VAC should start banning HWID.

[Tuščias]

There's new HWID ban ( used by FiveM, CoD Warzone etc ) FiveM has a better one tho, basically cheaters would have to buy new PC's or motherboards to hack or play on Virtual Machines, there's no known spoofers or workarounds.

Cheaters would be gone in no time.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

there's no known spoofers or workarounds.

Actually you can spoof, or even change your hardware ID, and it been a thing for over decade.

Ban account is way more efficient and effective as the account lose access as a whole, even if a child looks up to spoof hardwareID, won't work if account has been banned, so they're force to making a new account.

Banning IP is not smart, as depending where person from, such as cybercafe, school, or etc, yea not great idea.

[Tuščias]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

there's no known spoofers or workarounds.

Actually you can spoof, or even change your hardware ID, and it been a thing for over decade.

Not with this new technique. "Hackers/Programers" can't really find what is getting banned, it's like a mix of windows fingerprinting and BIOS serial/UUID ban and maybe even CPU/GPU id's too. Changing BIOS UUID isn't that easy, sofwares usually don't work and flashing is too risky. Most of these cheaters would be unable to go through these steps anyway. I got banned on FiveM for various graphics-related mods ( messed something up, wasn't really suitable mods ) and I could do nothing about it only play on VMWare w/ 15fps.

Even while being geek myself it looks too complicated to me ( dumping bios, editing bios hex for ID's modification, compiling/saving and hoping u don't brick it ). An average cheater who is most likely 12yo or so would look at the steps list and start crying :D

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Actually you can spoof, or even change your hardware ID, and it been a thing for over decade.

Not with this new technique. "Hackers/Programers" can't really find what is getting banned, it's like a mix of windows fingerprinting and BIOS serial/UUID ban and maybe even CPU/GPU id's too. Changing BIOS UUID isn't that easy, sofwares usually don't work and flashing is too risky. Most of these cheaters would be unable to go through these steps anyway.

If man made it, then it can be undo by man.

Just like the claim when Riot for Valorant was blabbing how great thier anti cheat kernel level, it was bypass, and cheaters still found away. If you challenge them they find away, you have to go whole 9 yards to make it really inconvenient, such as hidden files, tracking ID, and more, but if someone was using VM, and just spoof their hardwareID then it falls apart on it own quickly.

To keep it short, yes banning by hardware is fine as a method, but shouldn't be the only method, as account has to be included for ban as well.

[Tuščias]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

Not with this new technique. "Hackers/Programers" can't really find what is getting banned, it's like a mix of windows fingerprinting and BIOS serial/UUID ban and maybe even CPU/GPU id's too. Changing BIOS UUID isn't that easy, sofwares usually don't work and flashing is too risky. Most of these cheaters would be unable to go through these steps anyway.

If man made it, then it can be undo by man.

Just like the claim when Riot for Valorant was blabbing how great thier anti cheat kernel level, it was bypass, and cheaters still found away. If you challenge them they find away, you have to go whole 9 yards to make it really inconvenient, such as hidden files, tracking ID, and more, but if someone was using VM, and just spoof their hardwareID then it falls apart on it own quickly.

Never said it cannot be bypassed, but it would take some time to develop proper spoofers and they probs would cost alot. And would not be as easy as clicking 1 button in the UI. Different mobo probs would need different spoofer also.

Yes. HWID/UUID's + IP + Mac + Account/Email should be banned. For now VAC only limits Steam profile + Bans Game from Secured Servers. Which is pretty much as "soft" ban as it can get.

[ุ]

I get the concept, but the more popular an anticheat method is. The more determined cheat makers are to bypass it.

Cheats and anticheats are akin to the arms race, making better weapons vs making better armor. They're always going to be head to head.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

If man made it, then it can be undo by man.

Just like the claim when Riot for Valorant was blabbing how great thier anti cheat kernel level, it was bypass, and cheaters still found away. If you challenge them they find away, you have to go whole 9 yards to make it really inconvenient, such as hidden files, tracking ID, and more, but if someone was using VM, and just spoof their hardwareID then it falls apart on it own quickly.

Never said it cannot be bypassed, but it would take some time to develop proper spoofers and they probs would cost alot. And would not be as easy as clicking 1 button in the UI. Different mobo probs would need different spoofer also.

Yes. HWID/UUID's + IP + Mac + Account/Email should be banned. For now VAC only limits Steam profile + Bans Game from Secured Servers. Which is pretty much as "soft" ban as it can get.

You're underestimating what these cheat makes can do, people do buy cheats at a pretty penny sometimes, like GTA V despite the price tag that goes $10 ~ $50 there lots quite a lot of people that willing to buy cheats, and I seen cheat prices range $15 ~ $30 on certain forums, and they get pretty strict of you not sharing it by tying to person hardware ID, and game ID sometimes. But from the cheat they made, the UI was fancy, or very simple to use with click of a button.

[ุ]

Not to mention, there's those out there who simply like a challenge. A lot of DRM crackers don't do it for pay, they do it for the challenge and to flip a middle finger to devs/storefronts.

If you don't think cheat makers can get pretty handy, go into a modded GTA5 lobby, and report the modder/cheater. Some cheats out there legit have protection scripts, that will boot people who report them off the server.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

Never said it cannot be bypassed, but it would take some time to develop proper spoofers and they probs would cost alot. And would not be as easy as clicking 1 button in the UI. Different mobo probs would need different spoofer also.

... or you could buy a console. HWID bans are commonplace there as it takes way more work than using existing tools (which already exist) to spoof, with that work being detectable. Spoofing a hardware serial number is indeed not as easy as clicking a button the UI, you'd also have to provide another serial number. Like taking the current, switching a few characters, and then click a button. Different mainboards wouldn't need a different spoofer as there's no need to write the spoofed serial into the board. It'll be totally enough to simply pass the spoofed ID on OS level (so basically, doubleclick the spoofer, confirm UAC prompt, spoof).

Originally posted by ツ Mistake ツ:

Yes. HWID/UUID's + IP + Mac + Account/Email should be banned. For now VAC only limits Steam profile + Bans Game from Secured Servers. Which is pretty much as "soft" ban as it can get.

IPs mean exactly 0 (I can change mine in 1 minute). The MAC can be changed from the Windows device manager, no need to even download any additional software. Email means absolutely nothing, look up the term "alias" (and that's only if you're too lazy to simply create a new email account).
It seems you're asking for bans on every single thing you can think of, despite not realizing that banning those things is utterly pointless (or in the case of IP bans, will ban innocent people simply by the way things work).

Buy a console.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Wow this guy is really just digging down in the pits of "I have no idea what i'm doing" trying to slap on IP bans onto HWID bans because both of those totally aren't already easily bypassed.

[cinedine]

Banning a machine is as dump as you can be. Steam offers services for internet cafes, so this is out of the question right away. I am sure these services that do are also glad to ban a whole household over someone cheating - which was most likely not the one bringing in the money.
And you sure as hell are a lucky customer if you buy a banned machine used.

[Kargor]

Goug back to bypassing things -- it's actually very trivial to bypass anything. If you can't change the item that's being used to identify a machine, you just have to work a different angle: don't send it to the server, send something else instead.

You're basically applying the patch at a different location. You may not be able to easily change a serial number burned into the CPU die or the BIOS, but you sure as hell can just patch the game to not even send this, but instead just "read" 12345 all the time.

That's the thing with PC -- users can do anything on their side. It's different from consoles that are tightly locked down to prevent using any software not cleared by the console manufacturer.

And that's why "anti cheat" will win individual battles when they come up with something new, but any territory they gained will eventually be retaken by the cheaters as they analyze and learn WTF just happened, and "anti cheat" will keep loosing the war.

Steam has acknowledged this in a way: as far as I know, their DRM is ridiculously weak, and pirates remove it as a routine operation. Their success doesn't come from the DRM -- it comes from attracting customers by not being an annoyance to them because their overblown DRM keeps punishing them for buying the game, while pirates can enjoy hassle-free games. It's the same thing, really -- any protection can and will be removed eventually. We've seen this with "Denuvo" as pirates have come to understand what it does and how it works, and we will continue to see this with whatever those anti-consumer-systems come up next.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Banning a machine is as dump as you can be. Steam offers services for internet cafes, so this is out of the question right away. I am sure these services that do are also glad to ban a whole household over someone cheating - which was most likely not the one bringing in the money.

Computers don't cheat, accounts do (Well actually it's people behind accounts, but since you cannot certify who is actually using an account at the moment cheat happens...)

That's why anticheat software stopped for the most part banning the hardware where the cheating happened. Just as you can't certify the person behind the account doing cheats is the owner of the account you can't certify the computer where the account is cheating from belongs to the account owner.

Banning either the account owner or the machine over cheating happening in an account is a measure bound to happen more collateral damage than good when brought up to a scale.
That's why this kind of measures (HWID, IP bans) were for years a thing for local server policing but not for policing the whole game.

[Brian9824]

They are already selling HWID spoofers on cheat sites, just google "fivem hwid spoofer"

[Satoru]

I literally can fake my HWID using freeware tools

[Tuščias]

Originally posted by Satoru:

I literally can fake my HWID using freeware tools

Hmm.. Try it: type "wmic path win32_computersystemproduct get uuid" in CMD write down your ID also serial using "wmic baseboard get product,Manufacturer,version,serialnumber", then see if using the freeware tools it changes. I highly doubt it.