4 ms·

I am not sure Secure Boot, TPM, or kernel-level anti-cheat still manage to accurately detect hardware with direct memory access. DMA hardware can still circumve

by hbosch 1y ago

I am not sure Secure Boot, TPM, or kernel-level anti-cheat still manage to accurately detect hardware with direct memory access. DMA hardware can still circumvent all of these things, and they only cost a few hundred bucks. The question in my mind remains: why would you pay ~$300 for DMA hardware and then ~$10-100+/month for an active private cheat? Is it worth it to look cool online to random strangers before you eventually get algorithmically detected or mass-reported and manually banned, just to create a new account and start all over? Even for those cheaters who buy high level accounts, what is the endgame of spending all that money and recycling the process?

sdairs 1y ago
Sadly, for the people who cheat, it is, indeed, worth it. :/
devmor 1y ago
It’s not a profit/loss evaluation. The people doing this have money to waste. It’s the same as spending money to go out drinking to them.
trod1234 1y ago
There will be people that cheat regardless of what any game company can do. Racing to the edge is not the way to stop this. If you haven't noticed, these solutions create the platform to both test, and control your digital life without your knowledge following a classic surrogate/hegelian pattern. How much do you trust the credibility of entities behind these game companies. Would you trust them with your life? This should be carefully considered food for thought for anyone that values their future.
- polotics 1y ago
  could you enlighten us by explaining what you mean by: a classic surrogate/hegelian pattern. ps. on such nonstandard posts I check out previous posts by the same author. your writing style is quite something, are you misunderstood often?
  - trod1234 1y ago
    Sure thing, a surrogate is something that we equate as the same thing but is not the same thing, and it carries negative connotation because the differences causes loss to the owners. A Hegelian pattern being a circular pattern that abuses the contrast principle (a psychological blindspot), and also includes a long historical context with regards to socialism/communism. For example, I'm sure you've heard of shock doctrine. That's a Hegelian pattern. For an example of surrogates, your cell phone is a surrogate for the original telephone, also your computer, and any number of other add-on devices. They perform multiple functions, but the primary purpose has been superseded by secondary purposes of control, data collection. A digital soldier quartered in every house, that follows you everywhere you go informing on you to the highest bidder. A car today is not a car, its a computer which performs the function of transportation, and may be a platform for assassination, but also allows granular tracking of your movements like an animal on a leash. The fact that most people aren't aware of all the ways their agency has been taken matters little. Industry in cooperation with government, fueled by money-printing have excluded any option through oligopoly, except total compromise/dependency, in furtherance of control. History knows how runaway money-printing ends. Are you aware your TPMS sensors in your tires passively beacon a unique ID for each tire everywhere you go? That collection of sensors is sufficient to uniquely identify you in conjunction with a few other things in the car remotely, everywhere. Its a weak broadcast, but there are remote sensor networks everywhere, including roaming sensor networks (Tesla's, Public Transpo, etc). All that data collection is mined and added to a secret big-tech dossier you have no control over. The ODB-II uplink through the telematics unit may even allow a remote control takeover of your car, while you are driving it. Tricking the car into adverse road-condition programming causing an accident. Bulk data collection of radio-frequency data is either freely available (wigle) or has a very low buyin which allows granular historic tracking for everyone in a geographic region, and there are groups that know about this, and use this towards Zersetzung style gang-stalking (criminal harassment). Just like the lex-luthor sponsored monkey bots on social media. /s > are you misunderstood often. I'm not misunderstood by rational people who can reason, avoiding fallacy, and tying their arguments to things that are objective; I'm fine with disagreement, I just can't abide by toxic dissembling and other manipulative tactics the more malign people use. There are some real existential problems we need to deal with, and when you can't communicate sufficiently so people recognize because of channel jamming, language corruption, and other malign rhetoric, momentum will carry us right to extinction. A civilization based on total control, is a society that will be extinct in short order. There are quite a few people online these days, though I dare hesitate to call them actual people because they are delusional, hopelessly complacent, malevolent, or just blind waiting at the chance of being either of the previous 3. The things I talk about are things people have been conditioned from a young age to believe are impossible, despite objective indicators to the contrary (i.e. lies so big it would rearrange their world), with real science behind it; that has largely been suppressed with the end goal being towards control of the masses. An indoctrinated willful blindness is a big problem today, I'd say that is probably one of the top things that prevents most people from organizing to make everyone's lives better. The blind are easily manipulated by those with ill intent. My main goal in bringing attention to things is to hopefully get people to pay attention, and take appropriate action. The ones that aren't paying attention often throw their lot in with the people seeking chaos for profit; survival be damned. I want an advantaged future for my children. Not the disadvantaged hellscape we see today. To make significant change, you need like-minded people all working towards that direction, and to do that you need to be able to communicate adverse issues in time to act. With respect to the anti-cheat, once software is on your computer at that privileged level, they can perform an Eclipse attack on you, and you won't be able to know its happening. MITM is two dimensional involving a single path, Eclipse covers all possible path nodes to such information; and its quite possible to do this without having nation-state backing given the state of IT security at the lowest levels of abstraction.
chc4 1y ago
If you have a secure and attested boot chain, then anti-cheats can also start depending on things like DMA protection[1] to be enabled or other CPU features to protect against rogue hardware doing DMA attacks. At the professional level tournaments are already whitelisting what hardware is allowed for competitor machines - I doubt that they'll start doing that for the average joe gamer lobbies anytime soon, but they do have the option to start blocking people who have anomalous PCIe DMA mappings etc. and steadily raise the bar. 1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/kernel-dma-protection-for-thunderbolt https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-...
LocalH 1y ago
Competitive gaming can be serious business. For example, in Fortnite, the top player in each major region can receive between $27k and $180k from the FNCS tournament, depending on the region.
- slumberlust 1y ago
  Are those earnings from private matches on their own hardware? A lot of what I see into he moba space is the PC is provided at the event/toruney and it's mostly being your own peripherals.
  - LocalH 1y ago
    At the earlier stages that qualify you for the in-person tourneys, it's probably the players' hardware. Once you get to the later levels, it's in-person on Epic-provided hardware. But there are tons of Fortnite players. Getting to the in-person rounds in and of itself could be worth it, as in the largest regions even the top 20-25 get more than it would cost to acquire a DMA interposer. So you'd have to be a top-level player who is cheating to gain an edge (which is probably the most common amongst all video game cheaters) as opposed to someone who cheats because they utterly suck. Then again, Epic is fierce when it comes to cheaters. They have taken multiple cheaters to court and won, once they got to the higher levels (or if they were involved in distributing/selling cheats).
wmf 1y ago
Isn't DMA defeated by IOMMU? I assume Windows 11 has IOMMU on.
- Avamander 1y ago
  Only if enabled in UEFI settings. Even then, drivers can most likely reduce or bypass these protections. Nevertheless that's already a significantly higher bar for cheating.
dist-epoch 1y ago
It is possible to prevent DMA attacks with encrypted memory/confidential computing. Just like you can run secure VMs that the host can't mess with. People pay more than $300 for cheats, some are sold in the $1k+ range
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
With apologies to gamers, I just think it's too cool not to post this recent low-cost-ish easy-to-add m.2 form-factor fpga that's designed for exploring PCIe DMA, the EPIC Erebus. https://www.hackster.io/news/epic-erebus-puts-a-tiny-yet-powerful-fpga-onto-your-pci-express-bus-for-security-research-and-more-c2b830e9e0a0 https://www.hackster.io/news/epic-erebus-puts-a-tiny-yet-pow... Maybe I'd just forgotten, but low key surprised to hear the Lattice Semiconductor ECP5 has a toolchains usable & hobbyist accessible enough to do PCIe on. Gods we would make so much more amazing computing stuff if fpgas weren't kept under lock & key. Sure feels like an awful bad thing that the devices we own are falling more and more under control of the valent forces of the universe about us, that we are losing access to our own systems. I get that it's inconvenient to have users doing what they might and it sucks a lot in gaming, but this seems like such a sad slide down. Gods, for gamign this this drm trend would be such a horrific disaster if Steam Deck wasn't such a fantastic & loved device. Linux is still a couple %, but it feels so much less ignorable with a mobile PC console that just shreds to shit what Windows can do (performance wise & with infinitely better control/input than anything else out there). Right now Big FPS doesn't care, but I feel like as this trend continues we'll see better Linux support for at least some basics.

by hbosch 1y ago

sdairs 1y ago

Sadly, for the people who cheat, it is, indeed, worth it. :/

devmor 1y ago

It’s not a profit/loss evaluation. The people doing this have money to waste. It’s the same as spending money to go out drinking to them.

trod1234 1y ago

There will be people that cheat regardless of what any game company can do. Racing to the edge is not the way to stop this. If you haven't noticed, these solutions create the platform to both test, and control your digital life without your knowledge following a classic surrogate/hegelian pattern. How much do you trust the credibility of entities behind these game companies. Would you trust them with your life? This should be carefully considered food for thought for anyone that values their future.

polotics 1y ago
could you enlighten us by explaining what you mean by: a classic surrogate/hegelian pattern. ps. on such nonstandard posts I check out previous posts by the same author. your writing style is quite something, are you misunderstood often?
- trod1234 1y ago
  Sure thing, a surrogate is something that we equate as the same thing but is not the same thing, and it carries negative connotation because the differences causes loss to the owners. A Hegelian pattern being a circular pattern that abuses the contrast principle (a psychological blindspot), and also includes a long historical context with regards to socialism/communism. For example, I'm sure you've heard of shock doctrine. That's a Hegelian pattern. For an example of surrogates, your cell phone is a surrogate for the original telephone, also your computer, and any number of other add-on devices. They perform multiple functions, but the primary purpose has been superseded by secondary purposes of control, data collection. A digital soldier quartered in every house, that follows you everywhere you go informing on you to the highest bidder. A car today is not a car, its a computer which performs the function of transportation, and may be a platform for assassination, but also allows granular tracking of your movements like an animal on a leash. The fact that most people aren't aware of all the ways their agency has been taken matters little. Industry in cooperation with government, fueled by money-printing have excluded any option through oligopoly, except total compromise/dependency, in furtherance of control. History knows how runaway money-printing ends. Are you aware your TPMS sensors in your tires passively beacon a unique ID for each tire everywhere you go? That collection of sensors is sufficient to uniquely identify you in conjunction with a few other things in the car remotely, everywhere. Its a weak broadcast, but there are remote sensor networks everywhere, including roaming sensor networks (Tesla's, Public Transpo, etc). All that data collection is mined and added to a secret big-tech dossier you have no control over. The ODB-II uplink through the telematics unit may even allow a remote control takeover of your car, while you are driving it. Tricking the car into adverse road-condition programming causing an accident. Bulk data collection of radio-frequency data is either freely available (wigle) or has a very low buyin which allows granular historic tracking for everyone in a geographic region, and there are groups that know about this, and use this towards Zersetzung style gang-stalking (criminal harassment). Just like the lex-luthor sponsored monkey bots on social media. /s > are you misunderstood often. I'm not misunderstood by rational people who can reason, avoiding fallacy, and tying their arguments to things that are objective; I'm fine with disagreement, I just can't abide by toxic dissembling and other manipulative tactics the more malign people use. There are some real existential problems we need to deal with, and when you can't communicate sufficiently so people recognize because of channel jamming, language corruption, and other malign rhetoric, momentum will carry us right to extinction. A civilization based on total control, is a society that will be extinct in short order. There are quite a few people online these days, though I dare hesitate to call them actual people because they are delusional, hopelessly complacent, malevolent, or just blind waiting at the chance of being either of the previous 3. The things I talk about are things people have been conditioned from a young age to believe are impossible, despite objective indicators to the contrary (i.e. lies so big it would rearrange their world), with real science behind it; that has largely been suppressed with the end goal being towards control of the masses. An indoctrinated willful blindness is a big problem today, I'd say that is probably one of the top things that prevents most people from organizing to make everyone's lives better. The blind are easily manipulated by those with ill intent. My main goal in bringing attention to things is to hopefully get people to pay attention, and take appropriate action. The ones that aren't paying attention often throw their lot in with the people seeking chaos for profit; survival be damned. I want an advantaged future for my children. Not the disadvantaged hellscape we see today. To make significant change, you need like-minded people all working towards that direction, and to do that you need to be able to communicate adverse issues in time to act. With respect to the anti-cheat, once software is on your computer at that privileged level, they can perform an Eclipse attack on you, and you won't be able to know its happening. MITM is two dimensional involving a single path, Eclipse covers all possible path nodes to such information; and its quite possible to do this without having nation-state backing given the state of IT security at the lowest levels of abstraction.

chc4 1y ago

If you have a secure and attested boot chain, then anti-cheats can also start depending on things like DMA protection[1] to be enabled or other CPU features to protect against rogue hardware doing DMA attacks. At the professional level tournaments are already whitelisting what hardware is allowed for competitor machines - I doubt that they'll start doing that for the average joe gamer lobbies anytime soon, but they do have the option to start blocking people who have anomalous PCIe DMA mappings etc. and steadily raise the bar. 1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/kernel-dma-protection-for-thunderbolt https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-...

LocalH 1y ago

Competitive gaming can be serious business. For example, in Fortnite, the top player in each major region can receive between $27k and $180k from the FNCS tournament, depending on the region.

slumberlust 1y ago
Are those earnings from private matches on their own hardware? A lot of what I see into he moba space is the PC is provided at the event/toruney and it's mostly being your own peripherals.
- LocalH 1y ago
  At the earlier stages that qualify you for the in-person tourneys, it's probably the players' hardware. Once you get to the later levels, it's in-person on Epic-provided hardware. But there are tons of Fortnite players. Getting to the in-person rounds in and of itself could be worth it, as in the largest regions even the top 20-25 get more than it would cost to acquire a DMA interposer. So you'd have to be a top-level player who is cheating to gain an edge (which is probably the most common amongst all video game cheaters) as opposed to someone who cheats because they utterly suck. Then again, Epic is fierce when it comes to cheaters. They have taken multiple cheaters to court and won, once they got to the higher levels (or if they were involved in distributing/selling cheats).

wmf 1y ago

Isn't DMA defeated by IOMMU? I assume Windows 11 has IOMMU on.

Avamander 1y ago
Only if enabled in UEFI settings. Even then, drivers can most likely reduce or bypass these protections. Nevertheless that's already a significantly higher bar for cheating.

dist-epoch 1y ago

It is possible to prevent DMA attacks with encrypted memory/confidential computing. Just like you can run secure VMs that the host can't mess with. People pay more than $300 for cheats, some are sold in the $1k+ range

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

With apologies to gamers, I just think it's too cool not to post this recent low-cost-ish easy-to-add m.2 form-factor fpga that's designed for exploring PCIe DMA, the EPIC Erebus. https://www.hackster.io/news/epic-erebus-puts-a-tiny-yet-powerful-fpga-onto-your-pci-express-bus-for-security-research-and-more-c2b830e9e0a0 https://www.hackster.io/news/epic-erebus-puts-a-tiny-yet-pow... Maybe I'd just forgotten, but low key surprised to hear the Lattice Semiconductor ECP5 has a toolchains usable & hobbyist accessible enough to do PCIe on. Gods we would make so much more amazing computing stuff if fpgas weren't kept under lock & key. Sure feels like an awful bad thing that the devices we own are falling more and more under control of the valent forces of the universe about us, that we are losing access to our own systems. I get that it's inconvenient to have users doing what they might and it sucks a lot in gaming, but this seems like such a sad slide down. Gods, for gamign this this drm trend would be such a horrific disaster if Steam Deck wasn't such a fantastic & loved device. Linux is still a couple %, but it feels so much less ignorable with a mobile PC console that just shreds to shit what Windows can do (performance wise & with infinitely better control/input than anything else out there). Right now Big FPS doesn't care, but I feel like as this trend continues we'll see better Linux support for at least some basics.