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Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

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Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#111

Post by bewaretheirs »

simonjgreen wrote: post #97
Tepix wrote: post #56

So, just stating the obvious, you can now (¥) download all xbox games directly from the microsoft store for free? I.e. the xbox is - for now - as completely hacked as the PS Vita? (¥) you might have to figure out some details

Total tangent, but extremely interested in the use of the Yen/Yuan sign as a footnote marker. Is there some history here I’ve overlooked or is this just arbitrary?

I've not seen it used this way before but it is similar enough to the dagger and double-dagger symbols that the intent to use it as a footnote marker is clear.

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#112

Post by Tepix »

simonjgreen wrote: post #97
Tepix wrote: post #56

So, just stating the obvious, you can now (¥) download all xbox games directly from the microsoft store for free? I.e. the xbox is - for now - as completely hacked as the PS Vita? (¥) you might have to figure out some details

Total tangent, but extremely interested in the use of the Yen/Yuan sign as a footnote marker. Is there some history here I’ve overlooked or is this just arbitrary?

Haha - i was looking for ¹, ² or § but couldn‘t find them on my german ipad onscreen keyboard, so i improvised.

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#114

Post by bratwurst3000 »

Tepix wrote: post #112
simonjgreen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total tangent, but extremely interested in the use of the Yen/Yuan sign as a footnote marker. Is there some history here I’ve overlooked or is this just arbitrary?

Haha - i was looking for ¹, ² or § but couldn‘t find them on my german ipad onscreen keyboard, so i improvised.

you have tp hold a key longer and then there it is. i think it was „s“

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#115

Post by isametry »

bratwurst3000 wrote: post #114
Tepix wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha - i was looking for ¹, ² or § but couldn‘t find them on my german ipad onscreen keyboard, so i improvised.

you have tp hold a key longer and then there it is. i think it was „s“

Typing this from a German iPad keyboard. It’s the ampersand key (& → §).

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#116

Post by AshamedCaptain »

ZeroWidthJoiner wrote: post #105
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft will never create a situation where alternative operating systems can’t be installed. They already went through the antitrust ringer on that issue. They have shipped ARM Surfaces where alternative operating systems could not get installed, enforced with Secure Boot permanently on. Have they been through any such "antitrust ringer" in the past 10 years? > Also, if you have a PC with secure boot enabled, th…

> They actually advise OEMs not to install this second key by default ("Secured Core" PCs), and some vendors have followed the advice, such as Lenovo. Resulting in yet another hoop to install non-MS OSes. True, 3rd party not trusted by default is a "Secured-Core PC" requirement, but so is the BIOS option for enabling that trust [0]. On my "Secured-Core" ARM ThinkPad T14s it's a simple toggle option. > Even recently,…

> True, 3rd party not trusted by default is a "Secured-Core PC" requirement, but so is the BIOS option for enabling that trust

As I said, yet another increase in the number of hops for no reason.

Before you say anything else: until this you could install _signed_ Linux distributions without even knowing how to enter your computer's firmware setup. Now you can't.

The trend is obviously there. First, MS forced Linux distributions to go through arbitrary "security" hoops in order to be signed. Then, MS arbitrary altered the deal anyway. Even mjg59 ranted about this. And the only recourse MS offers to Linux distributions is to pray MS doesn't alter the deal any further.

Maybe at no point they will make it impossible on x86 PCs, but they just have to keep making it scary enough. And in the meanwhile keep advertising how WSL fits all your Linux-desktop computing needs. While at the same time claim they have nothing against opensource.

> Actually they are in the process of blacklisting their currently used 2011 Windows certificate

No, they are NOT in the process, and that is precisely what I was referring to. They have not even announced when they are going to even start doing the process. All you quoted is instructions to do it manually. So I'll believe it when I see it.

And besides, just clearing the CMOS is likely to get you a nice ancient DBX containing only some grub hashes on it, and the Windows MS signature on DB. Not so much luck for the MS UEFI CA signature, as discussed above. So "recovery" will be trivial for Windows, not so much for anyone else..

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#117

Post by vel0city »

realusername wrote: post #88
brookst wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the old “any imperfect solution is no better than doing nothing” argument. Moderation is expensive, hard to scale, and can only address problems after other users have bad experiences. It’s like saying seatbelts are useless because some people still get hurt, so instead of seatbelts we need a lot more ambulances and hospitals. Like any complex system, games have a funnel. These technical measures redu…

Since the technical measures like TPM are very heavy, there's some better evidence needed that it reduces the number of cheaters, personally I don't buy it. On the other hand, all the games / servers I've seen which are successful against cheater have some very good moderation.

Just see Valorent vs Counterstrike. Similar levels of popularity, similar kinds of cheat concepts. One has a kernel level anti cheat and has few cheaters, one doesn't and is overrun by cheaters.

Look at Counterstrike with regular VAC based matchmaking and then with kernel level anti cheat in FACEIT. One is overrun with cheaters and one isn't. It's the same game.

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#118

Post by 38 »

ryx wrote: post #91
Tepix wrote: post #56

So, just stating the obvious, you can now (¥) download all xbox games directly from the microsoft store for free? I.e. the xbox is - for now - as completely hacked as the PS Vita? (¥) you might have to figure out some details

Yep. This seems to be the most overlooked part of the article, although maybe the most interesting. Unfortunately not for anyone who has activated the auto-update feature on his/her Xbox, as the latest system software version seems to include a higher kernel version than supported by the collateral-damage exploit.

Exactly why you should never, ever, enable auto update, for anything. Too often it ends up breaking something or patching something you don't want patched. It allows a profit seeking company to enable or disable software functionality on your device, regardless if it's in your interest.

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#119

Post by Rohansi »

choo-t wrote: post #100
jprete wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To run anti-cheat in that way, you need all game mechanics to be run server-side, and you need to not let the client ever know about something the player should not know - e.g. in a first-person shooter you need to run visibility and occlusion on the server too! Otherwise the cheating will take the form of seeing through walls and the like. This is going to boost the cost of the servers and probably any game subscrip…

Well yeah, that's the correct way to run a server, don't send information you don't want the user to get. But as you are pointing out, forcing client-side intrusive anti-cheat is cheaper, thus this as nothing to do about preventing cheating, but about reducing cost.

It's not just about cost. Theoretically yes, you shouldn't send information that you don't want users to get and abuse. However, in the context of games, this is not always possible because most games are realtime and need to tolerate network latency. There is no perfect solution - there will always be tradeoffs.

Ideally player A shouldn't be networked player B if there is a wall between them but what happens when they're at the edge of the wall? You don't want them to pop in so you need some tolerance. But having that tolerance would also allow cheaters to see players through walls near edges. Or your game design might require you to hear sounds on the other side of the wall (footsteps, gunshots, etc.) which allows cheats to infer what what may be behind the wall better than a person would.

Re: Keyhole – Forge own Windows Store licenses

#120

Post by choo-t »

mjr00 wrote: post #108
choo-t wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the server, thus cannot complain about cheating is either irrational or the server-side detection is severely flawed.

> The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the server, thus cannot complain about cheating is either irrational or the server-side detection is severely flawed. It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banne…

> It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banned for taking them because the MLB believes it gives them an unfair advantage. It's called competitive integrity.

This is relative to meat-space, not videogame, but we could go there and say caffeine or Adderall use is cheating, thus making anti-cheat a little more invasive…

And there another difference, you're referring to professional sport. I have no problem with invasive anti-cheat for professional gamer, even better it the gaming device is provided by tournament organization.

But we're talking about anti-cheat used for all players, akin to asking people playing catch in their garden or playing baseball for fun an the local park to take a blood sample for drug test.

> All of this stuff is doable by a sufficiently skilled/lucky human, but not with the level of consistency you get from cheating.

That's the point, there no difference for the other players between playing against a cheater and playing against a better player. Any ELO-based matchmaking will solve this, cheater will end-up playing against each-other or against very skilled player.

You could argue that they could create new account or purposely cripple their ELO ratting, but this is the exact same problem as smurfing.

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