Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.
Removed by mod
As 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
Wow, 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.
He 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
Yes he said he made an alt but I think his main is still active? Not sure.
I was going to ask why the thumbnail on this post is a hexagon shaped bear, but your comment explains it well enough.
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.
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
That should be any update if you can’t play the previous one
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.
Any program having kernel level access is spyware. This is getting ridiculous.
Vanguard anticheat…
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.
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.
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?
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
Thank you! Really clear and appreciate you taking the time to explain!
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??
It’s a thing for any measure said to enforce copyright under the DMCA.
So it’s a thing for most proprietary software.
Easy, a bug in battle eye forced me to reinstall windows, this kernel access has to go.
Also, the most games that don’t work in linux is for this reason (and steamdeck works in linux)
Imagine a game having higher privileges than what you get with “Run as administrator”
Common valve W
I 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?
Cup my balls? Go on…
looks at Disney pluses binding arbitration clause
Yup
of 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.
W steam/valve
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
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.
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.
I think the popular thing now is to mod your mouse so it clicks on the enemy player’s head.
You don’t need to modify the files to modify data in memory.
This 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
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”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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Nice.
Is 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?
Well - if people still trust any piece of software coming from Epic…
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.
Unless, of course, they add it months after release drastically limiting your chances of refunding (looking at you EA WRC 2024 😡)
If they change the deal they should have to offer refunds. This makes it an expensive choice after the fact.
That sucks : (
deleted by creator
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.
