9 ms·

> This isn’t giving us any surveillance capability we didn’t already have. If we cared about grandma’s secret recipe for the perfect Christmas casserole, we’d f

> This isn’t giving us any surveillance capability we didn’t already have. If we cared about grandma’s secret recipe for the perfect Christmas casserole, we’d find no issue in obtaining it strictly from user-mode and then selling it to The Food Network. The purpose of this upgrade is to monitor system state for integrity (so we can trust our data) and to make it harder for cheaters to tamper with our games (so you can’t blame aimbots for personal failure). these guys are pretty cavalier about shoving themselves into the kernel...

Andhurati 7y ago
I don't think any of the management of that company respects its fans.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
Yes. It betrays a fundamental lack of respect for the user of the computer. They don't think of themselves as guests who have the privilege of being installed on people's computers. They actually think they own our machines. In their opinion, the mere existence of cheats is an affront to their divine authority over our domains. To them, we are merely an adversary who must be attacked and defeated preemptively before we do something we aren't supposed to do. Our power, freedom and autonomy must be taken away for the sake of their security and the integrity of their video game. This is unacceptable. Game companies don't get to decide what we can or can't do with our computers. Users are free and they own the machine. If they want to run client-side cheats, so be it. It's not like they're cracking and taking over the game company's servers. If they disrespect users by messing with their computers, they should not be surprised when users show them who's really in charge. We have quality and trust issues with drivers written by hardware manufacturers and we're finally getting them to contribute free or open source versions. The situation is finally improving. Proprietary cheating prevention software is the last thing we need running in kernel mode right now. Besides, the video games industry doesn't deserve our trust. For example, capcom.sys had privilege escalation as a feature: https://twitter.com/TheWack0lian/status/779397840762245124/ https://twitter.com/TheWack0lian/status/779397840762245124/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighter_v/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fight... The privacy policies and terms of service associated with existing cheating prevention software don't exactly inspire confidence either. They collect and transmit a lot of personal information and will even take screen shots. It's unwise to run this software in anything but a completely isolated environment, to say nothing of kernel mode. Unfortunately, the ability to run the game in a completely isolated and controlled environment is exactly what enables us to hack it and cheat. They're going to have to live with that.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  Have you ever played a multiplayer game when someone else is cheating?
  - matheusmoreira 7y ago
    Yes. I don't see how that is relevant though. It doesn't matter how bad the cheating gets. Sacrificing our computing freedom and privacy is simply not okay. These principles are far more important than having an online gaming experience that's free of cheaters. It is better to crack and remove the game's invasive modules than to let it run freely on our machines. The truth is online multiplayer gaming is fundamentally broken. We're playing with strangers we don't know much less trust. We must play only with people we know personally and trust.
    - craftinator 7y ago
      Yeah! We don't negotiate with terrorists! I want to install this game, except for the parts I don't like, even though they do what I want them to! It's wrong of them to include stuff I don't like in their thing I want to use! Seriously man, it's a game. If you don't like their methods of anticheat implementation, feel free not to play! It's easy. You won't be missed by those millions of internet strangers. I like that Riot was so upfront about this. They did a great job of describing what they were doing, why they were doing it, how it was being done, and did it in a way that wasn't dry as a chalk ball in the Sahara... So don't "sacrifice your computer freedom". Freedom to choose what's running on your OS is the same freedom they have choosing to use kernel level anticheat. Your attack of that freedom is pretty distasteful.
      - matheusmoreira 7y ago
        > We don't negotiate with terrorists! It's not like they're open to negotiation either. They only offer the game on their non-negotiable terms. Fighting back without compromising is actually the only way to deal with these one-sided take-it-or-leave-it deals. It worked for obnoxious pop-up ads on the internet, it's likely to work for invasive ads and tracking and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't also work in this case. > I want to install this game, except for the parts I don't like, even though they do what I want them to! It's wrong of them to include stuff I don't like in their thing I want to use! Nothing wrong with any of this. If I don't like something, I should be able to get rid of it. It's software. Anti-cheating software actually used to be optional. I used to have the option to host or search for servers with anti-cheating disabled. During installation, many games offered me the option to install the anti-cheating module. Battlefield 2 comes to mind. Once installed and in use, it was still pretty invasive. However, it wasn't straight up forced on players like it is now. > Freedom to choose what's running on your OS is the same freedom they have choosing to use kernel level anticheat. People also have the freedom to get rid of the anti-cheating software and make it look like nothing's been tampered with. Banning someone who did this and proceeded to play without cheating would be a false positive. People are already getting banned for the crime of running an online game on Linux.
vb6sp6 7y ago
They went the snarky route instead of the professional one. It may be the correct choice considering their core demographic

Andhurati 7y ago

I don't think any of the management of that company respects its fans.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

Yes. It betrays a fundamental lack of respect for the user of the computer. They don't think of themselves as guests who have the privilege of being installed on people's computers. They actually think they own our machines. In their opinion, the mere existence of cheats is an affront to their divine authority over our domains. To them, we are merely an adversary who must be attacked and defeated preemptively before we do something we aren't supposed to do. Our power, freedom and autonomy must be taken away for the sake of their security and the integrity of their video game. This is unacceptable. Game companies don't get to decide what we can or can't do with our computers. Users are free and they own the machine. If they want to run client-side cheats, so be it. It's not like they're cracking and taking over the game company's servers. If they disrespect users by messing with their computers, they should not be surprised when users show them who's really in charge. We have quality and trust issues with drivers written by hardware manufacturers and we're finally getting them to contribute free or open source versions. The situation is finally improving. Proprietary cheating prevention software is the last thing we need running in kernel mode right now. Besides, the video games industry doesn't deserve our trust. For example, capcom.sys had privilege escalation as a feature: https://twitter.com/TheWack0lian/status/779397840762245124/ https://twitter.com/TheWack0lian/status/779397840762245124/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighter_v/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fight... The privacy policies and terms of service associated with existing cheating prevention software don't exactly inspire confidence either. They collect and transmit a lot of personal information and will even take screen shots. It's unwise to run this software in anything but a completely isolated environment, to say nothing of kernel mode. Unfortunately, the ability to run the game in a completely isolated and controlled environment is exactly what enables us to hack it and cheat. They're going to have to live with that.

nitrogen 7y ago
Have you ever played a multiplayer game when someone else is cheating?
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  Yes. I don't see how that is relevant though. It doesn't matter how bad the cheating gets. Sacrificing our computing freedom and privacy is simply not okay. These principles are far more important than having an online gaming experience that's free of cheaters. It is better to crack and remove the game's invasive modules than to let it run freely on our machines. The truth is online multiplayer gaming is fundamentally broken. We're playing with strangers we don't know much less trust. We must play only with people we know personally and trust.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    Yeah! We don't negotiate with terrorists! I want to install this game, except for the parts I don't like, even though they do what I want them to! It's wrong of them to include stuff I don't like in their thing I want to use! Seriously man, it's a game. If you don't like their methods of anticheat implementation, feel free not to play! It's easy. You won't be missed by those millions of internet strangers. I like that Riot was so upfront about this. They did a great job of describing what they were doing, why they were doing it, how it was being done, and did it in a way that wasn't dry as a chalk ball in the Sahara... So don't "sacrifice your computer freedom". Freedom to choose what's running on your OS is the same freedom they have choosing to use kernel level anticheat. Your attack of that freedom is pretty distasteful.
    - matheusmoreira 7y ago
      > We don't negotiate with terrorists! It's not like they're open to negotiation either. They only offer the game on their non-negotiable terms. Fighting back without compromising is actually the only way to deal with these one-sided take-it-or-leave-it deals. It worked for obnoxious pop-up ads on the internet, it's likely to work for invasive ads and tracking and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't also work in this case. > I want to install this game, except for the parts I don't like, even though they do what I want them to! It's wrong of them to include stuff I don't like in their thing I want to use! Nothing wrong with any of this. If I don't like something, I should be able to get rid of it. It's software. Anti-cheating software actually used to be optional. I used to have the option to host or search for servers with anti-cheating disabled. During installation, many games offered me the option to install the anti-cheating module. Battlefield 2 comes to mind. Once installed and in use, it was still pretty invasive. However, it wasn't straight up forced on players like it is now. > Freedom to choose what's running on your OS is the same freedom they have choosing to use kernel level anticheat. People also have the freedom to get rid of the anti-cheating software and make it look like nothing's been tampered with. Banning someone who did this and proceeded to play without cheating would be a false positive. People are already getting banned for the crime of running an online game on Linux.

vb6sp6 7y ago

They went the snarky route instead of the professional one. It may be the correct choice considering their core demographic