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Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

dev.epicgames.com

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Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#101

Post by slezyr »

jtms wrote: post #61

This is great and all, but I feel like all of these client side cheat detection tools are basically a waste of time. Trying to enforce the trustworthiness of the client is basically an unwinnable arms race between anti-cheat and the cheat makers. A better approach is for the server to treat all clients as hostile and untrustworthy and use a combination of heuristics and statistics to ferret out malicious client behav…

> From what I have read and watched, it has been very successful.

Let me guess, you have not played CS:GO? There is an insane number of obvious cheaters, more than in other games I played.

Also, there is TeamFortress 2 that's just has been abandoned and they can not an anti-cheat to it, it seems.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#102

Post by iratewizard »

fletchowns wrote: post #89

I wish there was some well respected third party reputation service that I could prove my identity to (government id, utility statements, etc) and then all games just integrate with this third party reputation service. Sort of an Olympic committee for gaming. Give me the option to only play with other verified players. Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games. There's a gazillio…

It would also be nice if people were able to use cheats in a game against other people with cheats. It would be very enjoyable to watch battle of the bots in games and have people pit their programming skills against each other like this.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#103

Post by faho »

015a wrote: post #93
peanut_worm wrote: post #7

I could totally see Linux hitting 5+ percent market share for desktops on the next couple years

I'll go on the record and say above 5% by December 31st 2022. Depending on who you ask, its at ~2% today. If that feels high to you, remember: it includes Chromebooks. As it grows, you'll absolutely hear people say "Chromebooks" or "Steam Decks should be their own category, they don't count". These arguments effectively reduce to "Linux cannot be popular, so I'll move the goalposts so it never is." Ignore them, and p…

>Of course, if all we cared about was the "linux" part of gnu/linux, then its already the most popular operating system kernel in use by mankind. Its already won.

Except the "linux" part matters to the actual user not one bit.

Android is a fairly walled garden no matter what kernel it uses. It's an implementation detail.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#104

Post by Unklejoe »

jtms wrote: post #61

This is great and all, but I feel like all of these client side cheat detection tools are basically a waste of time. Trying to enforce the trustworthiness of the client is basically an unwinnable arms race between anti-cheat and the cheat makers. A better approach is for the server to treat all clients as hostile and untrustworthy and use a combination of heuristics and statistics to ferret out malicious client behav…

> unwinnable

It seems winnable so far if you look at the Xbox One and later, at least. I'm not aware of anyone successfully modifying game code on those consoles.

The downside is that it a requires a completely locked down system.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#105

Post by neoromantique »

beebmam wrote: post #100
fletchowns wrote: post #89

I wish there was some well respected third party reputation service that I could prove my identity to (government id, utility statements, etc) and then all games just integrate with this third party reputation service. Sort of an Olympic committee for gaming. Give me the option to only play with other verified players. Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games. There's a gazillio…

This is probably the best solution I've seen around anti-cheat solutions. I also think this is the best approach to prevent abuse on social media. I can't be the only one sick of what a sewer the internet, like multiplayer gaming and especially social media, has become.

So, like that black mirror episode?

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#106

Post by jbman223 »

fletchowns wrote: post #89

I wish there was some well respected third party reputation service that I could prove my identity to (government id, utility statements, etc) and then all games just integrate with this third party reputation service. Sort of an Olympic committee for gaming. Give me the option to only play with other verified players. Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games. There's a gazillio…

Sending away all of your PII to be verified in games isn’t much better (in terms of intrusiveness) than running anti-cheat software in the first place.

Additionally, will it be any harder to get around a system like this than a traditional anti-cheat system? Theoretically - for the average player at least, it might make cheating worse - assuming the cheater runs their cheats in a realistic way, in your world, there is now no detection software pinpointing the cheaters!

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#107

Post by temporarrry0923 »

yesbut wrote: post #53
danvayn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like another said in this thread, yes you would but it's because some cheats are rootkits. It's a little invasive but doesn't seem as problematic as other ACS like Riot's Vanguard, which is always on and China-owned.

> China-owned State owned is problematic, I'm not in disagreement with you. But so is corporate owned. I'd like to see an industry standard anti-cheat root-kit developed as a publicly reviewable open source project at the very least.

>I'd like to see an industry standard anti-cheat root-kit developed as a publicly reviewable open source project at the very least

An anti-cheat is one of the few areas that truly would ruin its security by going OSS. A cheater can quickly enumerate every method the AC uses to detect cheats, then they know EXACTLY which goalpost to kick into, per-se. 85% of Vanguard's effectiveness is their CONFUSING ban protocols, whether that's delaying a ban to confuse someone testing what's bannable, not divulging details about what avenues are tested, constant updates that aren't specified anywhere, etc.

Case in point, even in CSGO: Just changing the offsets of some game values will break some cheats for several days.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#108

Post by dpedu »

fletchowns wrote: post #89

I wish there was some well respected third party reputation service that I could prove my identity to (government id, utility statements, etc) and then all games just integrate with this third party reputation service. Sort of an Olympic committee for gaming. Give me the option to only play with other verified players. Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games. There's a gazillio…

> Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games.

This sounds pretty similar to Steam's VAC (Valve Anti Cheat) system aside from how widespread you want the system to be. IIRC, owners of Source-based game servers can set a flag to allow/deny users with a VAC ban. I don't think this is available to non-source games, which would be needed for your idea.

> How do VAC bans relate to phone numbers?

> VAC bans are applied to all accounts sharing a phone number at the time of the infraction.

> Can I move my items and games to a different Steam account?

> No.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/647C-5CC1-7EA9-3C...

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#109

Post by SCHiM »

A long time ago, before my frontal lobe had completely developed, I used to develop multiplayer game cheats. I now recognize that behavior as abhorrent, but in those days I thought it was l33t.

In any case, no mater how good your protection is, how deep in the system you go, the cheaters can go deeper. Like anti-virus and DRM evasion will always win from detection. The cheaters have complete insight into any/all client side protection mechanisms, more importantly, the cheater owns the machine and the environment where your code runs. There is not a checksum that can not be faked, and no way to measure if any of your protections have been circumvented, because the code you use to measure can (and will) be patched.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#110

Post by VRay »

neoromantique wrote: post #105
beebmam wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the best solution I've seen around anti-cheat solutions. I also think this is the best approach to prevent abuse on social media. I can't be the only one sick of what a sewer the internet, like multiplayer gaming and especially social media, has become.

So, like that black mirror episode?

yeah, no shit

You guys can just move to South Korea or China if you want to live with that authoritarian BS

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