Researcher says Counter-Strike mouse and keyboard patterns can link smurf accounts

The method could help match players across accounts, but it still needs validation on a larger CS2 population.

A master’s student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology says they built a Counter-Strike fingerprinting system that can match players to accounts by analyzing mouse and keyboard patterns, including cases where one person uses multiple smurf accounts. In tests shared on r/GlobalOffensive, the mouse model identified the correct player every time and the keyboard model did so 98% of the time, with the researcher arguing that combining the two signals makes detection much stronger. The work tracked input data from more than a thousand players and was able to uncover previously unknown account links, including one person tied to four accounts. The researcher says the method is already usable as a continuous system for linking demo uploads, though they also note limits such as shared accounts and the need to validate it on a larger real-world CS2 population.