<story><title>Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?</title><url>https://areweanticheatyet.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Starz0r</author><text>What an interesting day when you see a site you&amp;#x27;ve worked on for the past 2 (3?) years get posted to HN! Except I tried submitting this site years ago when I had just finished it, but it did not seem like HN was that interested at the time, and I don&amp;#x27;t blame them. It was very niche and video game related, and the site also looked a lot worse. It&amp;#x27;s come a long way to the point where there where I collaborated with someone else to do a redesign, which I think has done great for the project at large.&lt;p&gt;I originally created the site as a way to track which games would be supported on Linux, since at the time the Steam Deck was releasing, and some games were turning to support it. And it has since blossomed into a larger project, which some other tools even pull from! I would have never even imagined that when I first started making this.&lt;p&gt;I do want to address something I see being talked about in the comments, which is the fact people say that anti-cheats are snake oil, or useless. This is a big misunderstanding, and I feel like those more technically inclined should understand that anti-cheat is a &amp;quot;defense-in-depth&amp;quot; type of approach. Where it is just one of many lines of defense. Some anti-cheats are pretty useless, and don&amp;#x27;t do much, but some actually do try and protect the game you&amp;#x27;re playing. But, just like DRM, it can be cracked, and that&amp;#x27;s why it&amp;#x27;s more of a constant arms race, rather than a one and done thing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m writing out a longer post about this for the future, but just know that without anti-cheat clientside, it would be far too easy for an attacker to cheat in these games. We&amp;#x27;re still ways out from letting AI (see VACnet [1] and and Anybrain [2]) determine if someone is cheating server-side, so for now we have to rely on heavier client-side techniques and server-side decision making.&lt;p&gt;Also if anyone has questions about the site (or for me), I&amp;#x27;ll try to answer them here when I see them. If not, have a nice day!&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;kTiP0zKF9bc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;kTiP0zKF9bc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anybrain.gg&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anybrain.gg&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lousken</author><text>I disagree with the onclient kernel stuff. Just like with any website, any checking MUST be server side. Kernel stuff not only makes clients inherently less secure and stable, but also for cheat coders it&amp;#x27;s only a matter of finding vulnerable driver they can use to avoid being caught.</text></comment>
<story><title>Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?</title><url>https://areweanticheatyet.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Starz0r</author><text>What an interesting day when you see a site you&amp;#x27;ve worked on for the past 2 (3?) years get posted to HN! Except I tried submitting this site years ago when I had just finished it, but it did not seem like HN was that interested at the time, and I don&amp;#x27;t blame them. It was very niche and video game related, and the site also looked a lot worse. It&amp;#x27;s come a long way to the point where there where I collaborated with someone else to do a redesign, which I think has done great for the project at large.&lt;p&gt;I originally created the site as a way to track which games would be supported on Linux, since at the time the Steam Deck was releasing, and some games were turning to support it. And it has since blossomed into a larger project, which some other tools even pull from! I would have never even imagined that when I first started making this.&lt;p&gt;I do want to address something I see being talked about in the comments, which is the fact people say that anti-cheats are snake oil, or useless. This is a big misunderstanding, and I feel like those more technically inclined should understand that anti-cheat is a &amp;quot;defense-in-depth&amp;quot; type of approach. Where it is just one of many lines of defense. Some anti-cheats are pretty useless, and don&amp;#x27;t do much, but some actually do try and protect the game you&amp;#x27;re playing. But, just like DRM, it can be cracked, and that&amp;#x27;s why it&amp;#x27;s more of a constant arms race, rather than a one and done thing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m writing out a longer post about this for the future, but just know that without anti-cheat clientside, it would be far too easy for an attacker to cheat in these games. We&amp;#x27;re still ways out from letting AI (see VACnet [1] and and Anybrain [2]) determine if someone is cheating server-side, so for now we have to rely on heavier client-side techniques and server-side decision making.&lt;p&gt;Also if anyone has questions about the site (or for me), I&amp;#x27;ll try to answer them here when I see them. If not, have a nice day!&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;kTiP0zKF9bc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;kTiP0zKF9bc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anybrain.gg&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anybrain.gg&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Aerroon</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;This is a big misunderstanding, and I feel like those more technically inclined should understand that anti-cheat is a &amp;quot;defense-in-depth&amp;quot; type of approach. Where it is just one of many lines of defense. Some anti-cheats are pretty useless, and don&amp;#x27;t do much, but some actually do try and protect the game you&amp;#x27;re playing.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a serious player of many multiplayer games I disagree. All it takes is one cheat to circumvent the protections and soon enough every cheater will use that circumvention.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, I, the legitimate player suffer from degraded performance, disconnections (looking at you Amazon Games - you&amp;#x27;ve not been able to fix your (most likely) Easy Anticheat disconnection issue in 2 years!), or outright inability to play.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the cheating situation would be worse without anticheats, but considering how rampant it seems to be in  fast-paced or grindy games I play, I kind of doubt it.</text></comment>