All Proof of Work But No Proof of Play

Fuente: arXiv
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1. Verfasser: Tirmazi, Hayder
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Tirmazi, Hayder
author_facet Tirmazi, Hayder
contents Speedrunning is a competition that emerged from communities of early video games such as Doom (1993). Speedrunners try to finish a game in minimal time. Provably verifying the authenticity of submitted speedruns is an open problem. Traditionally, best-effort speedrun verification is conducted by on-site human observers, forensic audio analysis, or a rigorous mathematical analysis of the game mechanics. Such methods are tedious, fallible, and, perhaps worst of all, not cryptographic. Motivated by naivety and the Dunning-Kruger effect, we attempt to build a system that cryptographically proves the authenticity of speedruns. This paper describes our attempted solutions and ways to circumvent them. Through a narration of our failures, we attempt to demonstrate the difficulty of authenticating live and interactive human input in untrusted environments, as well as the limits of signature schemes, game integrity, and provable play.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_23435
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle All Proof of Work But No Proof of Play
Tirmazi, Hayder
Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
Speedrunning is a competition that emerged from communities of early video games such as Doom (1993). Speedrunners try to finish a game in minimal time. Provably verifying the authenticity of submitted speedruns is an open problem. Traditionally, best-effort speedrun verification is conducted by on-site human observers, forensic audio analysis, or a rigorous mathematical analysis of the game mechanics. Such methods are tedious, fallible, and, perhaps worst of all, not cryptographic. Motivated by naivety and the Dunning-Kruger effect, we attempt to build a system that cryptographically proves the authenticity of speedruns. This paper describes our attempted solutions and ways to circumvent them. Through a narration of our failures, we attempt to demonstrate the difficulty of authenticating live and interactive human input in untrusted environments, as well as the limits of signature schemes, game integrity, and provable play.
title All Proof of Work But No Proof of Play
topic Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23435