Presented at
DEF CON 32 (2024),
Aug. 10, 2024, 2:30 p.m.
(45 minutes).
Trolls cheating in video games by passing Tool-Assisted Speedruns off as human effort break leaderboards and stifle speedrunners. Why do they do it when they could make a cool game hack or TAS to show off their work, and how do you trap these trolls? The answer is to use their own tools against them, often with popcorn bucket worthy results like taking down Guinness World Records. From a TASVideos member taking on 1980's Dragster cheat Todd Rogers, a passing mention of Billy Mitchell, and the TASBot team investigating Super Mario Maker shenanigans, this talk covers several notable cheating incidents and concludes with a systematic takedown of a troll that chilled the Diablo speedrunning community for more than a decade.
This talk includes several investigations I have been a part of in some capacity and will ultimately include additional references in the coming months; I've broken the references out by game, presented in Markdown format like the rest of this document:
### Dragster
- [Submission #5517: Omnigamer's A2600 Dragster in 00:08.49](https://tasvideos.org/5517S)
- [A2600 Dragster by Omnigamer in 00:08.49](https://tasvideos.org/3430M)
- [Submission #5876: MrWint & Omnigamer's A2600 Dragster in 00:08.39](https://tasvideos.org/5876S)
- [A2600 Dragster by MrWint, Omnigamer in 00:08.39](https://tasvideos.org/3662M)
- [Omnigamer's Dragster simulator model](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HhaBah7e48lBRA18v8Mgr-fRVZS5DUJb_pnOsBTC34c)
- [Dragster optimal sequence project by esnard](https://github.com/esnard/dragster)
- [Investigation into optimal Dragster play by MrWint](https://github.com/MrWint/dragster/tree/master)
- [TASBot beats Dragster in 5.57 (console verification of Omnigamer's TAS)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXMxZbPzRzs)
### Super Mario Maker
- [Inside TASBot’s semi-secret, probably legal effort to control the Nintendo Switch](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/inside-tasbots-semi-secret-probably-legal-effort-to-control-the-nintendo-switch/)
- [The _Super Mario Maker_ community faces its final boss](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/the-super-mario-maker-community-faces-its-final-boss/)
- [_Super Mario Maker_’s “final boss” was a fraud all along](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/super-mario-makers-final-boss-was-a-fraud-all-along/)
- [How to cheat at _Super Mario Maker_ and get away with it for years](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/how-to-cheat-at-super-mario-maker-and-get-away-with-it-for-years/)
- [Trimming the Herbs TAS attempts](https://youtu.be/ypoNHp7aWGM)
- [Trimming the Herbs has been Beaten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yvVJbji0U)
# Diablo
- [Speed Demos Archive Diablo page](https://speeddemosarchive.com/Diablo.html)
- [Groobo's 2009 Diablo speedrun submission video](https://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?Diablo_Sorcerer_312)
- [Speed Demos Archive Diablo run review](https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/diablo__february_8th_2009.html)
- [Guinness World Records Diablo entry](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/110580-fastest-completion-of-an-rpg-videogame)
- [Devilution Diablo decompiliation](https://github.com/diasurgical/devilution)
- [DevilutionX Diablo decompiliation](https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/)
- [Diablo MapGen](https://github.com/Matthew-petroff/diablo-mapgen)
Presenters:
-
Allan Cecil / dwangoAC
- Founder and Leader at TASBot Online Community
as Allan "dwangoAC" Cecil
dwangoAC (Allan Cecil) is the founder and leader of the TASBot online community and Senior Ambassador on staff of TASVideos.org. He is a published journal author, patent holder, and unflappable presenter with talks at DEF CON, GeekPwn, Thotcon, May Contain Hackers, and other hacker conferences. dwangoAC uses his combined hacking interests for good at charity events like Games Done Quick to entertain viewers with never-before-seen glitches in games, with event content he's led raising more than $1.5m for various charities.
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