Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Security IT Technology

'Call of Duty: Warzone' Cheaters Are Getting Owned by 2FA (vice.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
If you've been getting owned in Call of Duty: Warzone a lot before you even hit the ground and thought it would be more fun to play if you could use cheats to see other players through walls, you're not alone. From a report: Last month, the developers of the hugely popular game banned more than 70,000 cheaters and promised to combat the game's cheating problem. "We are watching. We have zero tolerance for cheaters," tweeted the official account of Infinity Ward, the game's developer. This week, Infinity Ward rolled out a new, basic security feature which appears to have had the added bonus of locking out many cheaters: two-factor authentication. Infinity Ward announced that new Warzone players on PC will have to use SMS to login to the free version of the game, "as another step to provide an additional layer of security for players." Infinity Ward and Activision did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but cheaters are currently complaining about the effect this simple move has had on them.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

'Call of Duty: Warzone' Cheaters Are Getting Owned by 2FA More

'Call of Duty: Warzone' Cheaters Are Getting Owned by 2FA

Comments Filter:

  • What if you don't have a cell phone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @03:38PM (#60064828) Homepage

    Aren't there still lots of children without cell phones? What about poor families who still rely primarily on land lines?

    This seems like a terrible precedent for video games. I don't play online games already because the whole process is too onerous. People need to start fighting back against abusive companies by taking their $ elsewhere.

    • As a lover of online Modern Warfare I get where you're coming from, but IMHO it's worth it to get rid of the cheaters. I despise those assholes.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Rockoon ( 1252108 )

      What about poor families who still rely primarily on land lines?

      Since cell phones have been cheaper than a landline for quite awhile.... more evidence that many poor people make poor decisions.

      • My experience is different. How about some stats (w/ cites) to back up your claim?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ooshna ( 1654125 )

          You can get an Obamaphone (not sure the actual program's name) for free if you are low income in the US.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by xwin ( 848234 )
          I don't have any stats but I pay $3 a month for the cell phone service. https://www.h2owirelessnow.com... [h2owirelessnow.com] If you use pay-as-you-go plan you will pay $9 with auto pay every 3 monts. Each SMS costs 5 cents but if you login once a day you will pay $1.50 for SMS to login every day for a month. My kid is using Tello mobile with unlimited SMS and we pay something like $11 a month for her. The cheapest land line is something like $17 not including taxes and fees. I just looked at ATT website and the simple landlin

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Xenx ( 2211586 )

            I just looked at ATT website and the simple landline is $25 a month plus taxes fees and all other BS.

            Not really the point, but just an interesting aside.. I work for a telephone company. Our land line prices are similar to AT&T's and we're charging the minimum required to continue receiving federal subsidies.

      • Not being poor and relying on landlines aren't mutually exclusive though...

        I do have a physical cell phone which I use as a pocket tablet (no sim installed), but as a guy who has worked from home for 10+ years, I use only a landline or interner conferences to talk with people.

        Also, I believe you're correct generally that cell phones are generLly cheaper than landlines, but here in Canada I would argue the opposite, especially when you consider things like our data rates.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Many parts of the UK have no ISPs offering a service that doesn't require you to have a landline.

        So just by signing up for internet access they're already paying for a telephone line; the poor decision would be adding a second by getting a mobile phone.

        But you're not a poor person, you don't have to make these difficult decisions, you can sit at a safe distance and snidely blame poor people for being poor. Aren't you wonderful.

      • On the other hand, landlines can be shared by all members of the household, which is likely cheaper than each member of the household getting their own cell phone and plan.

        I suppose you could just get one cell phone plan, leave it in the house at all times, and treat it kind of like a landline.

    • Well, some people are geographically out of cell range, but for the rest I'm about 80% sure that you can have a two generation old smartphone with a data plan for less than the cost of a landline these days. I know for a fact you can get a flip phone that's sms capable for less than the cost of a land line.

      Also I think there's a number of cheap or free faux cell services, e.g. google voice.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Aren't there still lots of children without cell phones? What about poor families who still rely primarily on land lines?

      Poor families who rely on land lines... but have a system they can run COD on. Riiiiiight....

      You fucking cheaters can fuck off and die.

    • Rated M for Mature

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      It's only for the free version. If you need free games there are plenty of other options out there

    • What about poor families who still rely primarily on land lines?

      Maybe they should sell their gaming PCs and Xboxes and buy a cellphone. Your whataboutism is just absurd.

    • There may be love in your heart for those who need an "Edge"; I have no problem hunting the ones you call friend, and to do so by not cheating.

    • If you won't spend money on a phone you probably aren't going to spend $20 on an in-game hat either.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tero ( 39203 )

      I'm not sure what you're on about, but adding 2FA is a good thing.

    • Then they don’t play the free game. Gee what a real brain buster that was.

    • The only thing worse than having to use 2FA to play a game is playing a game where cheating assholes ruin the experience. I know lots of people who've taken their $ elsewhere because of cheaters, hackers and griefers.

      Also, the cell phone argument is a straw man. Everyone has a cell phone or access to one. Go to a 3rd world country and all you see are cell phones, no landlines.

    • You can afford a computer to play the game, and the internet required. Ok, maybe you're going to an internet cafe to rent these by the hour. But IMHO if you can afford these you can afford a cell phone. Not to mention I'm guessing a lot of the cheaters are using internet cafes to rent PCs and internet by the hour. Otherwise banning them would be a lot more effective.

    • So children can't play an M-Rated game due to not having a cellphone?

      Excuse me, are you arguing for or against TFA again? I get a mixed message here.

    • Just stop. This is so far from reality I don't know where to even start. Anyone who is too "poor" to have a cell phone likely wouldn't have the discretionary funds for a PC powerful enough to play first person shooters.

    • "What about poor families who still rely primarily on land lines?"

      Wireless Substitution: Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2018: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/... [cdc.gov]
      "Adults living in poverty (67.1%) and near poverty (64.8%) were more likely than higher income adults (56.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones."

  • Pls unban (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15, 2020 @03:42PM (#60064850)

    I'm not allowed to have my own cell phone so my dad forced me to use his phone number. My dad has a steam too and uses the same number. today my brother used my dads account and cheated and now my main account is VAC banned. It's true and here is proof, my father will now write too:

    Hello I'm the father and what my son says is true, he did not cheat, it was his brother on my account. Please unban him valve

    sincerely the father

    Pls unban

  • So the hackers will get around this with cheap pay-as-you-go SIM cards and cheap VOIP numbers while legit customers who just want to play the fucking game get to deal with added frustration and demands for their PII.

    • "So the hackers will get around this with cheap pay-as-you-go SIM cards and cheap VOIP numbers while legit customers who just want to play the fucking game get to deal with added frustration and demands for their PII."

        Yes. The honest people get screwed over, as always.

  • I feel so bad for the cheaters. /s

  • All the new SMS spam isn't us (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spamalope ( 91802 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @04:11PM (#60064964)
    and we totally didn't sell your number. Also we're not collecting the IDs on your phone for sale. Nope, not us...
    At least with email addresses you can use aliases to catch them...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ooshna ( 1654125 )

      Who gets SMS spam anymore?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      I heard that the Epic store is giving away Grand Theft Auto 5 for free. I figured I'd go download it, try it out a bit.. until I saw that it required 2FA. I quickly decided that I didn't need another game.

  • two-factor authentication functions as just another method to identify a cheater. Since cheaters need to provide a phone number to play Warzone for free now, and since they can't reuse the same phone number to create infinite accounts, many cheaters are locked out once their number is tied to a banned account. At least for now, the new measure seems to be quite effective.

    Easy work around is to get a disposable prepaid phone # or buy one off eBay. Just pop in a new sim card and done.

    AT&T pre-paid sim kit is $4.99 [att.com]. H2O sim kit is $0 [h2owirelessnow.com]. Just load $10 to activate it, get service, and a new #

    • Re:Work Around (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @04:20PM (#60065018)

      Indeed, yes I will go out and put the effort into getting a new SIM card just so I can cheat at a game! /sarcasm.

      What is wrong with you that you even think this is a viable solution, and more importantly WTF is wrong with someone who actually cares enough about cheating in a game to get a burner phone. These people need mental help.

      • Re:Work Around (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @04:40PM (#60065124) Journal

        You grossly underestimate the sheer bloody-minded perseverance of quite a large number of internet trolls.

      • Re:Work Around (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @05:18PM (#60065276)

        Trust me... an entire industry is based on people willing to pay $1000+ per month to "pay to win"... others will certainly pay $5 to "cheat to win".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        When I needed to create a bunch of generic email addresses and all the big non-blocked providers need a phone number I just bought five SIMs for a buck each and used them only to receive that one text.

        A couple ended up in old hobby projects that could be controlled by sending them an SMS.

      • Back in the Evercrack days, there were people willing to pay hundereds or even thousands of real world American dollars for a well leveled up and equipped character. Spending $40 for a crap Android phone and maybe $25 for a prepaid sim is nothing.

    • An easy work around to your work around is to simply fingerprint the hardware of the machine the game is running on.

      When you ban an account, you simply ban the fingerprinted hardware and that's the end of that.

      • The cheater has root access to the machine and unfettered access to your binary. They can watch you calculate your fingerprint, and use their access to change the result as needed.

      • Looks like people have forgotten all about this:

        https://m.slashdot.org/story/1... [slashdot.org] (about the uproar that the unique ID number in Pentium 3 chips caused)

        I have noticed a pattern:

        1) Scream bloody murder and threaten to boycott
        2) reduce to grumbling about the big evil heartless multinational corporation
        3) give up and sigh whilst dropping your pants and bending over.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      two-factor authentication functions as just another method to identify a cheater. Since cheaters need to provide a phone number to play Warzone for free now, and since they can't reuse the same phone number to create infinite accounts, many cheaters are locked out once their number is tied to a banned account. At least for now, the new measure seems to be quite effective.

      Easy work around is to get a disposable prepaid phone # or buy one off eBay. Just pop in a new sim card and done.

      AT&T pre-paid sim kit is $4.99 [att.com]. H2O sim kit is $0 [h2owirelessnow.com]. Just load $10 to activate it, get service, and a new #

      Is it though? If these guys are getting banned even once a week, (I imagine most are getting banned more than that, the cheating is pretty damn obvious when it happens) that adds up. The reason F2P games are prime targets for cheaters is the "free" part. If you can spin up a new account in a couple of minutes, they don't care how often they get banned. If they have to go get a new SIM, load it up, and plop down cash well, they will probably shift to a easier to cheat on game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Can you still get anonymous SIM cards easily? In Europe that possibility is mostly gone, due to "terrorism". You need to show ID and it gets recorded and associated with the SIM.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        It doesn't need to be anonymous. The mobile phone company isn't going to be telling Infinity Ward who the number you're using is registered to anyway.

        But yes, I can get anonymous SIM cards easily in Europe.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          But yes, I can get anonymous SIM cards easily in Europe.

          Got a reference for that? Not criticizing, but I would like to know how to do this.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cederic ( 9623 )

            Go to a pawn shop, acquire a cheap tablet. Connect it to an open wifi while out of sight of cameras. Go to the Three website and order a SIM to be delivered to an address of your choosing under a name you pick.

            Or just walk into a shop and give them false details.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Go to a pawn shop, acquire a cheap tablet. Connect it to an open wifi while out of sight of cameras. Go to the Three website and order a SIM to be delivered to an address of your choosing under a name you pick.

              That does not work. You cannot order a SIM card without giving (and them verifying) your personal details. There may still be some European countries left where you can, but that will not last.

              Or just walk into a shop and give them false details.

              Yes. And show them a fake official ID which they copy. Good luck with that.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Cederic ( 9623 )

                You cannot order a SIM card without giving (and them verifying) your personal details

                Oh. Then how did I acquire the one I got in March?

      • Recently, I went to CVS and bought a prepaid sim here in the States, no ID required.

        Of course, we have not become a full on nanny state like the UK and the EU, but we are getting there. :\

        (You know, terrorism and "Think of the cheeeeeldrun!")

  • Neat system, forces a small financial cost to cheating while maintaining a zero initial cost for non-cheaters. Cheat all you want but it'll cost you, $10 bucks each time you get caught. This is equivalent to a serial number that's banned if caught cheating and costs $10 bucks to replace but the first one is free (e.g. the game comes with one). Oh, and also it can't be traded or resold. It's this last point that's tricky since you have to handle the I've switched my computers use case. Kinda fun to think ab

  • You wouldnâ(TM)t have 70+ cheaters to ban in the first place if you genuinely had a zero tolerance for cheating. Certainly not in those high digits.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by v1 ( 525388 )

      Their "zero tolerance policy" is only lip-service, to try to downplay the cheating and keep the new players rolling in. Cheaters have to pay for their cheats, usually on a monthly subscription plan. They are known revenue sources, that the people running the servers are very well aware of, and appreciate, just so long as they don't get too far out of control and tilt the balance between revenue from cheaters that pay for "premium accounts", and loss from free-to-play players disgusted with the cheating.

      L

      • Game server probably would be hard-pressed to figure out what each client is supposed to see. With the way 3d graphics work it would require at least one full render per connected client done on the server.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      50 million players means that 0.14% of accounts have been banned for cheating. That doesn't feel the game is overrun with cheaters.

      Then factor in that 70k accounts doesn't mean 70k people. Cheaters will create multiple accounts, not least because they keep getting banned, so it's likely that there are only a few thousand people cheating. However the ease with which they can create a new account means that those few idiots are accumulating the 70k account bans, and that's why this new measure is effective ag

  • Something useful for MFA. Otherwise it's nothing but harassment.

  • ... when the 2nd factor is not easily changed. Who would have thought.

    As to the scum that got hit, excellent. Cheaters destroy everything. Could not have happened to more deserving people.

  • Children inside Call of Duty: Warzone. With all of that killing and shooting and cussing and such. Terrible, just horrible! Won't someone think of the children? No, not the kids playing the game -- the in-game NPC digital children being exposed to all of this madness.

    There outta be a law. Let's add another one to the pile.

  • "Please submit a copy of your photo ID, your birth certificate, a DNA sample..."

    Yeah, that will stop cheaters who trade in phished accounts and have a huge stockpile of them in case they get banned.

    It's going to be a forever arms race, and honestly, going through all the hoops so some 11 year old can scream at me from 3 states away and threaten to burn my house down after the game does not go his way really isn't worth it.

Slashdot Top Deals

So... did you ever wonder, do garbagemen take showers before they go to work?

Close