[cf. cheating at cards] Consider a scenario like “convincing a third party that you got a high score on the pinball machine”. If we apply the “security mindset”, how many ways are there to cheat or reward-hack?

This exercise can help us better unsee an apparently objective fact, and understand the limits to claims like “it is impossible to get an arbitrarily high score because bouncing balls are chaotic”.

Here is an incomplete taxonomy of pinball hacks:

• Identity/Player Manipulation (who plays or perceived abilities):

  • Substitution:

    • one could pay a pro to play for you instead

      • claim that they did it on your behalf as a work-for-hire and therefore the record is “yours” (similar to ownership in animal races etc.)

    • swap with your identical twin, a look-alike, or a body double

    • get audio feedback from a pro

    • use pro-remote-controlled inputs to pretend to play while a pro plays (extreme version: haptic body suit)

    • latency-masked live stream: pro plays off-camera; you restage the inputs with a few-second delay so judge sees ‘live’ play if they aren’t looking close enough

  • Misrepresentation:

    • use forced perspective/trick angles to make it look like you’re playing the same machine a pro is playing

    • play as part of a team of pros, and then omit to mention them

    • find a pinball machine with a pre-existing high score coincidentally your name (easiest with only initials)

    • change your legal name, or screen name, to the current high-scorer’s name

    • change the current high-scorer’s name to your name (eg. pay them, or use fraud)

• Physical Gameplay Tampering (altering machine or playfield):

  • External Force:

    • use magnetic balls to maneuver balls from the outside

    • magnets or ultrasonics to tamper with the tilt sensor (stop it from registering a tilt)

    • attach high-frequency vibrator which stabilizes pendulum

    • ultrasonics or static electricity to push ball around from outside

    • aimed compressed air

    • piezoelectric vibrators attached to key spots

    • ride a “Vomit Comet” to tilt or move the pinball machine in micro-gravity (letting you move the ball around arbitrarily without triggering the ‘pendulum’ tilt sensor)

  • Internal Modification:

    • activate machine’s piezoelectric mechanisms remotely (possibly using ultrasonic, but microwaves may be able to induce electricity in circuits and activate them)

    • objects snaked through slots, such as to add invisible barriers like nylon thread, or visible barriers to block/disable sensors

    • sticky gel/resins added to slow down & change ball trajectories

    • wax/oil added to speed up balls

    • warping playfield with infrared laser to heat spots & cause thermal expansion

    • LN₂ for invisibly cooling spots, or even freezing mechanisms

    • ball substitutions (many)

• Machine Configuration/Administration:

  • Firmware & Hardware Tampering:

    • bribe the pinball operator/owner to edit the machine to add favorable rules or simply add you to the high-score table, period

    • hotwire it

    • insert new chips to reprogram it

    • hack it over a network or debug port

    • side-channel attacks: voltage/EMF glitching

    • … (too many to really bother trying to categorize)

  • Software:

    • exploit known glitches or bugs in a pinball machine

    • damage machine to force a reset, erasing high scores

    • …

• Display & Visual Deception:

  • Physical Display:

    • fake number overlays

    • laser-projected false numbers

    • OLED/LCD controlled overlays

    • e-ink overlays (persistent false display)

    • polarized overlay or holographic visual deception

  • Observer/Judge Deception:

    • replace display or machine before judge arrives

    • stage-magician misdirection exploiting change/inattentional blindness (judge forgets they didn’t actually see a high score)

    • judge arrives after machine ‘accidentally’ turned off; ‘witness’ (eg. a beautiful woman) swears she saw a high score

    • hired crowd of actors intimidate the judge into agreeing it was a high score

    • projection of fake video onto the judge (eg. big video screen put in front of them, lasers projected on their glasses)

    • non-impartial witnesses like a bribed judge (possibly for multiple records)

    • drug or hypnotize or induce false memories (eg. by roleplaying or ‘acting’, counting on source confusion)

    • man-in-the-middle attack on judge’s notes or devices: edit their clipboard before they finalize it, and count on change/inattentional blindness

    • replaced judge

    • any of the original identity attacks, laundered through a judge

    • bribe or coerce the third party to pretend that you convinced them of a high score

• Documentation & Evidence Manipulation:

  • Digital Media Forgery:

    • Image/video editing:

      • Photoshop a photo of yourself to have high scores

      • Photoshop yourself into a photo of someone else’s high scores

    • Deepfake gameplay videos

    • spliced videos (if there is no cumulative final score)

    • Chromakey (green screen) manipulation

    • rolling shutter exploits

    • man-in-the-middle the judge’s digital messages to replace the high-scorer (many ways)

  • Physical & Documentary Forgery:

    • fake tournament or other official certificates

      • which can be notarized (often mistaken for a proof of authenticity, rather than a mere witnessing)

    • spread false claims, and hope they get copied long enough to become official (eg. citogenesis)

    • forged databases or records (eg. fake pinball high-score website / media)

    • tampered databases/records (eg. hack legitimate pinball website)

    • borrowed footage misrepresented

    • record a video of a real pro setting a record on that machine; play it back in front of a camera, blocking the view of you playing

    • font hacking: rotate the camera while zooming in or cutting, so a low score reads as a high score (eg. ‘00 006’ → ‘90 000’; cf. FE-Schrift)

• System Replacement & Impersonation:

  • entire fake/modified machines

  • version confusion (exploiting different ROMs which seem same but have different rules/bugs)

• Rule & Semantic Manipulation:

  • misrepresent an existing high score from another context, like a record that allowed multiple credits

  • discredit current high scorers: accuse of fraud, sexual misconduct, fringe politics etc.

  • define a new set of rules for the pinball machine which rule out all existing records and permit only yours

    • narrow machine definition (eg. “must be played on an original, unmodified machine using the original circuit boards”; “played on this machine, which is a unique prototype”)

    • narrow temporal definition (“today”)

    • narrow space definition (“Nevada”)

    • narrow ruleset (“highest score within 60 seconds”, “while blindfolded”, “best-of-3”)

    • expanded ruleset Redefining High score (eg. “cumulative over all games”)

      • redefine number systems (eg. claim an old score was in octal, and lower than your new decimal score)

  • which pinball: find an obscure pinball machine somewhere like the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame Museum, which has hundreds, that no one cares enough to get a real high score on, and get one on that

  • bounty manipulation: offer prizes for beating certain scores (with NDAs), then use insider knowledge

  • create a new pinball machine no one else has ever played, and so your score is definitionally the high score

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