A new AI innovation aims to stop cheating in multiplayer video games

Counter-Strike is one of the most popular online, first-person shooter games in the world today. Researchers at the university have created a new cheat-detection system that can be used for any massively multiplayer online, or MMO, game that sends data traffic to a central server. Detecting cheating in MMO games is tricky, simply because the data that goes from a player’s computer to a central game server is encrypted. For the study, 20 students from the university downloaded Counter-Strike and three software cheats: an aimbot, which automatically targets an opponent, a speed hack, which allows the player to move faster, and a wallhack, which makes walls transparent so that players can easily see their opponents “Players who cheat send traffic in a different way,” says Dr Latifur Khan, an author of the study on the research, and professor of computer science and director of the Big Data Analytics and Management Lab at UT Dallas. For the study, 20 students from the university downloaded Counter-Strike and three software cheats: an aimbot, which automatically targets an opponent, a speed hack, which allows the player to move faster, and a wallhack, which makes walls transparent so that players can easily see their opponents.