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

dev.epicgames.com

241–250 of 327 posts

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

#241

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 doesn't work across multiple games but Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a system where you enter your phone number to verify your account and then can queue only with other verified players.

Cheaters already purchase verified accounts.

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

#242

Has there ever been any attempts to construct a “credit score” for online gaming? At the end of the day anti-cheat measures can always be bypassed because the cheater owns the hardware which the game runs upon. On top of that I don’t trust game developers with installing an anti-cheat rootkit on my device. I would much rather have an online credit score which takes into account the number of games you own, how old yo…

Trying to automate these types of systems always runs the risk of targeting innocent players. Because of the TF2 bots I stick to community servers located in my country and add regular players on there to my friends list. That’s the problem with valve owned servers; you cannot visit the same lobby regularly and have a rapport with other players.

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

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to the magic of cryptography, it's possible to prove your identity to someone else without enabling them to impersonate you. For instance, the third party gives you a nonce, you sign it with your private key, and they verify it with your public key.

Then I can make one key per game.

Well, your public key is not exactly the same as your identity.

Presumably, there's a commonly-trusted authority that signed your public key, attesting that the key corresponds to some "identity".

If you're concerned about revealing your identity to the third party, there are other schemes. Check out https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/privacypass/about/

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

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits.

> Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits. There's a hardware cheat that's actually in the wild that uses a capture card, computer vision, and hardware input devices to run entirely outside the OS: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/cheat-maker-brags-of-...

There are also MITM proxies for various games to sniff and alter network packets.

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

#245
post #81
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…

Simply because a tech arms race is theoretically unwinnable doesn't mean that trying to win a little doesn't deliver value to the company and its ecosystem. You can emulate an android and run snapchat and screenshot the emulator, but the screenshot reporting inside of snapchat is still valued by millions (and shapes the behavior of millions).

iirc there are modified Snapchat apks that can screenshot snaps without notifying the sender

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I have completely given up on competitive fps games. The cheating situation has only gotten worse and I really don't see anti-cheat makers winning.

How does Stadia play a role in this? I don't play video games outside of Football Manager so not knowledgeable in the area but I recall reading about the competitive scene of one of these games moving over to the service due to the cheating.

I think it would kill the scene, Stadia is anti-performance, it's a video feed streamed over the internet, with all the problems associated with processing on a remote computer, the primary motivator for high refresh rate monitors and low latency input is FPS games I would assume, so going from sub 10ms end to end latency to a 40ms latency on a perfect connection, I just don't see it being accepted.

As an aside it's recommended to keep latency under 20ms to stop motion sickness in VR.

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

#247
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Woah, I'm a linux gamer but %5 by 23 is crazy. Steam Deck is going to be super niche, and a lot of people over on reddit are already planning how they will install Windows on it. It's not going to explode. It will creep up very slowly. And lets not forget that Microsoft will combat it if it starts to take off. Game pass is already and incredible deal. We have it in our house for the xbox.

> people over on reddit are already planning how they will install Windows on it

Wait until hands on videos show the battery and performance difference between Linux and Windows and see how many Deck purchasers don’t go ahead with their installation.

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. Desktop computers haven’t been relevant since 2008ish, and were struggling to maintain relevance after the 4th gen Intel GPU/Power-consumption changes. Headless servers and consumer electronics are, already, largely using Linux.

And yet we just went through a massive GPU shortage suggesting Desktop is alive and well. Do we have any recent industry stats on this?

Have you not heard of the crypto miners buying up all GPUs

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits. There's a hardware cheat that's actually in the wild that uses a capture card, computer vision, and hardware input devices to run entirely outside the OS: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/cheat-maker-brags-of-...

With all my heart, I'm rooting for the authors of this approach. Anti-cheat and DRM hide behind the defense of practicality and cost efficiency, but these products are absolutely evil. As personal computers are becoming more and more an extension of our bodies and minds, it is essential that they act in our interests and nobody else's. Imagine a prosthetic leg that phoned the insurance company if it detected illegal…

Not a game dev but I don't think that's really feasible in a world where network latency is a thing, and it's necessary to send game state to a client that may not currently be visible on screen, unless you'd like us to move to a Stadia-like model of game streaming and dumb terminals.

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

#250
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we just went through a massive GPU shortage suggesting Desktop is alive and well. Do we have any recent industry stats on this?

Have you not heard of the crypto miners buying up all GPUs

It is a factor. It is hard for me to argue that it did not have significant impact and I don't really have hard data.

That said, all the people in my circle with remote jobs upgraded their desktops or lappies. It cannot be an insignificant number given initial pandemic panic and current delta resurgence. And between China cracking down on bitcoin ( check 3060s prices there and you will be left wondering why the prices did not drop significantly here ), Treasury issuing crypto guidance on ransomware payments, and eth moving to POS, it is harder and harder to blame crypto miners.

Frankly, they sound like convenient scapegoat.

I won't go into details, but I had the option of buying 3070 yesterday and 3090 2 weeks ago. I passed on both precisely due to recent uncertainty.

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