5 ms·

I have lots of friends who play shooting games semi-competitvely (they're all in the very high ranks of overwatch/csgo/etc). They are all very, very, very excit

I have lots of friends who play shooting games semi-competitvely (they're all in the very high ranks of overwatch/csgo/etc). They are all very, very, very excited about Valorant's ring-0 anticheat. Lots of people want features that can't be achieved with a sandbox.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I definitely understand that. Cheaters have pushed me out of most first-person shooters I'd enjoyed. But I also have significant concerns about game companies having that much access to my general-use computer. Perhaps the solution here is not to do personal/sensitive work on gaming machines, but then we're right back to having separate game consoles...
- jhardy54 6y ago
  Alternatively: Only play video games with people in your trust network. Friends, friends of friends, etc., so that you have some recourse against griefing and cheating.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    This doesn't really help: I don't have a choice on whether or not my shooter of choice implements anti-cheat. Perhaps an ideal scenario would let a player choose whether or not to enable a game's anti-cheat, but that it'd be required for certain matchmaking and (obviously) competitive features. So that I can opt out if I'm just trying the game casually or just playing with friends in a private room, but can enable it if it's something I intend to play seriously and am invested in enough to give deep access to my system?
weehoo 6y ago
Ring zero doesn’t prevent cheats stored in spoofed input devices https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jz8qbzfIk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jz8qbzfIk
- falcolas 6y ago
  And like virus scanners, it can't recognize anything it doesn't already have a signature for. But, it could upload "suspicious" data to the home servers to be evaluated and fed into the signature database. Just like any other feedback loop in anti-cheat (and anti-virus) systems, only this one can access everything on your system.
joosters 6y ago
If you implement the sandboxing very thoroughly and only permit signed code to run, you can make it even more difficult to cheat. e.g. on iOS, it would be very hard to change the client code of a multiplayer game without being detected.
- ubercow13 6y ago
  How would that work on a general purpose computer?
  - outworlder 6y ago
    The same way "anti-cheat" software already works today? With the addition of a sandbox running signed code, which is yet another barrier.
  - joosters 6y ago
    The technology is just about here today. If your PC has secure boot, you can theoretically lock it down to only allow booting a suitably restrictive OS, which then is responsible for restricting the apps and games that can run & the permissions they have. Lots of layers of signed code checking, really. The main weakness (other than code vulnerabilities) is the network: it's very difficult to guarantee that a remote computer is running the allowed OS & game code, and not a hacked version. However, technologies like Intel's SGX x86 extensions can make this possible: because of the added encryption in the core CPU, one machine can send a cryptographic challenge to another one, and it can only respond correctly if the remote CPU has validated the code it is executing. So, the tech is there. But in reality, people really don't want to lock down their PCs so securely and effectively give full control to their OS vendor.
Kaze404 6y ago
Does it actually work though? What's stopping me from running the game in a virtual machine with GPU-passthrough and emulating inputs?
- ubercow13 6y ago
  It's quite hard to hide the fact you're running in a VM, if possible at all. I think Valorant refuses to run in a VM.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    Interesting. I actually have a GPU-passthrough and regularly play a japanese MMO with a similarly invasive rootkit. I haven't actually tried Valorant, but I might when I have some time out of curiosity.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      I think up to now, despite how easy it is to detect, anticheat has largely ignored VMs. Valorant is noteable for being the first game widely reported to refuse running in a VM.
      - Kaze404 6y ago
        I don't think they've ignored VMs. In fact the very game I mentioned before refuses to run in VMWare and VirtualBox, even though I've managed to run it on Qemu out of the box. Though I'm not sure if it's incompetence or they just don't care :p
      - dylz 6y ago
        Many Asian MMOs block VM execution, namely mostly anything by GameGuard/HackShield/XIGNCODE.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Valorant doesn't even like my legit Intel CPU drivers

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

I definitely understand that. Cheaters have pushed me out of most first-person shooters I'd enjoyed. But I also have significant concerns about game companies having that much access to my general-use computer. Perhaps the solution here is not to do personal/sensitive work on gaming machines, but then we're right back to having separate game consoles...

jhardy54 6y ago
Alternatively: Only play video games with people in your trust network. Friends, friends of friends, etc., so that you have some recourse against griefing and cheating.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  This doesn't really help: I don't have a choice on whether or not my shooter of choice implements anti-cheat. Perhaps an ideal scenario would let a player choose whether or not to enable a game's anti-cheat, but that it'd be required for certain matchmaking and (obviously) competitive features. So that I can opt out if I'm just trying the game casually or just playing with friends in a private room, but can enable it if it's something I intend to play seriously and am invested in enough to give deep access to my system?

weehoo 6y ago

Ring zero doesn’t prevent cheats stored in spoofed input devices https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jz8qbzfIk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jz8qbzfIk

falcolas 6y ago
And like virus scanners, it can't recognize anything it doesn't already have a signature for. But, it could upload "suspicious" data to the home servers to be evaluated and fed into the signature database. Just like any other feedback loop in anti-cheat (and anti-virus) systems, only this one can access everything on your system.

joosters 6y ago

If you implement the sandboxing very thoroughly and only permit signed code to run, you can make it even more difficult to cheat. e.g. on iOS, it would be very hard to change the client code of a multiplayer game without being detected.

ubercow13 6y ago
How would that work on a general purpose computer?
- outworlder 6y ago
  The same way "anti-cheat" software already works today? With the addition of a sandbox running signed code, which is yet another barrier.
- joosters 6y ago
  The technology is just about here today. If your PC has secure boot, you can theoretically lock it down to only allow booting a suitably restrictive OS, which then is responsible for restricting the apps and games that can run & the permissions they have. Lots of layers of signed code checking, really. The main weakness (other than code vulnerabilities) is the network: it's very difficult to guarantee that a remote computer is running the allowed OS & game code, and not a hacked version. However, technologies like Intel's SGX x86 extensions can make this possible: because of the added encryption in the core CPU, one machine can send a cryptographic challenge to another one, and it can only respond correctly if the remote CPU has validated the code it is executing. So, the tech is there. But in reality, people really don't want to lock down their PCs so securely and effectively give full control to their OS vendor.

Kaze404 6y ago

Does it actually work though? What's stopping me from running the game in a virtual machine with GPU-passthrough and emulating inputs?

ubercow13 6y ago
It's quite hard to hide the fact you're running in a VM, if possible at all. I think Valorant refuses to run in a VM.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  Interesting. I actually have a GPU-passthrough and regularly play a japanese MMO with a similarly invasive rootkit. I haven't actually tried Valorant, but I might when I have some time out of curiosity.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    I think up to now, despite how easy it is to detect, anticheat has largely ignored VMs. Valorant is noteable for being the first game widely reported to refuse running in a VM.
    - Kaze404 6y ago
      I don't think they've ignored VMs. In fact the very game I mentioned before refuses to run in VMWare and VirtualBox, even though I've managed to run it on Qemu out of the box. Though I'm not sure if it's incompetence or they just don't care :p
    - dylz 6y ago
      Many Asian MMOs block VM execution, namely mostly anything by GameGuard/HackShield/XIGNCODE.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Valorant doesn't even like my legit Intel CPU drivers