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Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

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Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#111

Post by trissylegs »

NekkoDroid wrote: post #88
jsheard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only works on Linux if the developer allows it, because it's not nearly as effective on Linux. Rust (the game not the language) uses EAC but doesn't run on Linux by choice for example. Neither does Fortnite. Apex Legends uses EAC and does run on Linux, and now nearly every public cheat for that game targets the Linux version because it's such a soft target. I don't really like the status quo of installing random k…

Still wondering what kinda special sauce that Blizzard is using in Overwatch. In my literal thousands of hours of playtime I encountered so few blatant cheaters its probably still in the double digit. Are there probably a good amount of cheaters I didn't realize were cheaters? probably, but does it really matter if you don't realize they are cheating?

PirateSoftware on twitch/youtube talks about his time at blizzard working on catching cheaters in WoW. Their methods are usually about figuring out how they're cheating and what behaviors cheaters follow.

Before overwatch they had years of experience catching cheaters in wow.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#112

Post by prerok »

codebje wrote: post #62
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one could say it's critical to stop hackers. It's never critical to stop hackers in a videogame IMO. We need to stop being so damn serious about gaming .

Rampant cheating will wreck competitive multiplayer games fast, so there are perspectives from which this critical. (I’d still lean towards expecting game houses to find another way, kernel drivers are still client side trust mechanisms).

Well, the problem is eventual consistency and these games have a hell to consolidate properly.

One user is on a connection with 10ms latency, the other user is on 50 ms latency. Now, if first user does something, and second user can either do something to evade or can do something that actually prevents the first user from acting, how do you consolidate that?

The actual timestamp of when exactly what happened helps immensely, but you have to trust the timestamp. And how can you know that is not manipulated?

But... that's just the surface. Consider: one client uses a rendering that takes 25ms longer to show up and another client does not render textures/shadows etc. That client is faster and the sender can even send "official" response times, but would still give an advantage.

So, I am not sure this can be solved serverside. But... I don't play these games anymore and would never opt for a rootkit to be installed just so I can play. I can imagine plenty of people, though, who would.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#114

Post by prerok »

heromal wrote: post #81
codebje wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rampant cheating will wreck competitive multiplayer games fast, so there are perspectives from which this critical. (I’d still lean towards expecting game houses to find another way, kernel drivers are still client side trust mechanisms).

I think the point is that competitive multiplayer games are not critical. Scripting in e.g. league of legends probably doesn't register on 99% of humanities "top 100 most critical things in my life" radar.

For some people it's no. 1 priority in life. What's your point?

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#115

Post by tapoxi »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #69
tapoxi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they're not rootkits. Rootkits are either to gain root access (thus the name) or to hide something from a user. Anticheats don't do either of these. They expose a kernel API to allow games to verify the state of the system, and they're knowingly installed by the user.

> They expose a kernel API to allow games to verify the state of the system And that API has root access... thus it's a rootkit.

The API doesn't provide root access, it's typically a simple "is this game running in a secure environment" read API.

I really hate "it's a rootkit!" posts like this because it diminishes the severity of actual rootkits.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#116

Post by andrewmcwatters »

I think the population of game developers and their knowledge of multiplayer networking is fundamentally getting worse over time, because I see things that should not be architecturally possible in a lot of newer multiplayer games.

This whole thing anti-cheat thing is just a separate problem entirely, but it's so painfully exacerbated by the first.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#117

Post by alex_lav »

emgeee wrote: post #94
plopz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think server side statistical analysis can go a long way to detect stuff like that. Obviously its always a cat and mouse game between devs and cheaters, and there are always workarounds, but theres a lot more the devs could be doing without relying on invasive client side detection.

I've always wondered about this too. It should be pretty easy to recognize statistical outliers. I'm sure cheaters would start to adapt but that adaptation might start to look more in-line with normal skill levels so at least the game wouldn't be utterly ruined

This post is so interesting because it highlights the people that don't know anything about the requirements or state of cheats/anticheat. What you're describing is 10 years out of date. Every modern cheat has a toggle, and (almost) every modern cheater masks augmented behavior with misses/native behavior.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#118

Post by jsheard »

nickphx wrote: post #65
arp242 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to prevent cheating from the server-side only. Something like an aimbot can operate purely on information you need to have as a client (to render the other players on the screen), and still be a huge advantage because it can respond faster than any human can.

if you have a large enough player base to sample, you can determine who is cheating with math. EA Fairplay is pretty good.. Steam's VAC is good, and not some kernel level nonsense..

VAC is so not-good that there are not one but two popular third-party matchmaking services for Valves games whose main selling point is much stronger (read: more invasive) anti-cheat than VAC, and one of them even charges a subscription to play, which highly skilled players gladly pay to get away from the cheaters in high-rank VAC servers.

https://play.esea.net / https://www.faceit.com

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#119

Post by babypuncher »

emgeee wrote: post #94
plopz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think server side statistical analysis can go a long way to detect stuff like that. Obviously its always a cat and mouse game between devs and cheaters, and there are always workarounds, but theres a lot more the devs could be doing without relying on invasive client side detection.

I've always wondered about this too. It should be pretty easy to recognize statistical outliers. I'm sure cheaters would start to adapt but that adaptation might start to look more in-line with normal skill levels so at least the game wouldn't be utterly ruined

The problem is that most cheaters don't just go full aimbot and track people through walls. That is a surefire way to make sure your account gets reported, reviewed, and banned regardless of what anti-cheat is in place.

Serial cheaters cheat just enough to give themselves an edge without making it obvious to the people watching them. By just looking at their stats, it can become very difficult (though not impossible) to differentiate a cheater from a pro player. This difficulty increases the odds of getting a false positive, necessitating a higher detection threshhold to avoid banning innocent players.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#120

Post by prerok »

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #87
Thaxll wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheats and bots are ruining online games though.

Back when communities hosted servers instead of companies, it seemed less common, even though it was easier to do.

Life was a bit simpler then. At that point in time the leaders also did not get millions for their wins.
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