Re: [pygame] [OT] Preventing cheating in multiplayer games

[Don Garrett <garrett@bgb.cc>]

Joel Ricker wrote:
> 	A bit off topic but I have a question regarding security for my
> python/pygame created game and I thought maybe there might be a few
> people here with some ideas.
>
>  	The project I have in mind would be a multiplayer card game
> engine that allowed two or more people to play different card games
> together online.  The problem that I forsee though is that if this is
> written in Python, then anyone could modify the source to cheat to allow
> them to look at the deck or to other players cards. 
> 	I've come up with one possible solution is to maybe find a way
> to run a checksum on the source and if any checksums don't match then we
> know someone has modified the source. That way though runs into a couple
> of more problems like again we are depending on output from a players
> code and they could write code to fake a checksum.
>
> 	Any other thoughts?
  Without at least one trusted component, there is nothing you can 
really do.

  If you run a server that is considered secure, it can then manage the 
deck (and any other secret data), without telling the clients anymore 
more than they really have to know. It can also validate the actions 
taken by each of the players.

  However, this means that a trusted machine has to be available 
somewhere to run the server software.

  And it does NOT ensure that players aren't running enhanced clients 
that automatically count cards or something. Just that they don't have 
any data not available to their clients, and can't make any illegal moves.

  This is a problem no matter how you develop the game, but it is more 
of a problem with open source and scripted systems because it takes less 
effort to hack the client.

  Palladium is an effort to beat this problem by moving the trusted 
component into the processor itself. The processor does the 
checksum/encrpted signature testing. Even it will be beatable by 
building a custom chip, or running the OS on an emulated processor.

> 	Thanks
> 	Joel
>
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--
Don Garrett                             http://www.bgb.cc/garrett/
BGB Consulting                                      garrett@bgb.cc


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