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The output from this incident doesn't seem useful for anyone tbh. -Just deleting the comment isn't right. But it was up for a long time so saying this renders

by maxlin 4y ago

The output from this incident doesn't seem useful for anyone tbh. -Just deleting the comment isn't right. But it was up for a long time so saying this renders the comment system useless isn't true. Snuffing out speech at inception would be infinitely worse from ethics and pragmatic standpoints. -"2500 accounts banned" here means just related to that specific game's community, temporarily. Chances are a dozen or fewer of those might have even noticed that trying to contribute to that specific niche forum in normal situation. -Comments on the anti-cheat seem just FUD. It seems to run like any other anti-cheat, leaving stuff in registry is what almost any software does even after uninstalled. And it doesn't seem to have run unless the games' active besides due to a bug during beta. At worst the "hope they change to a more reputable anti-cheat vendor" kind of talk runs towards a situation where one ("the"?) big vendor's anti-cheat software (which is a rootkit from a permissions standpoint) gets so juicy a target it gets hacked and million gamers get their PC bricked at worst. If we wanted useful talk on anti-cheat it should first target things like Riot's Vanguard. Other developers don't need their anti-cheat to run as deep which, if something should cause some stress in PC users by default. This also kills Riot's game's accessibility on linux to the cradle, which should not be considered to only to harm Riot's business. Some also noted it as a negative that the anti-cheat has a tray icon. Developer starts to debate if the software should even have one if it just causes users to FUD themselves instead or increasing feeling of trust and control. I wonder what would be the right way to handle this without resorting to pointless rigamaroles. Maybe some kind of pre-comment disclaimer from valve administrator to the comment after a short investigation to the anti-cheat solution clearing the FUD (if it was grossly breaking GDPR or such I don't think the game or the company could stay up long)

michaelmrose 4y ago
People's computers are used for everything from doing everything from earning money, banking, managing their life, their money, their future. Video games by contrast are about as important as a flea on your dogs ass. It is profoundly weird to put the former at even slight risk for the latter. The fact that we are attempting to normalize this doesn't make it normal or sane. Running always on software when the game isn't running and talking to resources on the internet is incredibly suspicious. The presence of the tray icon isn't causing users to "FUD" themselves. It is rather making this suspicious behavior—running continually—more obvious. The fact that you seem to think its just ordinary stupidity like leaving crap littered around your filesystem doesn't make it less concerning. People wouldn't be fishing around for traces of it to eliminate like purging a piece of malware if it weren't already acting like malware. If it was initially due to a bug that would be a fine time to communicate with users. The right way to handle this is to say sorry we screwed up we wont punish people for liking a review in the future. If any aspect of the review is inaccurate the logical response is to have valve or the dev respond to this. If it really really doesn't belong you remove it. There is no scenario where you randomly ban people from reviewing it for voting the wrong way. > if it was grossly breaking GDPR or such I don't think the game or the company could stay up long How exactly do you propose that would happen? How would people learn their rights are being violated? Lastly this is your only comment on this site and it seems to be a tad slanted. Do you work for a party involved in this?
- maxlin 4y ago
  I agree that security on PC's isn't as mature as it should be. There just should not be a case that Riot running a kernel-mode driver -based anticheat just for _their_ games. Hell, I was ready to flame about it not working with virtualization enabled in BIOS as I installed Valorant a few days ago, but it actually does. Still kind of pissed to have to run it in the background (this one actually runs even when not running Riot's games btw, unlike the one in the article!) Though I don't see a situation where one would need to "root" their PC just to run custom software a good situation either. >Running always-on software when the game isn't running and talking to resources on the internet is incredibly suspicious. From what I read (actually reading a few articles longer than the general observer does while filling their FUD meter) the anticheat simply doesn't run unless the game itself is running. Which makes it comparable to just being a library contained in the game executable, but separate for whatever technical reasons. Note that Vanguard for example isn't as nice. I did not mention that leaving tons of crap in the filesystem is normal. I mentioned registry which seems to be more prone to spam. As a developer I think there should be some reasonable "scoping" in installs to limit this, leaving it for every developer to do more painstakingly just ends up in the littery situation, which I do not prefer but just mention to be the status quo. Hell, if I was in position to design something on system-level, I would just force apps to declare: -paths it writes to -registry keys it writes to -devices like webcam and other abilities it accesses while at it, like on mobiles This would then be read by installer/uninstaller and user could choose to keep this data or remove it when installing/removing software. Could also prevent writing outside of these as a general rule (unless some dev mode or similar is activated of course) About the tray icon, my point is that the situation with it ends up being kind of like an armed guard visibly carrying a weapon causing more harm in fear, and the result being them just hiding the weapons, which of course is not a dynamic that should exist. Things being done visibly should be the thing every developer by default would choose but at worst with this dynamic they will feel the need to hide things to avoid the potential FUD. This can cause behavior that is not beneficial to the user but is actually done to alleviate fear. Kind of like disabling developer stuff in games (because user will break their game and complain or some shit) which I have several times successfully argued against. >The right way to handle this is to say sorry we screwed up we wont punish people for liking a review in the future. Is more useful to think about how this could have been avoided and how this could be avoided in the future. If the deletion wouldn't been done yet, I agree that some kind of joint message could be the best. Maybe in the format: <start of review section> <NameOfUserWhoDidTheScaryReview><Time/Date> <Header box> <Text like: X developer regrets the angst caused. Valve investigated these claims. No foul play is apparent. Companion software does not run outside of the game's run time. However note that anti-cheat measures by their nature go beyond the game executable itself, while not sending unnecessary PII.> <original review text> <other reviews> <end of review section> Probably the reason this ended up in just deletion of the comment is a clusterfuck of inability to communicate or spend time on developer-user-platform owner communications only after something becomes a PR nightmare. I commented because it is a bit sad that the blame / output of this situation simply isn't constructive (does not cause awareness / pressure for things to actually to go in a better direction). In a way I see parallels to when Anthem was released and there was shock articles of the game "bricking your ps4!" when I reasonably confidently know the issue was caused just by ps4's bad SDK design which easily causes filesystem-corrupting bugs when doing the simplest of savegames. This then caused a chkdsk-type popup and a crazy dangerous-sounding SFX on the ps4's next boot but didn't seem to cause any actual damage, outside of probably losing the specific savegames from what I collected. But no constructive discussion in to that direction (how to not design your console OS/SDK) was seen anywhere in relation to that news item. >Lastly this is your only comment on this site and it seems to be a tad slanted. Do you work for a party involved in this? Fair note, but I do have reason for my tone. No I am not involved. But am a developer with too much free time currently who has worked with multiple kinds of similar stuff so I feel the reason to lament as the discussion around this seems off center. I tend to be a heavy lurker on sites I frequent, HN being one. I've visited HN probably every day for several years, mostly without an account. But when I write a comment it tends up taking so much focus I avoid internet arguments as a rule. But sometimes I make an exception like now.

by maxlin 4y ago

michaelmrose 4y ago

People's computers are used for everything from doing everything from earning money, banking, managing their life, their money, their future. Video games by contrast are about as important as a flea on your dogs ass. It is profoundly weird to put the former at even slight risk for the latter. The fact that we are attempting to normalize this doesn't make it normal or sane. Running always on software when the game isn't running and talking to resources on the internet is incredibly suspicious. The presence of the tray icon isn't causing users to "FUD" themselves. It is rather making this suspicious behavior—running continually—more obvious. The fact that you seem to think its just ordinary stupidity like leaving crap littered around your filesystem doesn't make it less concerning. People wouldn't be fishing around for traces of it to eliminate like purging a piece of malware if it weren't already acting like malware. If it was initially due to a bug that would be a fine time to communicate with users. The right way to handle this is to say sorry we screwed up we wont punish people for liking a review in the future. If any aspect of the review is inaccurate the logical response is to have valve or the dev respond to this. If it really really doesn't belong you remove it. There is no scenario where you randomly ban people from reviewing it for voting the wrong way. > if it was grossly breaking GDPR or such I don't think the game or the company could stay up long How exactly do you propose that would happen? How would people learn their rights are being violated? Lastly this is your only comment on this site and it seems to be a tad slanted. Do you work for a party involved in this?

maxlin 4y ago
I agree that security on PC's isn't as mature as it should be. There just should not be a case that Riot running a kernel-mode driver -based anticheat just for _their_ games. Hell, I was ready to flame about it not working with virtualization enabled in BIOS as I installed Valorant a few days ago, but it actually does. Still kind of pissed to have to run it in the background (this one actually runs even when not running Riot's games btw, unlike the one in the article!) Though I don't see a situation where one would need to "root" their PC just to run custom software a good situation either. >Running always-on software when the game isn't running and talking to resources on the internet is incredibly suspicious. From what I read (actually reading a few articles longer than the general observer does while filling their FUD meter) the anticheat simply doesn't run unless the game itself is running. Which makes it comparable to just being a library contained in the game executable, but separate for whatever technical reasons. Note that Vanguard for example isn't as nice. I did not mention that leaving tons of crap in the filesystem is normal. I mentioned registry which seems to be more prone to spam. As a developer I think there should be some reasonable "scoping" in installs to limit this, leaving it for every developer to do more painstakingly just ends up in the littery situation, which I do not prefer but just mention to be the status quo. Hell, if I was in position to design something on system-level, I would just force apps to declare: -paths it writes to -registry keys it writes to -devices like webcam and other abilities it accesses while at it, like on mobiles This would then be read by installer/uninstaller and user could choose to keep this data or remove it when installing/removing software. Could also prevent writing outside of these as a general rule (unless some dev mode or similar is activated of course) About the tray icon, my point is that the situation with it ends up being kind of like an armed guard visibly carrying a weapon causing more harm in fear, and the result being them just hiding the weapons, which of course is not a dynamic that should exist. Things being done visibly should be the thing every developer by default would choose but at worst with this dynamic they will feel the need to hide things to avoid the potential FUD. This can cause behavior that is not beneficial to the user but is actually done to alleviate fear. Kind of like disabling developer stuff in games (because user will break their game and complain or some shit) which I have several times successfully argued against. >The right way to handle this is to say sorry we screwed up we wont punish people for liking a review in the future. Is more useful to think about how this could have been avoided and how this could be avoided in the future. If the deletion wouldn't been done yet, I agree that some kind of joint message could be the best. Maybe in the format: <start of review section> <NameOfUserWhoDidTheScaryReview><Time/Date> <Header box> <Text like: X developer regrets the angst caused. Valve investigated these claims. No foul play is apparent. Companion software does not run outside of the game's run time. However note that anti-cheat measures by their nature go beyond the game executable itself, while not sending unnecessary PII.> <original review text> <other reviews> <end of review section> Probably the reason this ended up in just deletion of the comment is a clusterfuck of inability to communicate or spend time on developer-user-platform owner communications only after something becomes a PR nightmare. I commented because it is a bit sad that the blame / output of this situation simply isn't constructive (does not cause awareness / pressure for things to actually to go in a better direction). In a way I see parallels to when Anthem was released and there was shock articles of the game "bricking your ps4!" when I reasonably confidently know the issue was caused just by ps4's bad SDK design which easily causes filesystem-corrupting bugs when doing the simplest of savegames. This then caused a chkdsk-type popup and a crazy dangerous-sounding SFX on the ps4's next boot but didn't seem to cause any actual damage, outside of probably losing the specific savegames from what I collected. But no constructive discussion in to that direction (how to not design your console OS/SDK) was seen anywhere in relation to that news item. >Lastly this is your only comment on this site and it seems to be a tad slanted. Do you work for a party involved in this? Fair note, but I do have reason for my tone. No I am not involved. But am a developer with too much free time currently who has worked with multiple kinds of similar stuff so I feel the reason to lament as the discussion around this seems off center. I tend to be a heavy lurker on sites I frequent, HN being one. I've visited HN probably every day for several years, mostly without an account. But when I write a comment it tends up taking so much focus I avoid internet arguments as a rule. But sometimes I make an exception like now.