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Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

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Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#241

Post by flohofwoe »

xerxes901 wrote: post #154

The whole "super intrusive anti-cheat" thing is really annoying to me as a non-competitive player, who just plays games like CoD, CS, etc occasionally with friends. And not just academically annoying, but practically too. I used to run Windows virtualised under Linux with a PCIe passthrough GPU. I remember having to re-install windows directly on my machine at a LAN party once because CS:GO couldn't be run in a VM an…

> - Have _opt-in_ client side anticheat detection. If you have this enabled, then you're exempted from the server-side detection. So, you enable this if you're actually good.

This is how it works in ARMA for instance (not sure if opt-in or opt-out though), the players can decide whether to install/uninstall the game's anti-cheat solution on their machine, and the people running the servers can decide whether they require the anti-cheat-solution to be installed. Since I almost never venture into multiplayer anyway, the decision for me was simple (uninstall the anti-cheat software).

> - Implement server-side anticheat detection,

This only works for "real" client/server games, not peer-to-peer games which usually only use centralized servers for matchmaking and some other non-gamplay-services.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#242

Post by jacquesm »

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #150

While I don't particularly like this sort of anti-cheat, I think we should all be more worried about cloud gaming than anything else. It's been obvious for a while that the big gaming companies have it in mind, and the only reason it isn't as big as it could be, is due to tech limitations FOR NOW. When (not if) cloud gaming truly takes off, and it will, we'll lose any and all control over our games. So long to moddin…

Welcome to the wonderful world of SaaS, where even the last upsides of software have been replaced by a money extraction machine.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#243

Post by withinrafael »

rafale wrote: post #8

Microsoft should implement an Xbox mode for Windows that has these protection features for all games. It will probably require some virtualization and performance degradation but it's better than each game rolling out their own half assed drivers.

Windows 10 has anti-cheat built in but it's not documented or documented as part of the Xbox SDK that requires an NDA. See Settings > Gaming > Game Monitor.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#244

Post by jacquesm »

RattleyCooper wrote: post #86

> In its initial rollout on Call of Duty: Warzone, the kernel-level driver will only operate when you play on PC. The driver is not always-on. The software turns on when you start Call of Duty: Warzone and shuts down when you close the game. Oh that's good. > Plus, the kernel-level driver only monitors and reports activity related to Call of Duty. Oh, so in other words it reports everything since any software that mi…

This is just an accident waiting to happen. If they can't identify cheats on the server side then I highly doubt that they are able to engineer this in such a way that it does not have negative security implications.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#245

Post by flohofwoe »

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #150

While I don't particularly like this sort of anti-cheat, I think we should all be more worried about cloud gaming than anything else. It's been obvious for a while that the big gaming companies have it in mind, and the only reason it isn't as big as it could be, is due to tech limitations FOR NOW. When (not if) cloud gaming truly takes off, and it will, we'll lose any and all control over our games. So long to moddin…

AFAIK cloud gaming hasn't shown any signs of "taking off" so far, despite many desperate attempts. I think we're safe for a while. And even if, there will be new game companies discovering that now free niche of "cloud free gaming". Some of the other problems you describe already exist for locally installed games though (e.g. most multiplayer games are useless when their matchmaking servers are switched off).

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#246

Post by tempestn »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #228
KennyBlanken wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: game companies don't actually give a shit about cheaters, especially if they're giving them money. The only point at which a company cares about cheaters is when the community starts to really get riled up about them and revenue drops. COD Warzone has a full stats API and cheaters leap off the page. We're talking people with K/D ratios of, say, 10-20:1 or more. All they'd have to do is zap or flag those account…

Given that the solution provided here is actively trying to root out cheaters, I don't know how your initial "hint" statement even holds water. The issue with any kind of wave of ban style action like you are suggesting is that the users can just create new accounts for free and continue to cheat. It greatly reduces the integrity of the overall matchmaking and game experience for everyone else. If you think there is…

Not to mention, prefacing an opinion with "Hint:" is rather obnoxious.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#247

Post by formerly_proven »

jacquesm wrote: post #244
RattleyCooper wrote: post #86

> In its initial rollout on Call of Duty: Warzone, the kernel-level driver will only operate when you play on PC. The driver is not always-on. The software turns on when you start Call of Duty: Warzone and shuts down when you close the game. Oh that's good. > Plus, the kernel-level driver only monitors and reports activity related to Call of Duty. Oh, so in other words it reports everything since any software that mi…

This is just an accident waiting to happen. If they can't identify cheats on the server side then I highly doubt that they are able to engineer this in such a way that it does not have negative security implications.

Historically anti-cheats are about as big a mess as AV engines in the kernel.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#248

Post by bob1029 »

The only realistic solution to this problem is to move the audio and video rendering server-side and stream final output to clients from the edge.

You have to attack this from an information theory perspective. If the client receives the information in any manner whatsoever, you must assume it is being used in the most adversarial way possible.

The AI problem is more complex, but that's more a function of how deep the gameplay is than how good the hacker is. Time constraints make pure machine vision bots subpar for fast-paced games that also have a complex tactical element.

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#249

Post by rumpelstilz18 »

bob1029 wrote: post #248

The only realistic solution to this problem is to move the audio and video rendering server-side and stream final output to clients from the edge. You have to attack this from an information theory perspective. If the client receives the information in any manner whatsoever, you must assume it is being used in the most adversarial way possible. The AI problem is more complex, but that's more a function of how deep th…

"The only realistic solution to this problem is to move the audio and video rendering server-side and stream final output to clients from the edge."

Too expensive, requires too much crunching power on the server side.

Here, CS in your browser: https://play-cs.com/

Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat

#250

Post by formerly_proven »

justinlloyd wrote: post #218

Client-side anti-cheat is pointless, it just captures the low hanging fruit. Kernel level drivers are also kind of useless, easy to circumvent, easy to reverse engineer. Building a capable computer vision bot that can play World of Warcraft, Diablo and CS:GO is trivially easy to do these days. We're talking a few hundred lines of Python to build a working prototype that will track and kill and take objectives. I have…

Couple weeks ago someone posted just this, using an HDMI capture card and a fake USB mouse/keyboard to send inputs back. Got nuked from the 'net pretty quickly, though it made it pretty obvious that with a 20$ HDMI->USB dongle and a microcontroller you can circumvent any anti-cheat, because there is nothing to detect: it's just a PC, with a monitor, and a mouse, and a keyboard.
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