Omnipresent Torrent Download [cheat]
Anna Ploof
PUBG developer Krafton has a new blogpost from its anti-cheat team, discussing the omnipresent problem of cheating in the game and what it's doing to tackle the villains. It begins with a pretty astonishing demonstration of the scale of the problem: "Every week, the PUBG: Battlegrounds Anti-Cheat Team identifies and imposes permanent bans on an average of 60,000 to a maximum of about 100,000 accounts involved in the use, distribution, or sale of illegal software."
Then the question might be why do players still encounter cheaters at all? Krafton says it recognises that "a more comprehensive approach" is needed and that, while it can go on banning accounts permanently till the cows come home, it needs a "fundamental solution" to analyse and track accounts doing the bad things.
Its focus is on accounts that are used for cheating in ranked mode, which it puts in two categories: first is "hijacked accounts" and second are accounts that "exploit the Survival Mastery Level system". The first is fairly self-explanatory, and Krafton says its analysis shows that roughly 85% of permanently banned accounts were created prior to PUBG's transition to a free-to-play model (January 2022). Krafton says this isn't because these accounts have been cheating for ages and only just got detected, but "rather implies that it is highly probable that cheaters obtained other players' accounts and started using illegal software on those acquired accounts."
It's a pretty straightforward trick. Scammers nick a legit account and sell it to a cheater, who then gets to happily feast on chicken dinners until Krafton bans the account: at which point they just buy another and keep on trucking.
The Survival Mastery Level element is that newly created accounts are not allowed to play in ranked matches until they reach level 80, but "certain illicit vendors have established so-called 'workshops' where players can gain Mastery Level experience points through repetitive actions facilitated by macros." They use these to boost new accounts and hacked accounts that don't have the required level, then sell them.
Krafton says it's had enough, and wants to address this supply of accounts that's behind so much of the cheating in PUBG. It says that while it was previously focused on pattern-spotting to identify hacked accounts, this had issues such as new forms of abuse going under the radar and the low accuracy of detection meaning it was difficult to apply serious punishments like a permanent ban (because there's always a chance that suspicious behaviour may well just be a legitimate player behaving suspiciously rather than cheating).
So the PUBG anti-cheat team "initiated the development of a machine learning model that could learn the characteristics and patterns of Mastery Level abuse." It began to be used this year and Krafton has "expanded and refined the criteria for detecting disruptive players" and found great success. "The number of bans issued against disruptive accounts has increased by over threefold compared to the period before the introduction of this model. Furthermore, the internal monitoring process for suspected disruptive players/accounts has shown continuous improvement, and the number of monitored account vendors has decreased. We have also observed an increase in the prices of these accounts."
Krafton's also built a machine learning model capable of detecting hijacked accounts and, while this doesn't seem to have been in use as long as the first, it has reached a stage "where we can ascertain the scale and attributes of these accounts and leverage this information effectively." It says it's currently working on enhancing this model's accuracy and applying it to "diverse anti-cheat measures."
The post ends by re-emphasising these measures are "targeting the source" of cheating, and telling players to ensure their accounts are secure by for example installing the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.
60,000 to 100,000 accounts a week is wild and shows why companies are looking at AI models in an effort to help stem the flow. Krafton's not the only big publisher with ideas here and some of the ideas developers have come up with in recent times really are funny. Call of Duty's latest anti-cheat tech gets into psychological warfare by making hackers have "hallucinations", while Ubisoft is smashing hackers in their thousands with something called QB but, perhaps wisely, no-one quite knows what it is.
Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."
My first steps into Linux happened around 2003 or 2004 when I was a student. The experiment lasted an hour or two. Being used to Windows, I was confused and quickly frustrated at having to learn the most basic stuff again.
By 2018, I was curious enough to try Ubuntu before settling on Fedora 29 on an unused laptop, and to get a Pi3B+ and Pi4, both currently running Raspbian. What changed? Well, first of all, Linux has certainly changed. Also, by that time I was not only curious but more patient than my younger self by that time. Reflecting on this experience, I reckon that patience to overcome the perceived usability gap is the key to Linux satisfaction. Just one year later, I can confidently say I am productive in both Windows as well as (my) Linux environments.
This experience has brought up two questions. First, why are more people not using Linux (or other open source software)? Second, what can the savvier among us could do to improve these numbers? Of course, these questions assume the open source world has advantages over the more common alternatives, and that some of us would go to ends of the Earth to convince the non-believers.
Believe it or not, this last issue is one of the problems. By far, I am not a Linux pro. I would rather describe myself as a "competent user" able to solve a few issues by myself. Admittedly, internet search engines are my friend, but step-by-step I accumulated the expertise and confidence to work outside the omnipresent Windows workspace.
On the other hand, how technophile is the standard user? Probably not at all. The internet is full of "have you switched it on" examples to illustrate the incompetence of users. Now, imagine someone suggests you are incompetent and then offers (unsolicited) advice on how to improve. How well would you take that, especially if you consider yourself "operational" (meaning that you have no problems at work or surfing the web)?
I recently upgraded my Pi3B+ to the new Pi4B, and with the exception of my usual reference manager, this unit fully replaces my (Windows) desktop. My next step is to use a Pi3B+ as a media center and gaming console. The point is that if we want people to use open source software, we need to make it accessible for everyday tasks such as the above. Realizing it isn't that difficult will do more for user numbers than aloof superiority from open source advocates, or Linux clubs at university.
It is one thing to keep preaching the many advantages of open source, but a more convincing experience can only be a personal one. Obviously, people will realize the cost advantage of, say, a Pi4 running Linux over a standard supermarket Windows PC. And humans are curious. An affordable gadget where mistakes are easy to correct (clone your card, it is not hard) will entice more and more users to fiddle around and get first hand IT knowledge. Maybe none of us will be an expert (I count myself among this crowd) but the least that will happen is wider use of open source software with users realizing that is is a viable alternative.
With curiosity rampant, a Pi club at school or university could make younger workers competent in Linux. Some of these workers perhaps will bring their SD card to work, plug it into any Raspberry Pi provided, and start being productive. Imagine the potential savings in regards to IT. Imagine the flexibility of choosing any space in the office and having your own work environment with you.
Wider use of open source solutions will not only add flexibility. Targetting mainly Windows environments, your systems will be somewhat safer from attacks, and with more demand, more resources will pour into further development. Consequently, this trend will force propriety software developers to up their game, which is also good for users of course.
In summary, my point is to reflect as a community how we can improve our resource base by following my journey. We can only do so by starting early, accessibly, and affordably, and by showing that open source is a real alternative for any professional application on a daily basis.
Very good article. I am far from an expert on Linux myself. I probably know more about Linux that the average Window user knows about his/her OS, just from having solved a few problems over the years. I have been using Linux since early in 2007, and have been completely Windows free for for about 5 years now. I didn't go the Raspberry Pi route, but rather bought off-lease Lenovo laptops and desktops from eBay and Newegg.
Excellent article! Linux has changed and I think it's predominance in the cloud is another good reason to introduce students to Linux via the Raspberry Pi. I've been teaching Python coding quite frequently in the past couple of years and I've been writing or underwriting Raspberry Pi's into those grants as a way of fostering an understanding of Linux and open source software to the students I have taught.
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