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Is it time to start a campaign against kernel-level anticheat? (lemm.ee)

submitted 3 days ago by boonhet@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously - maybe we need to take a look at Stop Fucking Around In Our Kernels

I haven't really been personally affected by it before - I don't play any competitive multiplayer games at all. But my wife had her brother over, and he's significantly younger than us. So he wanted to play FortNite and GTA V, knowing I have a gaming PC. FortNite is immediately out of the question, it'll never work on my computer. Okay, so I got GTA V running and it was fun for a while, but it turns out all of those really cool cars only exist in Online. But oh look, now they've added BattlEye and I can no longer get online.

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot), it's really not. Even if I wanted to install Windows ever again, I do NOT want random 3rd party kernel modules in there. Anyone remember the whole CrowdStrike fiasco? I do NOT want to wake up to my computer not booting up because some idiot decided to push a shitty update to their kernel module that makes the kernel itself shit the bed. And while Microsoft fucks up plenty, at least they're a corporation with a reputation to uphold, and I believe they even have a QA team or 2. CrowdStrike was unheard of outside of the corporate world before the ordeal and tbh nobody has ever heard of it afterwards again.

So I think this would be a good angle to push. That we should be careful about what code runs in our OS kernels, for security and stability reasons. Obviously it'd be impossible to just blanket ban 3rd party kernel modules to any OS. However, maybe here in the EU at least we could get them to consider a rule that any software that includes a component running in the OS kernel, MUST justify how that part is necessary for the software to function in the best possible way for the user of the computer the software is running on. E.g I expect a hardware driver to have a kernel module, and I can see how security software needs to have a kernel module, but I do NOT see how a video game needs to have an anti cheat with a kernel module. How does that benefit me, the customer paying to be able to play said video game?

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[-] noba_cmdr@reddthat.com 7 points 1 day ago

On the contrary, I think kernel level anticheat should be illegal

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

On areweanticheatyet.com it seems like the percentage of denied/broken keeps getting higher and higher :(

I guess it makes sense, new games come out with anticheat, and rarely do new games come out without anticheat.

[-] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 61 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I usually solve this issue by... just playing something else.

It sounds hard, but I assure you, nothing is impossible.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 8 points 2 days ago

There's about 5 games a decade that are exciting anymore even, unfortunately. I might just have to give up gaming then.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

I can cite way more than 5 excellent games from this decade from the top of my head, We're almost in 2025, so I'll limit to games released in or after 2015:

Factorio
RimWorld
Stellaris
Fallout 4
Overcooked 2 (and all you can eat)
Life is Strange
Cyberpunk 2077
Before your eyes
Dead Cells
Shadow Tactics
Cities Skylines
The outer worlds
Two point hospital

I can keep going, but this is just from the top of my head, there are always good games getting released, and very rarely they're AAA.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

There are tons of good games always coming out even recently, unless you only like multi-player games.

[-] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

If you spend a little time on the dark alleyways of Steam, you will occasionally come up with hidden gems. The indies scene is currently thriving.

[-] darkstar@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 days ago

You're obviously looking in the wrong place for games then..

[-] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

I encourage you to explore the wonderful world of indie games, and free yourself from the shackles and shitty anti-cheat implementations of the AAA/AAAA gaming industry

[-] Amir@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

Baldurs Gate 3

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

That's one yeah

[-] iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

False.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot)

That's not trivial at all. Don't let anyone let you think otherwise.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 109 points 3 days ago

It should be said that I'm not against games detecting cheaters and banning them from online play. It's very specifically kernel-level anticheats that I can't stand on principle.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 60 points 3 days ago

I'm against them being able to ban you from playing online in its entirety, which is something they can do because most online games don't let you run the servers yourself anymore. Sure, if someone cheats on official servers, ban them from the official servers. They should still be able to play, cheating or not, on the server they run themselves, but that's not an option we even have most of the time.

[-] tiz@lemmy.ml 49 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This one is such an overlooked part of this whole dilemma. The problem is NOT THAT the official servers not allowing clients without kernel level anti cheat. It’s just we don’t have an option to host our own servers anymore and we’re confined to following the rules.

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[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 11 points 3 days ago

Yes, that's part of the StopKillingGames agenda as well. Allow us to control our own servers! For fuck's sake, it's CHEAPER for them, because WE'RE paying for hosting. A dedicated server costs money! And it keeps people buying into the ecosystem after the initial sales high because you form communities and then tell people IRL how awesome the game is. Assuming you have time for real life friends of course.

I'm not against the existence of a matchmaking system, or even against it being the default. Just give us a tiny menu item "Dedicated Servers" somewhere and keep that one around forever, even when the publisher is long bankrupt because the CEO blew all their profit on sculptures of oddly shaped penises or something.

[-] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

A dedicated server costs money!

Game company: "Why don't you give that money to us and we will give you a server?"

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[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"Butbutbutbut server side anticheat is haaaaaaard and requires us to actually think about what values are actually valid and understand our own internal game states. Kernel level anticheat ~~lets us be lazy~~ costs us less and requires less development time!"

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

Unless they deviate substantially from how they build games in genres like shooters, server side anti-cheat isn't going to catch everything that kernel level anti cheat does. However, kernel level anti cheat doesn't catch hardware cheating anyway, so if cheating is always going to be imperfect, we ought to stop short of the kernel.

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 days ago

Was it Delta Force that made everyone lose their shit because it "accidentally" warned people would be banned for usb thumb drives?

Because... that is coming. No, not the thumbdrive. But scanning your various devices to detect hardware based cheats. Which... is likely also going to be pushed by logitech and razer to get ahead of the crowd that are sick and tired of needing their bullshit software to properly use mice and are looking toward alternatives.

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[-] Maestro@fedia.io 30 points 2 days ago

There us no need. CrowdStrike was such a disaster for Microsoft that they are already on the path to locking down the kernel. Noboby but MS will have kernel access eventually. Give it a few years (and 1-2 Windows versions)

[-] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 days ago

Apple has already done the same with macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019. No more kernel extensions = much better kernel-level security

This will become the industry standard

[-] Inucune@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago

This will take a rogue agent to send malware or otherwise brick all machines by kernel injection. The crowd strike event poked a hole in the dam. This needs a full exploit to get major traction beyond game studios moving to the next kernel level drm/exploit engine.

[-] Amir@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago

https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/

[-] PushButton@lemmy.world 57 points 3 days ago

Money talks.

Don't buy the game.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 25 points 2 days ago

This doesn't work. It will never work. You can't shame conscious consumers into voting with their wallets while the other 99% keeps buying the bad practices.

Thing is, if nobody on Lemmy, and literally nobody in general who cares about anticheat, buys GTA 6, you know what effect that would have on the company's bottom line? None, they'll make record profits.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

Right, well they are trying to start a campaign to popularize the comment you just made. Or at least that's my understanding

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[-] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 70 points 3 days ago

I think it should also be noted that the games industry is not audited for security to the same degree as a lot of other industries. So vulnerabilities may not be found until years after launch and then go unpatched indefinitely because the company has already moved on to the next thing.

Hell, one of the older CoD games had an RCE vulnerability that as far as I'm aware is still not patched.

Plus, major publishers like EA are now pushing to create their own kernel-level anticheat in-house. Why should anyone trust them to create a secure piece of software that runs with the highest permissions possible when they can't even be trusted to create stable, functional games?

[-] uis@lemm.ee 22 points 2 days ago

Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously

600k signatures to go. Link for EU citizens.

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 days ago

Arguing that buying something means you own it is much more digestible for the general public. Arguing that the video game codes run slightly different on your machine than you would like is esoteric and a non-starter. This is not a matter for the government, just don’t buy shitty games. Literally no game is required to be bought.

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[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago

It's been time. Game companies have no right to access that level of any system I paid for. If they want to use kernal level anti-cheat on their consoles, that's on them. But my computer? Absolutely not. They don't have a right to that, when I bought the computer I didn't agree to that in a EULA or TOS, and they do not make it apparent that their games carry this level of anti-cheat at sale.

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You agree to that in the EULA/TOS of the game you want to play (and how legally binding that is is anyone's guess). You just never read it (because nobody does).

The reality is that it is just another layer of risk. You are or are not choosing to install software on your personal computer that may or may not increase your risk level. It is no different than going to that website that makes your GPU spin up real hard or grabbing something from itch that is actually malware and so forth. Its why people increasingly suggest having a dedicated device for taxes and anything else private.

Personally? I understand the benefits to kernel level anti-cheat and, while we have no data as consumers, it is clearly effective considering the state of games today versus games in the 00s and publishers are willing to allocate funds for it. I still firmly believe that there are better methods that involve analysis of player behavior but I also understand the compute costs of that will be insane.

But also? I don't want that shit on my computer (not that it would work because... Linux). So I choose not to play the games that require it. It means I miss out on some games but the good news is that there are way more games out there than I can ever play.

All that said: I increasingly think the end state is going to be competitive multiplayer games being console exclusive due to a mix of exclusivity rights and having a walled garden ecosystem that actually CAN be controlled.

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[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago

competitive multiplayer

I feel it should be added that this is one use of anti-cheat, but it also gets used on noncompetitive single player games, too.

Usually if a game has micro-transactions, but also to "protect our IP" as has been seen with a number of older non-MTX single player games recently being retrofitted with it.

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[-] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago

With you on this, regardless of the method used, no app has any business running or snooping outside of the container that it was set up in. And this doesn’t just apply to desktop operating systems, mobile and entertainment consoles too.

I’d even take it a step further, that nonsense shouldn’t be on my machine in the first place.

Want to run anticheat stuff? Run it on your own crappy servers at your own cost and processing power. Live detect it through packets that are sent to you and are being processed, be it voice or input.

Whatever happens on my machine is none of your business.

[-] inlandempire@jlai.lu 25 points 3 days ago

This issue would be solved / non existent if matchmaking was not the only option for playing online game, which wouldn't be an issue if publishers stopped being so greedy and predatory when it comes to player retention, which wouldn't be an issue if the economic system we live in didn't promote this toxic behaviour.

So yeah, kernel based anticheats are mostly just a symptom of a larger problem, the rotten video games industry

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[-] christhebaker@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago

Good post thank you.

Totally agree. Went all-in on Linux earlier this year and it was all working pretty good but there is really no solution when all your buddies are playing fortnite.

The multiple "game streaming" services our there wasn't really cutting it either. I recall reading that Microsoft was going to be more strict with allowing kernel level anticheat but I don't remember exactly where in saw that and I'm too lazy to Google. I hope with all the new PC handhelds coming out (steam deck, etc), that major companies start pushing for this or figuring out a workaround.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago

In the wake of Crowdstrike, Microsoft was going to allow for additional avenues for hooks into the OS that don't reach as deep into the kernel level, but they never said they were removing the hooks that Crowdstrike or anti-cheat use, as far as I can tell. One solution for PC handhelds is to run whatever modified version of Windows that Microsoft is cooking up, so that you get the console-like interface without compromising on the anti-cheat compatibility. The solution Valve is seemingly hoping for is that, by disclosing kernel-level anti-cheat on the store page, such a solution becomes poison in the marketplace and developers choose a different one.

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[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The ship named "software does shit I don't like on my own hardware" sailed the day proprietary software became a thing.

Mind you, it's scary how many people applaud kernel-level anticheat. "This game was just ruined by hackers until they added kernel-level anticheat. Now it's great again!"

How would a campaign against kernel-level anticheat "succeed" exactly? More awareness? More people boycotting kernel-level anticheat? Laws prohibiting the practice?

Like, obviously I'm never running any software that involves kernel-level anticheat, but I'm a Gentoo neckbeard with an EFF-approved tinfoil hat surgically attached to my scalp.

(Hell, I think it would be great if most of the games out there had cheater and bot servers where it was encouraged to run your cheat tools and/or bots. If they allowed that but just kept it separate from non-tool/non-bot players, that'd be a fantastic way to get kids more interested in STEM.)

(Also, if anyone made and sold a boardgame that made players want to cheat (in a bug-not-feature kind of way), it would get negative reviews and no one would buy it. In a way, kernel-level anticheat can almost be considered a type of "externality". The game studio, rather than going to the trouble to tune their game to make cheating less appealing, they break their users' computers and invade their privacy. And the game studio then rakes in more money as a result.)

But how would we get through to normie 12-year-olds who just want to play Valorant and not have their face constantly rubbed in the dirt by "hackers"?

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