[HN Gopher] Data stream hack gets UCI world championship qualifi...
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Data stream hack gets UCI world championship qualifier banned
Author : docdeek
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-12-08 11:18 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dcrainmaker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dcrainmaker.com)
| brookst wrote:
| I'm not sure "astounding" is the right word when the article
| notes the hack was demonstrated at a security conference in 2019
| using an Xbox controller as an easy UI.
|
| But I suppose the author does go on for a bit about how terrible
| they are at writing headlines.
| jamincan wrote:
| I think astounding is referring to the brazenness of the cheat.
| If the racer had been just a bit more discrete in the use of
| it, they probably wouldn't have been caught.
| Raidion wrote:
| People are always like "well, what if he just wasn't so greedy".
|
| The greed doesn't quit. You cheat to win smaller races, then
| you're in bigger races, and need to cheat more, and eventually it
| gets to the point where you need to lose OR you end up on a big
| stage where a lot of people have entire hobbies dedicated to
| finding and exposing cheaters. See
| https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/!
|
| Like, the same thing that makes people cheat are the same people
| who can't stop cheating until they get too greedy and get caught.
| If they weren't greedy, they wouldn't cheat.
| ho_schi wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGHGtJiDlxw
|
| Old but gold. Maybe staged.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| "Maybe" staged in the way that the cyclist in TFA "Maybe"
| cheated...
| bennyelv wrote:
| I've been wondering how long it would be before something like
| this happened ever since e-sports cycling started. Longer than I
| thought it would is the answer!
|
| I'm sure there's simpler ways as well: you could manipulate the
| spindown test that the turbotrainer does for calibration to make
| it think the flywheel is heavier than it really is, for example.
|
| At the non-pro level cheating is absolutely rife. Mostly through
| people lying about their weight. In every open zwift race there
| are performances that would put a person in the top 0.1% of
| riders globally being put down by half the field!
| danceparty wrote:
| These zwift races require two data inputs, one from a power
| meter (pedal or crank) and one from the trainer. So
| manipulating just the trainer flywheel would not be enough.
| nradov wrote:
| Would attaching some temporary adhesive weights to the trainer
| flywheel during the calibration test be an effective way to
| cheat? My Tacx Neo 2T doesn't even have a calibration process,
| but maybe that could work on other models. Of course that won't
| affect the separate data stream sent from the power meter on
| the bike.
| tsumnia wrote:
| As I was reading, I realized this will make e-sports more
| interesting from an academic standpoint (I know, way to party
| poop). But with the growth of e-sports, we're even seeing
| universities create e-sports teams, we may see niche security
| research on this type of anomaly detection. There's neural
| network powered aimbots, hardware manipulation, probably more
| (considering a certain chess incident). Would techniques used for
| credit card fraud / network anomaly detection work in these
| environments?
| JCharante wrote:
| Some context for non-cyclists
|
| You can buy and attach smart trainers to the rear of bicycles.
| They provide resistance to simulate riding outdoors and you can
| run "games" on your pc that connect to the smart trainers to
| update your position in the game based off how hard you pedal.
| This then enables the possibility for people to race online.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| And it's a fun way to get/stay in shape, if the race is low-
| stakes and you don't care if there's an occasional cheater.
| xracy wrote:
| It's wild to me, and possibly seems like the next development in
| cheating, that these technologies are functionally catching
| people who have a sudden increase in performance. Everything's
| catching major differences in performance. I think the same is
| true of the chess.com evaluation of Niemann, and a lot of speed
| runs as well. It seems like the harder cheats to catch are gonna
| be the ones where they just give themselves a small advantage
| over the course of an entire run.
|
| I'm wondering how big a difference we would've seen if the
| cheater in question here had performed a more consistent w/kg
| above his V02Max, (but not signifcantly outside the realm of his
| V02Max), for the entire race.
|
| They say he had a sudden performance of 500+W and his V02Max was
| in the 400s, I feel like a more smooth/consistent race in the
| higher 400s rather than a burst at the end would've been a lot
| harder to catch.
|
| Basically... just more plausible smoothing so that no individual
| piece of the race would come into question.
| madrox wrote:
| We're already seeing this in FPS games. The way advanced aim
| assist cheats work are so subtle these days that even pros
| watching replays have a difficult time saying for sure if the
| person is cheating or just good.
|
| I agree, the reason this guy got caught was because it was
| anomolous performance at the end. If he had managed his cheat
| differently it would've been nearly impossible to detect.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So let's say someone takes your suggestion to do so they become
| a better cheater. What the next move in the cat and mouse game
| to catch the cheat you just designed? To be a good cheater, you
| should be thinking in these kinds of terms. If you can think of
| a cheat, but not how to get caught, you'll not be a good
| cheater. If you can think of a cheat, then realize how it can
| be caught, then modify the cheat, think of how to beat that,
| lather/rinse/repeat, you'll probably be a really good cheat. At
| that point though, I think you could be a better use to society
| doing something else with that critical thinking. So unless
| there's a bunch of money involved, it probably won't be
| attracting the brightest.
| mlyle wrote:
| It's not exactly rocket science to spend a few minutes
| thinking about how to make your cheating look just like an
| athlete who is marginally better than the rest of the field.
| [deleted]
| lelag wrote:
| My take is that you can't have a serious e-sport cycling scene
| with the current tech. This guy was caught because he was greedy
| and the cheat was too obvious. What about all the others that
| could be doing the same but in a smarter way. There is no way as
| an honest cyclist to know you were beaten fairly. (Maybe you can
| be sure you were not).
|
| The protocols (ANT+ in particular) are totally insecure and it's
| totally possible to MITM them. The obvious solution would be to
| upgrade those and start sending data over an encrypted channel
| instead. Still, this is only going to help momentarily and
| discourage the hobbyist cheaters. People are starting on PC games
| using very sophisticated setup with dedicated PCI hardware
| connected to a second computer where the cheat software actually
| run.
|
| If the devices get secure, people will start cheating at the
| software level. If the stake are high enough (and there are for
| those people hoping to get into a World Championship), they will
| do anything to get an edge.
|
| I think it's hopeless to hope to make those online race as
| anything serious. It can be a fun hobby and way to exercice but
| any serious competition will need to take place in person. For
| cycling, it probably means the old fashion way: on the road.
| trollied wrote:
| > People are starting on PC games using very sophisticated
| setup with dedicated PCI hardware connected to a second
| computer where the cheat software actually ru
|
| Have you got a reference for this? I want to read more.
| lelag wrote:
| DMA (Direct Memory Access) is the keyword.
|
| They use this type of hardware:
|
| https://www.raptor-dma.com/raptordma-home/
|
| It's been used to cheat in professional CS:GO tournament from
| what I remember. They can have a second PC where the cheat
| run which read the memory of the game on the clean computer
| and can for example display the position of the other players
| on a second screen.
| madrox wrote:
| This is a challenge across all esports and not just cycling. In
| other esports, competition may be online, but hardware is
| usually provided by the organizer and overseen in locations
| where refs can ensure nothing is being done to machines to
| cheat. Nowadays cheating scandals only tend to come up in
| competitions where people are playing from home.
| lelag wrote:
| Yes but with cycling, the point of the e-sport is to not
| travel. If you have to travel with your bike to a physical
| location, there is no point in cycling on a static smart
| trainer, you might as well race on the road (which is much
| more fun anyway). It's no longer an e-sport.
| madrox wrote:
| The idea would be you would travel without your bike and
| use one provided by the organizer. That's what other
| esports do. There's still advantages to the esport, such as
| not needing to close public roads, design tracks that don't
| exist or aren't easily accessed, and allow different racing
| strategy (I imagine they don't simulate pushing wind).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Even if you make the bikes 100% secure, nothing prevents a
| dedicated cheater from strapping a good old electric motor to
| the bike and do the on-camera ride on a separate, dummy bike
| that's only there for show (and to provide a reference speed to
| the electric motor - which then increases it by 20%).
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