Could I cheat as a Pro?

[@STYKO]

I did not mention this incident in the video, but at IEM Dallas 2024 there were few SSDs stolen from Tournament Area by a random "fan" who shouldn't be there. He had full control of the SSDs for some time and could have tweaked virtually anything. Stewie2k, NiKo and NertZ were the players affected by this. Luckily, the thief was found, and players had to set up brand-new SSD for the rest of the tournament. But again, you can let your imagination run wild with what could have been, if he just returned those SSDs back after some malicious activity. Full story, with clips included, is here: www.dust2.us/news/49286/nbgee12-detained-permanently-banned-following-ssd-theft-at-iem-dallas-2024

[@glashausAimz2]

I think the worst part about cheating is that the good players dont get the credit they deserve, while at the same time getting "counter" cheated by the opposing team, when they suspect someone is "too good"/also cheating. This literally left me with a broken mental over the years. If i then suspect someone is cheating, i just stop playing well as i consider it a waste of effort from there on out. however, the guy could also have just a good day, which is totally possible. on LAN i never had that issue, but once you go to a few LANs and compare it to the online lvl you notice a vast difference in terms of how often people get "lucky". for me at least it's a very demotivating situation.

[@dirtydanyt]

nbg and emiya still show up to frag LANs to watch 😂

[@Zendyes_]

Nah they wouldnt let them in surely

[@glashausAimz2]

@@STYKO why did my comment get deleted?

[@mrotss]

im glad you mentioned hardware cheats but there are a lot of people i am suspicious of for using hardware cheats and nothing is done from TOs.

[@laserlord_]

The drawings raise the video quality immensely, the are so nice

[@knucklesmyman]

can't be a cheating video without hans niemann

[@STYKO]

This drama was peak of chess world.

[@neartheend666]

@@STYKO oh it's not anymore :D

[@robertgrindley8234]

Why do I hear vibrating? I thought everyone handed in their phones.

[@mynamejot8623]

Fr. Made me care about chess for about three weeks

[@9-ac-7]

Bzzzz bzzzz, to be real though its highly unlikely that hans cheated against magnus​@@robertgrindley8234

[@Sparkles]

The vibrating keyboard is a wild one I'd never even considered. Great vid.

[@STYKO]

Thank you 🥹🫶🏼

[@nartouthere]

styko you forgot about the way they do it in chess ;)

[@goatking16yes47]

😳✝️

[@-Zen1tsu-]

Tell me how pls

[@nartouthere]

@@-Zen1tsu- look up Hans Niemann chess cheating situation

[@AnirudhTammireddy]

@@-Zen1tsu- Listen Jamie, IT'S A FINGER IN THE BUM

[@liqt830]

@@-Zen1tsu- Anal vibrator that vibrates at different strength and speed to give info...

[@cr34t_]

Smart glass and hardware checks should definitely be a part of the biggest tournaments. Also is it possible to hear the crowd/casters even with soundproof booths and Acezone headsets?

[@STYKO]

Soundproof booths are not really a standard in CS2 world, I have not played in one for a LONG time. However, through headsets you can hear crowd, yes. Not specific words, but you can definitely feel the "vibration" when full stadium starts screaming and this makes players aware of something happening, like a timing.

[@davids8127]

​@STYKO That should be the organisers responsibility either by having soundproof boots or not allowing this kind of behaviour like in tennis or pool where people have to stay quiet. It must be really disturbing for inexperienced players to handle the crowds spoiling situations.

[@cr34t_]

@@davids8127 The last thing we want is forcing the crowd to be quiet. Also, I think that there is definitely an element of skill to crowd reading.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@cr34t_ "there is an element of skill to cheating"

[@cr34t_]

@@TheSuperappelflap Define cheating. There isn't an element of skill to downloading a random EXE and running it. But there is an element of skill to understanding what crowd noise means.

[@enso8762]

Great video. I think the most logical way to prevent cheating with peripherals is have a few standard ones, which the TOs will provide instead of players having their own.

[@ozelot131]

The first one is experienced in the British version of "who wants to be a millionaire" in tv. One guy had a few persons nearby and whenever he was unsure or though about something wrong the other persons cough. I'm not sure how they get caught but now is the crew more focused on what the crowd does.

[@psyched91]

The illustrations are a really nice addition! :)

[@rinleez]

Yeah, especially the 100k when he says millions xD

[@psyched91]

@@rinleez Thanks for ruining the moment :P

[@joaocrespo1065]

Hey Styko have you considered making a video about the routine of an regular PRO? Things like how they divide the time among training methods ( aimbots, PUGS, watching demos, team strategy, etc...) and how it changes depending on team role ( IGL, Awper, anchor...)

[@TraeBaldwin]

Would be very helpful

[@jonttu69]

Great video as always. Still loving the transparency you give to the top levels of counter strike

[@STYKO]

Glad you enjoy it! :)

[@kenneths5536]

Interesting aspect you mention with the fans watching live. Not that it's related to sports or e sports, but it made me think of that one time a dude cheated in "Who wants to be a millionaire". Having a guy in the people mass coughing every time he mentioned the correct answer. He got busted. I hope they will raise a bit attention to this, because it like you said, can potentially give an important round or 2 that will make the difference. Really good video mate, keep them coming!

[@STYKO]

I did not know about this incident. Just looked it up and it is indeed crazy. If I knew I would include it in the video as an example 😅

[@Omanjack]

Another super high quality video from STYKO. Great insight and straight to the point, most KZbinrs would drag this out for another 30mins without saying anything more.

[@Zelli0n_]

Another great video 👏The drawings were definitely a big part of it. Interesting to see this topic from a Pro POV

[@justin-hurd]

As a systems manager, the amount of lax treatment especially around usb access to the computers or the hosters not providing preapproved preferials is just.. concerning. I think your points and the points in the comments are 100% correct, and not only do i think the anticheat needs work, but the organization of these events need to be reevaluated as well.

[@tymol777]

hardware on bigger tournaments should be provided for the players by organisers that includes mouse and keyboard, they could sell them later signed by pros for charity or something like that

[@tonyhawk6360]

Loving the content, it’s so great seeing an experienced professional give such insight

[@znazzer8]

great video. about fog of war in real sports, in baseball the world series winning Houston Astros were caught stealing signs (signs the catcher uses to tell the pitcher what pitch to throw) and relaying them to batters by making banging noises, most notably with a trashcan. if you're curious about this breach of 'fog of war' irl you should check out Jomboy's video about the Astros sign stealing

[@STYKO]

Super interesting! I didn’t know that at all, have to look it up 😄

[@janholecek2692]

I would love to see some pro making a documentary about trying to sneak cheats into a tournament, perharps with some help of external software expert. That would be an amazing video and a very important piece of evidence for this cheating discussion. I'm no sofware expert, but im pretty sure that players own peripherals can introduce possibility of cheating. A keyboard can have a multiple devices connected via single usb, like a hub, that connects something else along that keyboard. Like imagine that they could boot to their own version of windows from that keyboard or something like that

[@PeterKarlPeter]

Very interesting to hear more about how it works behind the scenes at the bigger tournaments. Great video

[@Crossovahh]

It sucks, but even in the major leagues of traditional sports there are still cheating scandals. Where there's money to be made, some people will try to cheat to get it.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

funny how high level cheaters get caught in other sports all the time but in cs no tier 1 pros have been banned in living memory. hmmm....

[@go0s3cx20]

@@TheSuperappelflap def something fishy in the tier 1 scene...

[@gon8330]

@@TheSuperappelflapdidn’t pretty much 50% of pro teams use the coach bug😂

[@l1ghtny]

@@TheSuperappelflapyou have a very short memory then. If by Tier 1 you mean top 5 teams in the world, allow me to introduce KQLY. And countless other less well known people who played actual pro tournaments and qualifiers

[@calmsh0t]

you are missing a crucial point!! the fact that your guys mice and keyboards aren't checked is INSANE to me. faaaaar easier than putting some vibrating device or anything inside of your peripherals is using the internal memory of a device to load a script for cheating onto it. this is such a massive oversight, that I can hardly believe it ... ALSO keep in mind, the lesser known a cheat is, the more unlikely it is to be detected. So even if the anti cheat would potentially be able to detect a cheat on you peripherals, if it is well made and noone is using it aside from you, there is almost a non-existing chance to get detected.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

people have pointed that out since at least 2015 and neither valve, tournament organizers nor team orgs have made any publicity about this glaring cybersecurity issue or done anything about it. conclusion is that everyone and their grandma could be cheating on lan, and many likely are.

[@kmr_tl4509]

What you're looking for is a USB that: 1. has a way to deliver a payload 2. has an admin privilege escalation exploit (remember, only admins can run executables) 3. installs a cheat that is undetectable by VAC and faceit 4. installs the cheat so that monitoring tools (so aggressive that it will notify an admin if you open anything but CS2 and voice chat) can't sense it It's possible. It's also equally possible that a micrometeorite falls from the sky and one-taps you. But you don't walk around wearing a combat helmet. The talk "If you give a mouse a microchip", a commonly brought up example (see: Timeisbutawindow) really just demonstrates step 1, which is 100x easier than the rest of the steps.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@kmr_tl4509 you don't need to be able to run executables or have privilege escalation to inject a cheat. Worst case you need to reboot the pc. This is Microsoft windows we are talking about.

[@ZdendaTike]

@@kmr_tl4509 youre naive...

[@benshulz4179]

​@@kmr_tl4509 you dont need to deliver anything to the computer. Imagine what your mouse does when you spray. The only reason your computer knows that your mouse moved like it did, is because the mouse told your computer how it moved. Now imagine you have internal mouse cheat. The mouse might be programmed to do perfect AK spray or time your USP shots so each one is perfectly accurate. There is no cheat running on your PC, it just believes what the mouse is saying, like all good PCs should. But the mouse is lying.

[@prod.byniclas]

Great video, the drawings really support the story telling!

[@singular9]

"The only thing more naive that thinking everyone is cheating is thinking no one does" Great words. I hate getting into matches and everyone says "no one cheats". Its silly. The community has been brainwashed to think that cheaters are far and few between, yet they have never booted up a single demo. I quit CS2 outright. Premier was unplayable, so I said "Okay, I will just keep playing face it like I always have". Within the last 3 months, I have had 27 cheaters banned on faceit (Level 7-8). Why are they even cheating at such a low rank, I have no idea, but it made it impossible to gain or lose ELO correctly, so I gave up. That is just too much of a waste of my time. Now I am enjoying the life of single player games.

[@SoftPotatoable]

Another possible way that you didn't mention that would be very hard to detect would be through the coaches. Coaches don't have to sit down and look at a screen and they could easily glance at the crowd and get information with the way you mentioned, and they could pass that information to the players through the vibration of their steps, which I'm sure players can feel, just something maybe worth paying attention to. Good video and I'm glad you're bringing attention to it to maybe fix any security gaps that they may have

[@pauls.3645]

Big Respect for your content and the person you represent while being a CS pro. Youre one of the few making us look good!

[@decadent5341]

Appreciate these videos. Cant wait for your post-career as a hltv reporter ;) Would LOVE for you to meet with a software dev and talk more about keyboards/mouse software

[@hazed0m]

Great job done! Interesting in a way how professional is opening hidden space in our view as spectators.

[@victorpandolfi4147]

super cool video idea and execution

[@STYKO]

Thank you very much! 😍

[@matejpotrusil1464]

O.J. Styko vibes xd

[@nicolaithune]

It is not possible to cheat on VAC secured servers - Case closed.

[@palek555]

he tells it like it is

[@xilef_ow]

This you have to read the fair play guidelines

[@sigvestein]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="25">0:25</a> "millions of dollars" - shows 100.000 dollars.

[@STYKO]

whoops, good catch. little typo :D

[@yalchi13]

Honestly, Great Video

[@TheSuperappelflap]

1. People can put files in for example images on steam servers so only whitelisting steam doesnt prevent people from downloading cheats and you can code a program to decrypt them in notepad in five minutes 2. Admins at tournaments are often clueless kids barely over 18 who dont even play the game and are just there as window dressing to make it seem more legit. 3. players being allowed to plug in their own hardware is ridiclous, you shouldnt even have access to a usb port. put the pcs under the stage and have TO set up all the hardware. 4. all peripherals should be fresh out of the sealed box from the factory, why is anyone allowed to bring their own hardware that they can have done all kinds of modifications to? 5. you dont need to be able to launch an executable file to inject cheats 6. software anticheat works based on software signatures and cant detect unknown private cheats which pro teams (or individual players) could easily afford. 7. the risk of cheating on lan is not high, no one ever gets banned above tier 3 regional tournaments.

[@benshulz4179]

plugging the hardware isnt an issue, its that it's your own hardware. You don't need any software cheats when your hardware can do literally anything (except read/change game state, that'd be a software cheat)

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@benshulz4179 wouldn't hurt to not have accessible usb ports though, as another layer of security on top of having factory new hardware and the metal detectors

[@ratchy1231]

Software cheats are pretty unlikely to get through (although never impossible of course). Valve provides guidelines for tournament organizers to lock down the players' machines, including firewall setups, blocking access to any USB storage device and logging every action happening, including file operations. It's all detailed publicly on their GitHub repository. I do agree their hardware should be monitored more carefully.

[@user-zs3hy1hs7i]

I started playing Counter-Strike last day of 1.3, I played 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6. I was good enough to be in invite channels on IRC where semi-pro and professional players were, and played in team mixed of these players (mostly Swedish players) in online invite cup , which a lot of players watched through HLTV. I quit as CSGO came a long and I had to concentrate on studies as I attended a university. I came back about a year or two later, got together with a lot of old school players, plenty of ex pro and current ones. We played for a couple of days, till they started talking openly about them using cheat on online tournaments, because "no one take these tournaments seriously anyways". I have a hard time remember which tournaments, but I think it might have been faceit tournaments and other platforms. I don't want to name drop everyone, but I can give a teaser of three players for people to speculate on. Swedish players, been around of a long time, their alias starts with k, h, p. I think all are retired. Funny enough everyone says flusha cheats, but I can tell you he does not. If there is one professional player I can say did not cheat, it is him.

[@user-zs3hy1hs7i]

Also, let not forget that 101 from old Dignitas used aimbot online. He had a tendency to rage toggle when you outplayed him. He was very prone to think other cheated against him, so he would rage toggle. Now we are talking old school stuff.

[@Trickzter1337]

I feel like players should be in closed booths like they used to be back in the day so they cant easily hear casters, it happens way too often when plays are being made just because they can hear the crowd or casters shouting, its bullshit and makes the matches unfun to watch.

[@TraeBaldwin]

Agreed. We’ve been asked to not make as much noise as the crowd cause we’re giving them info.. bro we’re just having fun, you figure out their audio or lack their of

[@steverho3280]

There actually was a pretty interesting article about sound booths. It’s incredibly expensive, and also most pros said that it actually amplifies the vibration that the crowd gives out.

[@Flare97]

After experiencing the Wonderful_Y incident firsthand, I've been thinking the same. I think most cheaters are radarhacking in ESEA leagues and cashcups.

[@AB-cg9np]

That’s my belief too. You can see high lvl players in pugs with way too much information on rotations. They never fall for fake executes or rotations. It’s just hard ti prove, but the assumption is there.

[@Ziegel8171]

I would have guessed that sound cheats so you hear stepps louder or maybe device in the keyboard where a person can speak to you through headset which would be safer because when someone else takes the headset the person just stops talking

[@forasago]

To me the elephant in the room is all the fistbumping and shoulder tapping coaches are doing in recent years.

[@t1k1z70]

easy: select or create a manufacturer that will supply regulated, see-through peripherals to be used as official hardware. implement with new game license ruleset. hard: increase security measures by checking ssd's, bringing in more admins, restricted access to pcs, cameras on the toilet, etc. impossible: make working anticheat

[@rebane2001]

The no internet part is probably just an allowlist, meaning you can still smuggle data through the Steam servers. This has been historically used at tournaments by abusing workshop maps, and considering the state of CS2 security I wouldn't be surprised if a vulnerability would allow something like this to work with minimal user interaction.

[@STYKO]

To my knowledge (I forgot to add this in the video), you can not download ANYTHING from workshop. If you want to play and warmup on special map from workshop, you need to request admins to pre-download it for you on your SSD days before tournaments actually start. I assume that during this down-time, admins check if workshop maps might be connected to some malicious file etc.

[@rebane2001]

@@STYKO Makes sense, especially if it's a vector used in the past. Still, having Steam servers available allows many vectors for smuggling stuff - chat messages, profile pictures, steam cloud, inventories, profiles, settings, game stats, sessions etc. I'm sure many of these are already considered by the organizers and blocked, but I'm also sure some vectors that could be used are definitely still out there.

[@RadicalInteger]

if the computers have thunderbolt ports, you can set up a dma card, maybe disguised inside the keyboard

[@Qyr3]

What you could do is requiring the players to just tell their gear. The organizers could have a gear storage and would provide the needed gear, so noone can access it and do tricks on it. It would require to buy some stuff, but the reward would be clear

[@STYKO]

That was brought up as a potential solution but many players use custom made or customized gear (mouse with specific skates, personalized keyboards etc.) which would made this a bit of a headache...

[@Qyr3]

@@STYKO Yeah it could do this, I see that point. But some "individualizations" are more cosmetic than anything. Maybe the skates are not easily replacable, but thats what could be provided as well. For the keyboards I dont see many reasons for indiviualization, I think a standard keyboard should be enough (the preferred one ofc). Also players should be allowed to bring individual settings, this totally make sense, but they should be checked before. Maybe send in some harddrive prior or similar

[@Trzyzet]

Most of the gaming mice and keyboards are just a tiny computers with a CPU, RAM, etc. Skilled person can write a custom firmware which can contain some cheats, like a triggerbot (easiest to made for microcontrolers) for example.

[@benshulz4179]

you cant write triggerbot, you'd need to read computer memeory for that. (and risk getting caught by anticheat when a random program starts up) But you could program perfect AK spray or bunnyhop scripts.

[@user-sh2yk7oy3q]

Since have access to steam can maybe use that for storing files disguised as cfg files in order to run simple things like trigger and aim, maybe some type of sound esp

[@TheSlayerCompany]

I dont understand why valve said "we dont want to have an kernel anti chat, bc of your privacy" while we in r6 play with faceit antichat, battleeye + MOSS bro like idgaf u can have my passport just give me a good anticheat

[@SmurffNationn]

Interesting point re: real sports and fog of war. One real sport that wrestles with this is baseball. A team actually won the MLB’s 2019 World Series through sign stealing.

[@csbenek]

Nice video. At the start you talk about your config file that you need to send to the org a few days before the event. Is it your autoexec?

[@MrGrifft]

Crowd cheating has always been concerning to me, surely it would be easy to put up 1 way glass? IIRC there was a player who handed in 1 phone to admin, but had 2nd in pocket & had a friend in the crowd that would call them if they're going A, if not, it would be B. The body scanners deal with that now, but it was suggested before to use a Faraday cage.

[@Smaul1]

interesting video

[@prodigy227]

I think modifying personal peripherals like the mouse and keyboard is the most underrated potential of cheating. Why plug-in a separate USB device or sth else when you already pluged-in your (modded) peripherals?

[@villageslayer8474]

Embedding hardware cheats in peripheral devices is definitely possible,

[@Darker1607]

I honestly think a good idea is that each team sends in a list of the mouse and keyboard they use to the tournament organizers so they can provide the hardware. I have heard of methods where it's possible to inject cheats into the mouse itself, something that would mostly get un notised by the organizers.

[@lesiux1]

What do you think about new feature from Razer keyboard - Snap Tap? Should it be allowed on tournaments?

[@exceptionaldifference392]

Allowing player peripherals means anyone committed can get a custom hack on the system. Needs to changed. One thing you didn't mention which I fairly sure is happening is use of beta blockers? Sometimes used by concert musicians for nerves. You can tell in some post match interviews, seems certain teams have used these especially on their first major stage appearances...

[@maekoh]

There's absolutely no way to stop cheaters at big events and potential cheaters on tier 1 teams, simply cause there's no way to fully prevent it. You can do a lot to prevent certain types of cheating, but every single day ingame cheats get better and better. With the steady rise of hardware cheats, it's becoming almost undetectable to even the most prestigious anticheats, and only requires a tiny device somewhere at your desk/tournament setup. Because it doesn't interact at all on the software side, there's nothing the AC would even be able to detect at even the slightest. And without a doubt, I guarantee at least 1 tier 1 pro has used this kind of cheat in the past couple years. A lot of esports in general relies on morality from the players, but when money and fame is involved, it's inevitable that some people can't resist the urge to cheat and obtain those prizes. And if software cheats are still things getting detected at big events, it's still quite concerning for competitive integrity going forward.

[@benshulz4179]

hardware cheats are not even checked though - Why is nobody talking about that? Anti-recoil mouses were sold at one point. Mouses that had no software cheat, just made your shots more accurate when spraying.

[@Lucaash]

mouse/keyboard driver imbued with cheats is possible, does not matter if it gets sent to be checked and installed or it gets installed when the peripheral is plugged in. These kinds of sophisticated cheats would be expensive. I do not thing pros themselves are the target market, but rather orgs. You can have simple cheat that would slightly adjust aim in 20-30% of cases when a shot would be an extremely close miss to the head. Players themselves would not even notice, and in pro settings where players are already godly it could make just enough difference. And players also would not be alarmed, because of course during the tourney they are trying their best. We already know that there are cheat devs specializing in development of these kinds of cheats, regular premier player has no use for it, so by deduction someone is buying them. The only way to prevent this I think is to disallow players from bringing their own equipment. There should be a list of choices they can use and train on, then HW which is confirmed to not have been tampered with will be provided to them before the game.

[@Lucaash]

maybe question for Styko, have you ever played with HW that was given to you by the org? thinking in retrospect, did they try to encourage you to use it in a significant official match? did it feel better?

[@tomtech1537]

Yes software can and has been used in tournaments in two of the vectors in your 'ideal' scenario. In both of these there's methods that result in no (obvious) malicious disk activity, no extra executable running and obviously undetected by anti cheat. These methods are known/obvious to anyone that has spent any time in the space. - peripherals - steam logged in I don't understand your point about providing an SSD I think that's wild. Imo the TD should setup the device with the only modification permitted being the users config which is provided before the tournament and setup then The only way to prevent this is to lock physical access to the PC (ie: no ports accessible), tournament provided peripherals (yes all of them) with anti-tamper devices fitted to their interfaces to avoid using them as a hub and to run the game offline, you need something that can't download from the internet at all (including steam). Even normies understand that you can load scripts or files onto your peripherals, it's absolutely wild to me that peripherals are not controlled and I would be shocked if the number of cheaters isn't in the 5%+ range in pro play. If you want to continue the analogy to other sports it's probably > 50%.

[@aviansays]

Cues from agents in the crowd literally just happened in American Major League Baseball and lead to a world championship. 😣

[@shadowshudder]

hey styko, loved the video, but i’d be remiss to say that i was slightly disappointed that you never specifically mention the possibility of cheats injected via cellular devices. there’s an old video on youtube called “project: cocaine” that demonstrates the possibility of this, and it was made in 2016. a very subtle trigger bot injected would not be as obvious as a blatant wh for instance, couple that with admin collusion and i think there’s a very high possibility that something like that has happened before. anything that can happen, will happen, given enough time.

[@MRMIKE276]

There should be someone hired secretly with the job of intentionally cheating at various tournaments. Like a software guy hired to test website or system vulnerabilities.

[@AB-cg9np]

I made a new account to see what’s in the lower levels. Full of smurfs and cheaters. Smurfs are there to boost others and cheaters are either previously banned or boosting (free or paid). I try not to try hard and give a fair chance to both sides, I use pistol only or smgs at times against cheaters. Only pick up a gun to give it to my teammates after the round ends but I don’t use it, so they need to win their own matches with equal or minimum impact.

[@francescomancetti8327]

Cheaters always have the edge over organizers, in any sport or domain. It's easier to find an exploit in a set environment than to think about every exploits possible and counter them

[@TheSuperappelflap]

problem is that cs tournament organizers dont even do the bare minimum to prevent cheating

[@francescomancetti8327]

@@TheSuperappelflap ofc they do have you watched the video? they even did doping controls at some point

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@francescomancetti8327 As long as they allow players to bring their own hardware, they are literally not doing the bare minimum. Any other measures they do take are just for show, as long as players can plug in their own, modified hardware, that they brought from home, which can easily inject cheats into any windows computer without any direct input from the player.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@francescomancetti8327 as long as players can bring own hardware with God knows what modifications, they are not doing bare minimum

[@maekoh]

@@francescomancetti8327 They're taking SOME precautions, but nowhere near doing the bare minimum. The fact that keyboards/mice aren't checked means that a player could easily insert hardware cheats and have it connect through whichever peripheral, going completely undetected as it doesn't ever come in contact with the software.

[@Allmightho]

Velmi dobre spracovane video 👌

[@wupty7364]

i can’t wait to cheat in next major

[@AndrewJanusson]

RIP our boy Forsaken and word.exe.

[@Ciao-qv6lz]

You wouldn't have to use a usb stick. already some mouse and keyboards will come with a sort of flash drive built into it to install some of its drivers or software yo use with the peripherals so you could use a system like that. But you would atill run into all the other problems with the software protecting the PCs.

[@benshulz4179]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="232">3:52</a> Mouse or keyboard never gets checked? Anyone can easily write a simple an anti-recoil script to a mouse to make your AK sprays perfect. It can't be found by anticheats because it only changes inputs, and doesn't read any or edit computer memory. You could also have bunnyhop scripts in the keyboard. What the hell? Cheating sounds like it's incredibly straight forward if this is truly how "big" tournaments operate.

[@KeefeL]

Styko such a good guy, he coaches dishonest players

[@neartheend666]

What are your thoughts on rapid trigger/rappy snappy. Also can you use 8k mice/kbs on LAN ? What about all the alias configs?

[@shockat5070]

wonder if players are able to use their own hardware, i mean sdy was using that finalmouse something which costs like 300usd used and its hard to get so they couldnt just find a replacement for that, i really hope every single input is monitored, i mean afaik any1 could be using hardware scripts, all it takes to script is have a keyboard with binds in it and its not going to be detected by any anticheat unless its ai based or is measuring exact inputs, i wonder if their screens are at least recorded with some hardware just in case you needed to see their screen later... also i know one way to cheat and you can use it anytime anywhere in any match or even game, always, MAYBE NOT only in lan games but i doubt that, all it takes is to have cl_showfps enabled and look at your fps, if there is enemy behind the wall then your fps will drop by about 5% (when using fps_max 0, on average) and this is what it takes to cheat on for example faceit or all online tournaments, i mean like are they going to ban you for using this? should they? unless you make it obvious and stay behind the wall and give info to your team without ever seeing or hearing the enemy you cant get banned, you can still say things such "i think its B contact" after your fps drop by 20%, how can they tell? you can also just look for specific fps lineups before with your team just so you can know exactly how much enemies are behind the wall depending on how mutch your fps drop later, this can be used to spot B lurkers on mirage without even jump spotting, just look into wall on car so your fps dont drop when there are players on mid and if there is lurker in B apps your fps will drop by like 5-10% depedning on how good your pc is and you can use that info to for example nade the mf or just tell your teammates "i think i heard B apps", like even if faceit admin is going to check demo he would just think youre lucky stupid, its that easy, afaik in 1.6 lans it was prohibited to use any fps show commands just because of that simple reason edit in csgo when using very very weak gpu as for example gt 9500 your fps would drop from 70 to 15 when enemy was close behind the wall and if you were using boost player contrast setting, but dont know how is that in cs2

[@benshulz4179]

Even if FPS is really consistent across PCs then that wouldn't really be considered cheating imo. BUt that is very clever way to exploit the game, reminds me of that hacking scandal where you could hack anything by checking how much electricity the CPU needed. Also computers cannot detect keyboard scripts. The only reason your PC knows you're pressing a button is because the keyboard says you are. And the keyboard could always lie... Can't believe they're not having video of the players from above to check this.

[@KU8XLCS]

where did you get these pictures from CS maps, they look amazing

[@dedeath]

as memed as valve gets with VAC, I do think if they were to perfect an AI anticheat, it could potentially solve cheating. I really hope whatever theyre cooking up works in the long run. mice and keyboards can still load cheats pretty easily and im sure there are many ways to keep it hidden.

[@benshulz4179]

You don't even need to load cheats on mouse. Imagine there's "perfect AK spray" button. No need to load into game, mouse just tells PC it sprayed with AK perfectly. PC can't tell if you did or not.

[@tomia89]

A bit more active play recently, the premier is unplayable there is always atleast +3 cheaters on both sides on every game… comp is bit better but still almost always 1-3 cheaters on both sides. Only like 2-3 games for over 20 games when there was none or 1 at best, and you really can see difference when there is none

[@ilovecoldplayyyy]

It is so ez to use files installed in the mouse or the keyboard drivers. And this kind of anticheat will never detect this because it’s hardware and not software sided. I think the amount of cheater is insane even in the really good teams. Just look at top tier sport events, how many people use doping just for the prestige and not even big prizepools. Imagine coming from a low income country with no future. People will do anything for this opportunity.

[@kirasmith1147]

which is why they audit the drivers and settings before letting the players use them..

[@benshulz4179]

You dont even need drivers, just program a "password" to your mouse. After you've done it, every time you hold M1 your mouse says to your PC that you're currently performing a perfect AK spray. Mouse never gets checked. Every spray in pro games could be cheated. This is such an easy cheat.

[@user-ye6dp4mu1k]

what if you want to warmup with aim trainers? can you request for other games to be installed on the ssd?

[@cm386464]

Great insights brother

[@Grafzaaiers]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="230">3:50</a> Well, there it is..

[@chrissrensen2311]

I honestly could not care less about cheating on the pro scene, if they don't act on the problem in the casual scene, then wtf did you expect? and without the casual scene, you will not have a viewerbase for pro games. If i had never played CS i would never watch a game. So if we want it to grow we need invasive anticheat

[@maekoh]

Had the game just been starting out, you would have a valid argument. But the amount of people who solely watch cs events and have either quit, or simply don't play anymore, is astronomically high. Because the community has been built for so many years, no matter how terrible the state of MM/premier is, the viewership and hype around cs events will still climb. Now if this was in year 1 or 2 of cs's history, they need all the retention they can get, so hyping up big matches when your game is in a terrible spot and your community is brand new, is damn near impossible.

[@themasterofdisastr1226]

I honestly don't think hardware cheating is really possible for a few reasons. While it is possible to reprogram the ARM-Chip on a Mouse or keyboard to achieve similar effects to the rubberDucky, even at the best of times this can only be 'undetected' if the devices sends emulated keyboard inputs. But even then - you'll need to execute commands. And I honestly can't think that programm activity is not monitored. But if it was not: The AC is likely to be a kernel-level one and if you are not dealing with absolute incompetence, this could only be bypassed with admin privileges, if at all. And hardware mods are rather easy to detect, assuming one didnt print their own PCB. Most plausible way I can think of is to have sb in the crowd signaling you. Its near undetectable and you only need a few key infos to stack the odds in your favor.

[@benshulz4179]

This is all incorrect. Why would you need to execute any commands? The mouse is an input device, just add a password to it, after which next time you hold M1 it does perfect AK-47 spray. PC can't tell if you really performed that motion. Easiest cheat of all time, there were some mouses that had this feature few years back. And mouses are not checked by big tournaments.

[@Maggie0582]

Yesterday the anti cheat worked bc a game stopped mid game and ended 8-8 no one surendered it just stopped

[@jurgenpeters1373]

I see the biggest issue with the hardware players can take to the events. You talked about making modifications to the hardware. But you can simply use them to inject any software onto the pc. Every keyboard is connected to the PC via USB. And if you have a USB connection, you can literally inject anything on the PC you want. If you have a USB connection, then they are not limits. Software cheats are so ofc realistic in tier 1 CS. And it would be so easy to prevent this: just dont let the players use their own keyboards and mouses and just prepare them for the players, like they do with the SSDs.

[@kirasmith1147]

"if you have a USB connection, you can literally inject anything on the PC you want" - this is completely false. The USB can only act as storage or an input device. Storage will be easily detected & probably logged to admins & it being an input device doesn't get you any closer to cheating

[@benshulz4179]

Why would you need to inject anything? Normally keyboard and mouse tell what you are doing. - But they can lie. They could lie you're doing a jump input every frame (to get perfect bunnyhops), they could say you are doing perfect spray, counterstrafe, a pixel-perfect jump or grenade line-up.

[@kirasmith1147]

@benshulz4179 Scroll wheel already does inputs as fast as the server will accept, this doesn't allow perfect bhops. You don't know what you're talking about. Counter strafes are not hard to hit, there's no point in cheating and possibly detected in the demo. For lineups, if you're consistently hitting them, people will notice what's up, and regular lineups are fine. It's not worth doing

[@benshulz4179]

@@kirasmith1147 The point is whether the cheated action is hard or easy, is that it's incredibly simple to cheat if you can give your own hardware. Any cheat that trivalizes all of your inputs is a bad idea: Pros still need to be good at the game to play. You don't want to have some AI chip that plays the game for you, because the moment that doesn't work, you're toast. But small cheats like these are not possible to spot with AC or in demos (although if your inputs don't have randomness they can be spotted in demos)

[@kirasmith1147]

@benshulz4179 all hardware cheats suck and unless written very very well both suck super bad and are easily detected. at best they force you to play differently and still can be detected with a careful analysis. Just doesn't hold up for pros

[@Anon.G]

From my understanding all tournament PC's are windows. It would be nice to run the game on Linux and break everybody's software cheats

[@John-vu5qm]

If steam has whitelisted internet, couldn't one use the steam browser to install cheats?

[@yeyintaung7289]

Pros probably have to sign NDA and fix matches. U can't deny it with all these info locks and aim assists with pre-aim after info locks.

[@ok-mx1mi]

very interesting video, thanks!

[@fierykaku]

This sounds like "IF" i did it by OJ

[@skullfyre4100]

Pros could hide a gimmick in a personal item too. It's obvious that Karrigan cheats using black magic with his gemstones, ban that guy!

[@vadnegru]

Akuma vibes

[@Plexlo]

Of course, Flusha, cheater.

[@AnirudhTammireddy]

afkurs

[@kebabpastej]

It´s not that hard to load up a cheat in a keyboard or mouse, as long as you have an memory on it you can store it there and boot it up in game with an command. I dont understand why not tournaments bring the hardwares for each player before the game so that couldnt be possible, admins just open up in front of everyone and plug it in, problem should be solved on that point.

[@alberthochschulz5524]

bro, that noise reduction % is waaaay to high

[@alberthochschulz5524]

if you're reading this, in case you have way too much noise in dark spots: first of all better lightning and try to fix it with better camera settings. If you can't do that an easy way to get rid of the noise is to put a mask on low luminosity and do the noise reduction only there, so you don't loose sharpness in your light places

[@Littlefighter1911]

You can probably create a USB kernel level cheating device, just putting that out there.

[@m.i.l9724]

definitely betting platforms can make it happen(but more like a matchfixing form). like what they did to spirit (from no names to kato champion and now num 1 cuz of winning a minor quality event called blast) cuz every single game that includes a team that brings good amount of views feels kinda sus the better team all of a sudden losing 5v3s 5v2s whiffing shots that even themselves couldn't even imagine of. some players getting multi kills through smokes constantly, once or twice is normal but when it happens more than that it's kinda sus (spirit kato & navi major finals). CS turned into a betting shitshow lately the days of seeing UwU arrogant noob poggers away from top competition are over.

[@TheWaxPlayer]

Great video tbh

[@downnnnnn]

This is going to give credibility to the people who believe that all pros are cheating

[@erickmarretti5737]

“The only thing more naive then thinking everyone cheats.. is thinking that no one does”

[@naebalvas]

Played against STYKO once on Nuke in CS:GO matchmaking. He cheats 100%. JK, he's a sweat, but if I didn't know it was STYKO, I'd report the fuck out of him :D

[@STYKO]

Sorry 🫠

[@naebalvas]

@@STYKO hey no problem, I learned a few rush routes from that demo (:

[@vojtechdvorak8711]

Hey, where did you get those cs2 posters on Your wall???

[@TheManInaHat]

If money is involved all hardware, settings and software should be built and provided by the league the players are competing in. End of story.

[@Andreskope134]

9z won a tournament with audience calls