Live data from Hacker News

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

gamingonlinux.com

341–350 of 660 posts

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If a game is overrun with cheaters, people will not play it. You're basically arguing that whole genres of games should cease to exist.

I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that that wrong is no excuse for the other wrong.

There are infinite ways to attack any problem, and it's not a requirement but a choice to persue only certain ideas vs others.

For instance, these approaches are based on removing agency from all users for the supposed goal of dealing with the bad users.

But there is no law of physics that says that is the only way to do that.

You could go the opposite direction and empower all users to deal with bad actors themselves just like in real life where anbasshole simply gets avoided or punched in the nose, which works by the simple math that the bad actors are outnumbered by everyone else. They still always exist but they are relegated to operating in the corners and shadows.

But their low level presence is a fact of life no matter what. Oppressive regimes don't get rid of them either. The sales pitch is we'll protect you but in fact they don't any better than you could have yoirself.

A company that has an easier option and has no other value meter than money divorced from any consideration of how it is attained, simply has no incentive to bother doing anything but the easiest thing. That's the only reason they want the keys to your house, because you stupidly give them, not because they need them or have the tiniest right to demand them to protect their entertainment business.

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

#342
Locks & picks.

This is the war. It's always been the war. It will always be the war. Digital changed the medium but war, war never changes.

The war in unwinnable in any real sense of the word win. However, security does not need to be impenetrable security only needs to dissuade the attacker.

Kernel level, blah-blah-blah, doesn't dissuade cheaters. Those things dissuade legitimate users. It's never the ideology that dissuades those users though as they don't know or care. What dissuades these users are the difficulties that these systems present to the uninformed user.

The typical end user doesn't know how to 'fix-it' when things go wrong. PC vendors won't support the issue. The game publisher won't support the issue. The game developer rarely supports the issue. Kernel level blah-blah-blah causes a blah-blah-blah. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants to fix it.

And, to top off this defecation-confection, the user is left with software that they paid for and cannot use or access. No refunds. Sorry. And, and, and!!! There are still cheaters on the platform. Every platform. There's your f'n cherry.

This is bad for the entire industry.

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

#343

kernel level anticheat is not enough. client inputs have to be trusted, and there is no provenance. the kernel has no visibility of inputs. i’m shipping a 100 player matchmaking game now. clients tick at 360hz, server ticks at 120hz. fair up to 60 ping, which covers entire continents. servers are metal, not vms. epyc 4244p with 2Gbps egress, 1 server per 15 minute game. mitigations=off and nosmt on all clients and th…

All of this, when you can just play on console. I know cheaters theoretically exist there, but in low enough numbers on my PS5 games that they don't impact my user experience.

Kudos to your insane game plan. Gonna be hard to get any marketing from Twitch streamers though.

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

#344

kernel level anticheat is not enough. client inputs have to be trusted, and there is no provenance. the kernel has no visibility of inputs. i’m shipping a 100 player matchmaking game now. clients tick at 360hz, server ticks at 120hz. fair up to 60 ping, which covers entire continents. servers are metal, not vms. epyc 4244p with 2Gbps egress, 1 server per 15 minute game. mitigations=off and nosmt on all clients and th…

All of this, when you can just play on console. I know cheaters theoretically exist there, but in low enough numbers on my PS5 games that they don't impact my user experience. Kudos to your insane game plan. Gonna be hard to get any marketing from Twitch streamers though.

thanks! if the plan isn’t insane, why bother.

ps5 can’t play 360hz and can’t use performance mode graphics. consoles are great, but esports will always be on pc.

input cheats are common on pc and console, there isn’t a difference anymore.

dual pc streaming will work fine. maybe we include obs in the iso at some point, but probably not.

also, this game is mnk only. next game will be controller only. gotta keep inputs standardized or fair play isn’t possible.

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

#345

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…

Yep. I would call myself a privacy focused person, but given that Windows is the primary platform for PC gaming, and I trust Microsoft about as far as I can throw a their corporate headquarters, the platform is already compromised. Treat it accordingly, play your games. Maybe watch your adult films and write your memoirs on a different system than your gaming rig.

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

#346

I built a separate Arch Linux box just for Steam gaming. I will never log into any of my sensitive accounts -- email, banking, etc. -- on that machine. It's a Framework laptop so I can physically keep the camera and microphone disconnected. I basically treat it like a public terminal.

dedicated hardware is a good idea, but too expensive for many. dedicated os is a good first step.

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

#347
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait to find out what China hid in Riot's Vanguard rootkit for all their games. It's 100% a conspiracy theory, but nobody can convince me it's perfectly clean, or if it is, that there isn't an easy way to add some power to it quietly.

The vanguard drivers are signed by Microsoft, the procedure for which includes a safety audit by Microsoft. The driver is just what the developers say it is (as with all other anti-cheat). It provides an untempered interface for the userland anti-cheat to use to get info from the kernel. Because modern cheats tend to alter the output of kernel syscalls by running in the kernel themselves. I really don't see why anyon…

MS usually don't bother with driver audit... They mostly rely on EV certificate to check driver dev is a proper legal entity.

If they audit properly, they should not let the Asus AuraSync driver certified at the first time. (basically opens PORT instruction to every userland app, unristricted)

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

#348
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You have to trust the client with enemy position information that it shouldn't be able to see yet That seems like something that would be solvable with location-style differential privacy. Report a number of plausible locations to the client small enough that it can efficiently anticipate them all, but large enough to prevent being able to auto-aim or wall hack. Run some bots or actual player movements recorded from…

> That seems like something that would be solvable with location-style differential privacy. Report a number of plausible locations to the client small enough that it can efficiently anticipate them all, but large enough to prevent being able to auto-aim or wall hack. Run some bots or actual player movements recorded from other matches, originating from roughly the same point where you last saw the real opponent.

Has already been done in COD: Warzone. Varying levels of success, cheat developers end up heuristically eliminating fake players.

> Even small violations of continuity seem like they'd be observable server-side, no? I've not studied this, but presumably clients must be constantly phoning home with their position.

This issue usually is game/game-engine dependent and is achieved either by exploiting bugs or manipulating lag compensation. Not exactly a very common thing.

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

#349
post #195

I've just reinstalled GTA V last week and I was very surprised to find out that I now have to install a rootkit to run it. They had the balls to add a mandatory kernel extension into a game that I've bought 10 years ago and that I wish to play in single player only. I find it utterly ridiculous. As usual, piracy would have been the superior experience.

Add ‘-nobattleye’ to the Steam command-line launch options and you can play single-player without any installs.

(Rockstar really should’ve made this a separate launch option like other games do)

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

#350
post #266

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…

As a counter strike player, I definitely shy away from the invasive anti cheat stuff… but I’d let valve inject it into my veins if it meant I could actually play and not suspect everyone of cheating all the time. Mostly because Valve has earned my trust. I won’t install games from other companies using similarly invasive techniques though.

Valve wouldn't purposefully backdoor you for nefarious purposes. But any such code is not nearly reviewed enough to be sure it is free of unintentional backdoors that could be exploited by third parties.
Post reply on HN