Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.
Is this a Linux problem? I’ve never had to look for this detail before in Windows.
Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages
Submitted 1 year ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
nforminvasion@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Holy logical fallacy batman. Ad hominem much?
trigonated@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
bay400@thelemmy.club 1 year ago
Unless, of course, they add it months after release drastically limiting your chances of refunding (looking at you EA WRC 2024 😡)
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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 some gamers are, doesn’t it?
ThermonuclearCactus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
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.
MoonHawk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Well… kernel level software can access everything on your computer. That includes other partitions and unmounted drives
ThermonuclearCactus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Anything sensitive is encrypted and I never decrypt it while running windows.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Only if those other partitions are not encrypted. Sure, it could still wipe them - but that’s something that backups are good for, and something you would certainly notice immediately :)
sonymegadrive@feddit.uk 1 year ago
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?
yamanii@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Plenty of games use it, if it uninstalled with each one then others would stop working.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 year ago
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.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
mrvictory1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years that this stuff is malware. I’m not the only one. No one listens.
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
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.
Mwa@lemm.ee 1 year ago
W steam
vordalack@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Any program having kernel level access is spyware. This is getting ridiculous.
Mwa@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Vanguard anticheat…
Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I 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.
levzzz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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
Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
True, can’t think of how would you combat a cleverly written aim-bot.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That does not detect things like wall hack and aim-bots that don’t modify the game state directly.
Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
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”.
bitwolf@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Or bring server browsers back and let server mods handle it.
I’ve rarely, if ever, had a bad time using a server browser
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
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: ign.com/…/cod-warzone-cheaters-are-being-matched-…
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
god damn right!
x00z@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I wish Valve would just ban them. It’s weird to have something that looks like pure malware in a Game store.
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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 steamcommunity.com/groups/…/4547038620960934857
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
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.
Sunny@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Being a big(“great”) news aggregator doesn’t excuse bad behavior.
Voyajer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
He used to relentlessly spam the /r/linux_gaming subreddit and argue with people there too until he deleted his reddit account lol
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was going to ask why the thumbnail on this post is a hexagon shaped bear, but your comment explains it well enough.
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
the thumbnail is a hexagon bear because it’s the logo for easyanticheat, the most recogniseable anticheat
Jtee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Wow, mad because you can be held accountable. That’s sad.
Thanks for the steam link!
yamanii@lemmy.world 1 year ago
4 likes on him complaining that modlogs being public is something bad, cowards that only want to be shitty in the shadows.
PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I’m still fairly new. Where do I go for modlog drama?
hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Nice.
Riccosuave@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not 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.
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
It runs with higher priveleges than you have and can see anything that happens on your computer.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 year ago
scoobford@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
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.
Woodstock@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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!
mrvictory1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Imagine a game having higher privileges than what you get with “Run as administrator”
loboaureo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Also, the most games that don’t work in linux is for this reason (and steamdeck works in linux)
HK65@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
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.
scarilog@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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??
yamanii@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Easy, a bug in battle eye forced me to reinstall windows, this kernel access has to go.
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 1 year ago
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 runs at startup, so this means if you install a game with kernel-level anticheat, the moment your system turns on, the game’s publisher has 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.
Katana314@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 1 year ago
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.
Woodstock@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thank you! Really clear and appreciate you taking the time to explain!
barlescharkley@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And 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?
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
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.
Joeffect@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How does vac play into all of this then …
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
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.
graff@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It doesn’t run at the kernel level?
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Common valve W
corroded@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
TommySoda@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I feel like they’re doing this because they are going so hard with steam deck. Regardless, good on Valve for doing this.
Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s awesome! GTA V just screwed everyone on Linux! What a rug pull.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I wonder if you phrased it the way the Play store does: This game wants permission to:
etc.
Think anyone would install them?
Nexy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
i dONt hAVe anYThinG To HIdE
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Anyone who says that while wearing pants is a filthy liar.
Vilian@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
of course, people don’t even look at play store permissions
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
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.