EA Announces Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat System For PC Games (theverge.com) 99
Electronics Arts (EA) is launching a new kernel-level anti-cheat system that's been developed in-house to protect its games from tampering and cheaters. It'll debut first in FIFA 23 but not all of its games will implement the system. The Verge reports: Kernel-level anti-cheat systems have drawn criticism from privacy and security advocates, as the drivers these systems use are complex and run at such a high level that if there are security issues, then developers have to be very quick to address them. EA says kernel-level protection is "absolutely vital" for competitive games like FIFA 23, as existing cheats operate in the kernel space, so games running in regular user mode can't detect that tampering or cheating is occurring. "Unfortunately, the last few years have seen a large increase in cheats and cheat techniques operating in kernel-mode, so the only reliable way to detect and block these is to have our anti-cheat operate there as well," explains [Elise Murphy, senior director of game security and anti-cheat at EA].
EA's anti-cheat system will run at the kernel level and only runs when a game with EAAC protection is running. EA says its anti-cheat processes shut down once a game does and that the anti-cheat will be limited to what data it collects on a system. "EAAC does not gather any information about your browsing history, applications that are not connected to EA games, or anything that is not directly related to anti-cheat protection," says Murphy.
EA's anti-cheat system will run at the kernel level and only runs when a game with EAAC protection is running. EA says its anti-cheat processes shut down once a game does and that the anti-cheat will be limited to what data it collects on a system. "EAAC does not gather any information about your browsing history, applications that are not connected to EA games, or anything that is not directly related to anti-cheat protection," says Murphy.
Alternatives? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm sure there will be people that object to this for some reason, those people are likely to not be the sort that would install EA software on their computers anyway though. But rather than complaining or coming up with conspiracy theories I would be curious to know whether a tech community can come up with a non-objectionable anti-cheat system.
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Basically you'd be required to install a virus to be able to play those games with anti-cheat.
The step for ransomware and other malicious elements to utilize this wouldn't be too far fetched. Infiltrating that division of EA to create or just reveal a suitable "hole" to extend this would be expected. It's more money in that than what's in it for EA.
Re:Alternatives? (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually, it is completely impossible if you extend the concept a bit and allow the cheaters to use some hardware: You can passively sniff on video and audio and you can attach keyboard and mouse emulators. But yes, at this time and hopefully for the foreseeable future you can do this in software.
IMO the way to deal with this is by just using plausibility and a bit of manual work (which companies like EA hate as profits will get a bit lower). If somebody cheats just a bit that will not catch them, but the p
Wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
This is like asking what're the alternatives to sony's DRM rootkit.
You don't go there, period. So implying that this is somehow reasonable by dint of necessity is already deeply disingenious.
You can legitimately ask why this is so strongly objectionable, what principles are in play, and from there attempt to discern the lines between which the likes of EA are to keep their proverbial colouring to avoid becoming noxious and objectionable. (I'm no gamer but I'm informed that in EA's case it's "cease to exis
Re: Wrong question (Score:1)
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Plus a 200% chance that it will have a exploitable bug and everybody will be infested with rootkits in a matter of weeks.
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an
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'a' was correct. You use 'an' before a word that starts with a vowel, or sounds like it does e.g. 'an hour'.
Long live the glorious Grammar Nazi empire!
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Pretty sure the word "exploitable" starts with a vowel, and therefore should be preceded by "an" not "a".
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You use 'an' before a word that starts with a vowel, or sounds like it does e.g. 'an hour'.
Unless the vowel is a long 'u', or sounds like one e.g. 'a eulogy'.
Long live the glorious Grammar Nazi empire!
Please turn in your membership card at the nearest drop point.
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There's quite a few, such as allowing you to make your own private server so you can pick who will play against you, having a robust enough server that can detect when a player made a "impossible move" and trigger a human operator to see the replay of the match to see anything suspicious and so forth.
Also not sending data trom players behind walls is a quite good way so stop this data from being abused in first place.
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having a robust enough server that can detect when a player made a "impossible move" and trigger a human operator to see the replay of the match to see anything suspicious and so forth.
Depends on the level of sophistication. Of course the trolls and losers will use wallhacks and aimbots (or the sports game equivalents) to be superheroes in the game. But tournament-level cheaters don't work like that. They use cheats to slightly correct their moves, to more reliably pull off difficult shots, to give them a small edge - basically to always play their best game. The way pro athletes take performance-enhancing drugs - if you or I took the same drug, we still would finish last by a huge margin
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They already do that. Cheating in games is a whole industry. There are cheats that basicall
golden tee used to do that for cheats (Score:2)
golden tee used to do that for cheats back when some people took belt sanders to the trackball to power drive the ball.
They have an system to flag stuff for manual review.
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So why did game developers switch to the easily broken set up they have today? Profit. It costs more money to run a Dedicated Server, than it does to run a indexing server that just l
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for big events I think they do all hardware for (Score:2)
for big events I think they do all hardware for teams. Even the mouse / keyboards so you can't cheat with them.
non-objectionable anti-cheat system (Score:2)
faith
Article doesn't say how it works (Score:2)
Re: Article doesn't say how it works (Score:1)
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Will it get updates with out needing buy each year (Score:3)
Will it get updates with out needing buy each year roster updates? Will MS shut this down as part of some windows update down the road when it brakes something?
Will this not work in wine at all?
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That or WINE implementing the needed APIs. Which given WINE's architecture, may require significant rewrites to do correctly. As the Windows Kernel and most of it's drivers expect a unified memory model. Whereas WINE's memory model is per process. (And is one of the reasons why WINE cannot support drivers that need to access [winehq.org]
Who owns the computer? (Score:2)
This is a game that EA cannot win on platforms they do not own. The kernel cheats will just avoid detection by the EA driver. Users choose what they want to install on hardware that they own.
Re:Who owns the computer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Users choose what they want to install on hardware that they own.
Correct. They can choose whether to install FIFA 23 or any other game EA puts this in. They don't need to play those competitive titles. I'm not saying I think EAAC is a good idea, but I do agree with why EA says it's needed. The gamers hold them responsible for "allowing" cheaters. This is them doing what is required to catch more of them.
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Sounds to me like the solution is to distribute the game as a custom hardware package. Sure, it would be ten times as expensive, but they'd be able to implement all the security mechanisms they want.
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You think the solution is to make the game 10 times more expensive? I mean EA is dumb, but they aren't that dumb, they at least have good business sense.
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Now, again, I'm not saying that the ends justify the means for the consumer. Ultimately, that would be a decision they have to reach individually. I'm saying the ends justify the means for EA. They know they will lose players to cheaters and are hopin
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Users choose what they want to install on hardware that they own.
Correct. They can choose whether to install FIFA 23 or any other game EA puts this in. They don't need to play those competitive titles. I'm not saying I think EAAC is a good idea, but I do agree with why EA says it's needed. The gamers hold them responsible for "allowing" cheaters. This is them doing what is required to catch more of them.
Sigh, this will do exactly fuck all to find cheaters, the same as similar rootkits in copy protection systems did exactly fuck all to stop pirates.
First off, I largely agree that it's your choice to install this, however these need clear and present government warning labels similar to what we get on cigarette packets as they are almost as destructive. In order for this to be a choice the person making the choice needs to be informed, otherwise it's subterfuge.
Secondly, FIFA 23 is EAs last FIFA game,
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It's a game. So what if people cheat?
It's a game. Why feel the need to cheat?
Breaking the game is part of any game. It's essentially strategy from out of the box thinking. The ultimate way to win any game is to prove stated rules were never truly limiting or binding.
Following the spirit of a game rule, let alone the letter of, is called sportsmanship. Anyone that thinks of cheating in a competitive multiplayer game as a moral act is fundamentally flawed. I don't have a problem with someone that wants to have fun with cheats or the like when it comes to a single player game, or a multi-player game when sanctioned. That isn't the context here.
Just released private server executables. Players will form their own trust groups. Most games came with a dedicated server back in the 90s. It gave gamers fantastic freedom and choice. As well as spurring on innovation.
I agree about offering a dedicated server, or at least hosted unofficial servers, but the
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No,Human who successfully invalidate the rules has to learn to ride truly. Acknowledging that is part of good sportsmanship as well.
No, that is literally the opposite of good sportsmanship. That isn't a matter of opinion, but point of fact based on the definition of sportsmanship. Whether it's right or wrong to cheat is an opinion, and thus you can feel however you want about it, but that is not the same thing. While you might ascribe it as moral to cheat, the majority of people would not.
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Happy that EA (Score:5, Funny)
Silly bugger (Score:1)
EA are blazing trail. If you let them do this, then the other game makers will follow suit, and you'll get screwed too.
Re: Silly bugger (Score:2)
Um... Activision's been doing this for ages (Score:2)
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Also man I feel bad for sports gamers. You guys get screwed.
Just play on consoles, cheating is FAR less prevalent there. PC gaming is nice but the freedom to do anything on PC means also the freedom to fuck up the game for other people which sucks.
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I guess that's sort of true... But I'm a big believer in what I call "NFS-Vision". There's no way I can actually enjoy the difference between mid-tier graphics and top-tier if I'm in the middle of a fast paced action game. I'm sure Need for Speed looks way better than I think, but I'm too busy trying to negotiate a turn to notice how pretty the reflections are on the lake.
Re: Happy that EA (Score:1)
Bet $5 on it. (Score:2)
No matter how good they make an anti-cheat, someone will figure out how to cheat. All the while, EA will open a backdoor to everyone's system because the thing they develop will be overly complex that the left hand won't know what the right is doing.
It is such an odd time to be alive right now. Everyone seems dead set on solving problems with technology when having humans enforcing a policy would do much better.
option of playing without the anti cheat (Score:2)
Why would I buy this? (Score:3)
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It literally has nothing to do with you, or them being distrustful of you. That's a 100% strawman.
What they are facing, is that a competitive game (which Fifa is) is being infested with cheaters.
I won't be installing anything that this nonsense is in, but their use case is a completely valid one. To stop people from bitching that they're constantly being confronted with cheaters.
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It literally has nothing to do with you, or them being distrustful of you. That's a 100% strawman.
What they are facing, is that a competitive game (which Fifa is) is being infested with cheaters.
I won't be installing anything that this nonsense is in, but their use case is a completely valid one. To stop people from bitching that they're constantly being confronted with cheaters.
Also FIFA has withdrawn the franchise from EA, so this will be EA's last FIFA game.
FIFA (as in the international football federation) can grant the franchise to someone else but it will take a few years of development in a new engine to get a game to market. No idea if FIFA has done that, my interest pretty much ends at doing a Nelson-esque "HA HA" at EA for losing it. Just skinning all the players/uniforms will take ages, let alone modifying an existing game engine (lets not even think of the time it wo
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There's a reason FIFA22 was just a reskin of FIFA21??
Really I think that is just what happens with sports games all the time mainly just paying for roster updates.
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As was FIFA21 as was FIFA20 as was FIFA19 as was FIFA18....
I'm fairly sure FIFA looked at that and went: You know what, they can pay a lot more for the rights to do the absolute minimum every year.
And EA went: BUT OUR MONEYZ!
And then FIFA was like: And? Pay up bitch.
(That went off the rails fast...)
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Why would I buy a game from a company that is so distrusting of me
Two questions: ... Slashdot users 5285731 with the pseudonym computer_tot should command any trust at all? You're a random anonymous nobody on the internet who has done nothing to earn any trust. Key point there is earn.
a) What makes you think this is about you? Do you like playing against cheaters as an honest man?
b) What makes you think you
I don't trust you, and any sane person or company who doesn't directly know you shouldn't either. Likewise I expect zero trust in return.
Why pay money for this crap? I don't think there are any games I feel the urge to play so badly
Just so you know this is FIFA w
Who trusts who? (Score:3)
So you have to install a rootkit... to play (Score:5, Insightful)
No I will not install a virus so I can game... (Score:1)
Sorry, if that's required to run their crapware, I don't need to run their crapware.
When Hell thaws out ... (Score:2)
Yeah, right. Like I am going to give EA kernel level access to any of MY systems.
Not happening.
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Yeah, right. Like I am going to give EA kernel level access to any of MY systems.
Thanks to decisions that Microsoft made in NT 4.0, every time you run a program which can access your GPU, you are potentially giving kernel level access to your system. NT used to have three memory spaces, known as Kernel, User, and GDI. GDI is where graphics happened. In NT4 they merged the Kernel and GDI spaces in order to improve graphics performance, and the result was a number of blue screens best measured in Sagans.
A hole in a Windows graphics driver is a hole in your kernel.
easy solution (Score:2)
Of course this stuff raises eyebrows. First, who trusts EA? Second, why do I need to compromise my system if all I want to do is relax a bit?
Tournament level? Well, run the big tournaments on standardized hardware provided by the organizers, no cheat software install possible. For the smaller remote-play tournaments, this might be a solution, if and only if both installation and usage are optional.
Do we really have to make security even worse? (Score:2)
Online games ARE already a prime target for hijacking computers, simply because they unite a couple of very useful features for a hack. They are fairly popular and, unlike Adobe and MS who finally caught on to the fact that software that everyone and their dog has installed on their machines makes great targets for exploitation and intrusion, game makers still don't give a fuck about security.
Now, you don't get many corporate machines that way, so it's not exactly a big target surface for people wanting to
Shooting themselves in the foot. (Score:1)
As for SteamDeck success - look at the current orders, - you get it not earlier than in December. So Linux is a *big* market.
Just stupid from EA point of view.
Call me insane ... (Score:2)
but I welcome this measure though it might not protect against dedicated cheaters running Windows under a hypervisor.
At least it will reduce the number of cheating kids and ultimately make games a better experience for normal non-cheating players.
Actually I see two ways to go about it: create two tiers of players: those with a kernel level anti-cheat and those without it. People are free to run the game at any tier and face the appropriate opponents.
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Too bad (Score:2)
Kernel level drivers need to be signed by Microsoft. They would never do that, would they?
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Kernel level drivers need to be signed by Microsoft.
Nope. How do you think all of the kernel level cheats are running already?
Sure, kernel drivers should be signed, but they don't need to be signed, and certainly not by Microsoft. Windows Security will throw up big, scary warnings if you try to install an unsigned driver (starting with the "Windows can't verify the publisher of this driver software" warning dialog) but if you're prepared to ignore and click through enough warnings you can even install unsigned drivers. If you're on a corporate computer that'
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How does that jive with SecureBoot? I know in Linux if you are going to sign your own, you need to install the certificate into the uefi mok store.
Wine (Score:2)
What happened to protected mode? (Score:2)
Are these tools too complex to use?
Ar
antitrust issues & do you want to be locked to (Score:2)
antitrust issues & do you want to be locked to the shity windows store? and no you can't play your GOG or stream games any more unless you rebuy the ones at are on the windows store. On more thing mod support is limited there as well.
I like how (Score:2)
None of these pieces of malware of justified in any ways. Fix your shit. Stop making me fix it.
This will not help EA get me as a customer. They keep doing more and more to keep me getting the TPB edition of games.
1. They are on Steam now! But you have to install a ad filled launcher. They saw Steam as a way to collect more user data.
2. Would've bought Madden, since there was a Buc on
Hmmm (Score:2)
Cheaters gonna cheat (Score:2)
Didn't Sony try something like this? (Score:2)
You know, kernel level changes all in the name of piracy prevention?
Riot already does this (Score:1)
with Valorant, and they still suck at detecting cheaters - not to mention the code is shitty and barely works. Why would anyone trust EA, a company with absolutely no programming skills whatsoever, with kernel-level code? Their games are already hilariously bad and riddled with bugs, but suuuure, the kernel code will be mint and definitely not cause more problems than it solves.
Fuck FIFA - shithole organization.
Fuck EA - shithole unskilled programmers.
Trust issues (Score:2)