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Thank You, Valve

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Re: Thank You, Valve

#151

Post by toyg »

tapoxi wrote: post #30

Is it too little, too late? Microsoft now owns a lot of the biggest game franchises through the Activision and Bethesda acquisitions, and I wouldn't be surprised if they actively block Proton support by using UWP or Windows-specific anticheat.

Microsoft cannot politically afford such brazen anti-competitive moves. Because of accidents of history, their position is somewhat unique. They can close the platform to third-parties if they really want (although I don't think it will ever happen), but actively blocking interop efforts would directly contravene a lot of very well-established legislation.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#152

Post by 0xedd »

sbarre wrote: post #74
dagw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I played competitive video games seriously I would absolutely want them to take cheating seriously and take any necessary measure to stop it. At the same time I think they should also make the most serious kernel/driver level anti-cheat software optional. If you don't to want to install it you can still play the game, just not on any of the 'pro' servers. Think of it a bit like doping tests in sports. As long as y…

The problem with this logic is that most multiplayer games have post-sale economies with cosmetics and other add-ons, and I would guess that most of those sales comes from casual players. So while anti-cheat helps protect the pro/serious players (who in some ways are community/marketing leaders in this world of Twitch and YouTube), it also creates a fair environment for all the casual and aspiring players who keep sp…

Your argument falls short.

Pro cheating uses hardware to cheat. It streams the video output and keyboard/mouse input to an AI/ML. Making these kernel anti-cheat useless there.

Casual players looking to spend money on cosmetics aren't affected by cheaters because the system influencing the players to buy isn't affected by the cheaters. The way most of these "influence systems" work is by using marketing strategies. It'll augment your match, or otherwise the players you meet, to see cosmetics you don't have. Coupled with gambling mechanics to induce addiction and sheer marketing material ("best offer now!") makes for this whole pro-kernel-anti-cheat industry move highly dubious.

Source: i worked at a company that writes such systems. The day I decided to quit was when my naive ass heard the team lead, on a recruitment call, explain to a candidate what we do: "we refine a company's ability to get kids addicted".

It's a completely different game (no pun intended) than what news outlets want us to think.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#153

Post by rnhmjoj »

gambiting wrote: post #110
realusername wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but it should only be present for pro competitions (and by pro I really mean playing is their job).

I disagree. As someone who plays online shooters only casually once or twice a week, nothing sucks more than having a full session in Apex ruined by an obvious cheater. The fact that I don't spend 8 hours a day doing this makes it far worse for me, the time for gaming is very limited when you have a small child and having it ruined because of some script kiddies is incredibly demoralizing. Let me put it this way - I'…

You used to be able to vote-kick the obvious cheater, not sure why that is not an option anymore, these days.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#154

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

raxxorrax wrote: post #2

Indeed. Valve established DRM to a degree many previously hoped it would get rejected. But they offered a decent service and proved that piracy is a service problem. What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Not many people use it yet, but Windows does look less and less like a dependable long term solution, especially with Microsofts other ambitions in that industry.

> Valve established DRM to a degree many previously hoped it would get rejected.

Not sure what you mean by this. Steam offers DRM, but its use is not enforced. There are many Steam games that can simply be copied to another computer and run even without Steam.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#155

Post by charcircuit »

scrollaway wrote: post #136
parkingrift wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why anti-cheat should be performance based. Build a model based on the way that verified elite players play the game, and their performance. Compare “normal” players against the model and look for outliers. Manually review accounts that look suspicious. Cheat behavior is obvious. Ridiculous long distance accuracy. Weird movement. Weird map awareness. Weird awareness of other players. Etc.

Incorrect, there’s lots of cheats that are completely seamless and just improve your performance without being a completely binary “perfect headshot” vs “always miss” or something. I guess your last encounter with aimbots was in the early 00s…

If other players can't tell someone is cheating then it's not actually a problem since everyone will feel the game was fair.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#156

Post by krageon »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126
busterarm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The serious cheats in competitive games these days don't rely on hacking the game anymore. They use a separate computer connected taking your HDMI out as an input and then controls your mouse and keyboard inputs. They use ML models and OpenCV. You watch the second computer's monitor and it draws huge boxes around things you shoot and it assists your aim. It doesn't even have to be a PC game, you can do the same with…

The average cheater is most certainly not investing in thousands of dollars of hardware to run intense AI models on a second high power machine. These are mostly theoretical hacks. The average cheater is paying $10-50 for cheat software. You may not like the anti-cheat software, but it works against the most common cheats. I think they could have an opt-out league that doesn’t require anti-cheat but remains separate.…

> it works against the most common cheats.

Emphatically, it does not. Writing exploits and mitigating them is an arms race, and it is always easier to exploit than it is to defend. The entire reason for such software being sold is after all that it works, even when it is the bad/easy fundamentally detectable kind that runs inside the same OS as the game.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#157

Post by pdimitar »

sbarre wrote: post #97
Rooster61 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wild how this turned from "I don't want a game-related kernel-level driver in my system" to "I don't want China spying on me" in one reply. Fair criticism. I used Tencent as the example as they are one of the most prominent offenders. I don't trust any company to install these drivers, period, Chinese or otherwise. > You lost me there to be honest, if you think the "true" purpose of anti-cheat drivers is for a fore…

So here's a question: What is it about games that makes you particularly worried about this? Why is that an industry that is more susceptible to this kind of "nefarious" activity as you put it? Wouldn't it make more sense for business-related products to do this, since the odds of being on a computer that has actual useful information to steal would be much, much higher? Why would a company invest in this kind of tec…

> Wouldn't it make more sense for business-related products to do this, since the odds of being on a computer that has actual useful information to steal would be much, much higher?

Not necessarily. That gaming machine has good odds of being in a local network with other, more important and interesting machines. It can also scan local Wi-Fi area and scoop up even more information that can be used later.

Thought these were obvious.

> Why would a company invest in this kind of tech, in a highly visible field, full of people who will go over it with a fine-toothed comb (gamers are obsessive), for what seems like a very low-percentage hit rate on obtaining information?

1. They invest nothing out of the ordinary. They already have programmers on the payroll. Not like they spend 200 million on this alone. (Although there are companies like Google and Facebook who absolutely would and have invested much more than this just to be able to scoop up as much private info as possible -- not sure why this seems so unlikely to you, today, in 2022.)

2. The field is EVERYTHING BUT VISIBLE. Nobody has ever seen the source of these programs (outside of the authoring companies). Nobody. Ever.

3. Games are obsessive but most of them are technically illiterate. They install these things without a flicker of doubt.

4. The low-percentage is how it seems to you. Do it on a few hundred million machines and you are bound to find something very interesting in a good volume. It's statistics.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#159

Post by dagw »

oauea wrote: post #121
dagw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I played competitive video games seriously I would absolutely want them to take cheating seriously and take any necessary measure to stop it. At the same time I think they should also make the most serious kernel/driver level anti-cheat software optional. If you don't to want to install it you can still play the game, just not on any of the 'pro' servers. Think of it a bit like doping tests in sports. As long as y…

Never trust the client. Trying to install a rootkit on your users' computers won't change the reality of client-server security.

Never trust the client

I wonder if we'll eventually end up at a point where all competitive gaming is run entirely sever side and IO is streamed to cryptographically signed and verified hardware.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#160

Post by gbersac »

sph wrote: post #43
kristofferR wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Steam DRM is a joke, Steamless cracks it in seconds. It's about the level of the DVD CSS DRM.

Steam is successful not because it's hard to bypass, but because it's so fucking convenient. "Piracy is a service problem." — Gabe Newell

100% true. I don't pirate game because it's easier to just click buy on steam.
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