What about those who don't do multiplayer and want to cheat. Single player cheating is fun as hell. I miss the days of modifying doom with a hexeditor
Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
321–330 of 332 posts
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I don't get about this, what prevents your cheats from starting at boot too?
I'm not an expert, but from what I've come to understand, anti cheat is for the most part about making it as hard or inconvenient to cheat as possible. You'll never be able to stop it, but putting in hurdles for both the cheat developer and user is key to keeping it limited. The huge problem is that cheaters are very willing to go to extreme lengths of inconvenience or even risk, as in running random cheats as kernel…
I think making your cheat kernel level is a relatively minor hurdle compared to the lengths that people have been going with ML + hardware based cheats at this point. Maybe we need to stop the kernel anti-cheat just from a pure privacy perspective at this point, or make it an OS service you can implement as a user level module only, much like endpoint management and macOS. I get a feeling there is more to being in the kernel although.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% this. Coming from someone who made one myself :p if everyone had to do it to cheat, cheating would be OVER at a casual level, and a minor issue at semipros/pros (even irl tourneys can be hacked! see forsaken).
But why would it cost hundreds or dollars? I can see why a DIY solution might, but if there's demand for it, surely it can be packaged as a plug-and-play device, and manufactured at scale for a lot less?
Camera + beefy computer + input device, maybe an external motor based thing if controllers are crypto locked by manufacturers in the console case.
Even if you made a specialized item it would still cost a lot mostly due to the ML requirements. Maybe smartphone + a specialized input device would reduce the 'cost', but you still need to buy a several hundred dollar cell phone.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#324While 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…
I agree that your point on cloud gaming is probably valid for companies trying to maintain a rigid grip over software piracy when the companies still build things that can be stolen -- But I don't think it's strictly necessary for the development of anti-cheat systems. In the next version of Windows, we're seeing a rapid acceleration in the amount of hardware/software fingerprinting and secure storage going on in hom…
I'm really glad we have thoughtful people like you here. Gives me a little hope and motivation.
What's worse, MS and hw companies are joining efforts and may pressure Linux platforms as well (remember the story with the UEFI shim signature).
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#325The 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…
> Could even make this part of the ranking mechanics. Maybe you _can't_ enable the client-side anticheat until the server-side one thinks you're sus. Then you get prompted to turn on the client-side support and get a cool badge or something.
That's somewhat similar to how FACEIT did it when I tried it for TF2. The serverside detection decided if you needed the client side detection.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Online gaming doesn't necessarily mean competitive PvP. Co-op tends to be a lot less toxic.
Indeed, but then there is less need for anti-cheat in co-op.
That's very true, but once an anti-cheat solution is deployed, it tends to be deployed universally for online gaming. So those who mostly or exclusively play co-op still have to deal with intrusive anti-cheat systems, for no tangible benefit to them.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
That, or hackers would just use a TPM compatible device you can reassign the keys on. Not necessarily useful from a security point of view, but would get you around bans by hardware id.
Does not work like that. The keys are signed by the vendor of the hardware. You are essentially paying for the hardware AND the signed keys within it. The server can choose to only trust vendor signed keys.
And how long until one of those vendor keys is compromised? Can't exactly revoke the signed key for everyone's hardware. All it takes is a single malicious actor or nasty breach at one of the issuing companies and it's all over.
It doesn't appear to have been a big target thus far, but if we get to the point where companies are perma-banning devices, It's not hard to imagine those becoming target #1 for various blackhat groups.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does not work like that. The keys are signed by the vendor of the hardware. You are essentially paying for the hardware AND the signed keys within it. The server can choose to only trust vendor signed keys.
And how long until one of those vendor keys is compromised? Can't exactly revoke the signed key for everyone's hardware. All it takes is a single malicious actor or nasty breach at one of the issuing companies and it's all over. It doesn't appear to have been a big target thus far, but if we get to the point where companies are perma-banning devices, It's not hard to imagine those becoming target #1 for various black…
It's probably a similar infra to root CAs that sign TLS keys. I don't recall a root CA compromise in recent memory.
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#329Brilliant - game devs doing kernel drivers.
I don't think you realise that many of these companies have large and experienced security engineers and experts who develop these things.
Yes like the infamous day 1 release patches to get a game working - reputation of game devs and studios are that they slap dash testing/coding to make release dates.
Cyberpunk 2077 (cough cough).
Re: Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
EAC already supports Proton, albeit recently, [1] and BattlEye supports Linux and macOS natively already with Proton support in the pipeline [2]. It's not impossible, it's just up to Activision. [1] https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la... [2] https://twitter.com/thebattleye/status/1441477816311291906
Except that dev has to opt-in which I'm pretty sure none of the major studios will do, supporting another platform for a very vocal population with a few users.
Activision make a killing from selling DLC & Season Passes from their games like Call of Duty. Not sure why they'd give up free money from a single toggle switch with no extra work.
Unless out of spite, like when Snapchat banned third-party clients for Windows Phone (like 6snap) and accounts using it (I'm still raging that my 'benbristow' username got banned and now I'm using 'benbristow1' because of that).
Fun fact: The guy that made 6snap (and other 6 prefixed apps like 6tin (Tinder)) (Rudy Huyn) was hired by Microsoft and is now one of the leads behind the updated Windows 11 Store app