Not really - either you send the ids unencrypted and they're trivial to falsify, or you send them securely, in which case it takes a lot more power to decrypt each request for filtering than it does for the attacker to send each new request.
DDoS protection is surprisingly challenging - usually it's relegated to a CDN provider, but that would be more difficult when the actual consumers are the same people most likely to be hosting botnets.
That's a false dichotomy, to say the least. There's a much different public view of e-cigarettes and non-e. Moreover, smoking bans are currently more widespread than vaping bans [1] - in many places, vaping is legal in situations where smoking is not.
IIUC, the traditional tobacco industry is disallowed from marketing to minors. I don't know if those regulations apply to Juul, but if they do, producing advertisements targeted at underage audiences while claiming they're for adults might qualify.
Amusingly, that's also part of the lawsuit - Crytek claim Star Citizen were contractually obligated to use CryEngine exclusively. It's somewhat irrelevant, as, if they used CryEngine at all for Squadron 42, even if only for development (especially if promotional footage/beta testing/etc was on CryEngine), that remains unacceptable.
On the other hand, if Star Citizen is really using an unlicensed instance of CryEngine for Squadron 42, that's a significant breach of contract, and effectively piracy. It seems absurd to avoid Crytek for responding with legal measures.
DDoS protection is surprisingly challenging - usually it's relegated to a CDN provider, but that would be more difficult when the actual consumers are the same people most likely to be hosting botnets.