I would be very interested to know how they are able to identify a specific CPU. The article speculates but does not answer this question.
The fact that this is even possible is a security nightmare.
OK, I’ve done a bit more digging and pieced it together. Acknowledgement to @dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world for prompting me to try (again) to find a command that might do it among other things.
IMO, this sort of information shouldn’t be in processors in the first place, but apparently it is there and needs admin/root access to, well, access it.
… and the game in question requires kernel-level anti-cheat, so of course, it has the necessary access.
The command for Linux is sudo dmidecode -t processor, which dumps a lot of info including an ID field, which is supposedly the CPU’s specific identifier. It can be grepped for or otherwise filtered out.
My own Ryzen gives 8 hexadecimal pairs, so it’s a 64-bit value.
I would not know that that was unique to my specific individual processor if I had not been told, but I’ll assume that at least part of it is not unique between Ryzens of the same calibre. (I won’t be posting any of it for comparison, for obvious reasons.)
So the upshot is, if you don’t want to be identified right down to your CPU, don’t run programs as root if there’s any chance of them phoning home.
You can extract the chip’s serial number in software trivially. In Windows, from a commandline:
wmic cpu get pricessorid
I’m positive you can do the same with some Linux command, and failing that certainly with basically every vaguely modern benchmarking tool. Same deal with hard drives and probably also video cards. My BIOS/UEFI even enumerates all my connected hard drive serial numbers on screen if I interrupt its graphical boot screen.
Given that the anti-cheat schemes these competitive games are literal rootkits, I don’t think gathering the user’s hardware serial numbers in order to attempt identify them is much of a stretch.
You at least could in the past, I haven’t had to do it in a while. Seems like the command would just be “dmidecode”, with grep if you’re looking to automate it
From the article, it tracks and blacklists other major system components too, so you would essentially have to replace most of your system. Probably the entire thing, since a single leftover bad component would lead to your entire new system being added to the blacklist.
Either I knew and forgot, or misunderstood it as CPU family identification whenever I’ve come across it. Denial is also a possibility. We’ll see if I remember this in a month or two.
I would be very interested to know how they are able to identify a specific CPU. The article speculates but does not answer this question.
The fact that this is even possible is a security nightmare.
OK, I’ve done a bit more digging and pieced it together. Acknowledgement to @dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world for prompting me to try (again) to find a command that might do it among other things.
IMO, this sort of information shouldn’t be in processors in the first place, but apparently it is there and needs admin/root access to, well, access it.
… and the game in question requires kernel-level anti-cheat, so of course, it has the necessary access.
The command for Linux is
sudo dmidecode -t processor, which dumps a lot of info including an ID field, which is supposedly the CPU’s specific identifier. It can begrepped for or otherwise filtered out.My own Ryzen gives 8 hexadecimal pairs, so it’s a 64-bit value.
I would not know that that was unique to my specific individual processor if I had not been told, but I’ll assume that at least part of it is not unique between Ryzens of the same calibre. (I won’t be posting any of it for comparison, for obvious reasons.)
So the upshot is, if you don’t want to be identified right down to your CPU, don’t run programs as root if there’s any chance of them phoning home.
Running proprietary programs as root is my definition of hell, especially when it’s something frivolous like a game
You can extract the chip’s serial number in software trivially. In Windows, from a commandline:
wmic cpu get pricessoridI’m positive you can do the same with some Linux command, and failing that certainly with basically every vaguely modern benchmarking tool. Same deal with hard drives and probably also video cards. My BIOS/UEFI even enumerates all my connected hard drive serial numbers on screen if I interrupt its graphical boot screen.
Given that the anti-cheat schemes these competitive games are literal rootkits, I don’t think gathering the user’s hardware serial numbers in order to attempt identify them is much of a stretch.
You at least could in the past, I haven’t had to do it in a while. Seems like the command would just be “dmidecode”, with grep if you’re looking to automate it
I wonder if Riot would provide any info on the ban status of a certain component when given its ID…
They would not.
Anyone doing anti-cheat stuff tries to keep it as secret as possible, so that the cheaters have a more difficult time working around it.
It sounds like at least one cheater already figured it out. Just swap the chips. Then sell the old one used and pass the problem onto someone else.
From the article, it tracks and blacklists other major system components too, so you would essentially have to replace most of your system. Probably the entire thing, since a single leftover bad component would lead to your entire new system being added to the blacklist.
This has been a thing for decades
Either I knew and forgot, or misunderstood it as CPU family identification whenever I’ve come across it. Denial is also a possibility. We’ll see if I remember this in a month or two.