10 ms·

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that those are anti-cheat clients that are required by many games to be able to play online. Not being able to r

• junon 5y ago
  The trade-off is that you have literal malware on the machine that is controlled by a third party company that most likely doesn't have their security practices up to snuff.
  • krageon 5y ago
    The malware is there regardless, this is about Linux marketshare. You can dislike it (and I do) without gatekeeping your favourite operating system because people want to run software on it that you don't approve of.
    • feanaro 5y ago
      The trouble is it will be opaque and now I have to worry about one more opaque dystopic thing when installing games over Steam. I'll consider it Valve's transgression against me if they let me install anti-cheat malware without warning me any less strongly than screaming at me.
    • GekkePrutser 5y ago
      The problem with anti-cheat software is that it needs extremely high permissions. It wants to inspect every process, take screenshots etc. It's pretty extreme stuff. And the stupid thing is that a lot of games install this software regardless of whether you actually play online or not! I've even had some games that insisted I enable Valve Anti Cheat and refuse to launch otherwise, even though I just wanted to play single player (I rarely play online). That check should obviously come into play only at the multiplayer menu. But this is actually why I still game on Windows. I just have one Windows box which I use for gaming and gaming alone. I don't want this crap on my Linux and FreeBSD computers I do serious work on. So I won't be one of those Linux users in the stats :) Even though I use it daily.
      • roguas 5y ago
        But that is the nature of exploits. They often operate outside of a program modyfing its memory, applying visual aid etc. Thus permissions like that are kind of required. Now, you can dispute if some random online lobby should perhaps have an option of "i dont care". However large group of gamers does care, especially in more competetive games as league of legends, csgo etc.
  • jjice 5y ago
    While true, and most of us here at HN will probably agree, tons of people don't care, and that's clear by how many people play games that require it.
    • feanaro 5y ago
      People can't care because people don't adequately know or understand.
    • 83457 5y ago
      I care, but what is the alternative? I play on a computer that I use for little else, but most people out there can't do that. Most competitive games would just not exist on PC without anti-cheat software and highly competitive games need intrusive software. It is really ridiculous that it is necessary but people suck. Although there are all sorts of attempts at server-side and even player anti-cheat hardware devices, to my knowledge there is no option that can realistically replace client system anti-cheat.
      • DynamicStatic 5y ago
        South Korean approach, bind your real id to the game, cheat and end up with a fine irl.
  • gear54rus 5y ago
    So whats your solution? Let cheaters run around?
    • wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Anticheat without malware has been around for ages: simply don't trust the client. Even Minecraft servers manage it. Instead of playing a constant game of cat-and-mouse trying to prevent forbidden code from running when you can just plug in a USB rubber ducky, put the logic server-side. Ban problematic behaviour, as opposed to methods that might result in problematic behaviour. It takes some ingenuity, but what are gamedevs known for if not ingenuity? (Well, apart from withstanding abusive working environments for long enough that they can be profitably discarded, traumatised, after they can no longer function as effectively as a green new intern… but let's focus on the ingenuity.)
      • moultano 5y ago
        Aimbots need no trust from the server. As long as the client knows things the player doesn't, and there isn't a chain of custody from the physical mouse to the server, you can cheat.
        • TheCraiggers 5y ago
          Why would a client need to know of such things? If the player can't / shouldn't know of something, then the client shouldn't either. There are some interesting repercussions of this train of thought though. Take an enemy hiding in brush in an FPS game. The player would have line of sight to their hiding spot, and current games (I think) just leave it to the player's eyeballs' ability to see them through the brush. That's kinda cool in that it raises the skill ceiling and it's obviously immersive. However, there's a whole host of reasons it's bad. First, there's the aim bots and other cheating it allows for. Second, what if the player has bad eyesight? So there's an accessibility issue there. Third, you get people doing a... lighter form of cheating where they turn their graphics settings down to the lowest setting (sometimes even editing INI files to lower them down below what is possible via the GUI) that would lower foliage quality, making it easier to see the enemy. Probably some other things too. There are perhaps many interesting ways to fix this. D&D has their own way with random chance, but I can see players of skill-based scoffing at this, and I don't blame them. But I feel the current approach is lazy game design, and perhaps something interesting could be thought up.
  • weare138 5y ago
    Sure it sucks but ultimately it's the user's decision and Proton will allow the porting of other Windows apps. If you can use it to run a AAA game it could easily handle business apps. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say they'd switch to Linux but can't because it doesn't run [insert some Windows app here]. It's a net gain for Linux adoption.
    • dtx1 5y ago
      This is sadly not true, since buisness apps use a much wider variety of windows APIs while games are mostly using a few (DirectX, OpenGL, Vulcan) APIs for most of what they do. You can see this with custom game launchers like League of Legends uses. The Game runs with basically native performance and without issues but the launcher is barely usable.
      • weare138 5y ago
        Plenty of key business apps use DirectX, OpenGL, Vulcan like CAD applications and games still use other Windows APIs. It's open-source, people can build off Proton to add the rest. These games for generally designed for Win10 now which support for is somewhat lacking in Wine. Concentrating on the latest version of Windows and APIs is a huge step in the right direction.
        • dtx1 5y ago
          Don't get me wrong, such applications obviously profit from better 3D support in Wine but Proton won't make an impact on how well microsoft office or adobe cc products run in general.
        • robertlagrant 5y ago
          You're inverting the problem. The problem isn't that those things are used; the problem is they use lots of other things that aren't DirectX, OpenGL or Vulcan.
    • gentleman11 5y ago
      It’s not the users decision though. They don’t even realize this creepy software gets installed and they don’t know what it does
  • squarefoot 5y ago
    IT all depends on how, where and when does this malware run. If they can be installed along with the games under a gaming only account on the Linux machine, that is, with zero permissions on system and other users files around, that's fine with me. However if they require to pollute system directories or, much worse, be installed as kernel modules or system level daemons, then it's way different. Security conscious gamers would probably put their gaming machine behind a firewall that screens their entire LAN (other hardware, NAS etc), and forget doing anything but gaming with it.
    • gentleman11 5y ago
      The malware you’re describing would never be used. The designers of this stuff run it at ring zero on Windows with unlimited permissions and zero transparency
    • matheusmoreira 5y ago
      > If they can be installed along with the games under a gaming only account on the Linux machine, that is, with zero permissions on system and other users files around, that's fine with me. Completely ineffective. It will be trivial to circumvent those protections. Might as well not bother. The truth is cheaters are merely excersising their computing freedom. It's my computer, the game is merely running on it. If I want to read the game's memory and adjust aim or automate boring parts, it's my prerogative. In order to prevent any of this, the game company must take over my machine. They must literally own my computer. Anti-cheating software is virtually indistinguishable from malware and there is no situation where this is acceptable. The game company's "needs" are irrelevant.
      • zaarn 5y ago
        And the needs of other players to have a fair game are also irrelevant then? After all, you're the top rank in CS:GO not because of your skill but because you simply exercise your freedom to have everyone else play against your computer.
        • matheusmoreira 5y ago
  • clifdweller 5y ago
    I hope it is a 2 way discussion between each side where they can make suggestions. On windows it turned into install this antivirus level of access program that has barely been tested and no guarantees it wont install malicious software as it auto updates every boot of pc. At a minimum it should require 3rd party(valve could step in) validated signed patches to minimize threat of individual employee selling off right to deploy ransomware to millions of machines.
    • matheusmoreira 5y ago
      There is no discussion. In order to prevent cheating, the game companies must stop my computer from doing what I want it to do. They must own my machine. The only difference between their software and malware is their software comes with a terms and conditions license that nobody reads.
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Just write software that somehow pretends the anti-cheat module is running even though it's not.
• gentleman11 5y ago
  Fine by me. Windows games secretly install malware with unlimited permissions to spy on you without your knowing how it works. Sometimes it collects browsing history etc like that red shell system. If steam releases this on Linux, we should all uninstall steam