I haven't really been personally affected by it before - I don't play any competitive multiplayer games at all. But my wife had her brother over, and he's significantly younger than us. So he wanted to play FortNite and GTA V, knowing I have a gaming PC. FortNite is immediately out of the question, it'll never work on my computer. Okay, so I got GTA V running and it was fun for a while, but it turns out all of those really cool cars only exist in Online. But oh look, now they've added BattlEye and I can no longer get online.

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot), it's really not. Even if I wanted to install Windows ever again, I do NOT want random 3rd party kernel modules in there. Anyone remember the whole CrowdStrike fiasco? I do NOT want to wake up to my computer not booting up because some idiot decided to push a shitty update to their kernel module that makes the kernel itself shit the bed. And while Microsoft fucks up plenty, at least they're a corporation with a reputation to uphold, and I believe they even have a QA team or 2. CrowdStrike was unheard of outside of the corporate world before the ordeal and tbh nobody has ever heard of it afterwards again.

So I think this would be a good angle to push. That we should be careful about what code runs in our OS kernels, for security and stability reasons. Obviously it'd be impossible to just blanket ban 3rd party kernel modules to any OS. However, maybe here in the EU at least we could get them to consider a rule that any software that includes a component running in the OS kernel, MUST justify how that part is necessary for the software to function in the best possible way for the user of the computer the software is running on. E.g I expect a hardware driver to have a kernel module, and I can see how security software needs to have a kernel module, but I do NOT see how a video game needs to have an anti cheat with a kernel module. How does that benefit me, the customer paying to be able to play said video game?

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[–] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 62 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (9 children)

I usually solve this issue by... just playing something else.

It sounds hard, but I assure you, nothing is impossible.

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[–] Maestro@fedia.io 30 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There us no need. CrowdStrike was such a disaster for Microsoft that they are already on the path to locking down the kernel. Noboby but MS will have kernel access eventually. Give it a few years (and 1-2 Windows versions)

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 6 days ago

Apple has already done the same with macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019. No more kernel extensions = much better kernel-level security

This will become the industry standard

[–] Inucune@lemmy.world 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This will take a rogue agent to send malware or otherwise brick all machines by kernel injection. The crowd strike event poked a hole in the dam. This needs a full exploit to get major traction beyond game studios moving to the next kernel level drm/exploit engine.

[–] Amir@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago

https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/

[–] uis@lemm.ee 23 points 6 days ago

Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously

600k signatures to go. Link for EU citizens.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Arguing that buying something means you own it is much more digestible for the general public. Arguing that the video game codes run slightly different on your machine than you would like is esoteric and a non-starter. This is not a matter for the government, just don’t buy shitty games. Literally no game is required to be bought.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is not a matter for the government, just don’t buy shitty games.

This IS a matter for the goverment. "just don’t buy shitty X" is "just use magic" argument.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 days ago

The point is not enough people understand it to gain any momentum

[–] noba_cmdr@reddthat.com 7 points 5 days ago

On the contrary, I think kernel level anticheat should be illegal

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago

On areweanticheatyet.com it seems like the percentage of denied/broken keeps getting higher and higher :(

I guess it makes sense, new games come out with anticheat, and rarely do new games come out without anticheat.

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot)

That's not trivial at all. Don't let anyone let you think otherwise.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Yes

[+] PlatonicGin@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] Link@rentadrunk.org 14 points 6 days ago

EAC and BattlEye absolutely are kernel level on Windows.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

There's a warning on Dauntless's store page saying that it uses EAC for kernel level anti-cheat.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 8 points 6 days ago

Those both have a Ring 0 component, which is essentially presented as required for the crap to even work.

The argument being that you have to have that level of access for the anti-cheat software to be able to actually be able to do it's thing, since if you just ran it with a normal user's permission, it'd be subject to numerous ways you could have a cheat tool simply bypass it.

They're probably not wrong about that, but doesn't mean that we should have to essentially install a rootkit on our hardware to play online games.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I was boycotting it before it was even in the news.

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