5 ms·

They're demanding a way to handle or ban cheater, not requiring TPM, that's a non sequitur.

by choo-t 2y ago

RHSeeger 2y ago
You're being disingenuous here, or just missing the point. The point being made was the gamers are demanding game developers stop cheaters... and that secure boot (and related ways to lock down the computer) is one of the primary tools they know to use to do that.
- choo-t 2y ago
  > The point being made was the gamers are demanding game developers stop cheaters... and that secure boot (and related ways to lock down the computer) is one of the primary tools they know to use to do that. That's akin to saying that, as people want security on the street, mandatory strip search as soon as your exit your home is fair game. Asking for a result doesn't give a blank-check for all the measures taken toward this result.
  - RHSeeger 2y ago
    I agree, but it doesn't change the fact that it's one of the primary reasons they're doing it. And "strip searches on the street" may not happen, but "Stop and Frisk" certainly is/was. And it was very much done because people were complaining about crime and safety. And it was done regardless of whether or not it was right, or effective, or even legal.
brookst 2y ago
[flagged]
- choo-t 2y ago
  You cannot "prevent" cheating, you can at best mitigate it, it's a balance. There plenty of way to mitigate cheating in game, but the game industry is focusing on the ones where they don't bear the cost and only the customer will (and this view is in part due to the model of F2P games, where banning cheater is useless as it doesn't cost them anything to create a new account). Letting game developer having complete control and spying on the device playing the game is fine in a physical tournament were they provide the device, but it's insanity when it's the user own device in its home.
- user_7832 2y ago
  > There is no technical way to prevent cheating in advance without secure boot. I'm not really sure I buy this. I can't really give a way that can guarantee no cheating but I know for example games like Genshin Impact run almost all the code (dmg calculation etc) server-side. Perhaps something that's an extension of Geforce Now might be the best "anti-cheat" technically speaking.
  - jprete 2y ago
    To run anti-cheat in that way, you need all game mechanics to be run server-side, and you need to not let the client ever know about something the player should not know - e.g. in a first-person shooter you need to run visibility and occlusion on the server too! Otherwise the cheating will take the form of seeing through walls and the like. This is going to boost the cost of the servers and probably any game subscription, and might lead to bandwidth or latency problems for players - just to avoid running any calculation that is relevant to game balance on player hardware.
    - choo-t 2y ago
      Well yeah, that's the correct way to run a server, don't send information you don't want the user to get. But as you are pointing out, forcing client-side intrusive anti-cheat is cheaper, thus this as nothing to do about preventing cheating, but about reducing cost.
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        The end state of your argument is the game runs entirely on hosted hardware and you pay for a license to stream the final rendered output to your monitor. This is already happening. Soon games won’t be able to be “bought” at all, you’ll just pay the server a number of dollars per hour for the privilege of them letting you use their hardware. You will own nothing and like it.
        choo-t 2y ago
        Making occlusion calculation sever-side during multiplayer have nothing to do with "owning" a game or not. You can even do this calculation on community-run private server.
- beeboobaa3 2y ago
  There's no way secure boot totally prevents cheating, either. It just moves the goalpost a little, cheating will always be possible.
  - _flux 2y ago
    The goalpost just needs to be moved further than is economically interesting for cheaters in general to reach. Perhaps secure boot by itself isn't enough, but I would imagine it would be a relatively large bump, when combined with a kernel-level anti-cheat. I presume such anti-cheats would e.g. disable the debugger access of game memory or otherwise debugging it, accessing the screen contents of the game or sending it artificial inputs. What vectors remain? I guess at least finding bugs in the game, network traffic analysis, attempting MitM, capturing or even modifying actual data in the DRAM chips, using USB devices controlled by an external device that sees the game via a camera or HDMI capture.. All these can be plugged or require big efforts to make use of.
    - 71bw 2y ago
      >Perhaps secure boot by itself isn't enough, but I would imagine it would be a relatively large bump, when combined with a kernel-level anti-cheat VALORANT also adds TPM to the mix alongside SB and a kernel AC and yet is still trivially easy to cheat in as long as you have a driver you can use. Granted, it needs to be signed (=financially unreachable by a big part of the community), but if stubborn enough...
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  Back in my day we all played on private, community ran servers where you could easily vote to kick/ban folks, the server owner was your buddy, or you played with people you trust. Now everything is matchmaking, private servers, live service and that sense of community is gone.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Why isn't it still like that? Don't players want small communities?
    - choo-t 2y ago
      lot of thing happened, 6th gen consoles started a new way of using online games (no keyboard, no third party chat/vocal, no group chat out of game, no private server), then the industry pivoted away from private server to have more control on their games, then the whole F2P economy then GaaS took any agency out of players hands.
    - reisse 2y ago
      It's very hard to gather full teams (usually 10 persons) in a small communities. Public matchmaking gives an opportunity to start a game in a minute from clicking "play", regardless of how many people you have at hand right now. Small communities still exist, it's just that vacant places are now filled with strangers.
    - account42 2y ago
      You can't effectively sell skins if the players are in control of the servers.

They're demanding a way to handle or ban cheater, not requiring TPM, that's a non sequitur.

by choo-t 2y ago

They're demanding a way to handle or ban cheater, not requiring TPM, that's a non sequitur.

You're being disingenuous here, or just missing the point. The point being made was the gamers are demanding game developers stop cheaters... and that secure boot (and related ways to lock down the computer) is one of the primary tools they know to use to do that.

choo-t 2y ago
> The point being made was the gamers are demanding game developers stop cheaters... and that secure boot (and related ways to lock down the computer) is one of the primary tools they know to use to do that. That's akin to saying that, as people want security on the street, mandatory strip search as soon as your exit your home is fair game. Asking for a result doesn't give a blank-check for all the measures taken toward this result.
- RHSeeger 2y ago
  I agree, but it doesn't change the fact that it's one of the primary reasons they're doing it. And "strip searches on the street" may not happen, but "Stop and Frisk" certainly is/was. And it was very much done because people were complaining about crime and safety. And it was done regardless of whether or not it was right, or effective, or even legal.

brookst 2y ago

[flagged]

choo-t 2y ago
You cannot "prevent" cheating, you can at best mitigate it, it's a balance. There plenty of way to mitigate cheating in game, but the game industry is focusing on the ones where they don't bear the cost and only the customer will (and this view is in part due to the model of F2P games, where banning cheater is useless as it doesn't cost them anything to create a new account). Letting game developer having complete control and spying on the device playing the game is fine in a physical tournament were they provide the device, but it's insanity when it's the user own device in its home.
user_7832 2y ago
> There is no technical way to prevent cheating in advance without secure boot. I'm not really sure I buy this. I can't really give a way that can guarantee no cheating but I know for example games like Genshin Impact run almost all the code (dmg calculation etc) server-side. Perhaps something that's an extension of Geforce Now might be the best "anti-cheat" technically speaking.
- jprete 2y ago
  To run anti-cheat in that way, you need all game mechanics to be run server-side, and you need to not let the client ever know about something the player should not know - e.g. in a first-person shooter you need to run visibility and occlusion on the server too! Otherwise the cheating will take the form of seeing through walls and the like. This is going to boost the cost of the servers and probably any game subscription, and might lead to bandwidth or latency problems for players - just to avoid running any calculation that is relevant to game balance on player hardware.
  - choo-t 2y ago
    Well yeah, that's the correct way to run a server, don't send information you don't want the user to get. But as you are pointing out, forcing client-side intrusive anti-cheat is cheaper, thus this as nothing to do about preventing cheating, but about reducing cost.
    - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
      The end state of your argument is the game runs entirely on hosted hardware and you pay for a license to stream the final rendered output to your monitor. This is already happening. Soon games won’t be able to be “bought” at all, you’ll just pay the server a number of dollars per hour for the privilege of them letting you use their hardware. You will own nothing and like it.
      - choo-t 2y ago
        Making occlusion calculation sever-side during multiplayer have nothing to do with "owning" a game or not. You can even do this calculation on community-run private server.
beeboobaa3 2y ago
There's no way secure boot totally prevents cheating, either. It just moves the goalpost a little, cheating will always be possible.
- _flux 2y ago
  The goalpost just needs to be moved further than is economically interesting for cheaters in general to reach. Perhaps secure boot by itself isn't enough, but I would imagine it would be a relatively large bump, when combined with a kernel-level anti-cheat. I presume such anti-cheats would e.g. disable the debugger access of game memory or otherwise debugging it, accessing the screen contents of the game or sending it artificial inputs. What vectors remain? I guess at least finding bugs in the game, network traffic analysis, attempting MitM, capturing or even modifying actual data in the DRAM chips, using USB devices controlled by an external device that sees the game via a camera or HDMI capture.. All these can be plugged or require big efforts to make use of.
  - 71bw 2y ago
    >Perhaps secure boot by itself isn't enough, but I would imagine it would be a relatively large bump, when combined with a kernel-level anti-cheat VALORANT also adds TPM to the mix alongside SB and a kernel AC and yet is still trivially easy to cheat in as long as you have a driver you can use. Granted, it needs to be signed (=financially unreachable by a big part of the community), but if stubborn enough...
candiddevmike 2y ago
Back in my day we all played on private, community ran servers where you could easily vote to kick/ban folks, the server owner was your buddy, or you played with people you trust. Now everything is matchmaking, private servers, live service and that sense of community is gone.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Why isn't it still like that? Don't players want small communities?
  - choo-t 2y ago
    lot of thing happened, 6th gen consoles started a new way of using online games (no keyboard, no third party chat/vocal, no group chat out of game, no private server), then the industry pivoted away from private server to have more control on their games, then the whole F2P economy then GaaS took any agency out of players hands.
  - reisse 2y ago
    It's very hard to gather full teams (usually 10 persons) in a small communities. Public matchmaking gives an opportunity to start a game in a minute from clicking "play", regardless of how many people you have at hand right now. Small communities still exist, it's just that vacant places are now filled with strangers.
  - account42 2y ago
    You can't effectively sell skins if the players are in control of the servers.