Secure Referee Selection for Fair and Responsive Peer-to-Peer Gaming

  • Authors:
  • Steven Daniel Webb;Sieteng Soh;Jerry L. Trahan

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computing Curtin University of TechnologyGPO Box U1987 Perth Western Australia 6845;Department of Computing Curtin University of TechnologyGPO Box U1987 Perth Western Australia 6845;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering LouisianaState University

  • Venue:
  • Simulation
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) provide better scalability than Client/Server (C/S), however, they increase the possibility of cheating. Recently proposed P2P protocols use trusted referees that simulate/validate the game to provide security equivalent to C/S. When selecting referees from un-trusted peers, selecting non-colluding referees becomes critical. Further, referees should be selected such that the range and length of delays to players is minimized (maximizing game fairness and responsiveness). In this paper we formally define the referee selection problem and propose two secure referee selection algorithms, SRS-1 and SRS-2, to solve it. Both algorithms ensure the probability of corrupt referees controlling a zone/region is below a pre-defined limit, while attempting to maximize responsiveness and fairness. The trade-off between responsiveness and fairness is adjustable for both algorithms. Simulations of three different scenarios show the effectiveness of our algorithms.