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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

#301

Post by kibwen »

tw04 wrote: post #277
OtomotO wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I tell my friends. I can't play certain games, because they don't run on Linux and even if they did, I am not gonna install a rootkit to run them.

Ultimately, this is why we have consoles. We can have rootkits, or we can have cheating. Nobody has solved cheat prevention without rootkits. If you can, you’d make millions, if not billions. It’s not like the game creators want to have software on your system that has the potential to brick your system.

> Ultimately, this is why we have consoles.

Nah. Consoles were a decade late to the online gaming party, and online gaming on consoles (counting Xbox Live as the first concerted attempt) has only been around half as long as consoles as a product segment have existed.

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

#302

Post by stevemk14ebr »

plopz wrote: post #32
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.

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.

My human aimbot evaded fairfight for years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVdaf6CkqL8

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

#303

Post by davrosthedalek »

froggit wrote: post #295
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's quite literally kit running as root...

It's quite literally not. Root is technically a user with extra rights (including modifying the kernel, but there is still an API the root user has to go through). This is running as part of the kernel. It's not running in userland "as root".

A rootkit is something that gives other users the power of root.

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

#304

Post by slimsag »

tw04 wrote: post #277
OtomotO wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I tell my friends. I can't play certain games, because they don't run on Linux and even if they did, I am not gonna install a rootkit to run them.

Ultimately, this is why we have consoles. We can have rootkits, or we can have cheating. Nobody has solved cheat prevention without rootkits. If you can, you’d make millions, if not billions. It’s not like the game creators want to have software on your system that has the potential to brick your system.

The real solution is games designed for playing with friends and treat all non-friend players as potentially malicious.

Early first-person shooter games had this figured out (small servers with 20-30 regular players, the server admin could choose to ban you), RTS games have this figured out, many MMOs have this figured out (interact with non-friends sometimes, but they have to 'join your party', etc.)

Playing with random strangers on the internet who may want to grief/destroy your game, be incredibly toxic, or cheat against you in general.. that's the cost of playing with random people in a completely public forum.

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

#305

Post by dbrueck »

FactKnower69 wrote: post #269
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…

>no, you can't completely solve this server side This is what every dev who can't be bothered to implement relevancy filters says when their server broadcasts the locations of every hidden player to every other player every tick and wallhacks drop a week later Exactly what can't be fixed server side? Are you just talking about aimbots and other situations where script kiddies can trivially author bots that generate o…

Relevancy filtering is more for network traffic optimization, it doesn't really help with cheating in most cases. In a FPS, for example, the actors the cheater most wants to know about are almost always also network relevant.

But taking a step back, for fast games (like an FPS), the latency requirements drive you to send semi-secret info to the client (like the positions of other players), and so that's where things start to break down. But the traffic in the other direction is a problem too, as you have all of the scenarios in which the messages to the server (e.g. aim info, timing of weapon of firing) can be spoofed or engineered.

The motivation for the client-side anti-cheat systems is to extend as far as possible the envelope of what is considered trustworthy - i.e. if they can't solve the latency problem, then they try to make the client more trusted.

It's impossible to completely solve the problem, so it's about finding a solution that solves as much of the problem as possible. Unfortunately the main thing going for kernel anti-cheat is that most users don't care that they have to let someone root their machines to play a game, though the tide would likely turn if there were a high publicity exploit.

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

#306

Post by davrosthedalek »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #223
Thaxll wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely don't play games, this is one of the reasons why people stop playing games.

I do play games, a lot. I even play multiplayer games. So, you're wrong.

Which ones?

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

#307

Post by pid-1 »

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.

That was not my personal experience. CS and Warcraft 3 community lobbies featured rampant cheating. Way more than CS:GO and Dota 2.

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

#308

Post by vel0city »

slimsag wrote: post #304
tw04 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, this is why we have consoles. We can have rootkits, or we can have cheating. Nobody has solved cheat prevention without rootkits. If you can, you’d make millions, if not billions. It’s not like the game creators want to have software on your system that has the potential to brick your system.

The real solution is games designed for playing with friends and treat all non-friend players as potentially malicious. Early first-person shooter games had this figured out (small servers with 20-30 regular players, the server admin could choose to ban you), RTS games have this figured out, many MMOs have this figured out (interact with non-friends sometimes, but they have to 'join your party', etc.) Playing with ra…

But people largely want matchmaking. They don't want to deal with having to find a server of like-minded players, they want to hop in a lobby with maybe a few friends, pick a map pool, and go.

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

#309

Post by lifeformed »

FactKnower69 wrote: post #273
burnished wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an expert but I've done a little reading and basically the combination of real time actions and a network makes it intractable, you end up just having to trust the client on some things (or having to make trade offs like a client potentially not having the information needed to display the game state to the player, or choppy/unresponsive gameplay as a function of latency).

>some things Any specific examples? I hear this said all the time and it's almost never true. Movement, for example: many decide to just let clients be fully authoritative over their positions and then act shocked when teleport hacks drop. Just keep track of the player's max move speed server-side, continually validate, and flag if they consistently move faster than is possible according to the server. No one is ever…

It's not teleporting that's hard to deal with, it's aimbots and wall hacks. You have to trust the client with enemy position information that it shouldn't be able to see yet, and trust their shot position inputs.

Also, constantly flying around and teleporting is easy to catch, but using it in small bursts is very powerful and harder to catch.

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

#310

Post by dbrueck »

Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #257
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…

> game companies are highly incentivized to work with (or at least not antagonize) the elite players Actually, this is generally untrue. Companies BELIEVE this but often times, these players are a vocal minority put on pedastal and they often end up making the game worse for the general player base.

Sorry for not being more clear, I was referring to the advertising or promotion that comes via the elite players. Take Valorant, for example. Riot Games leveraged their League of Legends user base and gave early access to high-end players and that apparently played a big part in helping its popularity take off. Now it has a robust presence in eSports, again helped by the high-end players.

It's not uncommon now for popular professional streamers to get early access to new features/modes because the game companies know that those players can help build or retain the player base.

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