Aceloop Glossary

A

Anti-cheat

Software that detects and prevents cheating in competitive contexts: kernel drivers in gaming (BattlEye, EAC, Vanguard) and increasingly proctoring stacks for interviews. Operates one ring deeper than the cheat.

B

BattlEye

Commercial kernel-mode anti-cheat product (PUBG, R6, ARMA). Hooks syscalls and walks kernel structures. Engineering ceiling for client-side detection.

C

Chrome content script

JavaScript injected into a web page by an extension or platform, running with full DOM access. The canonical detection surface in modern coding-interview proctoring.

CoderPad / CoderPad Enterprise

Live-coding interview platform. Enterprise variant ships content-script tracking, screen-share fingerprinting, and process probes, the deepest commercial proctoring stack in 2026.

CodeSignal

Coding assessment platform with timed certified evaluations, keystroke biometrics (IQ Score), microphone monitoring, and tab-switch counting.

Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)

Google's user-experience ranking metrics: LCP (load speed), CLS (layout stability), INP (interaction latency). Thresholds 2.5s, 0.1, 200ms.

D

DOM (Document Object Model)

Browser's in-memory tree representation of an HTML document. JavaScript reads and writes the page through DOM APIs. The visibility ceiling for browser-side proctoring.

DXGI (DirectX Graphics Infrastructure)

Microsoft's graphics API layer between Direct3D and the kernel display driver. Output Duplication is the standard screen-capture path; the proctor's hook point.

E

Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC)

Kernel-mode anti-cheat product (Fortnite, Apex, Elden Ring). Signed driver, syscall hooks, kernel-level process walks. Engineering ceiling for client-side detection.

F

FAANG

Acronym for the highest-paying public-tech-company tier (Facebook/Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) plus Microsoft and informally Stripe, Databricks, OpenAI, Anthropic.

Fair Screen

Free OS-level window-enumeration scanner targeting AI interview overlays. The new canonical candidate-side adversary; defeats every WDA-based stealth approach.

Fingerprinting

Identifying users, devices, or software by combining multiple low-information signals into a near-unique signature. Browser, process, and detection-query fingerprinting all apply to interview stealth.

H

HackerRank

Coding-interview and skill-assessment platform. Tab-switch detection, full-screen mode, content-script tracking. Used widely for FAANG phone screens.

Hotkey

Keyboard shortcut, typically a chord with modifier keys. AI interview tools use them to invoke actions without mouse focus loss; kernel-mode hooks defeat content-script detection.

I

IQ Score (CodeSignal)

CodeSignal's proprietary 600-850 scoring system for the General Coding Framework. Includes keystroke-biometrics analysis on certified evaluations.

K

Kernel mode (ring-0)

x86/x64 ring-0: most privileged execution context, direct hardware access, no syscall barrier. Where the Windows kernel and signed drivers run.

Kernel-mode driver

Windows software component running in kernel mode, packaged as .sys. Authenticode-signed, loaded by SCM, full kernel privileges. Where commercial anti-cheat and Aceloop Pro stealth live.

Keystroke biometrics

Analysis of typing cadence, inter-key timing, and bursts to identify users or flag non-human patterns. CodeSignal IQ ships it. Defeated by output-pacing modules.

L

LeetCode

Practice platform with 3,000+ algorithm problems. Canonical FAANG interview prep surface. Unproctored: safe for AI-assisted practice workflows.

M

Memory read

Direct extraction of data from another process's address space. Bypasses the screenshot-and-OCR pipeline. The input-side architectural alternative for AI interview tools.

Mid-round failure

Reliability failure mode where an AI tool crashes, hallucinates, or latency-spikes mid-interview. Functionally as bad as stealth failure.

MOSS (plagiarism detection)

Stanford's code similarity service, originally for CS coursework. The detection family is now applied to interview submissions to catch verbatim LLM output.

O

OCR (optical character recognition)

Pipeline converting pixel images of text into machine-readable strings. The input layer most consumer AI interview tools ship with, slow and lossy compared to memory read.

Overlay (graphics)

Graphical surface rendered on top of application windows. User-mode overlays are visible to window enumeration; kernel-mode overlays are not.

P

Process enumeration

OS operation of listing every running process. Multiple user-mode entry points (Toolhelp, EnumProcesses, NtQuerySystemInformation, WMI) all read the same EPROCESS list.

Proctor / proctoring

Human or automated system monitoring a candidate during an assessment. Hybrid stacks combine screen-share fingerprinting, process enumeration, keystroke biometrics, and verbal explanation checks.

R

Ring-0 vs Ring-3

x86 privilege rings: ring-0 (kernel) is most privileged, ring-3 (user mode) is restricted. Modern OSes use only these two. Detection at one ring outranks stealth at the other.

S

Screen capture

OS operation producing a pixel bitmap of the desktop. Multiple APIs (BitBlt, DXGI Output Duplication, Windows.Graphics.Capture) all read post-DWM composite.

Screen-share

Video-conferencing feature broadcasting a candidate's screen. Application-window mode restricts broadcast to one window; entire-desktop mode reveals everything.

Stealth / detection-evasion

The architectural property of being invisible to a specific class of detection queries. Layered, not binary; sorts by depth from single-flag to kernel-mode.

Study Mode

Aceloop's practice surface: clickable algorithm graph where each node expands into the canonical defense (invariant, complexity, failure mode).

System call (syscall)

Mechanism by which user-mode code requests a kernel-mode service. Trapped via the syscall instruction; the layer where anti-cheat and stealth-filtering both operate.

T

Tab-switch detection

Browser-side technique counting tab focus losses via visibilitychange and document.hasFocus(). HackerRank surfaces counts; some platforms use them as a hard DQ threshold.

W

WDA (Windows Display Affinity)

The WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE flag asks DWM to omit a window from the screen-capture composite. Queryable in one syscall: fingerprint, not defense.

WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model)

The architecture connecting user-mode graphics calls to the kernel-mode display driver. The boundary stealth tools must navigate to be invisible to capture.

WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs)

Microsoft's signing pipeline for Windows kernel drivers. Multi-quarter, expensive, and unforgiving. The cost moat that prevents most consumer AI tools from shipping kernel-mode stealth.

Window enumeration

OS operation listing every top-level window. Resolves through win32k.sys to walk the kernel's tagWND list. Fair Screen and proctor companions enumerate windows to find AI overlays.

Windows kernel

The core of the Windows OS: executive (processes, memory, I/O), kernel (scheduling, interrupts), win32k (windowing). Runs at ring-0 with full hardware privilege.