> KR (Korea) requires national identity numbers for gaming, which opens up a convenient opportunity to ban cheaters at the “soul” level. It is remarkably effective at keeping them out of game for longer periods of time—cheaters have to buy whole new identities to keep playing, so the bans really stick.
I detest "real name" policies and believe pseudonymous/anonymous discourse is helpful, perhaps even vital. But I am starting to believe that tying accounts to a "soul" or more expensive to forge identity is going to be the only way we get out of the Commentdämmerung we have today on social media. Whether it's posting invective, hateful diatribes on a platform or cheating in online games, it has to be more expensive than an email address to participate, but somehow also effectively free for most average people.
Maybe that takes the form of Worldcoin, or maybe some clever zk-snark proof of uniqueness-without-disclosing-identity from state or national ID programs, I don't know. But the current situation of a minority of people making vast swathes of the internet unpleasant is really quite untenable.
Of course the second hard part is figuring out how to do that without fully giving into the people who would want to spy on us all.
Part of the problem is that "who's making the internet unpleasant" has a different answer depending on who you ask, and having a list of real identities and thus addresses to associate with your pet out-group is really appealing if the in-group has access to levers of power (or just firearms)
I may be missing some big downside, but my current thought on this is that I'd like to see the return of true walled gardens. Modern versions of Prodigy or Compuserve, something like that.
I would seriously consider paying to be part of a nice walled garden, somewhere that had tight controls over advertising, spam, anonymous trolls, etc. I obviously can't have anything like the Internet I grew up with (in the late 80s, early 90s), that ship has sailed, but I would pay actual money if someone could offer me an online experience that absolutely did not have scams, spam, incessant advertising, etc.
The biggest headache is probably the difficulty in maintaining communication with people who choose other gardens to join. Though perhaps that's more a problem if you want to communicate with people who want to stay outside the gardens and use only the 'free' Internet.
If CV cheats are good enough that people are using them (and then getting banned), and other people are willing to pay >$1000 for "undetected" cheats (that still get them banned)... wouldn't making custom hardware that is just a capture card and USB keyboard+mouse running one of those CV models that sends the inputs back over a "real" keyboard work?
If it uses a 2nd input device, that's just obvious.
If it properly mixes its input into your main device, there will still be hints.
A real mouse has a limited range of motion. It can't keep moving left or right indefinitely.
Real players don't immediately gravitate towards the geometric center of the head of every enemy.
Real players don't try to move the mouse to shoot at enemies on the loading screen.
Real players have coordinated or stereotyped mouse and keyboard movements. They don't react instantly with the mouse but after a delay on the keyboard, for instance.
This article reads like it was written by an LLM and it doesn't mention how these "undetected" DMA cheats are actually caught. The anti-cheat teams join discords of vendors to get access to the cheats and flag users based on the heuristics they observe from the vendors firmware (that DMA card / hardware has to show up as _something_). So yeah, your setup can work (as long as you’re sticking to the drivers and input methods they tolerate), and the same goes for private DMA cheats.
The post doesn't seem to elaborate on how Riot detects and bans people using that sort of cheat, but you can detect some % of those people by analyzing their inputs. Humans don't play the way an aimbot does.
Has there been much analysis on why cheating happens so much more in some regions than others?
I’ve had a Brazilian friend say it was largely due to culture but I’ve got to imagine with all the data companies have, there’s been more rigorous studies.
Vanguard has been clear they have buckets of cheating from Brazil in particular. Not a country otherwise known for income or cultural expectations.
My personal theory is that people just have more “real life” friends they are trying to impress; combined with Valorant being popular due to the ludicrous amount of import taxation.
> If a game is good, it’s going to attract cheaters.
I have started to consider that games should be inherently cheat-resistant, not protected by anti-cheats.
Chess and Go are less affected by cheats by their design. It's not nearly as frustrating to lose to a cheater when they're working with the same information you are, and when they perform actions that a human could reasonably perform.
I find that rulesets enforced by nature or by the design of the system are, to me, more interesting than rulesets enforced by agreement and punishment, even if the "agreement" is not to hack the game. It forces more creativity and makes games offer more relevant experiences instead of copying the same formula.
As for identity systems etc. to permaban cheaters, I think that if it takes increasingly strict levels of monitoring and crackdown and reliance on "trusted authorities" to keep these beloved games playable, it might be better to move on and find new games. Few (if any) individual games or genres of games matter enough to warrant this attention.
> but modern science has actually determined that cheaters do not have any discernable skill (otherwise they’d use it).
This is flippant, but incorrect in a general sense. Those who cheat are often near the top of their chosen game, and are looking for that edge to be "the best".
Perhaps in sports and games where identities are known, but for gaming it's mostly teens pushing boundaries and having fun the way teens do. At least that was my experience gaming with cheaters in counter-strike and wc3 15-20 years ago
Isn't the best action against cheaters not banning but degrading accuracy? Then they are left blaming their cheats for not working. Making it inconsistent would make it highly effective and hard to detect.
Runescape players came to a similar conclusion if you want to duplicate items by overloading/crashing worlds: do it during the weekend and night hours in Cambridge where Jagex is
> The reason they need “a method” to move the mouse is because Vanguard already outright rejects input from your non-primary peripheral device, and the reason I’m not disclosing that method here is because this is not a tutorial on fastest ways to get banned.
I know this isn't the lowest hanging fruit but for literally a few USD you could get the necessary hardware (i.e. any microcontroller, like a Raspberry Pi Pico) to emulate an input device with perfect fidelity. What do you do when a device pops up that has the same VID/PID as a real physical mouse and looks identical from the perspective of the HID reports? This is not theoretical FWIW.
I think the gameplan for anti-cheat developers is to just pretend they can't hear this, and to keep ramping up the amount of end-user surveillance for as long as possible. Good luck guys, looking forward to when the cheaters discover Arduino.
edit: Also, while I'm here saying unpopular things, this smarmy blog post gets a lot wrong about cheaters, probably on purpose just to piss them off. For example, something you'll notice with many cheating scandals is that routinely, extremely skilled players choose to cheat to try to get more of an edge, and they're better at it than unskilled players most of the time, too. I think the real reason why most cheaters suck is because the distribution of cheaters is probably mostly because most players suck and some portion of players are prone to cheating. If you need any evidence that cheating can easily become widespread at higher skill levels, check any speedrunning community with a sufficiently bad cheating problem, like Trackmania.
You do also need to have it act such as mouse. Since if you plug two Real Mouse in, only primary / first Mouse will work. If you Arduino its the cheat device Mouse, it will be plugged in first, you will not be able to click through menu or click play with your Real Mouse. You allowed one HID.
> Ultimately, it is inevitable that you will encounter a cheater eventually, but we will just keep banning them all over and over again until they finally work up the courage to run the uninstaller.
What a great message to send to your fans. "We know we installed Ring 0 anticheat on your PC and banned Linux/Steam Deck players, but look at how useless it is!"
How exactly do you arrive at the conclusion that it's useless? I don't know anything about the game, but if the numbers in this post are not made up, including the spike, it looks not only effective but absolutely vital for the game to be playable at all.
This is true of any online game ever. Games require integrity and there are plenty of people who would rather have game integrity than system integrity because, for them, the system is for the game.
I don’t think Riot is losing sleep over denying access to the 4 people who want to play Valorant on a Steam Deck.
I dunno it seems better to be honest and up front about the reality of the situation - since most players experience it themselves - than to pretend like it's all roses and perfectly anti-cheat.
There's a lot of ways the cheater problem can be mostly neutralized, for example a dedicated matchmaking pool for players who ONLY have allowed devices, hardware, drivers. No ifs or buts or stupid exceptions like for LAN cafes.
For years, gamers have been told install xyz rootkit for your safety, enable xyz option in your BIOS, get a TPM, install the latest versions of windows, it's all for your security to make your experience better and cheat-free with state-of-the-art technology! across like 3 or 4 different vendors, and the outcome has been the same ever since the beginning: cheaters find ways to skirt basic restrictions, because companies don't _want_ to actually put an end to cheating. Especially more so for companies like valve that get cheaters constantly re-buying their games or "premium" status, not sure if this exists in the valorant realm
Just end the "gary's pool cleaning" problem once and for all rather than continue to play stupid games just on the off 0.00001% chance Gary's business (incorporated last week) decided to branch out to software. Let Gary come appeal to Riot directly and let them manually analyze whatever they need BEFOREHAND.
They're focusing on DETECTION rather than PREVENTION.
AaronFriel|6 months ago
I detest "real name" policies and believe pseudonymous/anonymous discourse is helpful, perhaps even vital. But I am starting to believe that tying accounts to a "soul" or more expensive to forge identity is going to be the only way we get out of the Commentdämmerung we have today on social media. Whether it's posting invective, hateful diatribes on a platform or cheating in online games, it has to be more expensive than an email address to participate, but somehow also effectively free for most average people.
Maybe that takes the form of Worldcoin, or maybe some clever zk-snark proof of uniqueness-without-disclosing-identity from state or national ID programs, I don't know. But the current situation of a minority of people making vast swathes of the internet unpleasant is really quite untenable.
Of course the second hard part is figuring out how to do that without fully giving into the people who would want to spy on us all.
kg|6 months ago
rootusrootus|6 months ago
I would seriously consider paying to be part of a nice walled garden, somewhere that had tight controls over advertising, spam, anonymous trolls, etc. I obviously can't have anything like the Internet I grew up with (in the late 80s, early 90s), that ship has sailed, but I would pay actual money if someone could offer me an online experience that absolutely did not have scams, spam, incessant advertising, etc.
The biggest headache is probably the difficulty in maintaining communication with people who choose other gardens to join. Though perhaps that's more a problem if you want to communicate with people who want to stay outside the gardens and use only the 'free' Internet.
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
notsylver|6 months ago
avidiax|6 months ago
If it uses a 2nd input device, that's just obvious.
If it properly mixes its input into your main device, there will still be hints.
A real mouse has a limited range of motion. It can't keep moving left or right indefinitely.
Real players don't immediately gravitate towards the geometric center of the head of every enemy.
Real players don't try to move the mouse to shoot at enemies on the loading screen.
Real players have coordinated or stereotyped mouse and keyboard movements. They don't react instantly with the mouse but after a delay on the keyboard, for instance.
ghxst|6 months ago
kg|6 months ago
jldugger|6 months ago
Waterluvian|6 months ago
I’ve had a Brazilian friend say it was largely due to culture but I’ve got to imagine with all the data companies have, there’s been more rigorous studies.
gjsman-1000|6 months ago
My personal theory is that people just have more “real life” friends they are trying to impress; combined with Valorant being popular due to the ludicrous amount of import taxation.
syphia|6 months ago
I have started to consider that games should be inherently cheat-resistant, not protected by anti-cheats.
Chess and Go are less affected by cheats by their design. It's not nearly as frustrating to lose to a cheater when they're working with the same information you are, and when they perform actions that a human could reasonably perform.
I find that rulesets enforced by nature or by the design of the system are, to me, more interesting than rulesets enforced by agreement and punishment, even if the "agreement" is not to hack the game. It forces more creativity and makes games offer more relevant experiences instead of copying the same formula.
As for identity systems etc. to permaban cheaters, I think that if it takes increasingly strict levels of monitoring and crackdown and reliance on "trusted authorities" to keep these beloved games playable, it might be better to move on and find new games. Few (if any) individual games or genres of games matter enough to warrant this attention.
mentalfist|6 months ago
Are you sure you don't want to reconsider this position?
DrJaws|6 months ago
LocalH|6 months ago
This is flippant, but incorrect in a general sense. Those who cheat are often near the top of their chosen game, and are looking for that edge to be "the best".
matthewaveryusa|6 months ago
juanani|6 months ago
[deleted]
nutjob2|6 months ago
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
blibble|6 months ago
stepupmakeup|6 months ago
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
neilv|6 months ago
What about criminal charges (e.g., CFAA)?
jsheard|6 months ago
https://www.ign.com/articles/call-of-duty-cheat-maker-ordere...
geoffpado|6 months ago
ronsor|6 months ago
tcoff91|6 months ago
gjsman-1000|6 months ago
Or, have everyone literally cheat with reckless abandon… and the game is unplayable.
egamirorrim|6 months ago
jchw|6 months ago
I know this isn't the lowest hanging fruit but for literally a few USD you could get the necessary hardware (i.e. any microcontroller, like a Raspberry Pi Pico) to emulate an input device with perfect fidelity. What do you do when a device pops up that has the same VID/PID as a real physical mouse and looks identical from the perspective of the HID reports? This is not theoretical FWIW.
I think the gameplan for anti-cheat developers is to just pretend they can't hear this, and to keep ramping up the amount of end-user surveillance for as long as possible. Good luck guys, looking forward to when the cheaters discover Arduino.
edit: Also, while I'm here saying unpopular things, this smarmy blog post gets a lot wrong about cheaters, probably on purpose just to piss them off. For example, something you'll notice with many cheating scandals is that routinely, extremely skilled players choose to cheat to try to get more of an edge, and they're better at it than unskilled players most of the time, too. I think the real reason why most cheaters suck is because the distribution of cheaters is probably mostly because most players suck and some portion of players are prone to cheating. If you need any evidence that cheating can easily become widespread at higher skill levels, check any speedrunning community with a sufficiently bad cheating problem, like Trackmania.
galaxy_gas|6 months ago
Most people lazy for this
gjsman-1000|6 months ago
One possibility: The Arduino added input latency cancelling out the cheating benefit.
bigyabai|6 months ago
What a great message to send to your fans. "We know we installed Ring 0 anticheat on your PC and banned Linux/Steam Deck players, but look at how useless it is!"
jstummbillig|6 months ago
lwansbrough|6 months ago
I don’t think Riot is losing sleep over denying access to the 4 people who want to play Valorant on a Steam Deck.
AuthAuth|6 months ago
sbarre|6 months ago
cute_boi|6 months ago
Thanks.
grimblee|6 months ago
stepupmakeup|6 months ago
For years, gamers have been told install xyz rootkit for your safety, enable xyz option in your BIOS, get a TPM, install the latest versions of windows, it's all for your security to make your experience better and cheat-free with state-of-the-art technology! across like 3 or 4 different vendors, and the outcome has been the same ever since the beginning: cheaters find ways to skirt basic restrictions, because companies don't _want_ to actually put an end to cheating. Especially more so for companies like valve that get cheaters constantly re-buying their games or "premium" status, not sure if this exists in the valorant realm
Just end the "gary's pool cleaning" problem once and for all rather than continue to play stupid games just on the off 0.00001% chance Gary's business (incorporated last week) decided to branch out to software. Let Gary come appeal to Riot directly and let them manually analyze whatever they need BEFOREHAND.
They're focusing on DETECTION rather than PREVENTION.
arresin|6 months ago