alt Hacker NewsAs most of you know, these anti-cheat systems are functionally equivalent to rootkits. There is zero visibility into how these privileges are used for targeted attacks. Due to geographic location of the large game companies this has a geopolitical angle. Fingerprinting of devices and the networks they are in provides a lot of metadata that is most definitely fed into their intelligence apparatus.
Replies
Yes, and more than that, the kernel-level-anticheats are unable to spot someone using a Cronus ( hardware aim assist among other stuff [0] ).
I'm never going to play again online on any FPS because that whole incoherent bubble of crap disgusts me.
The multiplayer games community is toxic, and players are focused on success whatever the cost is. And I don't even want to touch the question of match making with a 10-foot-pole. Local, self-hosted or in small community is the best.
Unpopular opinion, but we would be better off with a single open trusted implementation of anti cheat (aka drm) which can attest whatever requirements are desired by the game is met. The only real problem is that it would likely be limited to approved kernel images and someone would need to own that validation and signing infrastructure, but you could imagine having multiple trusted entities have this role.
I remember trying to install Valorant for the first time, and its ridiculously invasive anticheat kernel mod (or whatever it's called) gave me my first blue (or was it red??) screen I'd seen on Windows in years.
Immediately uninstalled it and haven't ever played Valorant to this day. Fuck that crap, if your community is so toxic that you need a rootkit to keep cheaters at bay, then maybe it's more of a community problem than a technological one. And yes, if this means that you have to block all of China in order to do so, then that is still a community problem. Put your rootkits on your Chinese servers, separate them out, and let the cheaters fight amongst themselves.