Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gamingonlinux.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 660 posts

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

#441

Post by Woeps »

neilv wrote: post #339
yreg wrote: 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.

One of the reasons I run a PS5 instead. AFAIK, there's fewer cheaters on PlayStation current-gen than on PC, and I don't have to worry about anti-cheat kludges corrupting my "rig".

This is the exact reason why is started with streaming services for games (Gfore/boosteroid/game pass). Next the anti-cheat thing I also spend less waiting for updates. And this way I can still play these games with my buddies.

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

#442

Post by dartharva »

k4rli wrote: post #391
yreg wrote: 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.

What's even worse is with this update they completely cut off Linux users. It had been performing better than on W*ndows but they had to ruin the game. Surely this is foreshadowing the future of GTA VI and will have the same problems of being unplayable.

As he said, pirating is the better option. I'm guessing all pirate releases of GTA V will run perfectly on Linux.

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

#443

Post by Delk »

m463 wrote: post #393
Aeolun wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly expect any steam games to have anything like a root kit that’d exfiltrate your credentials? I feel if this were the case literally anything I install on my PC would be suspect. Installing ssh would be a much more scary thing than a random steam game.

I thought some games snooped through your system. Kerbal Space Program comes to mind, I recall it had adware that did this.

Unity has some kind of data collection that can be used for analytics and advertising, so you might need to opt out of that in a Unity game. I think that came up in KSP as well.

https://unity.com/legal/game-player-and-app-user-privacy-pol...

https://unity.com/legal/game-player-and-app-user-privacy-faq

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

#444

Post by 127 »

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…

Just use local servers and player validation signatures. Faceless matchmaking is bullshit. Local communities win. Don't mix e-sports with casual game-play. Just like you don't need a security detail for the average person, you don't need invasive anti-cheat for the average gamer.

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

#445

Post by rldjbpin »

steelframe wrote: post #278

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.

at that rate why bother using arch for the box? unless you never touch online multiplayer games, i can understand that it probably works for you.

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

#446

Post by dartharva »

ho_schi wrote: post #404

First step. Second step? Ban games with kernel-level anti-cheat. It is not acceptable on Linux. Apple will also not accept that shit further, that said Apple lost relevance in gaming with Mantle and the M-Processors (both mean a lot of incompatibility). And Microsoft is regretting every choice in this regard: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242947/microsoft-window... But that is a usual pattern. Microsoft makes…

> Second step

> "Ban games with kernel-level anti-cheat."

> "It is the duty of game developers"

It's hilarious that people actually think the publishers will ever have two hoots to give about notions like that. FWIW I agree we'd all be better off without those things but the entitlement to believe private businesses should run on your personal whims and that developers have a "duty" to make things only as you prefer is gobsmacking. I am always left in wonder what commenters like this think about themselves.

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

#447

Post by dartharva »

M95D wrote: post #394
wiz21c wrote: post #390

> kernel-level anti-cheat Add UEFI on your PC and DRM in your browser. And next, your governement will ask you to add its anti pedo-pornography tools. And then we have a new episode of Black Mirror...

UEFI is here, browser DRM for video is here, browser DRM for text+ads on ordinary web pages is just around the corner, government won't ask anyone - the tools will be added at the ISP level, if they're not already installed and operational.

> government won't ask anyone

Wishful thinking. That government hasn't asked anyone yet (at least in public information) is a miracle in itself.

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

#448

Post by rldjbpin »

nathants wrote: post #236

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…

very interesting approach here, but i wonder if steam could provide a way to distribute this game in its current form.

maybe a generic steamos image with console-level isolation, and make the game steamos-only perhaps?

no offense, but there might be a sliver of the pie that don't like cheaters but also don't mind running something as invasive.

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

#449

Post by ackbar03 »

musjleman wrote: post #337
WatchDog wrote: post #320

With the way that computer vision and AI continue to improve, I imagine that we will soon have completely external and undetectable cheating peripherals, simply capture the screen direct from the display output, and pass inputs via mimicking a usb human input device. This won’t provide all the same capabilities as cheats that hook into the game process, such as wall hacks, but it would be possible to build a super hu…

> With the way that computer vision and AI continue to improve, I imagine that we will soon have completely external and undetectable cheating peripherals, simply capture the screen direct from the display output, and pass inputs via mimicking a usb human input device. This already exists. You can stream your screen to another machine running image recognition and pass your mouse input through a controller that injec…

are there out-of-the-box software tools to do this?

I thought about something like this before, but its non-trivial to train an image recognition system to do this, let alone the commands to mimic it through hardware, its quite an engineering feat in itself.

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

#450

Post by M95D »

dartharva wrote: post #447
M95D wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UEFI is here, browser DRM for video is here, browser DRM for text+ads on ordinary web pages is just around the corner, government won't ask anyone - the tools will be added at the ISP level, if they're not already installed and operational.

> government won't ask anyone Wishful thinking. That government hasn't asked anyone yet (at least in public information) is a miracle in itself.

You didn't understand my meaning: Government never asks. It just does things whether you agree or not.
Post reply on HN