3 ms·

Kernel anti cheat in the client are the strongest form of protection by far, your comment makes no sense, anything userspace is easily spoofed. You can create a

by Thaxll 10mo ago

Kernel anti cheat in the client are the strongest form of protection by far, your comment makes no sense, anything userspace is easily spoofed. You can create a driver ( module ) that intercept calls and that is completely invisible to userspace processes. The default security measures on Linux are pretty bad compared to windows, it's not even close. People like to bash windows but they have a way better security model.

sylware 10mo ago
1 - kernel module from anti-cheats are weaponized by hackers. 2 - if I recall properly, that linux feature is a direct mapping of the target user process allowing extreme dynamicity in time, performant, and much more powerfull mechanisms than basic 'calls'. Namely hell for hackers if a live service game has a proper "security" team, all that without a kernel module.
- dijit 10mo ago
  What are you even talking about? The parent is right. I'm quite literally the first person to bash Windows for being a shitty operating system, but the requirement for signed modules puts a massive barrier to entry for cheaters, where Linux can load just about anything. If every system call can lie to you, there's a few things you can do, but it's not many. I know this because I've actually done a lot of due diligence on anti-cheat. One mechanism I attempted to employ was to replay initalisation vectors and determinism of inputs; this means I could replay your session out of band and witness the same outcomes. If there was variation then there's a fault. Except as soon as you introduce floating point numbers there's no more determinism... Oh well. The other was to watch for "impossible" things, but then you need to run full complex physics simulations for every client. If your game requires you to effectively buy an i7-11700k for every user then you'd have to sell your game for a lot more money, and limit how long they can play - nobody wants this. The third option was to score our best players and anyone who performs better than that gets their behaviour tracked. The problem is, coming up with a scoring system that's server side is much harder than you think. GameDevs don't actually like paying a shit load of money for anti-cheat (that also breaks their debugging systems and causes bugs: a wonderful combination)... so if you've got a better way: join the industry and fix it. You'll be a moderately wealthy person.
  - sylware 10mo ago
    What are you talking about? 1 - kernel anti-cheats ARE weaponized by hackers. This is not a matter of discussion unless you are into the AI generated HN news conspiracy. 2 - this linux feature should provide (if I recall properly) a very complex and flexible (not limited to "calls"), and performant, set of interactions between a set of anti-cheat processes and the set of game processes. All that as being non-root priviledge (I think you must be have the same effective user id). The actual and real parameter is the level of competence and creativity of the "anti-cheat" team which is a requirement of any "live-service games" with frequent updates. 3 - for FPS games where aiming skill is critical, anti-cheat are close to useless due to "external" AI based aim assist hardware.
    - Thaxll 10mo ago
      1. They're not, not sure where you've seen that, not in western games at least.
      - esseph 10mo ago
        > "The researchers investigated the techniques used in online game cheating, as well as those deployed by ‘anti-cheat’ technologies. Most modern anti-cheat engines run in the Windows kernel, alongside applications such as anti-virus, at the highest levels of privilege. Software can only run in the Windows kernel if it has been approved and signed by Microsoft. This makes it more powerful than software run normally by the user. An example of kernel level software is the Crowdstrike system that recently failed, bringing down large parts of the internet." > "While the anti-cheats are allowed in the kernel by Microsoft, the study also revealed that cheat software commonly uses weaknesses in Windows protections to ‘inject’ itself into the kernel and gain higher privileges. Many techniques mirror what is commonly seen in the domains of malware and anti-virus, with a difference in motivation." > "This kernel injection technique has previously been observed in advanced ransomware attacks to disable anti-malware protections before the main attack." https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061994 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061994
        10mo ago

by Thaxll 10mo ago

sylware 10mo ago

1 - kernel module from anti-cheats are weaponized by hackers. 2 - if I recall properly, that linux feature is a direct mapping of the target user process allowing extreme dynamicity in time, performant, and much more powerfull mechanisms than basic 'calls'. Namely hell for hackers if a live service game has a proper "security" team, all that without a kernel module.

dijit 10mo ago
What are you even talking about? The parent is right. I'm quite literally the first person to bash Windows for being a shitty operating system, but the requirement for signed modules puts a massive barrier to entry for cheaters, where Linux can load just about anything. If every system call can lie to you, there's a few things you can do, but it's not many. I know this because I've actually done a lot of due diligence on anti-cheat. One mechanism I attempted to employ was to replay initalisation vectors and determinism of inputs; this means I could replay your session out of band and witness the same outcomes. If there was variation then there's a fault. Except as soon as you introduce floating point numbers there's no more determinism... Oh well. The other was to watch for "impossible" things, but then you need to run full complex physics simulations for every client. If your game requires you to effectively buy an i7-11700k for every user then you'd have to sell your game for a lot more money, and limit how long they can play - nobody wants this. The third option was to score our best players and anyone who performs better than that gets their behaviour tracked. The problem is, coming up with a scoring system that's server side is much harder than you think. GameDevs don't actually like paying a shit load of money for anti-cheat (that also breaks their debugging systems and causes bugs: a wonderful combination)... so if you've got a better way: join the industry and fix it. You'll be a moderately wealthy person.
- sylware 10mo ago
  What are you talking about? 1 - kernel anti-cheats ARE weaponized by hackers. This is not a matter of discussion unless you are into the AI generated HN news conspiracy. 2 - this linux feature should provide (if I recall properly) a very complex and flexible (not limited to "calls"), and performant, set of interactions between a set of anti-cheat processes and the set of game processes. All that as being non-root priviledge (I think you must be have the same effective user id). The actual and real parameter is the level of competence and creativity of the "anti-cheat" team which is a requirement of any "live-service games" with frequent updates. 3 - for FPS games where aiming skill is critical, anti-cheat are close to useless due to "external" AI based aim assist hardware.
  - Thaxll 10mo ago
    1. They're not, not sure where you've seen that, not in western games at least.
    - esseph 10mo ago
      > "The researchers investigated the techniques used in online game cheating, as well as those deployed by ‘anti-cheat’ technologies. Most modern anti-cheat engines run in the Windows kernel, alongside applications such as anti-virus, at the highest levels of privilege. Software can only run in the Windows kernel if it has been approved and signed by Microsoft. This makes it more powerful than software run normally by the user. An example of kernel level software is the Crowdstrike system that recently failed, bringing down large parts of the internet." > "While the anti-cheats are allowed in the kernel by Microsoft, the study also revealed that cheat software commonly uses weaknesses in Windows protections to ‘inject’ itself into the kernel and gain higher privileges. Many techniques mirror what is commonly seen in the domains of malware and anti-virus, with a difference in motivation." > "This kernel injection technique has previously been observed in advanced ransomware attacks to disable anti-malware protections before the main attack." https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061994 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1061994
      - 10mo ago