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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

#181

Post by 0x457 »

kelnos wrote: post #146
db48x wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people do install Nvidia’s out‐of‐tree graphics driver. It is definitely a risk.

If you've already put a piece of hardware into your computer made by nvidia, installing a kernel driver also made by nvidia does not increase your risk at all. Installing some random anti-cheat kernel driver is not the same thing, at all.

But you are not installing a random anti-cheat kernel driver, you're installing anti-cheat kernel driver provided by a game you've already put on your computer. It's very much the same thing.

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

#182

Post by kelnos »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #34
hypeatei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? The current PC gaming model where things run on a machine controlled by the user is fundamentally against solving the issue of cheats. You can't prevent everything server-side.

Not our problem. The problem of cheating in games does not weigh more than the users ultimate ownership of and control over their own property. No one has a right to a business model. They can do plenty enough server-side. It's not a blocking problem at all, it's just easier to take over all control of the users pc for your own convenience. Everything, including all valid goals, is easier if you could just have the p…

What a bizarre take. If people consent to installing these invasive anti-cheat systems, then it doesn't matter if anyone has a "right" to a business model or not; in that case their business model is working.

> They can do plenty enough server-side.

No, they can't. The amount of responses in these threads by people who have no idea what they're talking about is... well, probably not surprising, unfortunately.

This is the same (correct) argument against the effectiveness of DRM: if you put things in the hands of a user and client you don't control, then it is a cat-and-mouse game to try to maintain control of those things.

Sure, a naive cheat program of 20 years ago will today obviously look like a cheater. But if you have a cheat that statistically makes you look like a skilled non-cheating player (these things exist today!), the server isn't going to be able to catch you.

I'm not saying that justifies letting another party install what is effectively a rootkit on your hardware. I personally won't do it; I just live without games that require it, and that's fine. Maybe there is some middle ground where some form of client-side anti-cheat can reliably run without kernel-level permissions. But it's a lazy, ignorant argument to just say that game companies haven't come up with it yet because it's "easier" to write a kernel-level system.

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

#183

Post by Der_Einzige »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #171

I hate to say this but a large percentage (in fact, I believe a majority) of gamers simply do not care about invasive anti-cheats. Right now CounterStrike players are mostly begging Valve for kernel-level anti-cheat since their current solution isn't working at all. If anything, this warning will actually make many player's more impressed with the game. That said, more consumer information is almost always better in…

Doesn’t matter in a world of AI powered hacks. Kernel level anti cheat isn’t detecting the yolov8 model fine tuned on the head of my enemies.

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

#184

Post by wilsonnb3 »

orbital-decay wrote: post #173
throwaway48476 wrote: post #2

After the crowdstrike disaster 3rd party kernel drivers need to be shunned for non critical applications. Games publishers have been bad actors in this space for a long time now. The genshin impact anticheat was used in a malware campaign. Rockstar was very misleading trying to imply their kernel driver not being compatible with the steam deck was valves fault.

> The genshin impact anticheat was used in a malware campaign. Rockstar was very misleading trying to imply their kernel driver not being compatible with the steam deck was valves fault. I mean, nothing of this is new. ESEA, one of the most influential esports leagues, was caught using its anticheat to mine Bitcoin in 2013. [1] This is long out of control, probably since the days BattlEye switched to ring0 in 2012 du…

People really need to find a better word than 'rootkit' to describe software that users willingly and intentionally give root access.

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

#185

Post by andrewmcwatters »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #171

I hate to say this but a large percentage (in fact, I believe a majority) of gamers simply do not care about invasive anti-cheats. Right now CounterStrike players are mostly begging Valve for kernel-level anti-cheat since their current solution isn't working at all. If anything, this warning will actually make many player's more impressed with the game. That said, more consumer information is almost always better in…

You don't need kernel-level cheats to bypass VAC, nor kernel level anti-cheats to catch cheaters.

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

#187

Post by bmicraft »

prerok wrote: post #112
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).

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 i…

You might be able to match-make between clients with similar latency and then "enforce" that latency server side by delaying things that "happen faster" then the previously measured latency

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

#188

Post by ok_dad »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #183
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #171

I hate to say this but a large percentage (in fact, I believe a majority) of gamers simply do not care about invasive anti-cheats. Right now CounterStrike players are mostly begging Valve for kernel-level anti-cheat since their current solution isn't working at all. If anything, this warning will actually make many player's more impressed with the game. That said, more consumer information is almost always better in…

Doesn’t matter in a world of AI powered hacks. Kernel level anti cheat isn’t detecting the yolov8 model fine tuned on the head of my enemies.

This video suggests you can catch this type of cheater without even a kernel level anti cheat:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=x-EbjGSRyKA

There’s a lot of other stuff in the video but if you skip the robot building parts at the beginning he talks about an anti cheat system he developed with another person.

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

#189

Post by bhelkey »

lomase wrote: post #163
bitwize wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As Gabe Newell said "piracy is a service problem" I could pirate every game I have on my Steam account. I don't do it because the added value that Steam gives me.

> I could pirate every game I have on my Steam account.

According to the CrackWatch subreddit, there were 29 games released with Denuvo in 2024. Of those, only one has been cracked and it was done via a demo bypass [1].

You can pirate many games but not, for example, Final Fantasy XVI.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa...

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

#190

Post by sadeshmukh »

dbrueck wrote: post #176

The anti-cheat problem is long-running and complicated. If you choose not to run anti-cheat because you understand that these are opaque rootkits, good for you! That's a totally, 100% valid choice. But please keep in mind: - you are a tiny minority and not the target customer - online multiplayer games are an absurdly big business (i.e. there are huge incentives here) - no, you can't completely solve this server side…

Why isn't server-side anticheat a possible solution? Cheats can spoof inputs purely through visual output as well, meaning there cannot be full trust client-side.
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