Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts pp 157–174Cite as

Countermeasures for Time-Cheat Detection in Multiplayer Online Games

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1316 Accesses

Abstract

Cheating is an important issue in games. Depending on the system over which the game is deployed, several types of malicious actions may be accomplished so as to take an unfair and unexpected advantage over the game and over the (digital, human) adversaries. When the game is a standalone application, cheats typically just relate to the specific software code being developed to build the application. It is not a surprise to find (in the Web and in specialized magazines) people that explain cheats on specific games stating, for instance, which configuration files can be altered (and how to do it) to automatically gain some bonus during the game. To avoid this, game developers are hence motivated to build stable code, with related data that should be securely managed and made difficult to alter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Baughman, N.E, Levine, B.N., Cheat-proof Playout for Centralized and Distributed Online Games, in Proc. of INFOCOM 2001, Anchorage (USA), IEEE, April 2001, 104–113.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Baughman, N. E., Liberatore, M., and Levine, B. N. 2007. Cheat-proof playout for centralized and peer-to-peer gaming. IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw. 15, 1 (Feb. 2007), 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Borella, M.S., Source models for network game traffic, Computer Communications, 23(4):403–410, February 2000.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cecin, F.R., Real, R., de Oliveira Jannone, R., Resin Geyer, C.F., Martins, M.G., Victoria Barbosa, J.L., FreeMMG: A Scalable and Cheat-Resistant Distribution Model for Internet Games, in Proc. of International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real-Time Applications, Budapest (Hungary), IEEE, October 2004, 83–90.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Chambers, C., Feng, W., Feng, W., and Saha, D. 2005. Mitigating information exposure to cheaters in real-time strategy games. In Proceedings of the international Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support For Digital Audio and Video (Stevenson, Washington, USA, June 13 - 14, 2005). NOSSDAV ’05. ACM, New York, NY, 7–12.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Cristian, F., Probabilistic clock synchronization, Distributed Computing, 3(3):146–158, 1989.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Cristian, F., Fetzer, C., The Timed Asynchronous Distributed System Model, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 10(6):642–657, 1999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cronin, E., Filstrup, B., Jamin, S., Kurc, A.R., An efficient synchronization mechanism for mirrored game architectures, Multimedia Tools and Applications, 23(1):7–30, May 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Cronin, E., Filstrup, B., Jamin, S., Cheat-proofing dead reckoned multiplayer games, in Proc. of 2nd International Conference on Application and Development of Computer Games, January 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Drummond, R., Babaoglu, O., Low-cost clock synchronization, Distributed Computing, 6(3):193–203, 1993.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. GauthierDickey, C., Zappala, D., Lo, V., and Marr, J. 2004. Low latency and cheat-proof event ordering for peer-to-peer games. In Proceedings of the 14th international Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support For Digital Audio and Video (Cork, Ireland, June 16 - 18, 2004). NOSSDAV ’04. ACM, New York, NY, 134–139.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gusella, R., Zatti, S., The accuracy of clock synchronization achieved by tempo in Berkeley Unix 4.3BSD, IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering, 15(7):47–53, July 1989.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Farber, J., Network game traffic modeling, in Proc. of the 1st Workshop on Network and system support for games, Braunschweig (Germany), ACM, April 2002, 53–57.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ferretti, S., Interactivity Maintenance for Event Synchronization in Massive Multiplayer Online Games, Ph.D. Thesis, Tech. Rep. UBLCS-2005–05, University of Bologna (Italy), March 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Ferretti, S., A Synchronization Protocol For Supporting Peer-to-Peer Multiplayer Online Games in Overlay Networks, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Distributed Event-Based Systems (DEBS’08), ACM Press, Rome (Italy), July 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ferretti, S., Cheating Detection Through Game Time Modeling: A Better Way to Avoid Time Cheats in P2P MOGs?, Multimedia Tools and Applications, Springer, Volume 37, Number 3, May 2008, 339–363.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Ferretti, S., Roccetti, M., AC/DC: an Algorithm for Cheating Detection by Cheating, in Proceedings of the ACM International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV 2006), Newport, Rhode Island (USA), ACM Press, May 2006, 136–141.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ferretti, S., Roccetti, M., Game Time Modelling for Cheating Detection in P2P MOGs: a Case Study with a Fast Rate Cheat, in Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Network & System Support for Games 2006 (NETGAMES 2006), Singapore, ACM Press, October 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Ferretti, S., Roccetti, M., Palazzi, C.E., An Optimistic Obsolescence-Based Approach To Event Synchronization For Massive Multiplayer Online Games, International Journal of Computers and Applications, ACTA Press, Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2007, 33–43.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Fiedler, U., Bernhard Plattner: Using Latency Quantiles to Engineer QoS Guarantees forWeb Services, in Proc. of the 11th International Workshop on Quality of Service, (IWQoS 2003), LNCS 2707, Springer, Berkeley, CA, USA, June 2003, 345–362.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Fujimoto, R., Parallel and Distribution Simulation Systems, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Gibbon, J.F., Little, T.D.C., The Use of Network Delay Estimation for Multimedia Data Retrieval, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE, 14(7):1376–1387.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Henderson, T., Bhatti, S., Modeling user behaviour in networked games, in Proc. of the 9th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (ACM Multimedia), Ottawa (Canada), October 2001, 212–220.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lee, H., Kozlowski, E., Lenker, S., Jamin, S., Synchronization and Cheat-Proofing Protocol for Real-Time Multiplayer Games, in Proc. of the International Workshop on Entertainment Computing, Makuari (Japan), May 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Liang, Y.J., Farber, N., Girod, B., Adaptive Playout Scheduling and Loss Concealment for Voice Communication over IP Networks, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, IEEE Signal Processing Society Press, 5(4):532- 543, April 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Mauve, M., Vogel, J., Hilt, V., Effelsberg, W., Local-lag and timewarp: Providing consistency for replicated continuous applications, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 6(1):47–57, February 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Mills, D.L., Internet time synchronization: the Network Time Protocol, IEEE Transactions on Communications, 39(10):1482–1493, October 1991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Palazzi, C.E., Ferretti, S., Cacciaguerra, S., Roccetti, M., Interactivity-Loss Avoidance in Event Delivery Synchronization for Mirrored Game Architectures, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, IEEE Signal Processing Society, Vol. 8, No. 4, August 2006, 874–879.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Stefano Ferretti

Authors
  1. Stefano Ferretti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefano Ferretti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Computer Science &, Florida Atlantic University, Glades Road 777, Boca Raton, 33431, U.S.A.

    Borko Furht

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ferretti, S. (2009). Countermeasures for Time-Cheat Detection in Multiplayer Online Games. In: Furht, B. (eds) Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89024-1_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89024-1_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-89023-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-89024-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation