• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 08:06
CET 14:06
KST 22:06
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Intel X Team Liquid Seoul event: Showmatches and Meet the Pros10[ASL20] Finals Preview: Arrival13TL.net Map Contest #21: Voting10[ASL20] Ro4 Preview: Descent11Team TLMC #5: Winners Announced!3
Community News
Weekly Cups (Oct 26-Nov 2): Liquid, Clem, Solar win; LAN in Philly0Weekly Cups (Oct 20-26): MaxPax, Clem, Creator win62025 RSL Offline Finals Dates + Ticket Sales!10BSL21 Open Qualifiers Week & CONFIRM PARTICIPATION3Crank Gathers Season 2: SC II Pro Teams12
StarCraft 2
General
RotterdaM "Serral is the GOAT, and it's not close" Weekly Cups (Oct 26-Nov 2): Liquid, Clem, Solar win; LAN in Philly Intel X Team Liquid Seoul event: Showmatches and Meet the Pros Weekly Cups (Oct 20-26): MaxPax, Clem, Creator win Weekly Cups (Oct 13-19): Clem Goes for Four
Tourneys
$3,500 WardiTV Korean Royale S4 SC4ALL $6,000 Open LAN in Philadelphia Crank Gathers Season 2: SC II Pro Teams Merivale 8 Open - LAN - Stellar Fest Kirktown Chat Brawl #9 $50 8:30PM EST
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 498 Wheel of Misfortune|Cradle of Death Mutation # 497 Battle Haredened Mutation # 496 Endless Infection Mutation # 495 Rest In Peace
Brood War
General
SnOw's ASL S20 Finals Review Ladder Map Matchup Stats Map pack for 3v3/4v4/FFA games BW General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
BSL21 Open Qualifiers Week & CONFIRM PARTICIPATION [ASL20] Grand Finals Small VOD Thread 2.0 The Casual Games of the Week Thread
Strategy
Current Meta PvZ map balance How to stay on top of macro? Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread ZeroSpace Megathread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Path of Exile
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread SPIRED by.ASL Mafia {211640}
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Dating: How's your luck? Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
White-Ra Fan Club The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Korean Music Discussion Series you have seen recently...
Sports
MLB/Baseball 2023 TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion 2024 - 2026 Football Thread NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
SC2 Client Relocalization [Change SC2 Language] Linksys AE2500 USB WIFI keeps disconnecting Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
The Big Reveal
Peanutsc
Challenge: Maths isn't all…
Hildegard
Career Paths and Skills for …
TrAiDoS
Reality "theory" prov…
perfectspheres
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1432 users

[Potential Utility] Anti-Hack Software - Page 6

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 4 5 6 7 Next All
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
June 14 2012 03:55 GMT
#101
On June 14 2012 12:52 leculver wrote:
Show nested quote +
Well now we have an after the fact blink hack detector. Would need to test it against known non hackers (ie. Local play) of a very very good player to make sure it won't false positive.

There WILL be some false-positives. The false positives are in the form of "we saw a few blinks that match the pattern, but it was less than 40% of all blinks", for example.

There's a dead giveaway if the hack does all the work in one tick. Here's an example from http://idleengineer.com/blink.txt:

Show nested quote +
BLINK HACK DETECTED.

Total: 25 suspect: 23.
92% suspect blinks.

Suspect blinks at these times:
[snip]
00:16:03.562
00:16:03.562


As you can see, the hack is dumb enough to do things faster than any human can: Deselect, blink, attack-move, select, (twice!). All within the same game tick. My program doesn't currently check for this, but it will tomorrow.

Here's the blog post I detail what I'm doing to detect blink hacks: http://www.idleengineer.com/2012/06/13/to-catch-a-cheater-part-2-blink/

OP, feel free to steal this technique if you weren't doing so already. I plan on releasing full source soon-ish, though it's a very simple state-machine to detect the blink hack.

I also plan on working to detect a LOT more than just blink hacks. This is just the first thing we put together as a proof of concept.


Ah I see, didn't realise it was that specific, in which case yeah no human can provide 4 or 5 commands in one millisecond
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
Darkstar_X
Profile Joined May 2010
United States197 Posts
June 14 2012 04:16 GMT
#102
I don't think a 3rd party should be responsible with overseeing starcraft bans. While I agree with the anti-cheating attempt, I would not want to risk my career on the word of some unknown claiming hacks. This seems like it will always lag behind the latest new hack (false negative) as well as risking unjustly ending some players chances for life (false positives).
theolysis
Profile Joined May 2012
United States107 Posts
June 14 2012 04:26 GMT
#103
On June 14 2012 13:16 Darkstar_X wrote:
I don't think a 3rd party should be responsible with overseeing starcraft bans. While I agree with the anti-cheating attempt, I would not want to risk my career on the word of some unknown claiming hacks. This seems like it will always lag behind the latest new hack (false negative) as well as risking unjustly ending some players chances for life (false positives).

Ending some players' chances for life? It's not that hard to buy another copy of the game. And I don't think any amount of 3rd party hack detection will make Blizzard any more likely to start banning players. Blizzard is probably going to keep being as lazy as they have been as far as banhammer goes.
"You will be the penis."
tsuxiit
Profile Joined July 2010
1305 Posts
June 14 2012 04:45 GMT
#104
I'm skeptical of this. If your application detects the location of the other player's camera, how is it any different from what a maphack looks like to Blizzard's detection software? Considering Blizzard's relative incompetence in dealing with hacks, it seems like a lot of people would be banned for using anti-hack software right now.
Peleus
Profile Joined March 2010
Australia420 Posts
June 14 2012 04:52 GMT
#105
Sceptical of this, however I'm glad to see people working on it. Thank you for your efforts and it's only through things like this can we start deterring hackers, although we'll never eliminate them.
Veritas
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom106 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-14 18:23:26
June 14 2012 18:22 GMT
#106
On June 14 2012 12:44 leculver wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 14 2012 12:38 Johnnysc2 wrote:
Some guy on reddit says he's making anti-hack software and actually provided some alpha-level blink detection stuff.

Link


Yo, some guy here. =P

I can't make a thread since I just created a TL account (long time lurker).

I'll be releasing full source as well (though if you are impatient you can just use reflector, it's really basic stuff). This is all pretty bleeding edge right now though.



I sent you a message on reddit about this. I think releasing the source is a very bad idea, which is the reason mine is a web service. Providing the method you're using to detect to the public is a fast track way to ensure it no longer works.
leculver
Profile Joined June 2012
United States5 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-14 19:01:25
June 14 2012 19:01 GMT
#107
If they are smart enough to reverse engineer Starcraft 2, they are smart enough to figure out what you are doing and work around it. I know because I do this for a living... (Pick apart software, that is.)

Even if your service is a black box, they'll just submit replays they've modified until they've figured out what you are doing to detect them. I've decided it's not worth trying to "hide" how to detect anything. They'll make changes to how their software works, I'll update mine to detect it. The only way they can completely get around this is to make their hack play as slow and crummily as a human, at which point we've won.

Keep in mind, you are working against some of the smartest programmers out there. Say what you will about people who use these hacks, but the people making them are very sharp. Might as well give them the benefit of the doubt and adapt accordingly.
JackDT
Profile Joined January 2012
724 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-14 19:17:47
June 14 2012 19:14 GMT
#108
On June 10 2012 17:44 DeadBabySeal wrote:
Ideas like this always have one massive flaw. Creating a client-side anti-cheat program for a game like Starcraft 2 is, quite literally, impossible. As long as I maintain administrative access to my machine, there's nothing your anti-hack application can do to stop me from cheating.

Go ahead and make your program. Get its use required by all online tournaments. Guess what? Hackers will hook your system calls and return whatever your program expects to see. If your application is written in a managed language like Java or C#, the job will be even easier. Further, if your application is Open Source all bets are completely off (and to be frank, I'm not running a community developed anti-hack program on my computer if I can't see the source. Nope nope nope.).

At the end of the day, there are extremely few 100% reliable ways to detect hacks. Limited replay analysis happens to be one of those - if a player is performing actions that are physically impossible (e.g., blinking individual stalkers while his camera is somewhere else) then you can be certain something is wrong. Beyond that, there will never be a 100% foolproof method of hack detection, ever. As long as people retain physical access to the computers running the game, the only thing stopping someone from hacking is lack of expertise and time.

If anything, I am actually worried that this will make the maphacker's lives easier. They will be able to continue using hacks, but when questioned they can point to your application and say "See look, I'm not hacking, you can be sure because I'm running the community's anti-hack too1!"


That doesn't mean there's isn't anything to be done about it.

One 'client side' anti cheat system big online tournaments could use is to have a camera pointed at the player's display setup recording locally, and then sent to the admins after for verification.

The other thing that should be done right now is to archive all major online tournaments replays from this point forward. If there is a flaw in the maphack discovered at any point in the future people can still busted even if they fix the maphack right away. This happened during broodwar -- people were busted from old archives by teamliquid admins and then banned from future tournaments. This makes cheating a LOT more risky. You could be busted a year after you played that match.

Even warden type programs could be mildly effective as long as they were updated immediately before large online tournaments start. Make players play their matches BEFORE they have had time to test whether it can detect their current maphack software.
emythrel
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom2599 Posts
June 14 2012 19:24 GMT
#109
On June 06 2012 01:19 ZeromuS wrote:
I posted this in the other thread but here it goes.

In MOHAA there was an anti hack that would screen cap randomly. If you were suspected of hacking you would be given 24 hours to email an admin the screenshot collection and if hacks were found you would be banned, if none no ban and if no Emil you would get banned as well. Worked pretty well and it can work for tournaments run online only for sc2 idf there was a similar application.


you are talking about punkbuster, its still out there too...... BF2 used it, i assume bf3 uses it. It randomly takes screenshots from server side which means they aren't cleaned up by the client side hack, instead the hack often sends through "snow" instead as it blocks punkbuster taking screenies.... you see a ss that is just static? Ban.

When there is nothing left to lose but your dignity, it is already gone.
leculver
Profile Joined June 2012
United States5 Posts
June 14 2012 19:52 GMT
#110
The other thing that should be done right now is to archive all major online tournaments replays from this point forward. If there is a flaw in the maphack discovered at any point in the future people can still busted even if they fix the maphack right away. This happened during broodwar -- people were busted from old archives by teamliquid admins and then banned from future tournaments. This makes cheating a LOT more risky. You could be busted a year after you played that match.


That's exactly what I'm going after. For ladder games too, though those matter less. If I figure out how to detect cheats people are using now, three months in the future, you could still have your account banned.

To be honest, it's the risk vs. reward dynamic that I'm actually trying to change here. Do you want to risk that we detect your hack at any point in the future and have your account banned? I want there to be risk of future discovery for anyone who cheats.
RexCogitans
Profile Joined August 2010
Norway37 Posts
June 14 2012 19:59 GMT
#111
I'd love to see a rating system of 'how suspicious'.

1. Nothing out of the ordinary.
2. Something is fishy.
3. Likely cheater.
4. NESTEA!
No!
Veritas
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom106 Posts
June 14 2012 20:45 GMT
#112
On June 15 2012 04:01 leculver wrote:
If they are smart enough to reverse engineer Starcraft 2, they are smart enough to figure out what you are doing and work around it. I know because I do this for a living... (Pick apart software, that is.)

Even if your service is a black box, they'll just submit replays they've modified until they've figured out what you are doing to detect them. I've decided it's not worth trying to "hide" how to detect anything. They'll make changes to how their software works, I'll update mine to detect it. The only way they can completely get around this is to make their hack play as slow and crummily as a human, at which point we've won.

Keep in mind, you are working against some of the smartest programmers out there. Say what you will about people who use these hacks, but the people making them are very sharp. Might as well give them the benefit of the doubt and adapt accordingly.


No doubt. But there's no point in making life easier for them.

Obviously we have different goals in mind. If you want to help out with client-side hack detection then I'd welcome the help. Likewise, if you want help with replay analysis patterns holla at me.
TickTock
Profile Joined December 2007
1 Post
Last Edited: 2012-06-15 00:34:41
June 14 2012 21:29 GMT
#113
I'm a worthless piece of low life scum
User was banned for being a hacker.
Veritas
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom106 Posts
June 14 2012 23:44 GMT
#114
As long as you provide hacks to idiots who go around making it blatant, you will be detected. It's that simple.
leculver
Profile Joined June 2012
United States5 Posts
June 15 2012 00:18 GMT
#115
On June 15 2012 08:44 Veritas wrote:
As long as you provide hacks to idiots who go around making it blatant, you will be detected. It's that simple.

Don't feed the troll.
JackDT
Profile Joined January 2012
724 Posts
June 15 2012 00:22 GMT
#116
On June 15 2012 04:52 leculver wrote:
Show nested quote +
The other thing that should be done right now is to archive all major online tournaments replays from this point forward. If there is a flaw in the maphack discovered at any point in the future people can still busted even if they fix the maphack right away. This happened during broodwar -- people were busted from old archives by teamliquid admins and then banned from future tournaments. This makes cheating a LOT more risky. You could be busted a year after you played that match.


That's exactly what I'm going after. For ladder games too, though those matter less. If I figure out how to detect cheats people are using now, three months in the future, you could still have your account banned.

To be honest, it's the risk vs. reward dynamic that I'm actually trying to change here. Do you want to risk that we detect your hack at any point in the future and have your account banned? I want there to be risk of future discovery for anyone who cheats.


Sounds good. I wonder if TL would be willing to host the archive of tournament and qualifier replays. I think you are right that even if nobody works hard on cheat detection in the near future, the mere existence of such an archive changes the risk/reward significantly.
makkesk8
Profile Joined June 2012
Sweden8 Posts
June 15 2012 00:50 GMT
#117
This sounds good and im up to help anyone who starts a anti-cheat project for sc2.(if its being made in c#/c++)

Also the best way to detect the cheats is to actually use them and check the memory stream for patterns but you might have to spend alot of money doing this and also having the risk of getting your account banned.

Thats atleast how I made my anti cheats for other games.
Take me for who I am or you can kiss my ass
Kluey
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada1197 Posts
June 15 2012 01:01 GMT
#118
What about a program that filters through replays and finds out which may be hackers? You could insert all your replays into the file and it can filter through all of them?

Similar to this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/v10zw/suspect_a_blink_hack_try_this_blinkhack_detection/
Archybaldie
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom818 Posts
June 15 2012 01:02 GMT
#119
The thing i would want to see is some kind of "hack detection" implimented into sc2gears. If a widely used piece of software gets the hack detection it would probabaly end up with more people reporting hackers. I've had a few games where i've thought "i wonder if this guys hacking" and then just moved on.

If i could run my ladder replays through sc2 gears and see "HackyMcHackerson used hacks in that game" or "94% chance of hacks in this game" preferably with time data as evidence to check the replay. I'd go and report him.

Detection is the first issue followed by the community reporting people to blizzard when they have proof. Im sure if HackyMcHackerson gets enough reports next to his name he will be banned.
I'm in the bubblewrap league ... i just keep getting popped
Johnnysc2
Profile Joined June 2012
United States4 Posts
June 15 2012 01:13 GMT
#120
I'm pretty sure that the good hackers will only use the production tab and minimap hack, which would be almost undetectable save for a program that the user had to use that took screenshots randomly. But I'm pretty sure that Blizzard has said they will not allow 3rd party programs like that.
Prev 1 4 5 6 7 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Wardi Open
12:00
#58
WardiTV667
OGKoka 358
Rex99
IntoTheiNu 23
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
OGKoka 334
Lowko215
Rex 101
MindelVK 33
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 7541
Jaedong 2081
firebathero 1165
actioN 731
Mini 481
Rush 248
PianO 161
Mong 77
Barracks 76
Killer 63
[ Show more ]
Sharp 57
ToSsGirL 52
Sea.KH 50
hero 22
soO 19
HiyA 18
Icarus 14
Sacsri 14
Terrorterran 13
Dota 2
XcaliburYe161
Counter-Strike
zeus791
x6flipin485
oskar51
Other Games
singsing1591
B2W.Neo1215
crisheroes329
Hui .259
Sick230
Liquid`LucifroN186
QueenE30
hiko6
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick468
Counter-Strike
PGL187
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 16
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 6
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos3321
Upcoming Events
Monday Night Weeklies
3h 54m
Replay Cast
9h 54m
Sparkling Tuna Cup
20h 54m
WardiTV Korean Royale
22h 54m
LAN Event
1d 1h
Replay Cast
1d 19h
WardiTV Korean Royale
1d 22h
LAN Event
2 days
OSC
2 days
The PondCast
2 days
[ Show More ]
LAN Event
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
LAN Event
4 days
Korean StarCraft League
4 days
CranKy Ducklings
4 days
WardiTV Korean Royale
4 days
LAN Event
5 days
IPSL
5 days
dxtr13 vs OldBoy
Napoleon vs Doodle
Replay Cast
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
WardiTV Korean Royale
5 days
LAN Event
6 days
IPSL
6 days
JDConan vs WIZARD
WolFix vs Cross
Replay Cast
6 days
Wardi Open
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL 21 Points
SC4ALL: StarCraft II
Eternal Conflict S1

Ongoing

C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 4
SOOP Univ League 2025
YSL S2
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025

Upcoming

BSL Season 21
SLON Tour Season 2
BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
HSC XXVIII
RSL Offline Finals
WardiTV 2025
RSL Revival: Season 3
Stellar Fest
META Madness #9
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026: Closed Qualifier
eXTREMESLAND 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
SL Budapest Major 2025
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.