Battledield now throwing an error because Valorant is already sitting in kernel memory. Time to buy your EA Battlefield PC but don’t forget your Valorant PC

  • LSNLDN@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    As someone who will likely need to move to Linux after windows 10 goes dark can anybody ELI5 or maybe a little older, TIA

    • Destide@feddit.ukOP
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      2 days ago

      This is windows, So Valorant is running its anticheat stopping Battlefields anti-cheat from starting up. Meaning you will have to pick one game as they all seem to start from boot though other sources have said the games have to be running.

      In Linux you could prob just run a pass-through in a couple of VMs. But Linux itself doesn’t work with most of these anti-cheats so by default no one running Linux is exposed to this sort of thing.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        In Linux you could prob just run a pass-through in a couple of VMs.

        So instead of having trouble with drivers for your one GPU, you can have it with two. Awesome.

          • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Yes, obviously, and you don’t typically have trouble with display drivers either nowadays, I suppose we were both jesting.

            The right way to do it would probably be either to spin a dedicated partition, or to add a boot entry that sets up a dedicated environment for the game (I haven’t really thought about it but it’s probably doable). In both cases it’s a bit silly, when the whole anti-cheat thing is apparently mostly useless anyway.

      • biscuitswalrus@aussie.zone
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        1 day ago

        I’m not an expert, but it sounds like if you finish a session of valorant, the anti cheat never unloads and continues to monitor memory and files.

        Easy Anticheat though, according so some sources, only runs during game play.

        Riots Anticheat has a bad history though. But both essentially are black boxes that send details both hash and samples back to their owners for them to approve what’s on it computer. Opened a medical record? It’s probably been hashed and sent back.

        Opened your employers accounting files when working from home? details you probably sent riot a copy.

        Both can be updated. There’s no guarantees that riot won’t do something nasty against a portion of high value targets. They know you from your payment details. They can identify, update the module and get anything they like, they have root.

        Anticheat has a history of being a tool for hackers. https://www.vice.com/en/article/hackers-are-using-anti-cheat-in-genshin-impact-to-ransom-victims/

        There’s no upside for the user. Mostly because they don’t work anyway.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      These games won’t run on Linux.

      They do this to prevent cheaters, and it is effective. Some people who have no problems running any other executable that can do just as much damage believe this load on boot style is too invasive.

      I wouldn’t mind this feature dying so I could play on Linux though.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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        2 days ago

        load on boot INTO THE KERNEL is the main issue… this isn’t “just another executable”

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Tell me how any other app uploading your entire documents directory is okay then. “Into the kernel” is largely fear mongering. Other, less trustworthy apps can do plenty of damage, and you don’t seem to care about those.

          If you really want to be secure, you can’t do gaming on the same machine as your security sensitive stuff. It’s not limited to these anti-cheats.

          • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            “Into the kernel” is largely fear mongering.

            Until it actually gets exploited.

            And it’s such a weird argument to make that just because some other app uploads your entire documents directory (which to be clear is also not okay) you shouldn’t care about being forced into an potential attack vector that can take over your entire computer. Do you also leave your home server unsecured because Google is tracking you through your phone?

          • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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            2 days ago

            code running in kernel space is hugely privileged… it can open up enormous security vulnerabilities because when you’re in the kernel you can bypass a LOT of security checks and restrictions… windows code is generally pretty well tested, so is unlikely to have particularly bad bugs like RCEs etc… but these kernel mode apps aren’t nearly as rigorously tested - things like this is what lead to the crowdstrike outage

            things running in the kernel can also cause a lot more damage than user space apps, because the kernel doesn’t do a lot of the error checking and validation that stops things like kernel panics

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              And anti-cheat needs a lot of access (e.g. read app memory) and sees a lot of churn to evolve with cheat engines. More churn means less thorough testing, which means higher likelihood of an exploit.

              • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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                2 days ago

                “needs” might be debatable… i’m just don’t think the trade-off is worth it (and thus don’t play games that require kernel-level access)

            • Serinus@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              If you really want to be secure, you can’t do gaming on the same machine as your security sensitive stuff. It’s not limited to these anti-cheats.

              • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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                2 days ago

                that is wildly inaccurate. do you have a source?

                and also, security isn’t about 100% guarantees… we each have our own risk profile: regular joe gamer doesn’t need to be as security conscious as someone working for the NSA… their risks are different, because their exploitation value is different… most people only need to protect themselves from generalised attacks because they’re not going to be targeted

                kernel level apps, however, blast a massive hole in the walls that keep us secure and potentially open attack vectors for generalised attacks… it’s just not worth that risk

                • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  You’re running closed source software that has permissions to read your keyboard input to other applications (other than apps running as admin), they can access your files, and and they can communicate over the Internet.

                  You’re inherently trusting these publishers if you’re gaming on Windows. Who is the publisher of Darkest Dungeon or Deep Rock Galactic or Lethal Company?