[Uehreka]

> Solving online game cheating is a billion dollar business.

The existence of an incentive does not guarantee the existence of a solution.

> HN has a lot of very clever people.

From the way people are talking about this issue (in this and the other thread) I don’t think any solution is going to come from HN commenters. Most of the people here are thinking about the problem from first principles and generating ideas that either:

- haven’t worked in over a decade because cheaters have workarounds

- overestimate the capabilities of AI or statistical methods

- underestimate cheaters or contain false assumptions about how cheaters think/behave

- underestimate how many people are demanding a solution to this and what kinds of strictures they’re willing to accept

- underestimate the backlash in store for any solution that isn’t 100% correct

It’s not like the incumbents are dummies. They’re constantly thinking about this from all angles and are willing to try anything.

[ndriscoll]

Obvious, cheap solution (to this controversy): make it optional. If people don't want to install a rootkit, let them play with other people who are willing to play in a rootkit-disabled session. I seem to recall this was how e.g. punk buster worked 20 years ago.

[therein]

This is technically already the case for many games already. For example for EasyAntiCheat, the EAC kernel module won't be loaded unless you join a server with EAC enabled.