[maccard]

> The player is not banned. The player's account is banned. It is a free game- they can make as many accounts as they like.

You're right and my wording was sloppy. Often account bans come with "hardware" bans which are an attempt at stopping this from happening but like any other form of anticheat they're not 100% effective (and nor do they need to be to be worth having).

> The hardware will become widely available once kernel-level anticheat becomes widely used.

Sure, and then the barrier for entry has been raised to buying the correct hardware, having it and keeping it up to date.

> The only thing the anticheat will be able to detect is ordinary hardware.

That's a very bold claim. There's no reason to assume that the hardware will match exactly - I expect that as the cheaters pick devices to spoof the cheat detectors will look for (and find) discrepancies.