We recently reported on Intel's efforts to contribute anti-cheating technology for MMOs, but security expert Steven Davis of PlayNoEvil has had Intel's work on his radar for some time now, and he followed up with Worlds in Motion to provide more details and clarification.

"The Intel anti-cheat tech is similar to PunkBuster and other technology, but moved onto [a] secondary processor," he explains. "It is mainly a 'bot detector' looking to see that the keyboard and mouse are actually sending the data to the game."

In other words, the technology will catch unscrupulous types who may be sending multiple signals to an MMO while only taking a single action manually -- for such a thing to be effective, an "aimbot" must be at work. It's a familiar old approach, according to Davis, and the countermeasures are equally familiar: "Also, the Xbox architecture has used this approach... with mixed success (if you recall the Xbox hack descriptions, there was trusted code installed on the Bridge chip that was attacked via EEPROMs and bus probes)," he explains.

EEPROMs and bus probes? That's a little beyond our ken, but the over-riding message seems to be that, as well-intentioned as Intel's and other tech solutions are, MMOs will be actively fighting against cheaters for some time yet. Thanks for the extra info, Steven!