Always on Anti-Cheat, worst than always on DRM?

[Thaldor]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

Those privacy regulations already apply to it.  What are you talking about?

Again, the problem is you don't like it. you don't like that its running all the time (even though lots of 3rd party programs startup and run all the time),  you don't like it because it runs basically as admin (although no one can articulate why that should be regulated because it is not more of a security risk than any other malware or virus infection).   

 

And I will say it again, not liking something is not reason enough to demand it be regulated.  Having an actually nefarious attribute is a reason to regulate, but so far all this does is run all the time.

I don't think it's about liking it in this case. Adobe, Autodesk and many others use similar services but they are not this dangerous because they run in user space. Why this is different case is that it runs in ring 0, nothing can control it and nothing can supervise it and that makes it extremely dangerous because if someone was to find (more like when someone does find because even "Hello World" isn't perfect program) a hole in it and nothing can help it. Even StarForce wasn't this huge security hole even if itself was malicious in the end.

 

Cheaters are a problem but this is way too risky method to fight that problem. If this really goes through we are probably couple steps away from games requiring physical access keys and specialised storage options combined with BIOS level "in"security, just because overblowing methods seems to be the new norm.

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

I don't think it's about liking it in this case. Adobe, Autodesk and many others use similar services but they are not this dangerous because they run in user space. Why this is different case is that it runs in ring 0, nothing can control it and nothing can supervise it and that makes it extremely dangerous because if someone was to find (more like when someone does find because even "Hello World" isn't perfect program) a hole in it and nothing can help it. Even StarForce wasn't this huge security hole even if itself was malicious in the end.

Again, unless it is actually doing something it is not advertised to do, I.E it is collecting data or using your system for nefarious purpose, then I am afraid that is just you disliking it,  you dislike that it runs at ring 0.   As I keep saying, if you think that is too much of a risk then don't install it.  If MS think it is outside their guidelines they'll disable it, if it is found to be collecting data or used as an injection point for  malware then it comes under normal consumer law and they are liable.  But as we have no evidence that any of that is happening, all you have is a piece of software that you don't like. Being too risky is the reason you don't like it, but it's still you not liking it.

 

9 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Cheaters are a problem but this is way too risky method to fight that problem.

so don't use it.  it's not essential software.

 

9 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

If this really goes through we are probably couple steps away from games requiring physical access keys and specialised storage options combined with BIOS level "in"security, just because overblowing methods seems to be the new norm.

Games and software used to ship with hardware keys.  Some programs still do.

 

I don't care what they do, if I deem it too much I just won't buy their product.   

[jasonvp]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

so don't use it.  it's not essential software.

I'm not sure why this is so difficult for folks to grasp.  Don't like it?  Don't buy it, and carry on.  It's actually really just that simple.

 

"But, but, but, gamers can't be trusted to follow that rule.  Look.  Loooooook at all these examples of them not..."  So the answer, then, is to try legislation in the place of intelligence?  Um.  That's a failure before it even begins.

 

It's comical that this discussion has gone on this long.  Cheaters absolutely and positively are a problem.  If ya'all don't like what this particular game maker is trying to do to fight them, then buy a different game.

[Kisai]

On 4/14/2020 at 3:34 AM, suicidalfranco said:

source: 

Riot's upcomming team based shooter with hero elements has been found, discovered and confirmed to implement an always on anti-cheat system.

the anticheat system starts when the machine boots-up, and has the same rights as an administrator

 

Since this is running at with high privileges and cannot be directly turned off. It can always monitor and really do whatever it wants on your system.

Someone could find a security vulnerability and turn this into a rootkit.

It's already reported to have bugs that negatively impact to other games.

 

so yeah, good things coming ahead of us. Of course the only way to stop this is to not install the game, but given the gamer mentality and ability to use an ounce of their grey matter to take a stand against such obviously negative practices. RIP everyone, expect this to come to LoL soon TM

This is what will inevitably push MMO games to use Stadia-or-similar streaming-only clients. Cheaters will cheat as long as they have an incentive to, and you take that incentive away when they can't modify the game since the the game is actually somewhere else. They will have to be satisfied with their keyboard maceos.

 

As for Ring0 drivers for gaming, give me a break, this is a perfect example of the kind of BS that happened back in the Win9x era where very big game vendor installed their own Vxd for protecting their CD-ROM games and and then the pirates just circumvented it by making images of the disc instead of copying the disc itself. Developers are fooling nobody but themselves if they think they can prevent cheating on a machine they don't have control over.

 

I'd love to see cheaters booted from the games they've "invested" time into destroying, but I've yet to see any effective anti-cheat system better than "no anti-cheat system", just keep polymorphing the netcode so crappy "quality of life" cheats require heavy maintenance to keep working, and fuzz the C++ api's so that they're hard to hook into. Otherwise Stadia-like games is where we're going to see MMO's head towards.