There are always good or bad, angels and devils, saviours and sinners. Within the E-sport scene we shush about the “dark side” and rather talk about our “heroes”, our top clans that give us dreams and keep us busy with some intense wars. But sometimes it’s time to talk about the evil men…
Nobody likes cheaters, they spoil the game with wallhacks and aimbots, even a bug-abuser is a sinner. But why do people cheat? Do they hold a grudge against us “honest” gamers just like we hold one for them? Do they have a goal why they commit such “gaming crimes” or is it just for fun, just because it’s funny?
First of all I’d like to talk about the bad things first:
- Cheaters make you lose the fun in the game. Just one cheater in a server for 40 people could spoil the fun for (almost) everyone.
- Cheaters let people lose their faith in honest, good players because who can assure them that you don’t have a “little” wallhack, because everytime you exactly know where someone is (though you know it because you heard them).
- They cost money. A company that releases a game wants to have a good name so they can sell a lot of games. But their name gets ruined by negative feedbacks of players that are not satisfied. This unsatisfying feeling appears when normal “public players” collide with a cheater, bug-abuser or anyone else that tries to get an advantage against other players. This will eventually have a negative affect on the number of sold games.
So we see cheaters aren’t much of a help if you look at these points. But they actually do something good aswell. Here’s something I got from a police officers book about how to become a good agent.
Modi Operandus
Lesson 7
You have probably heard the question, "What's his M.O.?" In police-speak, M.O. stand for modus operandi or Method of Operation. Knowing the M.O. of a criminal helps police predict what the person will do next or where and how the next crime may occur. Criminals have their own unique M.O.s. However, some criminals will mimic the M.O.s of other criminals.
Knowing the M.O. of a microbe can be helpful, too. Look at a modus operandi as a type of behavior. In the world of microbes, behaviors may include:
- How they get their food
- How they get energy to run their lives
- How they protect themselves
- How they get around
- How they reproduce
- What their "social habits" are - are they loners or groupies?
- How do they respond to environmental conditions like light, pH, temperature, osmotic pressure, and the presence of gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide.
These behaviors are, of course, closely linked to the structure the cells have. You can't fly because you have no wings. Microbes can't do things for which they do not have the appropriate structure.
Surely you’ll question yourself “Why does he post this here?” Well, this will be my next point, because though cheaters spoil the gameplay and the fun, they can be still of use to others.
Think about it, we, as simple, comsuming, honest gamers wouldn’t spend most of our precious time to look for bugs or even to code a bot. We focus on training our aim, look for some nice tactical spots and make up some tactics or look for members to join the clan. They, the “cheaters”, spend their time with such things like I’ve mentioned before (bugs, bots etc.)
“Why is this of use to us?”
Well, we could discuss about the fact that producers don’t deserve any better when their game failed in standing strong against cheaters, but no security system is perfect after the release and because of them, they will get close to perfect the longer the game is on the market. Big security programs from big companies are being tested by ex-criminals that got the “know-how” to crack these kind of systems. They may do whatever they like to do with the security system, because their job is to find holes in the system and look for possibilities to somehow switch it off. This assures the company and its valuable things to be safe within these walls. Game-developers don’t have these possibilities because most of the cheaters stay anonymous, but some anti-cheat tool makers use cheaters to make their program “safe”.
What are: (Aim)bots, wallhacks and bugs?
Well, I’ve mentioned some of the most common “things” cheaters use (well that’s what makes them cheaters). To inform you how to notice a cheater and what he’s using, I’ll give some quick descriptions.
Wallhacks isn’t really a program, but it does allow you to look through walls to see your enemy before he will see you.
(Aim)bots are programs that you run from your desktop while playing a first-person shooter in the foreground. These programs will play for you, to say it the easy way. An aimbot will aim on heads through walls, bushes and other obstacles which wouldn’t allow you to see an enemy without this program. Though you can move and shoot whenever you want, your aim will be automatically pointed at the opponents head. So the description bot might be explained with: “A program that guides you within a game, giving you advantages and opportunities that wouldn’t be possible without this program.”
Bugs are errors in-game that weren’t intended by the developers. These bugs mostly bring you to spots that will give you cover, though you can shoot right through it, let walls disappear to you (so you can shoot through them). Generally, it will give you a big advantage against others.
We know the facts, now I’d like to get the opinion of an ex-cheat coder that now works on the anti-cheat tool DMW.
Interview with Mark Harrison
Part 1: Personal questions
First of all I’d you to just tell us something about yourself.
Im Mark Harrison, 22 yrs of age and am currently studying Software engineering at Manchester university
The article is about "cheaters" and so-called "anti-cheaters", what's your opinion about these two?
Well, as most people know I used to make cheats for mohaa as "N3O". Originally I started making them for fun, but always made them easy to detect, so like only for public server. I did however make a few which could go undetected - which I later regretted. As a mod on MPC I pushed forward the "dont cheat in matches" idea, which pretty much everyone on there "agreed" with. I say "agreed" because 999% of them agreed on the site but then did the exact opposite. I was trying at the time to allow users to play however they wanted in public server, as it’s their game and thus their money. But matches were different totally as there’s more at stake than just having fun, for most. Anyway, it ended up with me hating the whole idea of cheating as pretty much everyone that used cheats used them secretly to gain an unfair advantage, denying their cheating ways. I originally tried to push forward cheat only servers, to keep people who cheated separate from those who wanted to play clean. But that naturally didnt work. I then decided to try and stop cheating altogether, as I came to despise pretty much all those who used cheats. I can still sympathise with people who make them, as most only do it as a passtime. But ones who use them I can’t stand anymore. It was then I came to know Cashy, who had already started working on the initial ideas for DMW anti-cheat. We believed, and still believe, that we could create the most effective anti-cheat solution ever. The other anti-cheats available then, and still now in my opinion just don’t cut it when it comes to stopping even the majority of cheats. There are one or two out there that I’m impressed with I will say that. But I believe DMW is and will be far more effective
A more easier one, did you ever play any games really active, if so, which games? And do you play any games frequently right now?
I’ve always played games online. The most active I’ve been in an online game has to be Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. I got it on the day of release and just couldn’t stop playing it. The only reason I’m not playing it now is because I’m a little too busy with other things (uni+dmw). I havn’t played any other games with that level of game-play. It just all seems to fit. I can see me moving on to new games, COD2 is good, and Day of Defeat. Never been a big fan of Counterstrike, although I do dabble there every now and again. MOHAA though is the only game I’ve ever played in competitions or clans.
Part 2: The program
You're working, as you've said before, quite hard on DMW to make it a good, maybe even the best anti-cheat tool, how long are you already working on it and how long will it approximatley take until it will be finished?
We have been working on it already for a couple of years now. There have been several design changes but the core idea has always stayed the same. The scanner part of the anti-cheat has been started again from scratch which has taken around a year to complete. We have almost completed it now, and can finally see the anti-cheat finished within a month or so. We have already developed the web part of the application. Hardware banning is finished and active and testing has already shown how effective this feature will be in stopping and banning cheats. The unique addition of the in-game menu will also be a key feature in DMW in the near future. Bringing many, ,previously unseen, features together in one application.
After telling us a lot about DMW itself, I'd now like to hear a bit about your job within this "operation". What's your job on DMW and what are the key features you worked on?
I’m head of development, which basically means I’m in charge what goes on with the client and scanner; Features, schedule, etc. I’m also in charge of research, although that now means making sure the team of researchers I have keeps us up to date on the goings on in the cheat world. In terms of actual coding within DM. I’m responsible for designing and implementing the front end for both the client and scanner, that means the graphical interface and the way it all links together. Originally I also took care of finding cheats and exploits. But we have a team dedicated to that now. So althought I help out I mainly just keep tabs on them.
Did you face any complications / did you have any problems that took quite some while to take care of?
There have been a few difficult aspects of DMW's implementation:
Such as certain methods of cheating were difficult to stop at first. Well, it’s easy to stop a cheat - anyone can do that. But to stop ALL cheats of that type or design, that’s more difficult – that’s what DMW does. So once a cheat is stopped, it’s time to look for a new method to bypass DMW. There were several complications getting the advanced features of the client working on windows 2000 at first. But we eventually resolved these, much thanks is owed to the various windows 2000 users that were willing to help us test.
You've already answered this one a bit, but nonetheless I'd like to ask you what the toughest thing is when creatin such a program?
Making sure there’s no cheats haha. It’s sometimes difficult to stop a cheat, but also make sure that there are no implications on the average user. So, for example, it’s not a good practice to make an anti-cheat which stops you cheating by locking you out of your pc before and during playing the game. (no names mentioned ;) ) We try to make DMW as user friendly as possible. You shouldn’t know it’s running unless your using it. It’s always important that cheats are stopped 100%. That can be hard of course.
Do you think that working with (ex-)cheaters is necessary to make it a perfect program?
Well it certainly helps. Who knows more about cheats that those who used to make them? I know programs such as PB have been offered help from cheaters to fix holes in their program. They apparently declined this help - so the holes remained - apparently.
What's the most annoying cheat for you (to detect etc.)?
Well it’s not so much cheats that are annoying. We can detect any type of cheat that’s not a problem. Bugs in other companies code - such as graphics drivers - which causes exploits like wallhacks (ati bug?) is very annoying and often difficult to stop. Fixing bugs in other peoples code to stop cheats can be annoying at time.
Thank you for the interview, good luck finishing DMW!
Conclusion
The cheaters are those that spoil the game, but those are just “customers” of the so-called coders, though these people mostly don’t make such bots/cheats to cheat, but rather because it’s challenging and to fill spare time.
Well children, never cheat says Shinobi, ‘cause if you do, big Shinobi will come and cut your internet cable!
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