PieFedSteam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages
Nemeskiwww.gamingonlinux.com/2024/10/steam-games-will-…
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djangoThis will make filtering for games, which might run on linux much easier.
jevans ⁂I've been able to return some games based on news that they will be adding kernel-level anti-cheat. I'm glad Valve is doing this right.
The best thing that'll come out of this is people will realize Easy and BattleEye are kernel-level on Windows. I know so many people who calls Vanguard a rootkit then go play all the other games.
FYI - the owner of this site, gamingonlinux, was a mod on the !linux_gaming@lemmy.ml community until they were caught abusing their moderator powers. Then they deleted their account and complained on mastodon that it's stupid design that mod logs are public. [Screenshot]
Instead, here's a link to the official post
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4547038620960934857
makingStuffForFunThat screen shot is gold. Gaming on Linux is dead to me. Thanks for sharing. It should all be public.
Ooh and it's a giant yellow banner you probably won't miss, and not some two-shades-ligher-than-the-background nonsense.
Good job, Valve.
They do this with Early Access and people still lose their shit about empty content and unfinished graphics in a game they paid $10 for.
If only they let you filter out games from being seen on your store page or showing up in recommendations using this as a criteria.
Gamers don’t care
If Valve was against this then they would block them from their store. This is avoiding legal consequences
DreamButt"""gamers""" aren't a monolith
Some people clearly care bc they are currently discussing it
Well to be fair, we're like 1% of all gamers. Most gamers don't give a flying fuck and will gladly buy these products anyway. So the companies don't really have much incentive to give a shit.
That's why it's a big disturbing banner where most gamers don't understand the text but know that big disturbing banner is bad. Will it affect the sales? Not at all. But it will raise the problem(mostly Linux anticheat) to the higher standing people in the gaming companies than before because now they require those top level managers to make a decision is it big disturbing banner or Linux anticheat.
I highly doubt this will do anything at all to sales. But I'm just guessing. Maybe it will. Hopefully! But I still applaud the change by Valve. I think it's great.
I don't think the point is to do anything on sales. Valve profit from sales. It's to raise the problem so now the managers have to decide on a scale how much they abuse the players. Before it wasn't even a problem, now it's Valve: "maybe you shouldn't wink wink"
𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚐See, you don't understand. /s
*Nothing ever matters, and nothing ever happens.*
Another “to be fair” - what do y’all reckon is the proportion of gamers who could define kernel? (not rhetorical)
Edit: maybe not as good as a question as how many have any opinion on kernel-level anticheat, since you don’t need to be able to define kernel to be against the anti-cheat if you’ve heard it slows down games
“””gamers””” aren’t a monolith
That’s why some people discussing it aren’t going to do anything to dissuade the practice
That's fair: most probably don't.
I appreciate a 'this won't work in Linux no matter what you do' banner on things, though.
I've been using some browser plugins for Steam that add ProtonDB information to each Store page, it's a useful thing to have. It may even make sense to leave it as a plugin, since many Windows users won't care.
You speak for an entire demographic. How do you get that role?
Observation
Not enough observation to read this room aye.
I don’t care what the minority of people here say
The most popular games use kernel anti cheat, kids think cheating is bad. And very few people even know what a kernel is, they will just think it means “cheating is impossible” even though it doesn’t do that at all
However, it's only being forced for kernel-level anti-cheat. If it's only client-side or server-side, it's optional, but Valve say "we generally think that any game that makes use of anti-cheat technology would benefit from letting players know".
I will always love Valve for their ability to use corpospeak against corpos.
Your game has anti-cheat?
Wonderful!
I'm sure that always only results in an improved experience for all gamers, lets let them all know!
=D
How does vac play into all of this then ...
Edit: I was talking about them labeling vac games as being anti cheat... And wondering if they were going to pull some double standard... I didn't know they label them already and still don't know if they do...
VAC is not kernel level, because surprise you don't actually need kernel level to do anti cheat well.
VAC games would just get the standard AC message banner, not the scary yellow kernel level warning banner.
... I am pretty sure VAC games have indicated on their store page that they use VAC for well over a decade.
you don't actually need kernel level to do anti cheat well.
I'm sure you're right, but VAC is one of the worst examples for that... I think whatever Blizzard does with Overwatch 2 is a better example.
I would love to see any kind of documentation that can somehow prove OW2's AC is better than VAC, something that isn't based on vibes or immediacy bias.
I sure wish there was some empirical study regarding the same too. I'm very much going by anecdotal evidence from myself and others right now
So ... your previous assertion that OW2's AC is superior to VAC was in fact just based on vibes.
Anti Cheat developers typically do not like to explain how exactly they work, how effective they actually are.
Their data is proprietary, trade secrets.
There will almost certainly never be a way to actually conduct the empirical study you wish for, save for (ironically) someone hacking into the corporate servers of a bunch of different anti cheat developers to grab their own internal metrics.
But that should be obvious to anyone with basic knowledge of how Anti Cheats work, both technically and as a business.
... None of that matters to you though, you have completely vibes based anecdotes that you confidently state as fact.
Please stop doing that.
When someone has no clue what they're talking about, but confidently makes a claim about a situation because it feels right, this is typically called misinformation.
Easy Anti Cheat - requires manual removal
Wait, so this sketchy, privacy-invading stuff remains even after a game is uninstalled?! I had no idea.
How is this stuff not classed as malware at this point?
Oh it was initially classed as insanely intrusive malware when kernel level AC was introduced about a decade ago, by anyone with a modicum of actual technical knowledge about computers.
Unfortunately, a whole lot of corpo shills ran propaganda explaining how actually its fine, don't worry, its actually the best way to stop cheaters!
Then the vast, vast majority of idiot gamers believed that, or threw their hands up and went oh well its the new norm, trying to fight it is futile and actually if you are against this that means you are some kind of paranoid privacy freak who hates other people having fun.
Do you remember when Sony released cds that when inserted into Windows computer auto ran an installer that installed a rootkit that made it impossible for Windows to see any processes or files that started with a certain sequence of characters instantly turning any malware that named its files or processes similarly powerful rootkit. Oh and it installed a cd driver that made it impossible to copy their music.
Suggested removal was a full reinstall of windows.
I've been shouting from the rooftops for years that this stuff is malware. I'm not the only one. No one listens.
yamaniiPlenty of games use it, if it uninstalled with each one then others would stop working.
I kind of assumed it would be packaged with each game, a waste of space (but how big could it be?) but leaving a game with anti cheat a global dependency seems like a bad idea.
Wikipedia says malware is
any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy
It does not do any of these things. Like any software, it may have vulnerabilities, and being a kernel module it can be high risk. But that's no different from any kernel module, like your graphics driver.
It's a much higher risk than average because games are often abandoned within one year of release and still run as long as 10-15 years later and connects to the internet and other randos on the internet. See the Call of Duty games that allow you to take over the computer of anyone who connects to your online match. It greatly degrades the security of its users.
Technically lots of things people call "malware" don't actually do any of those things. For instance they may hijack your default search engine, pop up ads, or otherwise monetize your computer at your expense. The category that was invented by ass coverers is "possibly unwanted program" but outside of those who worry about being sued by scumbags people colloquially refer to both what you call malware AND PUPs as "malware the root of which is "bad" after all. Language being descriptive not prescriptive I think this broader definition of malware is fine.
It unknowingly interferes with my security or privacy, 100%. It has root access. What's it doing in there? Nowadays you're naive to think it's just to prevent game cheating. I guarantee they're collecting all kinds of information.
EAC installation process includes "registration" of a game, and the uninstall process "unregisters" the game. If all games using EAC are uninstalled, EAC itself also should be uninstalled.
Any program having kernel level access is spyware. This is getting ridiculous.
I feel like they're doing this because they are going so hard with steam deck. Regardless, good on Valve for doing this.
The steam deck is also amazing, such a nice piece of hardware. I've been gaming on Linux for years and I'm surprised how well it works. Feels like a console.
That’s awesome! GTA V just screwed everyone on Linux! What a rug pull.
Adding kernel malware after the fact should entitle every single owner who requests one to a full refund no matter how long has passed.
Full agree. I do want some kind of policy for games that introduce anti-cheat both during early access and after release. Bricking a game you paid for should offer some sort of recourse.
I'd really like Valve to take an official policy on post-release changes that break games, but for what it's worth they have not given me any hassle with refunds in these scenarios.
theneverfoxThat's a bit much... It's just not possible to guarantee that as a developer
Software is a living thing, and anything useful is made up of layer after layer of ever shifting sand. We do our best, but we are all at the mercy of our dependencies. There are trade-offs, there are bugs we can do nothing about, and sometimes moving forward means dropping support for platforms that are no longer "cheap" enough to afford while also working on the game
I love this though. I also like the idea of requiring access to earlier builds.
These mitigate anti consumer practices - dropping support for a platform is more likely to be a technical trade-off or unintentional consequence though
I do agree with the part where software moves, dependencies yada, yada... I'm a developer myself.
But.. this is different. They eliminated a perfectly working game, where they didn't have to invest a minute of labor to get it working on Linux. The only thing they had to provide was the .so-file (for EAC) when publishing to Steam.... Valve did all the work to make EAC compatible on Linux, yes, on user-level... but still... it fucking worked.
Punishing an entire userbase, because other assholes (assumably) used Linux for cheating is discrimination. Even if there were no cheaters at all... it's still discrimination... because it used to fucking work.
Oh no, I totally agree with you that this is gross behavior - I just think your rule is too broad.
So we need more focused rules and mechanisms. I think disclosing anti-cheat on the store is a good mechanism, I think forcing them to provide previous releases is a good rule. That obviously doesn't cover nearly enough, but in the current gaming environment I think it's a good start
NekuSoulYup. If it's important enough that devs now have to add a disclaimer on the store page, surely devs shouldn't be allowed to circumvent that by adding it later. Since SteamDeck customers are affected by this the most, it's weird that this isn't already a rule, particularly for games that are SteamDeck verified.
That’s exactly what Valve did. The automated refund system wasn’t available, but you could request a manual review and cite the added anti cheat; Valve was refunding those who did so.
Valve was giving refund when riot added the anticheat
I don't think that's fair. I "own" GTA5 and don't really care for the last... 8 years? what they add. I had the full content of my purchase. Why should I be able to gain money for this?
Don't be pieces of shit and you won't owe refunds.
In a just world people would be going to prison for it.
Can someone explain like I’m stupid on kernel level anti cheat and why I should watch out for it? Not a dig at all, a genuine question!
To put it very simply, the 'kernel' has significant control over your OS as it essentially runs above everything else in terms of system privileges.
It *can* (but not always) run at startup, so this means if you install a game with kernel-level anticheat, the moment your system turns on, the game's publisher can have software running on your system that can restrict the installation of a particular driver, stop certain software from running, or, even insidiously spy on your system's activity if they wished to. (and reverse-engineering the code to figure out if they *are* spying on you is a felony because of DRM-related laws)
It basically means trusting every single game publisher with kernel-level anticheat in their games to have a full view into your system, and the ability to effectively control it, without any legal recourse or transparency, all to try (and usually fail) to stop cheating in games.
ampersandrewAnd it's worth noting that trusting the game developer isn't really enough. Far too many of them have been hacked, so who's to say it's always your favorite game developer behind the wheel?
Or, even better, when you let a whole bunch of devs have acces to the kernel...
... sometimes they just accidentally fuck up and push a bad update, unintentionally.
This is how CrowdStrike managed to Y2K an absurd number of enterprise computers fairly recently.
Its also why its ... you know, generally bad practice to have your kernel just open to fucking whoever instead of having it be locked down and rigorously tested.
Funnily enough, MSFT now appears to be shifting toward offering much less direct access to its kernel to 3rd party software devs.
More importantly, if traditional anticheat has a bug, your game dies. Oh no.
If kernel level anticheat has a bug, your computer blue screens (that's specifically what the blue screen is: a bug in the kernel, not just an ordinary bug that the system can recover from). Much worse. Sure hope that bug only crashes your computer when the game is running and not just whenever, because remember a kernel-level program can be running the moment your computer boots as above poster said
Not all anti cheats run at startup. Some only run when you play a game. I think vanguard for valorant ran all the time at first and people were pissed. Meanwhile easy anti cheat runs only with a game. So it depends. It all sucks though.
That's definitely true, I probably should have been a little more clear in my response, specifying that it *can* run at startup, but doesn't *always* do so.
I'll edit my comment so nobody gets the wrong idea. Thanks for pointing that out!
It's not just trust of the game developer. I honestly believe most of them just want to put out profitable games. It's trust that a hacker won't ever learn how to sign their code in a way that causes it to be respected as part of the game's code instructions.
There was some old article about how a black hat found a vulnerability in a signed virtual driver used by Genshin Impact. So, they deployed their whole infection package together with that plain driver to computers that had never been used for video games at all; and because Microsoft chose to trust that driver, it worked.
I wish I could find an article on it, since a paraphrased summary isn't a great source. This is coming from memory.
It's trust that a hacker won't ever learn how to sign their code in a way that causes it to be respected as part of the game's code instructions.
That's not an accurate description of the exploit you describe. It sounds like the attacker bundled a signed and trusted but known vulnerable version of the module, then used a known exploit in that module to run their own unsigned, untrusted code with high privileges.
This can be resolved by marking that signature as untrusted, but that requires the user to pull an update, and we all know how much people hate updating their PC.
Making it super simple, it runs with full access on your machine, always. It can fuck anything up, and see everything. It can get your browser history, banking details or private messages you enter, activate your webcam or mic without you knowing, or brick your computer even.
And you can't even check what it's really doing on your computer because it's a crime under US law.
Finally, it can get hacked and other people than the creator can do all these to your computer as well,as it already happened once.
And you can't even check what it's really doing on your computer because it's a crime under US law.
Is this specifically for kernel level anticheat? Because this isn't a thing for software in general right??
Easy, a bug in battle eye forced me to reinstall windows, this kernel access has to go.
LoboAureoAlso, the most games that don't work in linux is for this reason (and steamdeck works in linux)
Deleted by moderator
JteeWow, mad because you can be held accountable. That's sad.
Thanks for the steam link!
4 likes on him complaining that modlogs being public is something bad, cowards that only want to be shitty in the shadows.
I'm still fairly new. Where do I go for modlog drama?
RedjardThere is a sub for sanity checking mod actions, aita-style.
If you keep in mind it is for active unconfirmed situations, and that votes there are not meant to mark the cases of mod abuse, I think it can fill that niche.
VoyajerHe used to relentlessly spam the /r/linux_gaming subreddit and argue with people there too until he deleted his reddit account lol
He's still on Reddit
He would make another account account
DremorAs he said, modlogs are public, and it seems like other user retreived the trace of what you call an "abuse of power" : https://sopuli.xyz/comment/12732467 .
It is in his right as a moderator to chose how he moderate the communities he has the right to. If he finds your comment pedantic and annoying, and chose to remove it, so be it.
I'm not taking sides here. I don't know the whole story, and I doubt anyone else here does. With the little context provided, It'd be hard to take knowingly a side.
But in both case, this is textbook harassement as you are copy-pasting this comment on every community this is posted on.
This community has a pretty clear rule against harrassement (rule 2), which you are breaching, offense for which I'll use my g... mod given right of banning you for the time being (I'll re-evaluate tomorrow when I'll be less tired).
Edit : After talking with OP via PM, a ban of 7 days was issued
I really don't see a need to drag community drama everywhere. GoL is one of the biggest aggregator blogs out there for... linux gaming. Whether we should prioritize original sources over aggregators is a different discussion.
But yeah. Liam is great for news aggregating but he is 100% the stereotypical linux gamer and has a long history of starting random shit. Still annoyed by how fast he got everyone to shit on the Duckstation devs because they didn't want to be exploited.
Sips'Being a big("great") news aggregator doesn't excuse bad behavior.
Are you the lemmy cops? Is it your responsibility to chase any link to someone's website across every instance and make sure people know they are a bit of a jackass?
If you think GoL should be a banned source, take it up with the various moderators. If you think only primary sources should be allowed (which I actually agree with), that is also a discussion to be had.
But rushing in to berate people for linking to one of the most popular news aggregators for a story that people would be interested in because you don't like the guy who owns that site? All you are doing is discouraging people from making posts in the future.
Which is the problem with dragging community/subreddit drama everywhere you go. It just makes the site a much more hostile place for everyone. And we really aren't big enough to be doing that.
🚨 🚨 🚨 FREEZE! STOP RIGHT THERE!! 🚨 🚨 🚨
*As the official lemmy police I am arresting you for defending a mad lad caught abusing powers. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.*
Jokes aside..
I do think people should be allowed to post opinions an discuss other peoples behavior. Gol dude was caught abusing his powers, which is a disgusting thing to do, personally don't mind him being called out for that in a post here and there. It's not an attack on the poster, it's a reminder to folks who the guy really is.
I'm all for the truth, no matter who it is.
I was going to ask why the thumbnail on this post is a hexagon shaped bear, but your comment explains it well enough.
Blisterexethe thumbnail is a hexagon bear because it's the logo for easyanticheat, the most recogniseable anticheat
JusticeForPorygon
Captain AggravatedI wonder if you phrased it the way the Play store does: This game wants permission to:
- send SMS messages
- make calls
- know your location
- stalk your family
- raid your fridge
- access, read and upload files
- manage and add contacts
- cup your balls
- go through your trash
- irritate your boss
etc.
Think anyone would install them?
not_so_handsome_jack
Nexyi dONt hAVe anYThinG To HIdE
Anyone who says that while wearing pants is a filthy liar.
linearchaosof course, people don't even look at play store permissions
I suppose they do suffer from the "Known in the state of Cancer to cause California" problem. A bubble level app wants in-app purchases and GPS access.
Meanwhile at Epic...
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
That's quite a generous interpretation. If we're being real about it, it's going to be another "you assholes" email from Timmy.
MyNameIsAtticusThis will be helpful for discerning if a game can run on the Steam Deck. There's not many games that don't have verification (Either by Valve or ProtonDB) but for newer games with anticheat it will serve as a good rule of thumb i imagine
Lots of games with anti cheat auto work under wine/proton. The most on top of my head example is Elden ring. Runs fine on my desktop with arch, as well as my steam deck.
I think that's the main goal behind,
To avoid frustration for steamD owners and avoid a bad reputation of "all games are unplayable on it"
I bought Sea of Thieves about 5 years ago. Recently, they added kernal-level anticheat (which does precisely fuck-all to actually stop cheating). While that is annoying, I'm not particularly worried because the studio that makes that game is owned by Microsoft, and like all Microsoft products, it was banished to my windows partition with the rest of the spyware.
Well... kernel level software can access everything on your computer. That includes other partitions and unmounted drives
RiccosuaveNot to be annoying, but can someone please ELI5 how kernel level anti-cheat software actually works, or link good resources where I can read about it.
It runs with higher priveleges than you have and can see anything that happens on your computer.
It also creates a giant additional attack vector.
Eli5: your PC has different access levels a program can run at. This prevents a malicious or badly coded program from completely fucking your computer. Kernel level anti cheat runs at the lowest level access that exists under windows. It can do basically whatever it wants to your PC, and if a backdoor is coded in (happens way more than you'd think), it gives malware basically total access to your PC.
I do everything important like banking etc on a separate device that isn't my gaming PC. This has been quite liberating since I worry less about invasive anti-cheat, drm etc. I realize not everyone wants to do this but it's been a nice compromise.
AppoxoFor me anything important is done in the browser (*very* rarely) and mostly on the phone.
That's one way to do it, but I worry less about those things by not supporting them with my time and money.
Why is kernel-level anti-cheat even a thing?
If I was trying to prevent cheating, I'd hash the relevant game files, encrypt the values, and hard-code them into the executable. Then when the game is launched, calculated the hash of the existing files and compare to the saved values.
What is gained by running anti-cheat in kernel mode? I only play single-player games, so I assume I'm missing something.
Because there are kernel-level cheats
What you proposed can very easily be bypassed without even needing kernel access by just editing the executable code that checks hashes to always return true
Boo freaking hoo.
It's not like there are so many other ways to cheat, actually used in many games with anticheats.
We should all stop pretending it's necessary to put malware into your computer just so some company can claim they have no cheaters, which is never even true.
The point of anti-cheat is to create a substantial barrier for cheating. If you have to go the extra mile to run an external hardware cheat so as to be "undetected" then surely this means the anti-cheat is working. If it were as ineffective as you imply, cheaters would be cheating on their main accounts.
.... Buuut you can still defeat Kernel level Anti Cheats.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzIq04vd0M&t=2s&pp=2AECkAIB
Which means that you still have to end up relying on reviewing a player's performance and actions as recorded by the game servers statistically via complex statistical algorithms or machine learning to detect impossibly abnormal activity.
... Which is what VAC has been doing, without kernel level, for over a decade.
All that is gained from pushing AC to the kernel level is you ruin the privacy and system stability of everyone using it.
You don't actually stop cheating.
It is not possible to have a 100% full proof anti cheat system.
There will always be new, cleverer exploitation methods, just as there are with literally all other kinds of computer software, which all have new exploits that are detected and triaged basically every day.
But you do have a choice between using an anti cheat method that is insanely invasive and potentially dangerous to all your users, and one that is not.
And then a game gets updated so the hashes don't match and uh oh, everything is fucked. Oh, but we can change the hashes of the files in the executable! Yeah, so can they. People modding shit into the executable is basically a given. Let alone the fact that you'd need to sit through a steam "validation of files" length of time every time you'd need to launch a game (because validation works exactly as you have described).
What is gained is that it has access to more information. Some cheats use an entirely different program / process that reads memory and outputs info that is available to the game but hidden from the player. Like a client needs to know where a person on the other team is to be able to draw their model. So you read that, you put a little box over where they are, and bang you have wallhacks.
Modern cheats for multiplayer games don't modify local files (or attribute values in memory), since the server validates everything anyway. They're about giving you information that's available but not shown in the game (like see-through walls, or exact skill ranges), or manipulate input (dodge enemy damage, easy combos). Those cheat can run in kernel mode (or at least evade detection from user mode), so the anti-cheat needs kernel mode to be more effective.
since the server validates everything anyway
Oh you sweet summer child.
The server doesn't validate shit, because that takes up CPU cycles on THEIR hardware, which costs them money. A huge part of kernel level anticheat is forcing YOU to pay the cost for anticheat, so they can squeeze a few more pennies out of it. And if your computer gets owned because they installed insecure, buggy malware on your system...? Well, they'll just deny. After all, it's kernel-level, how are YOU going to prove anything?
If server validation was still a common practice (as it *should* be) then cheats wouldn't come in the form of speed hacks, teleportation hacks, or invincibility. The traditional thing in CS that was hard to prevent is aimhacks and wallhacks. I respect that *those* are hard to prevent, but they can be much less impactful in modern hero shooters.
They can prevent you from running cheats that other anti-cheats can't detect. For instance, they could modify the value in memory so that your calculated hash always succeeds even when it's modified. This doesn't stop cheating though; it just means cheaters have to use cheat hardware that exists at a layer that even kernel anti-cheat can't detect.
Hal-5700X
ChozoProbably a pessimistic take, but I don't expect this to have any discernable impact on sales, or any other effects that would discourage publishers from these practices. The average user doesn't care about or understand how these things work; they'll see an anti-cheat warning on the store page and think "Okay, tell the colonel I'll be on my best behavior then" and continue to buy the game.
snooggumsIt will benefit those that care and won't negatively impact the experience for those that don't.
Win, win.
x00zI wish Valve would just ban them. It's weird to have something that looks like pure malware in a Game store.
MaestroThey will be gone with time, but not because anything that Valve does. Microsoft is locking down the kernel after the CrowdStrike debacle. In a few years it will be impossible to run any custom kernel code.
Luckily Valve seems to believe in freedom of decision for their users so they won't do this. There are kernel level cheats so there are kernel level anticheats. Obviously anticheats are mostly lame in what they do so it would probably be better for them to not be kernel level. Still there are "pure malware" anticheats and Valve thinks it's up to the user to decide if they want one, their job is to inform the user. And that's the best approach here in my opinion.
LucidlethargyIs this a Linux problem? I've never had to look for this detail before in Windows.
It does prevent Linux compatibility, but even if it didn't, it's a computer security problem, for those who care. You're essentially allowing different game companies to install a rootkit on your computer so you can play a video game.
You’re essentially allowing different game companies to install a rootkit on your computer so you can play a video game.
Put like that, makes it even more obvious how insanely stupid slash desperate slash addicted some gamers are, doesn't it?
Most gamers don't know that easy anti-cheat is a rootkit to begin with.
is "easy anti-cheat" a brand name? Or was that just your wording?
Mostly, and even some Windows users don't want to install software that has such a great amount of permission over the entire system just for a game's anti-cheat.
It's nice that users can now know beforehand if a game uses such software. Avoids refunds.
No its common for anti-cheat on Windows to have full root permission to your entire system Windows users are just on average less intelligent, less concerned about privacy, and, more ignorant about technology. This doesn't mean using Windows makes you stupid its just the OS of choice for the stupid and ignorant.
Holy logical fallacy batman. Ad hominem much?
Ad hominem isn't when you insult people AND make an argument its when you insult people INSTEAD of making an argument.
User initially believes that this is only a Linux issue because its almost entirely discussed on forums frequented by technical people who often use Linux whereas forums full of Windows gamers are equally effected but ignorant of the topic.
MaxxieI imagine the alternative way to combat kernel-level cheats would be asking player for all his game state data, validating it on a server?
Wouldn't work on peer-to-peer and you'd have to do a bunch of unnecessary compute(recalculating every tick if player-generated data is possible according to game rules) but its the only way I can think of.
Most games already do this lol
Cheats usually don't do anything that is technically impossible to do on a vanilla client, just highly improbable
True, can't think of how would you combat a cleverly written aim-bot.
That does not detect things like wall hack and aim-bots that don't modify the game state directly.
Don't tell the client what's going on outside its vision, I suppose? Add a small buffer to compensate for latency, so wall hack would be more of a "corner hack".
I mean sure, that is how some (mostly strategy and tactical) games do it, but for an FPS, figuring out where the buffer should be would be a programmers nightmare. I guess you would have to try to calculate all possible lines of sights a player could have within some buffer time (100-1000ms) and then all players that could in theory enter them... Add physics and it is practically impossible.
Also, corner hack is useful enough and it does not address aimbot. IMO the answer is some combination of human moderation and ability to play with "friends" instead of randos. E.g. you could ask people to like or dislike a player at the end of a match and try to pair players that liked each other in the past.
Or bring server browsers back and let server mods handle it.
I've rarely, if ever, had a bad time using a server browser.
A more modern idea. Put all the chesters into the same lobbies through matchmaking
Or bring server browsers back and let server mods handle it.
How will you handle competitive matchmaking? I agree for casual matchmaking though
A more modern idea. Put all the chesters into the same lobbies through matchmaking
Maybe moderm in relative termy but notnreally. One of the articles I could find on the quick is from 4 years ago: https://www.ign.com/articles/cod-warzone-cheaters-are-being-matched-up-together-as-punishment
Cool, can you make a toggle to just opt out of even seeing them on my store page? Also extend this feature to companies like EA and the likes...
karthnemesisYou can *sort of* block publishers/devs, if they have their own "steam page."
If you click on the publisher/dev in the listings underneath review scores, if it takes you to an actual dedicated page you can click the gear icon on the right and click "ignore this creator."
This does not completely block them but it has them show up in less places (or are greyed out in some places.)
Basically they can pop kinda randomly up in sales when steam forgets to add that, or greyed out in the tabs section on the front page (new and trending, top sellers, popular upcoming tabs)
It's not the cure-all "erase EA" button I'm sure we'd all prefer, but it does help a little.
This probably won't help with EA and the like adding kernel-level anti-cheat 6 months after release....
It looks a lot like the "3rd-party EULA" label that appears in the sidebar for some games, below connectivity and controller support. Nice. This ought to make it easier to see if a game meets my basic requirements, and respond quickly when a friend suggests one.
AreWeAntiCheatYet does a decent job of cataloguing what has anti-cheat, and what actually works on Linux / Wine.
It would be great to have it shown on the Steam store. I refunded a game recently because my kid bought something with anti-play by accident.
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Everything HAS to be public, otherwise it couldn't be openly federated. What did he do that people complained?
Eh, mod actions don't have to be public. Without the modlog and other inline indicators, Lemmy could just let Mods delete content and shadowban users with zero transparency. Other instances would just see content deletions and fail silently on bans.
With that said, the modlog is invaluable for flushing out shitty mods.
He’s a weirdo on mastodon too tbh. Very keen on blocking, no real interactions aside from self promotion.
XtallllHopefully this encourages developers and publishers to re-evaluate kernel level anything.
Sadly i don't think it has any impact. For example, for Riot games no one complained about Vanguard except Linux gamers.
I didnt buy Helldivers 2 because of it. Explained why to all my friends who kept trying to convince me to buy it. I didn’t convince them, they didn’t convince me… but hey I appreciate the warning in the future.
This is a fantastic addition to the store page that I'm sure will cut down the number of refunds valve staff have to deal with. I wonder if publishers will complain about this transparency impacting their sales ...
KoboldCoterieI really hope they do complain, because that'd be great confirmation for anyone considering adding this shit that it does in fact impact sales.
Sunshine (she/her)
Nik282000Valve continues to do the minimum to keep it's users happy, and that's 100x better than than the industry standard. Tiny steps but in the right direction.
This will make the boycott against the games that dont work on Linux easier.
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Jerkface (any/all)This is getting silly. Every time you bring this up, I'm going to bring up the fact that the only other person who was involved in that little spat was you. And now, you're the only one, because the other guy got on with his life, but you can't.
This was such a small event, but it seems to fucking define you to this day.
I'm glad you've found the one place where dictatorial moderation and misuse of mod powers is okay, because you only saw it happen to one person. I'm not sure why you think you have some sort of gotcha point there.
The mastodon screenshot is all that is needed to prove that this guy was unfit from the start.
People like this should not receive benefits from the platform they tried to abuse. A simple copy paste of the evidence and information whenever it pops up in my feed is barely any effort.
Besides the fact I think that linking to the primary source of information is already more important than linking to someone's post about it.
Now punish publishers who try to change the terms of sale after sale. “Want to play the single player game you bought a decade ago? Agree to this new arbitration clause.”
TheFeatureCreatureGames that change their terms post-sale should present the customer the option for an automatic no-questions-asked refund. Leaving the customer with the options: Agree, Decline, Refund.
Hmm, you have uncovered a problem with both of our ideas. Steam’s leverage is reduced after they have deposited sales proceeds, and is gone after the publisher isn’t selling games on the platform any longer.
(I’m griping about Rockstar specifically but my point is still flawed in the general case.)
Darkassassin07Add a clause to the contract between Steam and the developer requiring the dev to reimburse Steam for refunds due to post-sale changes (ie, from that specific 'accept, decline, refund' option). If the dev doesn't pay the bill, Steam can use the breach of contract as leverage.
narc0tic_birdInclude adding kernel level anti cheat to that. This should just give us an option to get a full refund.
It's horrifying to me that any of these fucking games are running outside userspace. Is anti cheat the only reason why that is necessary? Why is it necessary for anti cheat?
FubarberryRunning in the kernel let's anti-cheat see everything on your computer, let's devs take screenshots or videos of your screen, and let's the anti-cheat reinstall itself if the user tries to remove it. It also lets the developers secretly install additional software if needed for some reason. Overall it's pretty effective at being able to catch user space cheat programs, the catch is that you're permanently compromising the security and privacy of your computer, and nothing short of a full disk purge will guarantee it's actually been uninstalled.
The other catch is it's can still be defeated by kernel-level cheat programs, which are now widely available thanks to the rise of kernel anti-cheat. It also can't do anything about cheat programs that run on external hardware, such as aimbots that just look at your video feed and simulate mouse inputs to aim.
So it really comes down to how bothered you are by cheaters in your games, and if you're willing to give up your privacy and security to make it slightly more inconvenient for those cheaters to cheat.
I should probably mention some notable downsides to kernel anti-cheat as well:
Because kernel anti-cheat has full access to your PC, if any virus/etc can take advantage of a security vulnerability in the anti-cheat program, it gains absolute access to your PC.
Kernel anti-cheat needs special signing keys to get access to the kernel, but the more companies that get access to the keys the more likely it is to have compromised keys. Genshin impacts keys were compromised and used to sign ransomware, giving it full kernel access on any computers it was able to get on.
Devs have used kernel anti-cheat to secretly install Bitcoin miners on users machines
Kernel anti-cheat can be compromised and used to directly gain control of a users PC. Some apex legends streamers had their PCs compromised and cheats installed remotely through their anti-cheat during a tournament.
A lot of anti-cheat programs are created by Chinese companies or companies that are mostly owned by Chinese companies. China is well known for spying on users, and there's a ban on a lot of Chinese hardware due to spying concerns and backdoors that the Chinese government requires to be in their devices. I think the invasive nature of kernel anti-cheat makes it an obvious spying platform, and I think it's absurd to think that any anti-cheat coming from China isn't actively spying on you.
I think it's absurd to think any anti-cheat coming from China isn't actively spying on you.
Our data has proven to be very lucrative. The companies that make anti-cheat are also the types of companies that would want to cash in on our data.
paraphrandThe thing I think is left out is that it usually eliminates all of the casual cheaters. For many games this is a massive change in the feel and culture of the online space in the game.
But yeah, no matter what, even when the games are never on our hardware and become just video streams sold to us by the hour, cheating tools will always exist. Even if it’s just a bit of tape on your monitor.
I'd like to see it show if there is any third party DRM as well, like the Augmented Steam extension does.
FYI - the owner of this site, gamingonlinux, was a mod on the !linux_gaming@lemmy.ml community until they were caught abusing their moderator powers. Then they deleted their account and complained on mastodon that it's stupid design that mod logs are public. [Screenshot]
Instead, here's a link to the official post
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4547038620960934857
I’m interested to hear more. I’ve followed Liam’s work for almost a decade at this point and I haven’t ever seen or heard of him acting unprofessionally, but I’m quite new to Lemmy.
What abuse of their moderator powers? Is there a link to see the mod log somewhere? Sorry, I know I’m being a bit needy, but I’m not really sure what I’m doing.
So I tried looking into it, but all I can find is this same user (go $fsck yourself) had some comments deleted by him about 6 months ago. I didn't actually comb through the modlog to see what the deleted comments contained, I'm not sure how feasible it is to review the modlog going that far back.
I couldn't find any actual proof of wrongdoing, the closest thing to evidence is that screenshot of Liam saying he thought it was stupid that modlogs were public. I also didn't find anyone else complaining about him as a mod, literally just this same guy copy pasting this comment on a ton of different gamingonlinux lemmy posts for the past 6 months.
Liam complaining about public modlog does sound like he got caught abusing mod privledges, but I'm leaning towards it just being between him and this go $fsck yourself user rather than widespread abuse.
Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. I was able to dig a bit and I think I found it - it looks like they were being a bit of a pedantic asshole about some spelling/grammar thing, the moderator deleted their comment because… yes, it’s a pedantic spelling/grammar nitpick. Then that user threw a massive tantrum and started yelling mod abuse.
Honestly, it’s a real shame that Liam lost faith in Lemmy over something stupid like this. Yeah, there are downsides of a public mod log - really hateful vile shit will just persist in there forever when realistically it should be just wiped out entirely. I think overall it has more benefits than drawbacks, but I certainly wouldn’t say that being opposed to a public mod log is some sort of smoking gun evidence that he abused his mod powers.
So yeah, this one guy behaving like a self-centred jerk actively contributed towards pushing a well-known and prolific linux gaming journalist off the platform. Great stuff, love to see it.
Screenshot:
That's unfortunate to hear, gamingonlinux has been a really good source for news, so I hate to hear he's not been handling mod stuff respectably.
I am dreading the day Gaben leaves Valve.
The day it goes public is the day it dies.
I really hope he has a good plan to pass the reigns to someone with the same integrity and philosophy.
Or go coop
Maybe he can pass it to an AI configured to uphold his ideals from beyond the grave?
Gaben's wife GLaDOS
2072: Valve headquarters flooded with deadly neurotoxin
20789999999999: Valve employee wakes up in the -245th floor of their offices and must make their way back up to the surface
That's hilarious, probably not in our lifetime but this is the future.
Yep, probably not. I'd prefer AI so much to our CEOs.
Long live Gaben.
Ah, yes, can't wait for the time when humanity totally stagnates because we can't even count on old people dying off to get rid of their outdated ideals. Gaben might have good ones but plenty of older people in power do not.
It is clear, we need more research into longevity, so he can become immortal.
"God emperor Gabe, what should we do today?"
"Go fight the Epic Games militia so we can defeat them once and for all."
"Can we also work on Portal 3? It's the 100th anniversary of the franchise soon."
"Three? What's that?"
This section alone shows how stupid kernel level anti-cheat is. Play a game and gain a persistent security risk. It's actually a feature that such games don't run on Linux.
This reminds me of the stupid Gigabyte RGB software...
Not sure if this is till the case, but for a long time the kernel driver had a known unpatched security vulnerability.
And uninstalling the software did not remove the kernel files, so now your system is vulnerable until you reinstall Windows...
And I fully expect some kernel level Anti-Cheat to be no better in this regard.
FYI - the owner of this site, gamingonlinux, was a mod on the !linux_gaming@lemmy.ml community until they were caught abusing their moderator powers. Then they deleted their account and complained on mastodon that it's stupid design that mod logs are public. [Screenshot]
Instead, here's a link to the official post
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4547038620960934857
LMAO
Omg that logo. GoL is a hexbear confirmed!
In case you happen to be unaware, that's EAC's logo.
If it was just a joke, imagine I didn't say anything.
EAC is heaxbear, confirmed!