How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics

Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by izzydata on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @12:36PM (#21993703)

With the rise of esports there is a lot of money to be made with no real consequences. It isn't illegal to essentially steal prize money by cheating at a video game.

Also game streaming is big now and being "good" attracts more viewers so there is also a lot of money to be made by cheating.

I have completely stopped taking video games seriously in any capacity as I am pretty confident the entire culture of competitive gaming is completely infested with cheating.

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by smolder on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @01:57PM (#21994555)

I've run into people with this attitude before - they are quick to accuse good players of cheating who seem (to them,) to have inhuman accuracy.

I've been accused of cheating many many times, despite never cheating. I was blacklisted from a community counterstrike server back in 2002 or so for "cheating" after a lucky couple games where I got a LOT of headshots with guns that aren't very good accuracy wise. I was playing with very good players, and even some of them thought I was running cheats.

My experience says people vastly underestimate how far a good lucky streak and adequate reaction time + aim can take someone. Plenty of friends have similar experiences of being accused of cheating when they play well.

It probably doesn't help that the asynchronous client-server model of fast paced FPS games introduces weird effects with respect to latency. (I.e. rewriting history to show some high-latency player killed you after you've already observed visual/audio effects for their own death.)

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by hnick on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @06:43PM (#21997010)

DIOL (Do It On LAN) has been an acronym in online games for a couple of decades now, for good reason.

Though I've heard now it's possible to load your USB peripherals with cheating software.

https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi...

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by yjftsjthsd-h on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @01:06PM (#21994017)

If there's money on the line, I'm surprised if it really isn't illegal? At a minimum, I would expect that to be easy lawsuit territory.

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by mstade on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @12:50PM (#21993853)

Are there online e-sports tournaments of any meaningful size? (E.g. $1000+ prizes) The only tournaments I've seen amount to essentially LAN parties where all the equipment and installations are provided by the tournament, such that players all compete on fair terms and unable to cheat (unless the opsec at the tournament is terrible, I guess.)

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by Buttons840 on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @12:54PM (#21993903)

Any competitive game with big money on the line has the top players gather in the same room (on a stage most likely), and play using computers controlled by the event organizers. The players winning these big tournaments do not cheat.

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by izzydata on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @01:23PM (#21994224)

You aren't thinking outside the box enough. If you could commission cheating software for $10,000+ then there is plenty you could do to circumvent the PCs being provided. It should also be noted that they allow self provided peripherals in most cases.

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by Buttons840 on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @03:53PM (#21995670)

An interesting idea. Now I'm curious. First, has there ever been an example of someone caught cheating this way?

Second, what kinds of cheats would you expect using peripherals? Any visual cheats would likely be detected, since player's screens are often viewed by referees and/or televised. I suppose an audio based cheat is conceivable. The screen and the audio are the only output from most computer games.

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Re:How anti-cheats catch cheaters using memory heuristics by izzydata on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @04:20PM (#21995917)

https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi...

Aimbots these days look almost indistinguishable from good playing. The point isn't to be perfect. It's to give some kind of competitive edge. If you can take even 15% of the effort away then you can focus on other things.

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