Kernel Level Anti-Cheat: This needs to stop!

There's a lot of misinformation on what kernel level anti-cheat is and what it does on your system. In this video we discuss why kernel level anti-cheat is a problem and what it means to you as an online gamer.

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Links:
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:00 Protection/Ring Levels
03:54 Kernel Level Anti-Cheat
04:36 Justification
06:03 Privacy Concerns
07:28 Why is it dangerous?
13:21 Moral Implications
17:08 Outro

[Invid]

I just pulled the Windows 11 drive from my PC in favour of Fedora 39. I'm comfortable with losing access to games I wouldn't play anyway since I refuse to run a rootkit on my PC. All my single player games (and multiplayer) work. The ones that don't are no loss to me. Good video.

[dorlordlovegaming]

Nothing that is not necessary for your system to run should have LvL 0 Kernel access, And video games are not one of those...

[markgomersbach]

It is a non-question. When developing drivers and all other things that actually _NEED_ that access, we are extremely careful and reluctant to assign these access levels. So to give it to a company to make a easy buck because "the other paths require a bit more effort" is a absolute disgrace. And companies gaslighting customers into breaking their own security is not ok.
I really want to play helldivers 2, but as long as the rootkit is in there (because thats what it is and nothing less) its not coming on my machines.

[frecio]

16:56 "You have the power to do what you want with your system"
Well, not so much if you install vanguard apparently.

[Karn]

It is the fact that they need that access that I'm uncomfortable with. It is an unnecessary hole that can be exploited by bad actors.

The worst part of all of this is the anti-cheats don't work all that well anyways. So you've given up your privacy, your security, and the cheaters still cheat.

[cdgonepotatoes]

Kernel-level anticheat is defeated by kernel-level cheats, and the latter are only going to propagate more the more the former propagate.
So, you are potentially compromising your machine at no greater benefit to your playing experience. The only way you can avoid being affected by cheaters is if you don't play those games or play them on LAN exclusively.

[sumitmusale]

I don't think this trend of kernel level anti cheat will stop until some hacker will take the advantage and compromise billions of systems coz of this, and also because of this kernel anti cheat the linux gaming industry is suffering a lot i have perched 1 game which is multiplayer but i can't play it in my linux system, and also I'm not comfortable to use windows without lisence or any pirated copy of windows

[rkraccoons]

Really solid explanation, i didnt know why kernel-level anticheat could be a problem. We should be able to do what we want with our own hardware!!

[AshnSilvercorp]

I've avoided them altogether once I notice a game has them. They do nothing to stop cheaters who know what they need to do to bypass them, while providing even more inconvenience and security risks to me as a normal player. Server side to make sure you aren't damage hacking should have been enough for anything not fps.
Sandboxed apps checking that they aren't being modified should really become a thing

[JokerJK-jggi]

A good first step for this would be for Steam to clearly label games with "This game installs software that runs at kernel level" the same way they have one for Denuvo and Third party accounts.
They have been able to do it so far with way too much silence, you often need to do research before trying a game because there is so little info about many of them.

Oh, and also they should REQUIRE for those softwares to be cleanly uninstalled along with the game. A lot of them just stay there installed and running forever after an uninstall and need special instructions to remove.

[mattpickel]

Regarding the arguments against privacy concerns:
- I hear many people say that they don't 'need' ring 0 access to get your data. But the point is that some sort of exploit is still required to get someone's data through ring 3, no? This is willingly being installed on millions of computers.
- About it not being in companies' best interest, it doesn't have to be. They can be exploited themselves. (and as this relates to my previous point, 1 exploit can be leveraged to affect millions of people)

[TrinityArt]

There is no video game that is worth my system's security. That's all there is to it.

[rishabhkrm]

thank you so much, you explained it so well and in an easy to understand way.

[demos]

I happily skip games that require it, don't need the hassle.

[AriaTheDisciple]

A fairly balanced and nuanced opinion, I respect that. Great video :)

[theredsalmon]

So what’s the solution? Switch to console? Have nothing important on my pc used for gaming?

[TREEKO]

"you don't need kernel level access to steal date"
So it's even worse

[techzone]

It is the same as you are allowing security guards to enter your house for security, but he can do anything in-house. Even sleep on your bed 😂😂😂

[jmbrady]

Kernel Level anti-cheat has already been hacked which means that people's devices that have it can be hacked at any point now, better to remove kernel level anti-cheat than to put customers at risk

[oldwhizz]

How do they plan to run this code at Kernel level in Linux? The code will run as that user in user space, not in Kernel space.