Valve announced a change for Steam today that will make things a lot clearer for everyone, as developers will now need to clearly list the kernel-level anti-cheat used on Steam store pages.

Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.

  • MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    12 hours ago

    This will be helpful for discerning if a game can run on the Steam Deck. There’s not many games that don’t have verification (Either by Valve or ProtonDB) but for newer games with anticheat it will serve as a good rule of thumb i imagine

  • sonymegadrive@feddit.ukEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Easy Anti Cheat - requires manual removal

    Wait, so this sketchy, privacy-invading stuff remains even after a game is uninstalled?! I had no idea.

    How is this stuff not classed as malware at this point?

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      24 hours ago

      Do you remember when Sony released cds that when inserted into Windows computer auto ran an installer that installed a rootkit that made it impossible for Windows to see any processes or files that started with a certain sequence of characters instantly turning any malware that named its files or processes similarly powerful rootkit. Oh and it installed a cd driver that made it impossible to copy their music.

      Suggested removal was a full reinstall of windows.

    • mrvictory1@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 day ago

      EAC installation process includes “registration” of a game, and the uninstall process “unregisters” the game. If all games using EAC are uninstalled, EAC itself also should be uninstalled.

    • Jtee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      Wow, mad because you can be held accountable. That’s sad.

      Thanks for the steam link!

    • yamanii@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      4 likes on him complaining that modlogs being public is something bad, cowards that only want to be shitty in the shadows.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      2 days ago

      I was going to ask why the thumbnail on this post is a hexagon shaped bear, but your comment explains it well enough.

  • vordalack@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Any program having kernel level access is spyware. This is getting ridiculous.

  • Woodstock@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Can someone explain like I’m stupid on kernel level anti cheat and why I should watch out for it? Not a dig at all, a genuine question!

    • ArchRecord@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      To put it very simply, the ‘kernel’ has significant control over your OS as it essentially runs above everything else in terms of system privileges.

      It can (but not always) run at startup, so this means if you install a game with kernel-level anticheat, the moment your system turns on, the game’s publisher can have software running on your system that can restrict the installation of a particular driver, stop certain software from running, or, even insidiously spy on your system’s activity if they wished to. (and reverse-engineering the code to figure out if they are spying on you is a felony because of DRM-related laws)

      It basically means trusting every single game publisher with kernel-level anticheat in their games to have a full view into your system, and the ability to effectively control it, without any legal recourse or transparency, all to try (and usually fail) to stop cheating in games.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        And it’s worth noting that trusting the game developer isn’t really enough. Far too many of them have been hacked, so who’s to say it’s always your favorite game developer behind the wheel?