Playing Dirty Without Cheating - Getting Banned for Fun and Profit

Explore the inner workings of modern anti-cheat systems in this DEF CON 33 conference talk that demonstrates how to trigger game bans without actually cheating. Learn about hardware ID bans and machine fingerprinting techniques used by anti-cheat software to identify and track players across gaming platforms. Discover practical methods for remotely poisoning innocent machines by capturing target hardware IDs, spoofing them, and causing legitimate players to receive bans. Master advanced techniques including BIOS flashing, RAM SPD rewriting, and other hardware manipulation methods that can make innocent users appear guilty to anti-cheat detection systems. Understand the vulnerabilities in current anti-cheat implementations and how these systems can be exploited to create false positives, providing valuable insights into both offensive security techniques and the defensive challenges faced by game developers and anti-cheat companies.