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There is no need for irritation. I condemn all sorts of anticheating software. As far as I'm concerned, if the player wants to cheat he's just exercising his go

There is no need for irritation. I condemn all sorts of anticheating software. As far as I'm concerned, if the player wants to cheat he's just exercising his god given rights as the owner of the machine. The computer is ours, we can damn well edit any of its memory if we really want to. Attempts to stop it from happening are unacceptable affronts to our freedom as users. Simply put, the game companies want to own our machines and tell us what we can or can't do. That's offensive. The machine is ours and we make the rules. I single out kernel level anticheats because they are trying to defeat the very mitigations we're putting in place to deal with the exact problems you mentioned. Can't isolate games inside a fancy VFIO setup if you have kernel anticheat taking issue with your hypervisor.

ryeguy 8mo ago
This take sucks. The anticheat software in this context is for competitive games. No one cares about people cheating in isolation in single player games. The anticheat is to stop 1 guy from ruining it for the 9 others he's playing with online. You can argue about the methods used for anticheat, but your comment here is trying to defend the right to cheat in online games with other people. Just no.
- matheusmoreira 8mo ago
  > The anticheat is to stop 1 guy from ruining it for the 9 others he's playing with online. Don't play with untrusted randoms. Play with people you know and trust. That's the true solution.
  - jack_pp 8mo ago
    That is not the solution if you want to play competitively of whenever you feel like it. Kernel level AC is a compromise for sure and it's the gamers job to assess if the game is worth the privacy risk but I'd say it's much more their right to take that risk than the cheaters right to ruin 9 other people's time for their own selfish amusement
    - matheusmoreira 8mo ago
      Cheating may not be moral but it's better to put up with it than to cede control of our computers to the corporations that want to own it. If it kills online gaming, then so be it. I accept that sacrifice. The alternative leads to the destruction of everything the word hacker ever stood for.
      - jack_pp 8mo ago
        I'm sorry but you are fighting a crusade you can not win by definition. If I am free to use my computer for anything I want then I am also free to lock it down to enjoy my favorite game. If I care about my freedom I will have a dedicated machine for this game that I accept I will not have control over. You are hijacking this thread about VOLUNTARY ceasing of freedom as if the small community even willing to install these is a slippery slope to something worse. You have a point when it comes to banking apps on rooted phones and I'm with you on that but this is not the thread for it
        matheusmoreira 8mo ago
        Valve drives significant development of compatibility layers for Linux for the sake of gaming. Their customer base is anything but small. There is potential for this kernel stuff to spill into the entire Linux ecosystem. It was bad enough having to deal with nvidia. I really don't want other companies screwing up the kernel.
        jack_pp 8mo ago
        again fighting against windmills, valve isn't even mentioned in the article. Valve's anti-cheat for CS2 is user-mode. Do you have evidence valve is working to infect the linux kernel for everyone?
        int_19h 8mo ago
        Realistically I don't see how Valve can avoid this. They want all those games on Steam Deck and the new console. Game devs want KAC. Therefore Valve can either provide them with some way to implement KAC - which effectively requires a "signed kernel / drivers only", same as on Windows - or tell them to go away. Why would they do the latter? Mind you, it doesn't mean that the Linux kernel will be "infected for everyone". It means that we'll see the desktop Linux ecosystem forking into the "secure" Linux which you don't actually have full control of but which you need to run any app that demands a "secure" environment (it'll start with KAC but inevitably progress to other kinds of DRM such as video streaming etc). Or you can run Linux that you actually control, but then you're missing on all those things. Similar to the current situation with mainline Android and its user-empowering forks.
  - babypuncher 8mo ago
    I'm starting to think you've never actually played an online game before
  - whs 8mo ago
    I wish that is an option. Nowadays many non competitives games that you play with friends you trust still use EAC (yet accept non-kernel mode operation on Linux). I suppose other than VAC you can't buy a usermode anticheat middleware now.
- int_19h 8mo ago
  PvE shouldn't need it either, and yet games routinely ship with anti-cheat applied to everything (including single player). I rather suspect that the reason for this is the current gaming economy of unlockable cosmetics that you can either grind for, or pay for. If people can cheat in single player or PvE, they can unlock the cosmetics without paying. And so...
  - tzs 8mo ago
    Multiplayer PvE can still be ruined by cheating. In many such games, such as MMORPGs, you are still competing for resources such as rare spawns. Spending hours setting up conditions for the rare spawn to appear, and then before you can get to it having someone using a tracking cheat and a speed cheat get to it first is very annoying.
LiamPowell 8mo ago
> As far as I'm concerned, if the player wants to cheat he's just exercising his god given rights as the owner of the machine. By this same logic: As far as I'm concerned, if the game developer only wants to allow players running anticheat to use their servers then they're just exercising their god given rights as the owner of the server.
- matheusmoreira 8mo ago
  This is just yet another example of the remote attestation nonsense where your computer is only "trusted" if it's corporate owned. If you own your machine, you "tampered" with it and as a result you get banned from everything. You get ostracized from digital society. My position is this is unfair discrimination that should be punished with the same rigor as literal racism. Video games are the least of our worries here. We have vital services like banks doing this. Should be illegal.
babypuncher 8mo ago
This is the most asinine take I've seen on the subject in a while. You may think it's your "god-given right" to cheat in multiplayer games, but the overwhelming majority of rational people simply aren't going to play a game where every lobby is ruined by cheaters.
- matheusmoreira 8mo ago
  I don't like cheaters either. I just respect their power over their machine and wouldn't see that power usurped by corporations just to put a stop it. The computers are supposed to be ours. What we say, goes. Cheating may not be moral but attempts to rob us of the power that enables cheating are even less so.

ryeguy 8mo ago

This take sucks. The anticheat software in this context is for competitive games. No one cares about people cheating in isolation in single player games. The anticheat is to stop 1 guy from ruining it for the 9 others he's playing with online. You can argue about the methods used for anticheat, but your comment here is trying to defend the right to cheat in online games with other people. Just no.

matheusmoreira 8mo ago
> The anticheat is to stop 1 guy from ruining it for the 9 others he's playing with online. Don't play with untrusted randoms. Play with people you know and trust. That's the true solution.
- jack_pp 8mo ago
  That is not the solution if you want to play competitively of whenever you feel like it. Kernel level AC is a compromise for sure and it's the gamers job to assess if the game is worth the privacy risk but I'd say it's much more their right to take that risk than the cheaters right to ruin 9 other people's time for their own selfish amusement
  - matheusmoreira 8mo ago
    Cheating may not be moral but it's better to put up with it than to cede control of our computers to the corporations that want to own it. If it kills online gaming, then so be it. I accept that sacrifice. The alternative leads to the destruction of everything the word hacker ever stood for.
    - jack_pp 8mo ago
      I'm sorry but you are fighting a crusade you can not win by definition. If I am free to use my computer for anything I want then I am also free to lock it down to enjoy my favorite game. If I care about my freedom I will have a dedicated machine for this game that I accept I will not have control over. You are hijacking this thread about VOLUNTARY ceasing of freedom as if the small community even willing to install these is a slippery slope to something worse. You have a point when it comes to banking apps on rooted phones and I'm with you on that but this is not the thread for it
      - matheusmoreira 8mo ago
        Valve drives significant development of compatibility layers for Linux for the sake of gaming. Their customer base is anything but small. There is potential for this kernel stuff to spill into the entire Linux ecosystem. It was bad enough having to deal with nvidia. I really don't want other companies screwing up the kernel.
        jack_pp 8mo ago
        again fighting against windmills, valve isn't even mentioned in the article. Valve's anti-cheat for CS2 is user-mode. Do you have evidence valve is working to infect the linux kernel for everyone?
        int_19h 8mo ago
        Realistically I don't see how Valve can avoid this. They want all those games on Steam Deck and the new console. Game devs want KAC. Therefore Valve can either provide them with some way to implement KAC - which effectively requires a "signed kernel / drivers only", same as on Windows - or tell them to go away. Why would they do the latter? Mind you, it doesn't mean that the Linux kernel will be "infected for everyone". It means that we'll see the desktop Linux ecosystem forking into the "secure" Linux which you don't actually have full control of but which you need to run any app that demands a "secure" environment (it'll start with KAC but inevitably progress to other kinds of DRM such as video streaming etc). Or you can run Linux that you actually control, but then you're missing on all those things. Similar to the current situation with mainline Android and its user-empowering forks.
- babypuncher 8mo ago
  I'm starting to think you've never actually played an online game before
- whs 8mo ago
  I wish that is an option. Nowadays many non competitives games that you play with friends you trust still use EAC (yet accept non-kernel mode operation on Linux). I suppose other than VAC you can't buy a usermode anticheat middleware now.
int_19h 8mo ago
PvE shouldn't need it either, and yet games routinely ship with anti-cheat applied to everything (including single player). I rather suspect that the reason for this is the current gaming economy of unlockable cosmetics that you can either grind for, or pay for. If people can cheat in single player or PvE, they can unlock the cosmetics without paying. And so...
- tzs 8mo ago
  Multiplayer PvE can still be ruined by cheating. In many such games, such as MMORPGs, you are still competing for resources such as rare spawns. Spending hours setting up conditions for the rare spawn to appear, and then before you can get to it having someone using a tracking cheat and a speed cheat get to it first is very annoying.

LiamPowell 8mo ago

> As far as I'm concerned, if the player wants to cheat he's just exercising his god given rights as the owner of the machine. By this same logic: As far as I'm concerned, if the game developer only wants to allow players running anticheat to use their servers then they're just exercising their god given rights as the owner of the server.

matheusmoreira 8mo ago
This is just yet another example of the remote attestation nonsense where your computer is only "trusted" if it's corporate owned. If you own your machine, you "tampered" with it and as a result you get banned from everything. You get ostracized from digital society. My position is this is unfair discrimination that should be punished with the same rigor as literal racism. Video games are the least of our worries here. We have vital services like banks doing this. Should be illegal.

babypuncher 8mo ago

This is the most asinine take I've seen on the subject in a while. You may think it's your "god-given right" to cheat in multiplayer games, but the overwhelming majority of rational people simply aren't going to play a game where every lobby is ruined by cheaters.

matheusmoreira 8mo ago
I don't like cheaters either. I just respect their power over their machine and wouldn't see that power usurped by corporations just to put a stop it. The computers are supposed to be ours. What we say, goes. Cheating may not be moral but attempts to rob us of the power that enables cheating are even less so.