Comment by kimos

Comment by kimos 2 days ago

6 replies

It works on Windows by essentially rooting the machine. MS holds control of a bunch of stuff because they hold the signing keys. It’s fundamentally incompatible with open source.

tete 2 days ago

And it still doesn't prevent cheating.

  • SirMaster 2 days ago

    No, but it seems to vastly reduce it. Compare VAC2 to FACEIT on CS2 for example.

    • vablings 2 days ago

      Comparing VAC2 (released in 2005) to FACEIT in 2025 is pretty dumb. There are still absolutely cheaters running rampant on FACEIT and FPL.

      The real solution is to limit information sent to the client, make it harder for cheaters to have reliable solutions to get access to critical game information. ARC Raiders has Theia anti tamper (very poor performance) but right now the number of cheaters is minimal because the select few who are smart enough to break the anti-tamper are keeping quiet. See other examples; The Finals, Roblox (Byfron) and Overwatch

      https://codedefender.io/sigbreaker/

embedding-shape 2 days ago

> It’s fundamentally incompatible with open source

Yeah, I mean why would they open source their anti-cheats, would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

Not sure why you bring up OSS here, it isn't relevant in the least, plenty of non-OSS runs on Linux even though Linux and more is OSS.

  • trinix912 2 days ago

    Because with Windows, MS can put a list of trusted rootkit anticheats in the kernel and that cannot be changed (without having the source or breaking signatures when hex editing etc).

    If Linux did the same, anyone could recompile the kernel with their fake anticheat’s signature. The fake anticheat would then present itself as real to the game. One could go as far as to rewrite the relevant syscall to falsely indicate to the game that the legitimate version is running.

    • Mindwipe 2 days ago

      The OEM could control it in hardware and a secure part of the chipset could validate the OS integrity and sign the relevant key (which is what Apple does with SIP on a managed MacOS installation).