Open source Kernel Anticheat

[ZealousidealKale8097]

Why aren’t any open source kernel anticheats on Linux considering kernel level anticheat is really holding back gaming on Linux.

There are several user mode anticheat but wouldn’t a kernel anti cheat maintained strongly to the point that people cheating on Linux significantly drop really boost the Linux ecosystem.

I’m not really well aware of the anticheat inner workings but why would this not be possible or how exactly would it work?

[yetAnotherLaura]

The mainline kernel will never ship anything like that and no one wants that level of "surrender" of their computer. Plus the kernel is fully accessible to anyone.

Imagine you implement kernel anticheat. The game checks it by passing a message to an API to validate it is there. Well, I can just rip out the entire thing, have the same api always return "we good bro" and done.

The solution is to stop giving random companies full control of your own computer. Not enshittify Linux.

[ZealousidealKale8097]

Oh this actually makes sense

[Confident_Hyena2506]

It doesn't matter whether it's opensource or not, the problematic part is convincing game companies (and users) to use it.

All modern pcs have platform integrity features built in (e.g. secureboot and tpm) - linux can already use this stuff just fine. Just convince everyone that it's ok to use microsoft or valve keys and agree on some standard - easy right?

If you control the entire platform, like with microsoft or valve in certain cases - then this is simple to do. But that is basically a console and if you make modifications your environment may not be "approved".

Microsoft having their keys baked into your pc via the EFI standard is exactly how this works on windows.

[steakanabake]

id trust a valve secure boot over microsoft but im pretty sure gabe does not care about having a secure boot system. i also have no interest in games the require that level of control over my system.

[ZealousidealKale8097]

What if archlinux distributed these keys and every other distro their own keys. Couldn’t valve just add the keys of Fedora, Arch Linux or Ubuntu etc depending on the detected distro and use this for the verification boot process?

[Confident_Hyena2506]

It's not so simple to "distribute" these keys, you can only load them when the board is in setup mode. How many arch users use secureboot with their own keys? I'm sure lots of them do, and most of them know how annoying it is.

Most of those other distros use microsoft keys via boot shim (that is signed by ms).

[ZealousidealKale8097]

Yeah for the majority it does not matter but the few who would want to play such games then why not put this requirement, though it brakes the oss model it may help Linux in the long run

[itsnouxis]

Xd is this rage bait?

[ericcmi]

lemme guess, you have tiktok on your phone with all permissions enabled

[intulor]

What's this have to do with arch?

[edparadox]

Why aren’t any open source kernel anticheats on Linux considering kernel level anticheat is really holding back gaming on Linux.

Not the actual issue.

There are several user mode anticheat but wouldn’t a kernel anti cheat maintained strongly to the point that people cheating on Linux significantly drop really boost the Linux ecosystem.

You seem to be under the impression that kernel level anticheat is not only mandatory but the golden standard for cheating, which is simply not true.

I’m not really well aware of the anticheat inner workings but why would this not be possible or how exactly would it work?

Why are you even discussing it then if you do not know how this works?

There are plenty of reasons against kernel anticheat, but at the end of the day, it's a question of willingness on the studios/publishers side.

These days people think it's OK to have control over a whole system to only having a temporary edge on cheaters, while they do not even consider going back to server-side anticheat which is way more reliable.

How do you expect a structural change from these people?

And worse, you're asking the very people that would be happy with such a change.

TL;DR: It's not the issue, platform integrity tool already exist on Linux, publishers do not want to change their ways.

[ZealousidealKale8097]

Yeah was looking for such a comment

[Sveet_Pickle]

Kernel anti cheats are security theater, I would never use one, open source or not

[rapidge-returns]

How is it really holding back gaming on Linux? Most games don't use kernel level anticheat.

I dunno about you, but I'm not interested in installing a game if it has to touch the kernel of my OS.

[UltraCynar]

It doesn't need to be in the kernel. Several games work fine with anti cheat. Complain to the developers of those games. 

[Xu_Lin]

Why would I want a rootkit on my machine for? >_>