New Anti-Cheat system like this :

[Psyl3nt 125]

I was wondering what the possibility would be for an anti-cheat system that works in a "different" way to normal.

Not sure how hard or easy this would be to get around but here goes.

Every player online get a screenshot taken at random intervals of time, this gets sent to a master server that processes the image with OCR type technology, if a player has the information on screen like players tags all over the map, or more importantly the "hack" menu on the side of their screen then perma- BE type ban.

Fairly simple, and if done in the way I am thinking, there is no way of knowing just when this screenshot would be taken or even IF it would be taken every game etc...

[malphos101 71]

No....just.........no

[Scene 36]

Easy to bypass, anti hack programs like punkbuster do this already plus 3rd party anit cheat programs.

By this I was only referring to the Screenshot part.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Scene

[‮spacecaps 101]

Every player online get a screenshot taken at random intervals of time

This is the hard part (no kidding; taking a screenshot is much harder than it seems).

processes the image with OCR type technology

This is the impossible part.

My guess is you should stop suggesting things without some actual knowledge.

Edited July 19, 2012 by KizUrazgubi

[Psyl3nt 125]

They do ? - never heard of it being done apart from teamviewer and that's not really an anti-cheat program.

And the no .. just no ... care to elaborate ?

What's wrong with it and I guess the question is how are they getting around it ? - the master server could check the location of the player vs the location of the screenshot so having a bunch of pre-set screenies would be difficult and time consuming for the cheaters. OCR technology currently isn't used in any anti-cheat that I know of.

err about my "actual knowledge" - I'm a programmer / developer :) I "think" I have a tiny bit of know how in this regard.

That is not saying it's not difficult to do (otherwise it would be done already). OCR is an interesting method as it doesen't rely on detecting scripts etc.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Psyl3nt

[LivingError 23]

I was wondering what the possibility would be for an anti-cheat system that works in a "different" way to normal.

Not sure how hard or easy this would be to get around but here goes.

Every player online get a screenshot taken at random intervals of time, this gets sent to a master server that processes the image with OCR type technology, if a player has the information on screen like players tags all over the map, or more importantly the "hack" menu on the side of their screen then perma- BE type ban.

Fairly simple, and if done in the way I am thinking, there is no way of knowing just when this screenshot would be taken or even IF it would be taken every game etc...

Most of the time players just use scripts which normally have no visual element, and what Scene has said is also true. They will just hook the screenshot function and either turn the visuals off during the picture or cause it to return a black screen which happens randomly on certain graphics cards regardless.

[Ophidion 11]

They do ? - never heard of it being done apart from teamviewer and that's not really an anti-cheat program.

And the no .. just no ... care to elaborate ?

What's wrong with it and I guess the question is how are they getting around it ? - the master server could check the location of the player vs the location of the screenshot so having a bunch of pre-set screenies would be difficult and time consuming for the cheaters. OCR technology currently isn't used in any anti-cheat that I know of.

err about my "actual knowledge" - I'm a programmer / developer :) I "think" I have a tiny bit of know how in this regard.

OCR tech isn't used with any anti-cheat for a reason. It's simply not a viable options.

A master server to run an anti-cheat screenshot system? What in the hell? You're better off having spies go into the server and follow players for any hacks.

[Psyl3nt 125]

In a way it kind of is like having spies, - the screenshot function would have to read from the GPU (if possible, difficuly but again I think it can be done).

Most hacks have an on-screen menu that the players select things from, this is where the OCR comes in, that HAS to be processed for them to see it, otherwise, well, they would not be able to see it.

[‮spacecaps 101]

I'm a programmer / developer :)

And I'm the billionaire philanthropist.

[Psyl3nt 125]

And I'm the billionaire philanthropist.

You can believe what you like, if you "know" so much then please explain in a technical manner.

OR you don't like the idea of being caught ?

OR you just like to put down ideas with no thought.

which one is it ?

It is possible to read back data from the GPU using CUDA / Open CL (for other reasons but perhaps adaptable).

A little google action and it turns out there is a cheat for words with friends that works on OCR . . so there is something. wrong side of the fence but shows that it could be possible.

On a side note : My level of developing is on industrial machinery / computers. So when it comes to games specifically I don't know that much about it. But I do know a bit about non-standard hardware etc and some creative methods to get hardware to do what you want.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Psyl3nt

[‮spacecaps 101]

You can believe what you like, if you "know" so much then please explain in a technical manner.

I just can't take it seriously when you are suggesting a system based on automatic screen capturing and OCRing and claiming yourself to understand something. You need to learn:

- what the hardware overlay is

- why taking a trusted screenshot is a major task for any anti-cheat system

- why you can't take a trusted screenshot in practice despite theoretically having a lot of ways to do this.

- how does OCR actually work

and a lot of other things.

It is possible to read back data from the GPU using CUDA / Open CL (for other reasons but perhaps adaptable).

cool story bro

Edited July 19, 2012 by KizUrazgubi

[Ophidion 11]

Yeeeahh, working system doesn't mean effective.

It could be in theory, but in reality it just isn't that simple to create an effective anti-cheat system.

[Badhaggis 40]

Just use a system like punkbuster, no need to start a new one, i imagine BI will be helping out with parts if the DayZ stand alone, so they could probably stretch to buying a licence for a decent anti-cheat system (given that they had a massive funding boost from DayZ)

[Psyl3nt 125]

Well the cheats themselves are using this technology to cheat. Albeit in little games like words with friends. They are screen capturing then using OCR to auto-complete / auto select letters etc and output them to the game as if a human did.

So they can do it....

of course on a PC it is different, one thing I know is you can grab a "capture" of the data as it is in the GPU, theoretically this is what the player is looking at as it is there before it is processed by the monitor.

OCR technology is pretty good now, it CAN recognise text and output / parse the text. There would be keywords looked for, but then I guess there is a problem of say a player typing something in game and that getting captured / processed and if it's something that matches a "cheat" type keyword then they get unfairly banned.

At the moment it's just a though, but I am curious about it. Assuredly I will look with more depth into the technologies involved, I wanted to offer the idea here to see if others with technical views / knowledge had anything to add / detract / suggest.

[LivingError 23]

Well the cheats themselves are using this technology to cheat. Albeit in little games like words with friends. They are screen capturing then using OCR to auto-complete / auto select letters etc and output them to the game as if a human did.

So they can do it....

of course on a PC it is different, one thing I know is you can grab a "capture" of the data as it is in the GPU, theoretically this is what the player is looking at as it is there before it is processed by the monitor.

OCR technology is pretty good now, it CAN recognise text and output / parse the text. There would be keywords looked for, but then I guess there is a problem of say a player typing something in game and that getting captured / processed and if it's something that matches a "cheat" type keyword then they get unfairly banned.

At the moment it's just a though, but I am curious about it. Assuredly I will look with more depth into the technologies involved, I wanted to offer the idea here to see if others with technical views / knowledge had anything to add / detract / suggest.

I posted something relevant up above but it seems to have been passed over :\

[‮spacecaps 101]

Well the cheats themselves are using this technology to cheat. Albeit in little games like words with friends. They are screen capturing then using OCR to auto-complete / auto select letters etc and output them to the game as if a human did.

Seriously, stop this.

[Psyl3nt 125]

A lot of the cheats I have seen, have in-game menus, they are not just scripts that say launch on startup / through console (though I am sure that some do), so a combination of current anti-cheat tech, with this kind of thing could be possible.

I think if you capture the screenshot directly from the GPU then it "shouldn't" return a black screen in any circumstance, unless the screen is black.

"seriously stop this"

Why ? (that is a true statement, google that and you will see there is a cheat for that game that works just like that).

I suppose I could stop forcing you to stay and post in this thread ..........

The current anti-cheat system does not work, and to be honest I've never seen one that really does work. There are and probably always will be ways to get around them but at least we can try to think of ways to make it more difficult to do.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Psyl3nt

[thorgold 91]

err about my "actual knowledge" - I'm a programmer / developer :) I "think" I have a tiny bit of know how in this regard.

That is not saying it's not difficult to do (otherwise it would be done already). OCR is an interesting method as it doesen't rely on detecting scripts etc.

The problem with this idea is that it's:

1) Too specific to one type of hack

2) Impossible

The "screenshot to detect tags" is practically hand-detailed to detect people using detection hacks, and specific ones at that. This would do nothing to stop script hacks (what, will we check screenshots for helicopters and non-DayZ weapons?) and, therefore, does nothing that Battleeye doesn't already do. Furthermore, while OCR is interesting technology, it is extremely falible and creating a program to detect one specific type of hack would be a complete waste of time If I was a hacker and this was implemented, I'd just... turn off the tracker hack and only bring it up with a hotkey or suchNot only is the idea itself impractical, but even as a computer illiterate I can think of 20 ways to avoid it entirely.

Edited July 19, 2012 by thorgold

[LivingError 23]

A lot of the cheats I have seen, have in-game menus, they are not just scripts that say launch on startup / through console (though I am sure that some do), so a combination of current anti-cheat tech, with this kind of thing could be possible.

I think if you capture the screenshot directly from the GPU then it "shouldn't" return a black screen in any circumstance, unless the screen is black.

"seriously stop this"

Why ? (that is a true statement, google that and you will see there is a cheat for that game that works just like that).

I suppose I could stop forcing you to stay and post in this thread ..........

Here is a quote from an old discussion on a common reverse engineering forum(PBSS = PunkBuster ScreenShot):

i was amazed at how easy it is to have clean pbss, you only need to check 1 pointer. if it isn't null a screenshot is being taken. but some still get through so i just Sleep for a millisecond or 2 before i check it. i know sleeping the rendering thread can only kill fps but you only loose 2 or 3 frames and the simplicity is worth it. ScreenshotModule also has a counter in it, it counts frames since last pbss so you could check that as well if you wanted.

Edited July 19, 2012 by LivingError

[Psyl3nt 125]

I wouldn't say it's "impossible" :)

And the idea is to use it in conjunction with existing technologies.

I wasn't aware of the PBSS workarounds :( (to be honest I was not aware PB even did that). dammit.

(I'm glad I'm employed to write "hello world" on consoles cause that's what you do when your writing software for industrial machinery / systems, we have racks of systems that all say "hello world" well I lie, they just say "hello", I haven't gotten to the stage where I can make 2 words 79 6f 75 72 20 61 20 66 75 63 6b 77 69 74).

Edited July 19, 2012 by Psyl3nt

[LivingError 23]

Disregarding the effectiveness of this detection technique, it would have to be something implemented by BattleEye and not the DayZ Dev Team. I may be wrong but it seems something like this would be outside of the capabilities of what the dev team can do as far as modding goes.

[SnR 16]

The Arma community have other options - http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?112759-Doolittle-Anti-cheat-System

[Psyl3nt 125]

After a bit of reading etc, it seems that the OCR / capture are viable, meaning it is entirely possible, but it seems that the "cheat" community are pretty well aware of ways to beat it already, it just annoys me so much, there is very little that annoys me to the level that people cheating in online games does. I just cannot see the point (apart from say trolling a particular server / person / admin).

There are anti-cheat systems that are "standalone" , I guess if a separate anti-cheat was developed then it could be a mod requirement to have it installed, pretty difficult to do :(

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

cheats don't NEED to have an UI. never heard of shortcut keys?

[ZomboWTF 527]

I was wondering what the possibility would be for an anti-cheat system that works in a "different" way to normal.

Not sure how hard or easy this would be to get around but here goes.

Every player online get a screenshot taken at random intervals of time, this gets sent to a master server that processes the image with OCR type technology, if a player has the information on screen like players tags all over the map, or more importantly the "hack" menu on the side of their screen then perma- BE type ban.

Fairly simple, and if done in the way I am thinking, there is no way of knowing just when this screenshot would be taken or even IF it would be taken every game etc...

you have any idea how much load this would create? and how inconsequent this would be? just have a bat in the background doing the hacking and your tool would be compromised