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Using MAC Address to Uniquely Identify Computers
An anonymous reader writes "One of Australia's gaming networks, GamesArena has recently imposed a third party program required to access their gaming servers. One of it's features is that it records your NIC's MAC address to identify your computer, and subsequently in future, ban you if you cheat/break the rules etc. The response from players is mixed. It is not open source software, nor is it optional to install. "Install it or find another server to play on". Question remains, is it going too far?"
Definitely not- unfortunately it won't work since MACs are changable.
not banned anymore :D
What would Brian Boitano do?
1) Get your mac adress banned
2) Sell Network Card
3) Some one buys new card
4) They are banned
There will be plenty of second hand NICS for sale becuase of this. its a 1 2 3 profit plan.
Linksys routers (and otherS) allow you to "clone" the MAC address. Its very useful if your cable company has registered the MAC address of the NIC they gave you. Thus, with filtering software, any other NIC won't connect....unless you "clone" it :)
It's all too easy. Figure out their IP, get their MAC, put it on your router, get banned, change your MAC back, enjoy your new unopposed domination.
Too many violations from that IP range? Ban the /24 it came from. Send back a "Too many cheaters from your ISP" error.
MACs are too easily changed, but then again, so are IP's. But considering most gamers have DSL with a static IP, an IP ban is a much better option.
Uh, that might actually BE the point - anyone with $10 for a new NIC can change their MAC address, no brains required...
;-)
If you have brains, you can save $10...
Mark
Don't worry, only the CHEATERS will go to the trouble to change their MAC address or swap out network cards. The rest of the non-cheating gamers won't go to the trouble to circumvent the system.
As if people whining on CounterStrike weren't bad enough, now we have to listing to 14 year olds complain about having to buy a new NIC every time they cheat online.
"It's hard to be a man when there's a gun in your hand"
...until the MAC address generators have gone through all the "MAC-space" of possible addresses...
Wireless APs like Linksys' already come with a web admin that lets you specify *any* MAC address, apparently to please some cable/adsl providers that measure traffic/authenticate (partly) based on this.
Why not provide a public key server and ask people to submit they public OpenPGP key, signe by P. Zimmermann himself ? Get your identity trusted by Z. or go play somewhere else... After all, this seems to imply they want "real" players!
Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
ifconfig eth0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
There's really no need to change your MAC address.
They're violating the simple rule about never trusting the client. All you have to do is modify this third-party program to have it spit out a random MAC address each time and *poof* the system is worthless. You don't even have to change your MAC address. And since MAC addresses are only used at the Ethernet level, not at the [TCP|UDP]/IP level, it doesn't matter that the server thinks your MAC address is different than it is.
They've been trying this crap for years with cable modems. Until I got a router, I used to use two different machines, each with the same MAC address installed. Worked out great. It's easy to change, too. It's also let me on at friends' offices, where access is MAC controlled. We log on a machine, write down the address, shut it down, boot mine up, change the address, and log on.
Who does it stop? Honest people.
Who won't it stop? The same people hacking their games in the first place.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
ifconfig eth0 hw ether aa:dd:rr:ee:ss
Of course it's not open source; the last thing they want is users making changes to this program. Then it would be of no use to them.
-- Cheers!
Uh, no you won't. The only time MAC addresses make a difference is in ARP packets, and the only place MAC addresses make a difference is on your local LAN segment. The fact that two people in different cities have the same MAC address matters not a whit to the routers between them.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
I keep a fresh supply of token ring cards handy to swap out if the need arrises.
And im not joking:
http://gambit32.org/albums/other/aag.jpg
No, it's not going too far. The game server admins can run the server however they choose fit. If you don't like the rules, don't use the server!
However, the majority of people don't know how to reset their MAC addresses. Also, as I believe to be true, some broadband providers specifically use MAC addresses to verify access. For instance, my Comcast cable modem does everything by MAC, so if I change my NIC in my machine, I need to power off/on the cable modem in order to get back through to the Internet. Although this is sort of a minor issue, some other ISPs may be more strict about MAC changes.
Overall, the admins figure they will cut out 99% of the hacking attempts as people would just go elsewhere, or once they did cheat, just wouldn't know how to change their MAC.
What happens if you are logged in via dial-up? Will it ban the MAC address of the box at the ISP that you're dialed in to? :)
NAT routers such as the Linksys range allow you to specify the MAC address from their web-based setup - ideal if your broadband provider insists on you registering (and limiting the number of) MAC addresses of all the machines going to connect.
I wonder what they'll do when they discover several simultaneous connections to the server (and sessions) from the same MAC?
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Does not the current IPv6 address allocation standard specify using your MAC address as the suffix portion of the IPv6 address? This is merely a taste of things to come if/when IPv6 becomes widely deployed, when your very IPv6 address can uniquely identify the hardware you are on (unless you use IPv6 NAT, of course.)
And yes, presently, you can probably change the MAC address of your system. However, once software vendors and DRM technologies and other things start locking themselves to your computer hardware, I suspect changing the MAC address would cause problems. The only thing this game company has to do is when the game is installed is to lock the licence to the present MAC address so it will not run with a changed IP address without a new licence.
here's how to change it for nt/2000
windows2000faq
-advanced tab in adapter properties
linux
eepro100 list
-ifconfig eth0 hwaddr ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
this is exactly why microsoft's registration process uses a lot more than just the mac address.
Nope, MAC addresses won't work. You'd have to have a unique number that's hard coded into something expensive. The Pentium III's CPUID feature would work. However, as much as I hate cheaters in my favorite games, I don't like an ID number open to abuse.
Quake III has recently enabled anti-cheat software called Punk Buster. It does a ban via your Quake III CD-Key, so you can't play on any Punk Buster enabled servers if you get banned. But with the game under $20 at BestBuy, I'm not sure if it will stop many of the problems.
Cthulhu Saves.
But if you're on the same segment, then routing is not an issue.
As noted, the answer is trivial: generate random MAC addresses. They are 6 bytes long - plenty of room for everyone to tumble the address every day and still not collide.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
When I was involved with the initial deployment of DSL service in Canada, our customer ran into an interesting problem: many of the low-cost NICs that they shipped with the DSL modem had the same MAC.
Under most circumstances, this is seldom an issue since the NICs aren't likely to be deployed on the same network segment. However, when the MAC is used for other tracking services (in this case, a layer-2 NAT), you have a problem.
And of course, as others have said, most NICs permit the factory MAC to be overridden.
"The response from players is mixed. It is not open source software, nor is it optional to install."
Neither is windows for playing many of todays top-selling titles. I want an outcry here but I don't see it. Is it because software not being open source does not matter to the average user or is it because people are too ignorant to care? It is funny to see an outcry when a company tries to stop actual cheating which spoils the game for all, instead of putting energy where it matters.
It's called Windows activation.
>"...Question remains, is it going too far?" Definitely not-
Thanks for answering that one for us. Without your moral framework we would be lost in the chaotic hell of self determination.
Why stick up for big business?
This is just as silly as gun control because it makes the assumption that you can pass "laws" that will stop people that, by their very definition, do not obey laws!
...cheat the protection.
Here, they're saying "we're going to introduce a software "lock" that will prevent you from cheating." Great. So the people who want to cheat in the game are going to (say it with me now)
Are the people who wrote this bit of client-side [*cough*] security really under the impression that MAC addresses are immutable? Perhaps they know damned well it isn't but was kinda hoping that nobody would tell their client? This has the earmark of an initiative by some dip in a suit who never bothered to consult a single knowledgable, technical person.
Whatever. It might take two days before a patch/spoofer is readily available for the habitual cheaters. All it has to do is spit out a fake MAC address when queried.
My
Limekiller
All the NICs I've looked store the MAC in a very obvious format in the chip, whithout any pesky checksums to fix up - I recently used this method to simplify swapping 2 PCs off one cable modem.
As the NIC controller chip can read from the eeprom, chances are it can also be made to write to it as well, so it's probably possible to write a program to change the MAC without any hardware twiddling - a read of the chip;s data sheet would probably show you how.
This has been going on for a while, though without MAC addresses, a much simpler system. Most multiplayer games thesedays come with a CD-Key thats authenticated by a central server whenever you play a game. The CDkey usually has a unique ID strapped to it that is publically accessible by admins or players. You ban the ID, they cannot connect to the game without changing their CDkey (which means either buying a new copy or finding another cdkey that works online, neither are 'easy'). If MAC addresses can be changed, then as soon as a couple of like-minded gamers find out about that, you can count on their being a guide on how to do it for gamers eventually. The best way handle this is on both a MAC, and CDkey-ID level. Ban their MAC, and ban their ID, that will stop all but the most determined/knowledgable.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Many ethernet drivers with this capability have an option for just this. For example, if you have a 3c918, click "configure" under network properties in win2k for that adapter. Select the "advanced" tab. On the left, you'll have an option called "network address" that's normally set to "Not Present". Change it to a specified value, and type in "DEADBEEFBABE" or whatever MAC address you want.
Bingo.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
The MAC is 48 bits, split in two, don't remember how many bits each part. One part is the manufacturer id, the other is the specific card, such as a sequential serial number. MACs are assigned when built, non-changeable, a truly unique card id.
However, you can tell the OS to report a different MAC. That's what "changing your MAC" means, it doesn't actually change the MAC on the card, but it changes what the OS reports.
This is also a good example of why Palladium and trusted computing can't have just any old OS running on a computer. DRM requires complete control, not just a little bit of special software.
Infuriate left and right
SHHH! Dont tell people that deadbolt locks made by manufacturer X have a flaw that allows anyone to gain entry into a house that uses them!! If we let people know that their houses are not adequately locked, then break-ins will be more common!! And we'll have to FIX the locks!!! and make them actually work!!!
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Why stick up for big business?
It's solid code of honor amongst Clans not to cheat. Anybody as dedicated to playing online action games would render his pasttime pointless by cheating. And if anyone found out you've cheated your way into Ladder position you'd get an extremely hard time (on and offline).
:-)
And when you're playing on a public server, cheaters are easyly identified by playing like crap and either scoring immediate kills once they actually *do* manage to hit or by simply not throwing the towel no matter how many times you flak them at point-blank. Both area mostly less than minor drags to a skilled player and have a somewhat funny aspect to it.
I've seen entire matches in UT (1st) where cheaters we're just plain ignored because of the simply fact their skill level (not trained by playing under real conditions) rendered them something more like 'moving obstacles' rather than actuall participants.
Anyhow, some one using more subtle cheats, such as see-through textures or so, can be anoying. Then on the other hand, if you're that good to know for shure that someone is using such a cheat, you'll be playing clan games most of the time anyway. And I haven't met a single Clan player cheating yet. At least none of mentionable Clans.
BTW: I once had a cheater on my team in a pub UT CTF match. I switched sides and telefragged him 'til he gave up and disconnected. That was fun.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Your average person who cares that it's recorded can change it easily, and your average 12 year old cheating 5||21p7 |1DD13 probably won't even know why he got banned...
Except the reason people get banned is for using cheats etc, which are distributed in the same way as information on how to change your MAC.
The first thing someone will do when they are banned is do a search on google for "telstra banned game unban" or something, and get hundreds of hits on how to get around it.
I.O.U One Sig.
I thought they the MAC address was burned in to the chips themselves
It is stored on a PROM on the card. And the driver reads it, and stores it in computer memory. Then you go into the driver settings and override it, assuming the driver allows that; it's up to the driver.
The NIC never sends its MAC out on its own. The MAC is incorporated into the packet by the driver. The driver can send whatever the hell it wants to for the MAC address.
In Windows the changeablility of the MAC address depends on your driver. On my Dell laptop it's as easy as going into the NIC's properties and changing the number. On my desktop here at work I don't see an obvious way to do it.
Under Linux I think it's just ifconfig with some options.
Given the description, it will send the one of the PC running this 3rd party program -- which means the PC you're playing/working from.
Basically, they know how easy it is to change or mask IP addresses, and how (particularly for dialup users), banning an IP can punish a lot more people than just the original offender.
So, in the mind of some idiot who failed his CSC networking class before he went to business school, he figured "Hey, MAC addresses are unique! Let's grab that, and ban based on that!"
Just like back then, he didn't do his homework. As others have pointed out:
1) These days, altering your MAC address at run-time is easy, either on your machine or at a router (which is a common component of broadband connections these days)
2) Hackers will have little trouble cracking this "closed source" program, so they can make it emit any or a random MAC address, rather than the machine's actual MAC address. This will not affect connectivity, since its use in this context has nothing to do with the actual connection to the server.
3) If all else fails, network cards are dirt cheap; cheaters/griefers that can't manage #1 or #2 will just buy another network card.
Basically, this "solution" will only keep out the stupidest and poorest grief players. Smart cheaters won't be affected; smart NON-cheaters will probably hack the thing just to show them what a bad idea it was.
I've yet to see an access control system that can't be broken or circumvented; this one doesn't even come close.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Now we all know that that cheating in online games is for the most part a Bad Thing (tm). We all remember the original Quake bots (my personal favorite was the StoogeBot) that required a certain measure of circumventing of built-in precautions. Generally when people were caught, they heard about it. Flames, kicks, bans, you name it.
Now we have issues of people using similar circumventions to get around copy protection instead of anti-cheating measures. I realize that this isn't exactly the same thing, but the two scenarios have a common theme: people using third-party software to use a product in a manner in which it was never intended.
What I find amusing is that generally (at least on Slashdot) the circumvention of copy protection is usually regarded as a Good Thing (tm), but becomes less desirable when it comes to games.
Could it be that third-party circumvention is a good thing as long as it doesn't negatively affect you?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Since anything that runs on a client can be compromized (there is _no_ way to make sure this doesnt happen) the only real option for games is to just send pre rendered graphical images to the client which in turn sends back the client keystrokes. this is ofcourse way too bandwidth and serverside intensive to work with current technology, imagine doing this for a MMORPG with 60k users online simultaniously :) .. and even if you use this method the cheaters can respond by writing pattern-reqognition systems which still will be able to autoaim and such (although it raises the bar considerably).
it DOES remove the threat of wallhacks and clientside radars but a good game protocol shouldnt send information about things outside of the clients vision anyway.
K
-- gunzip-howto.tar.gz
But the whole argument for this particular program to be open source is really pointless because they've chosen to break the #1 rule of multiplayer programming: Never trust the client. So it really does not matter if it's open source or closed source; the protection will be broken very easily, either by a script kiddie with a very basic understanding of a MAC address, or by somone who can reverse-engineer the data sent between the client and server.
--LordKaT
I wonder how many people will change theirs to same as mine...
-- bartman
If they want something static, why go with MAC? They could just make an MD5 of some system specific info. That can't be easily tampered with. I'm not suggesting this, just making a statement :-)
Whether it's in the name of catching cheaters or catching terrorists, our freedom and autonomy are about to evaporate.
Yeah, this definitely won't work with my Sun IPX. (As if that's an issue...) Ever since I left it in the trunk of my car for an entire winter (a harsh one, at that - nary a night of temperatures above -10F did we see, and quite frequently it was much colder even than that), the NVRAM gets reset when the box is powered down. So now I get errors from the PROM at power-up, because my MAC address is ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff and my machine ID is also all 1's. So I have to write some Forth every time I boot up (the only bad part being that I have to do it at the console, and I don't have a serial console cable, so I have to lug out the behemoth 19" monitor that goes with it), in order to set my MAC address to something valid and to generate all the parity and checksums and whatnot.
If there's one card on a network, and you add another, the question becomes "what are the odds that the two cards will pick the same number?" Since there's 48 bits of entropy(minus a small range for multicast addresses and broadcast), the odds are effectively 2^48.
This is big.
If there's many cards on a network, and you want to know how many total you can add before two of them will end up with the same card, the answer's far smaller -- 2^24, which is still pretty huge(it's a bit more than 16 million). It's a different problem because each time you add a new card, the card after has one more it can possibly match with. This is known as the birthday paradox, so named because this precise logic means that given 23 people in a room, there's a +50% chance that two people have the same birthday. Each new person is one more to match with.
In reality, this is a moot point: MAC address prefixes are assigned by manufacturer, and the manufacturer serializes their cards such that no two shipped devices should ever have the same MAC address. Sometimes there are screwups, but they're pretty rare as far as I know.
To debunk what a couple people are saying -- yes, MAC addresses as exposed to the network can be changed, but MAC addresses as detected by custom client software may be more tricky. Whatever the driver is exposing to the network, the card itself can't usually have its MAC address written over(i.e. once power is cycled, that card's returning to original shipped condition). I'm positive there are exceptions to this, but they're probably rare.
Actually, this gives me an interesting idea. You can probably remotely fingerprint the age of a computer based on the MAC address of its ethernet card...and if IPV6's MAC->IP shove goes through, you'll be able to do that reasonably remotely!
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
For a bunch of reasons, but two to think about:
1) Many windows drivers let you put in arbitrary MAC's. Ban me? No prob, I'll change it to something else.
2) Many firewalls will let you do the same thing.
3) Ethernet cards cost what...a dollar or two at a used computer swap meet? If it comes down to it just keep a stack of 10.
It appears this is intended to catch people clever enough to cheat, but not clever enough to change their MAC address.
Another example of poorly contructed solutions to a badly defined problem.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
So what happens if I lose to this 12-year-old-elite-gaming-phenom in a 1v1 deathmatch, get mad, social engineer his MAC address out of him, set mine to his, cheat, and get it (his MAC) banned. Who's to stop that? It's basically his word against the server logs. :-/
Simple: if you are winning at Counter Strike despite a ping of 1,000+, then you must be cheating.
I mean, duh...
--- My dad's political betting
No thanks about drawing commercial CAs into it. If a game publisher *was* to implement such a system, they would simply make themselves a CA and distribute their CA cert with the software. They *could* go so far as including a private key with each copy of the software, but costs would skyrocket if releasing en mass. The system I would envision here is that one purchases the game, gets online, and goes to the server and registers the CD-Key in exchange for having a private key signed. The advantages would, of course, be that the authentication mechanism is not prone to theft (i.e. the server being connected to never sees your important credentials, no vulnerable information is transmitted over the wire), and could be more enforceable (coming up with a keygen is one thing, trying to fake a 4096 bit key with signed certificate is another), provided the process for getting a certificate were sufficiently rigorous.
Hell, if the game was critically dependent on online functionality, you could let the game go free on the net and just sell CD-Keys. If any small projects want to try to make it big without the potentially crippling barrier to entry into mass distributers, this would be the way I would think... Stick it on Gnutella and let people *think* it is illegal to download and its popularity could be good...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Just so you know. There are loads of 3Com-cards that you can permanently change the mac address of. I have one with an address of 42:42:42:42:42:42, another one with 00:DE:AD:BE:EF:00.
You can change that together with the rest of the card settings with a program running in dos-mode (3c5x9cfg.exe, get it from 3com.com). It's saved in eeprom or something like that. Very nice cards :)
Set up a few computers with bots hacked onto them and have the clients send out increments of MAC addresses, until all of them have been marked as cheaters.
Once nobody can connect they wont be able to use the system anymore. Shouldnt take too long if a few people here help out.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
This sounds like a good application for GPG. Join a league, get your key signed, get on the "good list." Cheat (get caught cheating), and your public key is placed on the signed "bad list." Servers would "belong" to leagues by checking the league listings to authenticate users.
If you get on the bad list, you can make a new key, but you have to start from scratch paying dues or otherwise earning "member in good standing" status.
Thanks again Phil!
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
It is a typo for "Tolkien Ring", a system in which the computer that holds the "One True Ring" becomes the most powerful machine on the network.
I metamoderate, therefore I am
What's the big deal? If a private network doesn't want to let you in, why should they? A unique MAC addess is just another way of establishing who you are.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It seems people tend to confuse privacy with anonymity. Privacy means preventing others from getting information about you -- whether it's what kind of toothpaste you use or your SSN. Anonymity means preventing others from finding out who you are. The two are related, in that in practice they often go hand-in-hand. But they are distinct.
-Thomas
I'm using a PC.
For many people, being anonymous online means "I can do whatever I want" because there are no significant consequences for their misbehavior. To these people, I say: life is much nicer when you are nice to other people. Try it, you might be surprised.
-Thomas
Great. This is another way to get rid of those pesky, honest players and my enemies.
I'll just assume their MAC address, misbehave like hell. Their MAC gets banned, and I get rid of the losers.
Alone, I shall reign through spite and malice.
Stop the brainwash
Since the ifconfig man pages contain instructions on how to change MAC addresses and
Since changing the MAC address would allow a cheater to circumvent access controls
Then are the ifconfig man pages now illegal in the US under the DMCA?
Further, anybody who's smart enough to figure out how to change MAC addresses can also figure out that they can assign their own static IP address from the DHCP pool and the DHCP server will often allocate around it.
Off-topic, but I used to do that when I had a cable modem. One day, however, I typo'd the ifconfig command on FreeBSD, and accidentally took over the router's IP (I mixed up my IP with the gateway IP). My phone promptly rang... they didn't much like that. Seems I took out service for the whole area, and they had to reset the router.
Good thing this was before 9/11 and all the crazy computer crime laws...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
I work tech support at a small liberal arts college, and we require all students to register their machines within three weeks of getting on campus. We then lock their ports to their MAC addresses. If you need to move or change your card you can re-register, usually the change goes through in a day. We did it to make it easier to detect and limit email worms. If we see it coming from some specified port we close it off and the flag passes to the techs. So far it's worked pretty well, often we get people coming to us complaining that "their Internet doesn't work," usually it's because they got Klez and we shut their port off. Decent alarm system, really.
No statement is true, not even this one.
"FuckStar31337 is using a wireframe hack. Press K to cast your Kick Vote."
Sure, I could get booted out of games arbitrarily by assholes, but I wouldn't want to play with said assholes, anyway. Not that I've even played a game since about 1999...
You can ban CD keys. Basically the only way around that is to buy a new copy of the game, which I doubt many people are willing to do.
Teh CD keys are also an effective anti-piracy measrure, and one that isn't bothersome to legit users. When you are using the game for local play, the CD key doesn't matter, it's never checked. When you play on the Internet, however, the CD key is authenticated.
When you first go to play multiplayer games, you client talks to the master server and lets it know what it's key is, the server chekcs and authenticates this against its list. Then, when you connect to a server the server checks your key, and asks the master if this is a legit key and if that key has authenticated. If not, the server refuses the connection.
Hence, you can ban a CD key, and be very certian that the person it belongs to has been completely banned. Things like key generators aren't effective because while they can know the algortihm used to make legit keys, the keyspace is huge and they have no way of knowing which are actually legit and which aren't.
So it ends up working out pretty nice for both parties. Bioware gets some copyprotection that there is actually a reason for srever owners to want to use.
Q. How can I change my media access control (MAC) address under Windows NT 4.0?
c es\\Parameters.
A. Each network adapter card has a MAC address, which machines on local subnets use to talk to each other. MAC addresses are usually burned into the adapters during the manufacturing process. To overwrite a network adapter card's default MAC address, perform the following steps:
1. Start the registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi
3. From the Edit menu, select New - String Value.
4. Type a name of NetworkAddress, and press Enter.
5. Double-click the new value, and enter the adapter's new MAC value.
6. Click OK.
7. Close the registry editor.
8. Reboot the machine.
This makes me very happy- One should be able to deliver their cutting remarks and wage psychiological warfare upon the weak with one liners like "Yeah thats what your mom did last night, cock jocky."
That is the essence of multiplayer gaming, and any attempt to deprive us of that should be fought bitterly.
Ah, but the average cheater does know how to change the MAC address: visit their favorite warez/cheats site, download the application or instructions for changing the address, and change the address.
The smart cheater who writes the utility is central to the argument after all, since historically the smart cheaters have published tools for the ignorant ones not "eventually" but almost immediately. The smart cheaters have already published a workaround, and the rest of them already know where to find it.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
So long as you don't change things that break your local segment (ie: duplicate MACs), then you're fine - go for your life.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Many of them based on id software's engines, there are many games nowadays that use CD keys to prevent piracy. One of the first was Half Life, and unfortunately Half Life sold very well and used too simple a key... so it is relatively easy to 'generate' a valid Half Life key.
However, Quake 3 and related games have a CD Key system as well, and their keys are much more cryptographically secure. They have a legal keyspace in the trillions, making it very difficult to generate valid keys.
The system works. You can crack the game to make the key unnecessary, but you cannot crack all the Internet servers you could connect to. So a warez monkey can only play the game in single player or on a LAN, not on random Internet servers.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.