Comment by Rohansi
1 day ago
> If they try to usurp control of your computer, stop them from doing so.
But anti-cheat software is not doing this? You are free to do whatever you want on your computer as long as it doesn't interfere with the game process. Most, if not all, anti-cheats will also not do anything when the game isn't open.
Some games (including Rust) give you the choice to play with no anti-cheat, too. You'll only be able to play on servers that allow players to join with no anti-cheat but you are not blocked from the game.
I would be more worried about computing becoming more phone-centric where Apple and Google are in control of what you can and cannot do.
> You are free to do whatever you want on your computer as long as
You are not free. "Your" computer is not actually yours. It doesn't do what you want.
> Most, if not all, anti-cheats will also not do anything when the game isn't open.
Stop believing this. For god's sake I just posted an example of a corporation that thought it was perfectly justified in hacking their customers and stealing their browser passwords. There is no line they wouldn't cross.
They could be doing literally anything and you know it. There's no way for you to know unless you reverse engineer the software, and if you try they are only too happy to label you a cheater and permaban your account or whatever it is that they do.
> I would be more worried about computing becoming more phone-centric where Apple and Google are in control of what you can and cannot do.
This is the exact same issue.
Apple, Google, Disney, Netflix, Hollywood, the games industry, the copyright industry, all the governments the world over are all battling for control over our machines.
This anticheating nonsense is just the tutorial boss.
> They could be doing literally anything and you know it. There's no way for you to know unless you reverse engineer the software
Literally anything you run on your computer (running Windows) can take screenshots of your desktop, pull passwords saved in your browser, etc. without running in kernel mode. Even applications that aren't running as Administrator.
That was never in dispute. The point is they cannot be trusted. Not even the "but they wouldn't do that" argument is valid: they would and they have.
Knowing and accepting these risks is a big reason why we run Linux with free and open source software sourced from trusted software repositories.
We put effort into this because we want to control everything that happens on our machines, so that we are not affected by stupid nonsense like that.
Recall what I said in my original comment:
> You want their nonsense absolutely contained and isolated, not deep in your kernel.
We don't want unknown uncontrollable proprietary idiocy running on our computers, least of all in kernel mode.
Ideally that stuff would not even exist to begin with, but since it does we move on to the next best thing: containing and isolating it to the fullest extent. The ideal setup is a VFIO configuration where the host is a Linux system where we have full control and the virtual machine is fully isolated and controlled.
As such we really don't need idiotic "anticheat" software taking issue with perfectly good technologies like virtual machines and hypervisors. Cheaters are using this stuff? I don't care. Just accept it.