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Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages (www.gamingonlinux.com)

submitted 7 hours ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.

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[-] Woodstock@lemmy.world 27 points 6 hours 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!

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 14 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours 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.

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.

[-] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 64 points 5 hours 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.

[-] barlescharkley@lemmy.world 33 points 5 hours 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

[-] Woodstock@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Thank you! Really clear and appreciate you taking the time to explain!

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 40 points 5 hours 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?

[-] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 1 points 2 hours 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.