Anti-cheat kernel driver • Hacker News Board

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#21

Post by chungy » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

crazypython wrote: post #3

Title should be changed to "League of Legends to use kernel driver to enforce anti-cheat." I thought the article had something to do with the device null.

Yeah, same. In fact the article seems to be talking specifically about a Windows-only game and "/dev/null" in the title doesn't appear to have any relation to the text.

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#22

Post by toast0 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #15

mkj wrote: post #4

I guess next step is for cheat software to run in a hypervisor. Now what're you gonna do!

Yep. The article even smugly tries to boast about how they're adults and understand these things : > We haven’t needed both arms yet, primarily because we have the advantage of steady paychecks and the lack of strict bedtimes at our immediate disposal. But as much as we might like the idea of an ever-escalating appsec war with teenagers, And yet they fail to realize that they're playing in to the very cat-and-mouse g…

> Spoilers: the teenagers will always win; you can never trust a client no matter how many technical barriers you erect.

This type of battle can't be won, but if you do it right, you can push most of the cheaters somewhere else. Of course, if you do it wrong, you push legitimate players out too.

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#23

Post by blibble » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

mkj wrote: post #4

I guess next step is for cheat software to run in a hypervisor. Now what're you gonna do!

quite a few games prevent you running on a hypervisor (e.g. CSGO)

this was one reason I stopped gaming under Windows inside KVM (the main reason being input lag/jitter)

eventually all the cheats will move into the hypervisor and every competitive game will ban the use of virtualisation

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#24

Post by MuffinFlavored » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:12 AM UTC

crazypython wrote: post #3

Title should be changed to "League of Legends to use kernel driver to enforce anti-cheat." I thought the article had something to do with the device null.

Does this mean the app will need to run as root while the user is playing?

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#25

Post by tomc1985 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

These horrible analogies make me want to stab the writer with a pen

How about he just writes technically and lets reddit comments translate? I'm so sick of writers' concerns for illiterate proles (along with, in this case, a seeming need to maintain the energy and punch of a memetastic for-12-year-olds YouTuber) ruining perfectly good technical writing

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#26

Post by MuffinFlavored » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

mkj wrote: post #4

I guess next step is for cheat software to run in a hypervisor. Now what're you gonna do!

Imagine running a video game in a Docker container...

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#27

Post by dmitrygr » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:18 AM UTC

> This isn’t giving us any surveillance capability we didn’t already have. If we cared about grandma’s secret recipe for the perfect Christmas casserole, we’d find no issue in obtaining it strictly from user-mode and then selling it to The Food Network. The purpose of this upgrade is to monitor system state for integrity (so we can trust our data) and to make it harder for cheaters to tamper with our games (so you can’t blame aimbots for personal failure).

these guys are pretty cavalier about shoving themselves into the kernel...

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#28

Post by dang » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

crazypython wrote: post #3

Title should be changed to "League of Legends to use kernel driver to enforce anti-cheat." I thought the article had something to do with the device null.

Ok, we've nullified the /dev/null bit in the title above.

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#29

Post by xenadu02 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #15

mkj wrote: post #4

I guess next step is for cheat software to run in a hypervisor. Now what're you gonna do!

Yep. The article even smugly tries to boast about how they're adults and understand these things : > We haven’t needed both arms yet, primarily because we have the advantage of steady paychecks and the lack of strict bedtimes at our immediate disposal. But as much as we might like the idea of an ever-escalating appsec war with teenagers, And yet they fail to realize that they're playing in to the very cat-and-mouse g…

That's correct. The ability to cheat relies on the fact that servers don't actually model the client's view of the world to any fidelity. The server sends you information about the world you can't see so it doesn't have to do the culling. It accepts clearly impossible input that is obviously not human because statistical analysis would require some data scientists who are quite difficult to hire at the bargain-basement rates game companies pay.

You don't even need a hypervisor to bypass this, just a driver that pretends to be their kernel driver.

Re: Anti-cheat kernel driver

#30

Post by jitl » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 2:24 AM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #25

These horrible analogies make me want to stab the writer with a pen How about he just writes technically and lets reddit comments translate? I'm so sick of writers' concerns for illiterate proles (along with, in this case, a seeming need to maintain the energy and punch of a memetastic for-12-year-olds YouTuber) ruining perfectly good technical writing

I decided to downvote you for both a gate-keeping attitude (how dare a non-SWE else understand a bit of this stuff?) and for name calling, etc. Please consider learning some empathy.