Comment on Is it time to start a campaign against kernel-level anticheat?
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 week 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.
No one is forcing you to install their game.
It’s so easy to look up what kind of anti cheat games use.
You can’t eat the cake and have it too.
They don’t have a right to install anything without your consent. However. You pressed the “Install” button. And you boxed in “I understand” and clicked “I agree”.
That doesn’t really track here. My reasoning is simple. They are requiring access to something they didn’t initially make public or allow an informed decision on, and they did that on purpose. While I don’t currently own or buy games that have kernel level anti-cheat, that doesn’t make the obfuscation any better.
I actually have not pressed the install button, not have impressed the purchase button. However, I also want you to look up the phrase “eat cake and have it to” and figure out what you mean. I’m buying the cake. I’m buying the fork to eat the cake. Neither the cake company nor the fork company should be able to tell me what to do with the product from the other company. You don’t have to agree with my stance, but understand that this is the argument that I am making.
People need to take responsibility of their own machines.
While they might not hold out a sign that says “KERNEL LEVEL ANTI CHEAT”. There is information available to make an informed decision.
Your cake and fork argument makes no sense at all. The game company isn’t telling you what you can and can’t do with your hardware. But they are telling you what you will be installing. It’s there if you know where to look. And if you don’t know where to look. You have the combined knowledge of the world at your fingertips for guidance.
I don’t know what you do. But when I buy a cake. I look at the ingredients to see what and how much it contains of various things. If I don’t like what I see, I won’t be buying it. Because I certainly won’t be eating it.
And I’m also not going to buy a plastic fork to eat it with. See how I made that decision. The cake company didn’t make me buy a certain fork, and the fork company didn’t make me buy a certain cake. I decide.
It’s ultimately your responsibility to understand what you are installing. Information is available.
You did not read what I wrote in my response and it shows. I have taken responsibility for my machine. I don’t buy games with kernal level anti-cheat. I specifically view them as an attack vector for malware. They started the cake vs fork argument and my response was directly related to them using such a poor expression for the context of the conversation we were having and therefore it took that to its logical conclusion based on the argument they made.
Since you didn’t read and decided to downvote I am choosing to not discuss this with you further, having vetted the ingredients of your cake. Have a good day.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 week 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.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
We literally have a cloudstrike report giving direct examples of how bad it is potentially as a vector for malware. Additionally it doesn’t solve the problem it aims to solve, as reported by several outlets because it doesn’t stop hardware level cheating, just potentially stops scripts. So you could absolutely enable cheats through a device like a keyboard and mouse or controller and the Anti-cheat does nothing.
Additionally though, I am not buying products with kernel level Anti-cheat and that is intentional, so I am not agreeing to the TOS or EULA of those games. If you add to this the fact that some games retroactively added kernel level anti-cheat, it’s bogus to assume that people are in the know or that they agreed to such things in the original TOS or EULA. Steam only recently made developers list kernel level anti-cheat on store pages for their game.
Also, kernel level anti-cheat in single player games is just ridiculous and invasive.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
There are a few layers to that
First: The crowdstrike issue had little to nothing to do with any kernel level hooks. The issue was one of software engineering and deployment. It could just as easily have… taken out an entire country by triggering false positives that prevent systems from connecting to the network.
Second: You’ll ALSO note that even after… taking out an entire country businesses still use crowdstrike. Because it is that damned good at its job.
Third: Yes, Current anti-cheat solutions are less than effective at hardware based hacks. It is lamost like there is a reason that the Delta Force (?) game made a big deal about banning people for thumb drives. That kind of scanning and testing is coming.
Fourth: Crowdstrike is not something you install on your personal device (unless your job’s IT department are idiots). It is something you install on company owned devices.
Cool. I am also not. So no “rights” are being violated.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
AMD had a graphics driver blocked because kernel level Anti-cheat flagged it as a cheat program. Genshin Impact’s anti-cheat was literally used to stop anti-virus programs running on people’s computers and mass deploy ransomware, and the gaming industry as a whole is extremely lax about the security of their users. Several companies anti-cheat have been flagged by anti-virus software as malicious.
There are layers to the kernel level anti-cheat business too and people still do buy games with kernel level anti-cheat. The fact that that kind of scanning is coming isn’t acceptable which is the point. I choose not to spend my money at companies that enable this kind of crap in their games. That’s not enough. It should be facing opposition from every quarter specifically because it is not only invasive, but also only raises the barrier to entry at the detriment to user’s security, and which is likely to cause the same boom that things like the campaign against piracy did in the 80’s/90’s. People didn’t know they could cheat so easily and now they do. Congratulations this has done the opposite of what is intended.
pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-ker…
xda-developers.com/kernel-level-anti-cheat-tech-d…