Fighting Online Game Cheating in Hardware

Monk writes "Multiplayer games these days have one problem. Cheating. Cheating is out of control because of failed attempts by software such as Punkbuster, and VALVe's Anti-cheat (VAC). Now it seems that could change change with Intel's own Anti-cheat Software/Hardware."

Comments

there is no technological fix

[circletimessquare]

for a social problem

anything designed by a man can also be broken by a man

the only remedy for human antisocial activity is human social activity. no technology will change that fact. and if you think it can augment those who intend good, then you're right but you must also bear in mind that it can also augment those who intend evil

this applies to security cameras, file trading on the internet, etc. as well as game cheating

Re:Add the cheats as features to the game

[boaworm]

Because many of these games aim to be realistic, that's why people play them. Adding an "aimbot" as a powerup is not something that would have happened the 101:rd airborne when they dropped down over normandy, so when you play that scenario, neither do you want it or should have it.

The problem with anti-cheat software..

[Animaether]

..is that the server, at some point, has to trust the data the client is sending. Now there's client-side anti-cheat software that will do things like try and make sure that external applications (not entirely unlike the old TSR cheats of lore) aren't altering the data in RAM before it sends the info back to the server. But that client-side anti-cheat software can-and-will be defeated. Eventually there might be an anti-cheat relying on TCPM sort of things, but eventually somebody will just make a TCPM-less version indistinguishable from the TCPM type by the server.

So the only proper anti-cheat lays with the server. But there you hit a problem. You can, for example, prevent some cheats that way. Somebody lobs 2 nades while the server knows he only has 1? Cheating. Somebody moves all over the screen, faster than the player can actually run? Cheating. Wait - or a laggy connection.. or a bug. Tread with caution there. Caution means a margin. A margin means a margin for cheating. Okay, so you don't have your cheat make your player run at 200% - you just make him run at 105%. Still an advantage, and the anti-cheat won't catch it because of the margin. And even when you can detect all the -technical- cheats (more ammo, faster reloads, increased speed, greater jetpack fuel (if there's any), that leaves you with the cheats that cheat the User Input. Aimbots and the like - which can be extremely difficult to detect.

In the end, you can't 100% prevent cheating. But you can make the landscape unattractive enough to cheat in by at least trying to prevent it and having an actual human being look at suspicious behavior from time to time.

( I admin at one of the more popular Soldat servers - we're virtually cheater-free because the cheaters know they'll be busted in no time and their cheating fun ruined by us /kill'ing them (rather than banning - as they'll just be back) and ousting them in public. )

Re:The problem with anti-cheat software..

[fractoid]

This would punish cheaters, sure; but it would also punish those who just happen to be good (on that map in my case). To be honest, I don't care whether they guy that headshots me 5 seconds before I see him, every single time, is cheating or is just really good. Either way it makes the game suck for me, and it presents no challenge for him. Users *should* be grouped by ability level (whether natural or assisted) so that everyone can actually enjoy the game while they're getting good at it. Surely you didn't have as much fun 'owning noobs with your leet sniper skillz' as you would have playing against equally skilled players?