only). This is not something that is hard to believe even with the most liberal interpretation. So I think it is fair to say the there haven't been billions of dollars of research spent on this problem. [1] https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/anti-cheat-study-reveals-cheat-makers-are-earning-tens-of-millions-every-year-2968180/ https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/anti-cheat-study-reveals-chea...
      - 2y ago
arp242 2y ago
You can tune the aimbot to be as good as the server allows, maybe with a bit of variation to throw it off. And realistically, some real non-cheating players will by chance just have similar statistics to bots, especially since the bots will start doing their best to mimic real players. Also many players don't need to cheat all the time; just in that critical moment when it really matters. Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? Something like that probably applies to a many people and fields. This is even harder to detect with just statistics. Also also reminds me of the "you can't respond in less than 100ms, and if start the sprint faster than that after the starting pistol then you're disqualified"-type stuff they have in the Olympics – some people can consistently respond faster and there's a bunch of false positives. Not great.
- ninth_ant 2y ago
  > Also many players don't need to cheat all the time; just in that critical moment when it really matters. Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? Something like that probably applies to a many people and fields. This is even harder to detect with just statistics. The difference is that IRL chess and a typical FPS game have very different availability of datasets. IRL chess has both fewer moves per game, and fewer games played in short succession than typical FPS games. Also, with FPS games there is a single metric to evaluate -- the shot landed or missed -- compared with chess where moves are ranked on a scale. So I'd argue that it would be much easier to do a statistical model to predict a cheating aimbot than it would a cheating IRL chess player. I don't believe Magnus's proposition holds for prolific online chess players when they do dozens or more blitz/bullet games in a single day.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  > Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? That's because he's an elite chess player. Him cheating once per game could make the difference between being number 1 or number 10 but either way he's up there. But for you or me, cheating once per game wouldn't make a difference. We'd still be ranked as nobody plebs. To get ranked high enough for people to know our names we would have to cheat dozens of times a game, and experienced players would easily peg us as cheaters. Try cheating on chess.com, if you cheat enough to make a meaningful difference their servers will automatically nail you with statistics.
stevemk14ebr 2y ago
My human aimbot evaded fairfight for years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVdaf6CkqL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVdaf6CkqL8

by plopz 2y ago

evoke4908 2y ago

I think the problem is that that kind of work requires a good deal of developer resources for a long time. What company wants to pay upkeep on a shipped product? You could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by shipping a rootkit to players and not worrying about server security.

vkazanov 2y ago
Any company that makes big money on long-living multiplayer games?
phito 2y ago
It would not only take a lot of developer resources, but also computing power.
a_wild_dandan 2y ago
I suppose Valve, who trained a neural network to detect/ban cheaters exhibiting unnatural behavior.
- babypuncher 2y ago
  It hasn't paid off very much, CS2 still has a rampant cheating problem. VAC has been a joke for years at this point.
  - nicce 2y ago
    It only needs to be good enough that people keep buying (or not) the Prime when their old account gets banned. There is good reason that it exist, also from cheating perspective.
  - lomase 2y ago
    Because CS2 does not have Overwatch, the AI VAC thing. As far as I know is only enabled on Dota. VAC is a joke until they ban players and all start to cry on reddit/discord.

butterfly42069 2y ago

BasicallyHomeless did a recent YouTube video on this.

emgeee 2y ago

I've always wondered about this too. It should be pretty easy to recognize statistical outliers. I'm sure cheaters would start to adapt but that adaptation might start to look more in-line with normal skill levels so at least the game wouldn't be utterly ruined

alex_lav 2y ago
This post is so interesting because it highlights the people that don't know anything about the requirements or state of cheats/anticheat. What you're describing is 10 years out of date. Every modern cheat has a toggle, and (almost) every modern cheater masks augmented behavior with misses/native behavior.
- lifeformed 2y ago
  This thread is full of armchair developers who see a problem and immediately think, "Oh, it's easy, just do this simple thing I just thought of," as is there haven't been billions of dollars and decades of research spent on this problem.
  - elashri 2y ago
    According to the latest study [1] estimating how much money cheat developers make annually it is an upper limit of ~ $75M. I would say that the very liberal estimation of anti cheating efforts will cost maybe $100M annually. That does not include only research efforts but actual cost of tackle them (extra compute, reviewers...etc). This is unrealistic but even through to reach the point of billions (2-3 billions) you would say that Gaming companies were spending on average $100M since the beginning of personal computers era (on research only). This is not something that is hard to believe even with the most liberal interpretation. So I think it is fair to say the there haven't been billions of dollars of research spent on this problem. [1] https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/anti-cheat-study-reveals-cheat-makers-are-earning-tens-of-millions-every-year-2968180/ https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/anti-cheat-study-reveals-chea...
    - 2y ago

arp242 2y ago

You can tune the aimbot to be as good as the server allows, maybe with a bit of variation to throw it off. And realistically, some real non-cheating players will by chance just have similar statistics to bots, especially since the bots will start doing their best to mimic real players. Also many players don't need to cheat all the time; just in that critical moment when it really matters. Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? Something like that probably applies to a many people and fields. This is even harder to detect with just statistics. Also also reminds me of the "you can't respond in less than 100ms, and if start the sprint faster than that after the starting pistol then you're disqualified"-type stuff they have in the Olympics – some people can consistently respond faster and there's a bunch of false positives. Not great.

ninth_ant 2y ago
> Also many players don't need to cheat all the time; just in that critical moment when it really matters. Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? Something like that probably applies to a many people and fields. This is even harder to detect with just statistics. The difference is that IRL chess and a typical FPS game have very different availability of datasets. IRL chess has both fewer moves per game, and fewer games played in short succession than typical FPS games. Also, with FPS games there is a single metric to evaluate -- the shot landed or missed -- compared with chess where moves are ranked on a scale. So I'd argue that it would be much easier to do a statistical model to predict a cheating aimbot than it would a cheating IRL chess player. I don't believe Magnus's proposition holds for prolific online chess players when they do dozens or more blitz/bullet games in a single day.
lupusreal 2y ago
> Didn't Magnus Carlsen say he only needs a single move from a chess computer in the right moment to be virtually guaranteed win? That's because he's an elite chess player. Him cheating once per game could make the difference between being number 1 or number 10 but either way he's up there. But for you or me, cheating once per game wouldn't make a difference. We'd still be ranked as nobody plebs. To get ranked high enough for people to know our names we would have to cheat dozens of times a game, and experienced players would easily peg us as cheaters. Try cheating on chess.com, if you cheat enough to make a meaningful difference their servers will automatically nail you with statistics.

stevemk14ebr 2y ago

My human aimbot evaded fairfight for years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVdaf6CkqL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVdaf6CkqL8