Microsoft looking to restrict kernel level access after CrowdStrike incident might help us with our current Anti-Cheat dilemma

Those were the days for sure. Dedicated servers were fantastic, you'd often run across the same people in the same server as well and get to know folks. A community, like you said.

I mean we have entire genres only because people back in the day modded the shit out of game servers. Team fortress and DotA were both mods before becoming actual games.

I remember those days, but this was before Microtransactions and battlepasses.

Back then when you bought a game it was complete and you owned it...

There was global leader boards way back in the day. I think it was called the Quake World League, it was one that would count Counter-Strike. I am not 100% but I think it used gamespy to do much of its work. I remember when it showed millions of people active and I was able to reach a top 20 in Counter-Strike one week. I was able to break the top 100 many times before it changed.

Apple implemented a kernel API for security software and made it good enough that they forced their own tools to use the API.

MS’s own tools depended on kernel access but they tried locking out 3rd party vendors without building a replacement like Apple did.

McAfee and Symantec correctly pointed out how this would be using monopolist powers to block competitors.

Microsoft needs to shut up and do the work to make their kernel secure.

Apple got away with implementing it

I have no idea either way - floating a question.

Did apple previously allow kernel access and then restrict it again? It seems the specific issue with MS vs McAfee etc is due to originally being allowed access, but microsoft restricted it, affecting their products?

I mean Valorant has a lot of cheaters, it doesn't really seem like kernel anti-cheat has been more effective than other forms of anti-cheat. There's also an increasing number of hardware peripherals that offer cheating assistance, and these can't be detected by kernel anti-cheat because the cheating happens on separate hardware.

My point is that kernel anti-cheat has major privacy and security tradeoffs, which is a steep cost to pay. A steep cost is only worth it if it has a significant benefit to the users, and in practice it doesn't.

go look at some forums for cheating, and you will see that they really do not work very well. it may be a cat and mouse game, but there is constant reverse engineering work and development being done (some of which is even paid work for paid cheats), and there is pretty much always a solution for new anticheat measures that someone finds.

the only unbeatable anticheat is a server side one

Client side anti-cheat is inherently flawed. These games are asking an untrusted computer whether it is cheating. That's like asking a known liar whether they're lying at that moment. The one way to make it harder for the computer to "lie" is by increasing the permissions the AC has, which comes at the cost of privacy for people with the game, and security for every Windows user (not just the ones with a certain game installed).

Client side anti-cheat can be poked and investigated locally, with no restrictions. All it takes a skilled enough cheater is time, and they will bypass it. The only way to test server side anti-cheat is by hopping in the game, trying to learn how it works, and trying to bypass it. That is a much more time consuming and expensive process.