BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Preventing a game cheating program          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Andrew Wilks Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:02 pm    Post subject: Preventing a game cheating program I'm looking for suggestions on how to prevent a hacker writing a game cheating program. You know the sort of thing, a program that you run before executing the game which allows you to add number of lives, increase scores, prevent death etc. I'm assuming the way they write these programs is run the game and monitor which variables (or memory locations?) change when you lose a life for example and then make their program continually write to these locations. So presumably one way around this would be to somehow change the location of these variables each time the game is run, making it impossible for a hacker to know which memory locations to poke into. Any ideas how to do this? Back to top Charles Appel Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:32 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program "Andrew Wilks" <nomail (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote Quote: I'm looking for suggestions on how to prevent a hacker writing a game cheating program. You know the sort of thing, a program that you run before executing the game which allows you to add number of lives, increase scores, prevent death etc. I'm assuming the way they write these programs is run the game and monitor which variables (or memory locations?) change when you lose a life for example and then make their program continually write to these locations. So presumably one way around this would be to somehow change the location of these variables each time the game is run, making it impossible for a hacker to know which memory locations to poke into. Any ideas how to do this? First, realize ther isn't anything you can do to stop a skilled and determined cracker. All you can do is make thing a bit more difficult. Having said that: A) You might try encrypting the data. B) Store the information in multiple places and, 1) perform checks against the extra data at random intervals. 2) use another copy of the data to perform checks at timed intervals - say every week or so, but not during the first week after installation. 3) perform an immediate check against a different set of data. This may temporarily fool the cracker into thinking he has found your protection. C) Visiting some of the cracker web-sites and studying the techniques they use. Some crackers tend to be rather open about their methods. There are doubtless many other methods available. Or you could simply decide not to care whether the players are cheating. (That's my preferred solution.) -- Charles Appel http://charlesappel.home.mindspring.com/ Home of Chuck's Poker Libraries for Delphi, Chuck's Video Poker and Chuck's Toys Back to top Andrew Wilks Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:28 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:32:32 GMT, "Charles Appel" <charlesappel (AT) mindspring (DOT) com> wrote: Quote: "Andrew Wilks" <nomail (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote in message news:6uhp01t3m0mm1t83eapt4l5n0tg2j97h8o (AT) 4ax (DOT) com... I'm looking for suggestions on how to prevent a hacker writing a game cheating program. You know the sort of thing, a program that you run before executing the game which allows you to add number of lives, increase scores, prevent death etc. I'm assuming the way they write these programs is run the game and monitor which variables (or memory locations?) change when you lose a life for example and then make their program continually write to these locations. So presumably one way around this would be to somehow change the location of these variables each time the game is run, making it impossible for a hacker to know which memory locations to poke into. Any ideas how to do this? First, realize ther isn't anything you can do to stop a skilled and determined cracker. All you can do is make thing a bit more difficult. Having said that: A) You might try encrypting the data. B) Store the information in multiple places and, 1) perform checks against the extra data at random intervals. 2) use another copy of the data to perform checks at timed intervals - say every week or so, but not during the first week after installation. 3) perform an immediate check against a different set of data. This may temporarily fool the cracker into thinking he has found your protection. C) Visiting some of the cracker web-sites and studying the techniques they use. Some crackers tend to be rather open about their methods. There are doubtless many other methods available. Or you could simply decide not to care whether the players are cheating. (That's my preferred solution.) Yes I know I can't stop a determined cracker. I already make checks to my EXE and protect everything with encryption, but its the memory resident attack I want to make difficult. When the game is running a cracker makes a program to run alongside in the background continuously updating the number of lives, scores etc. That's the attack I want to make difficult. Back to top Bruce Roberts Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:00 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program "Andrew Wilks" <nomail (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote Quote: When the game is running a cracker makes a program to run alongside in the background continuously updating the number of lives, scores etc. That's the attack I want to make difficult. I'm not sure how feasible this type of crack is under current Windows o/s. AFAIK memory allocated to a process is only available to that process unless a specific request for shared memory is made. You might want to check out the Win SDK documentation. At the very least you should be able to use the Win API to allocate and lock a memory segment for the variables that you want to protect. Back to top Andrew Wilks Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:00:30 -0500, "Bruce Roberts" <ber (AT) bounceitattcanada (DOT) xnet> wrote: Quote: "Andrew Wilks" <nomail (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote in message news:b2np011i79afor4qegto0hcvr3jcr8m4qb (AT) 4ax (DOT) com... When the game is running a cracker makes a program to run alongside in the background continuously updating the number of lives, scores etc. That's the attack I want to make difficult. I'm not sure how feasible this type of crack is under current Windows o/s. AFAIK memory allocated to a process is only available to that process unless a specific request for shared memory is made. You might want to check out the Win SDK documentation. At the very least you should be able to use the Win API to allocate and lock a memory segment for the variables that you want to protect. It's definitely possible because I've seen an example last year for a game I downloaded. I'm damned if I can remember the game now. I'll try and find it. Back to top KnK Guest Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:24 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program To test your game use cheat engine (is free), everyone with a minimal knowledge can use it.. Back to top Brian Clausing Guest Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:13 am    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program Andrew Wilks wrote: Quote: I'm looking for suggestions on how to prevent a hacker writing a game cheating program. You know the sort of thing, a program that you run before executing the game which allows you to add number of lives, increase scores, prevent death etc. I'm assuming the way they write these programs is run the game and monitor which variables (or memory locations?) change when you lose a life for example and then make their program continually write to these locations. So presumably one way around this would be to somehow change the location of these variables each time the game is run, making it impossible for a hacker to know which memory locations to poke into. Any ideas how to do this? You can encode the locations of the variables and encrypt the values of the variables. If it's sufficient to vary the locations at start up, allocating the variables on the heap (say, in dynmaic arrays), varying the order of allocation, might work. Dynamic scrambling is possible: store variables in an array and generate indices to them using a pseudo-random number generator. At random times, shuffle the indices around. Or you might represent all these variables as properties and swap their locations in a large storage area containing many dummy variables every time a value is read or written. I shouldn't care to debug this. Of course, a determined meddler willing to wade through the code can defeat any of this. There are many ways to encrypt values, but simply avoiding obvious representations might prevent casual rape. Let the property functions exor the values with a mask randomly chosen at some time. How are these alterations made? Is it with some kind of debugging program? Treating this as a problem of data integrity, you might keep a timely checksum, such as CRC, of the variables to detect unauthorized changes. Back to top Andrew Willks Guest Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:30 am    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:24:30 GMT, "KnK" <freddy(box)@aliceposta.it> wrote: Quote: To test your game use cheat engine (is free), everyone with a minimal knowledge can use it.. Thanks for that. I've just downloaded it and I'm experimenting! Back to top chuayongquan@hotmail.com Guest Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:02 am    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program It is very hard. Even most commercial games have some sort of trainer. Back to top Martin Harvey (Demon acco Guest Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Preventing a game cheating program On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:00:30 -0500, "Bruce Roberts" <ber (AT) bounceitattcanada (DOT) xnet> wrote: Quote: "Andrew Wilks" <nomail (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote in message news:b2np011i79afor4qegto0hcvr3jcr8m4qb (AT) 4ax (DOT) com... When the game is running a cracker makes a program to run alongside in the background continuously updating the number of lives, scores etc. That's the attack I want to make difficult. I'm not sure how feasible this type of crack is under current Windows o/s. AFAIK memory allocated to a process is only available to that process unless a specific request for shared memory is made. There's nothing to stop the cracker using the Debug API's to run his program as a debugger, at which point, he has full access. MH. 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