To all the kernel devs out there, is it so hard to find a middle ground with DRM and anticheat companies?
Posted by papajo_r@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 96 comments
Like couldnt Linus just reach some sort of an agreement with them so that (who ever volunteer choses to) one can install a special revision of current version kernel (e.g in the same way there is a low latency revision) which would provide kernel support for such anticheat or DRM (e.g netflix) software and let them run only when their associated app runs too (e.g only when I run netflix or when I run the game that has an anticheat as a prerequisite)
Like I find it a shame that valve (obviously not due to charity but still it as a end user I appreciate it) puts so much effort and manages to support to many games only for a few dozens of outliers (that happen to be supper popular though) to not being supported because of their anticheat engines.
I think this is one reason many people still keep on running windows as a main OS because there is no quality of life solution for using such games or software.
Like how many antic heat and DRM packages are out there? finite, what resources they ask access to? I would guess finite and most would use the same resources, why not just grand them that privilege so that they can do what they want to do even if it is basically spying on the user (obviously only if the user voluntarily decides to download and execute the particular kernel revision that can allow for this)
Like what is blocking progress towards this? plain indifference from one side or an other? or is there a deeper legitimate reason that doesnt allow for common ground to be found?
jimicus@reddit
The method already exists. The kernel does support modules, and there's no reason you can't insert a module that's not in the mainline of the kernel.
I can't see hooks to allow anticheat software ever being formalised in the mainline kernel for a number of reasons:
The upshot is that it's adding enormous risk for a very narrow use case.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
The thing is, the module has to use exported symbols and it is very likely that the required symbols are marked GPL only.
jimicus@reddit
Why is that Linus' problem?
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
because behind that gat lay a couple of billions of potential users that would turn to linux had this be a non issue.
Vladimir_Chrootin@reddit
Couple of billion, lmao.
Windows gamers aren't that important, even to Microsoft; almost none of you are even paying full-price for Windows, and you aren't using Azure at all. It's a small chunk of Microsoft's income, and Apple have never had a commercial need to widely support gaming.
Enterprise is the hand that rocks the cradle, and is the reason why Windows exists in the first place. It's a significantly harder problem to crack, and it won't be solved by giving third parties ring-0 access.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
Linus would be one who could sign off on such things. It seems unlikely that he would though.
jimicus@reddit
Not quite that simple.
Linus doesn't require copyright to be signed over to him, and a huge chunk of the kernel wasn't written by him in the first place.
Which means everyone whose code might be relevant would have to agree.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
there's no talk of license changes or anything here, so no, they wouldn't.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
that's what i said.
wademealing@reddit
I can assure you that there is no hard requirement to use exported symbols, thats a 'gentlemens game'. Anti cheat/ attacker code doesn't need to show up in lsmod, in ps or visible to userspace at all.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Why doesnt this happen on windows then? I mean the irrecoverable data corruption.
jimicus@reddit
Irrecoverable should always be rare, regardless of OS.
But NTFS has been stable for decades.
Lorian0x7@reddit
Kernel based Anticheats must die! They are spyware, no one wants proprietary code in their kernel, Nvidia drivers are already too much. They can FO with their stupid games with Anticheats. I won't buy or support any game like that.
UrdnotShadow@reddit
Really makes you think
Lorian0x7@reddit
ahah yer but I decide exactly what reddit is getting from me. I use it with a privacy friendly front-end with libredirect. From a privacy friendly browser blocking every tracker also at OS level, channelling everything through an Open source X86 router, and using a VPN.
Surely it's still not 100% tracking proof but it's good enough for me. Going in full paranoid mode is not worth the hassle. For most people having a vpn + blocking trackers is good enough.
Also, there's a HUGE difference between allowing secret code made for literally monitoring your entire system at kernel level and using a website.. HUGE
skuterpikk@reddit
Like that horrible StarForce DRM that was common some 15-20 years ago. It was a Windows kernel module that took full control over the computer's optical drive(s) to prevent people from using copied game discs.
A side effect of this was that most CD/DVD burners stopped working, and burning discs was no longer possible, only reading them was.
The cherry on the top was that this shit was impossible to remove once installed, so the only way to fix your CD burner was to format the hard drive, and do a complete re-install of Windows.
And people fucking payed for this?! Payed for having their (At the time) expensive burner rendered useless, payed for having to wipe their hard drives to burn a CD...
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
That makes you just weaker though, the right way is to assimilate it with a workaround to linux have linux become stronger and then you can decided to exclude such tactics when you are the main OS, now you are not the main OS and cant call the shots.
Lorian0x7@reddit
It doesn't work this way. Even if it becomes the main OS, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of users don't understand kernels or spyware. They will still install whatever without thinking, and some company will take advantage of this, giving them exactly what they want and transforming Linux into a typical OS full of proprietary code, telemetry, and spyware. Essentially another Windows, but with some parts of the code open source. At that point, one might as well just use Windows.
For me, Linux represents the resistance against corporate and government privacy violations and power abuse.
People using Linux are conscious about privacy and transparency, and they won't let these dirty corporations put their secret code inside our computers.
Linux will become the main OS when people join the cause, fed up with being spied on, and that's already happening, with Linux numbers steadily growing.
If these dirty corporations want to sell to Linux users, they'd better make their code open source.
Your privacy is worth more than a match on Valorant. They could silently look through all your files and pictures while you play if they wanted to, and you would never know.
FattyDrake@reddit
Any program you run in userspace, unless you sandbox it, also can silently read anything your account has access for. You don't need a kernel module for that.
Lorian0x7@reddit
That's true but if it's in the userspace you can at least detect what's going on monitoring your system, if it's running from the kernel it can completely bypass your entire system and firewall, and they can also collect data from other applications memory, from the kernel which is not possible in from the userspace.
dennycraine@reddit
No, assimilation is not the right path when it’s counter to your entire philosophical foundation.
mina86ng@reddit
If you assimilate it there will be no way to exclude it later.
dgm9704@reddit
Just to point out that there is no operating system called ”linux”. There are many operating system based on linux.
FattyDrake@reddit
It's possible right now with signed kernels and modules, secure boot, cpu isolation, etc.
There's just no will from the game companies and others to do it.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
signed and OPEN SOURCE kernel modules.
wademealing@reddit
I don't know about other distros, but rhel's kerne lmoduels are signed and open source, but this isnt the issue, the issue would be that you as a user still has control over the kernel, which puts the problem back at square 1.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
control over the kernel is something we already generally have. I didn't bring it up in this topic.
I know in other threads on this topic we've talked about how it'd be bad for valve to put in an attested kernel.. now at that point we wouldn't have control.
FattyDrake@reddit
You still have control over which kernel you use. You wouldn't have to use Valve's, just like you don't have to use Red Hat's or any precompiled or signed kernel. You don't have to load modules you don't want. You can still compile your own too, the license will never prevent that.
Companies can still put Linux on proprietary devices which lock down the hardware via DRM. One of the main reasons it's still GPL 2 only, a conscious decision by Torvalds himself. You have no control over those devices, but can definitely choose not to use them.
Linux is about choice, and if some people want to choose to compromise their kernel by allowing proprietary modules, that's up to them. Others have the freedom to laugh at them when something goes wrong.
You can't claim Linux is about choice if you don't allow people to make bad decisions and screw things up for themselves. :)
That's why when people say they want Valve to "fix" the anticheat issue, I say it's a Money's Paw situation. It's likely something they really don't want, they just don't know it yet.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
no it isn't.
wademealing@reddit
So, i can't choose what software I run ? News to me.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
indeed, you can't choose to run a lot of software on linux.
skuterpikk@reddit
Nobody wants this shit on their computers. Nobody in their right mind wants to pay for having their computer compromised.
If you really want to to play games using this cancer, then just use Windows and asume that your security/privacy and data integrity is forever lost. Nothing is stopping the people in control of this software (hint: you're not one of them) from stealing your data
ausstieglinks@reddit
DRM is fundamentally at odds with free software. It’s not a technical problem. You cannot build something that is both free software and has effective drm.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
but forcing you to use only free software and not decide when to use free software and when not to use free software is also not free.
ausstieglinks@reddit
No one forces me to use free software…. I don’t understand your point
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Excluding the option to run other software on the basis of pretending you are about freedom isnt that much liberal either.
Reminds me of something Ford said "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black"
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
You don't understand the licenses or the situation right now.
The initially compiled kernel cannot contain non-free code, this is true, but there is nothing stopping, say Nvidia specifically, from releasing a non-free and closed source kernel module using DKMS, which the kernel will quite happily load into ring-0 with absolutely no issues, as long as it doesn't hook into any of the parts of the kernel that require GPL-2 licensing.
You know how I know they can do it? Because they're doing it right now. That's what their proprietary license does.
You know what's stopping companies from releasing custom DKMS kernel modules to do anti cheat right now? Literally nothing. Hell, they can do it with eBPF and not even need to use DKMS.
They just don't because they don't want to.
You can run non-free code in your kernel all you want, they can hand you all the kernel modules they want and you can insmod them.
Now, would I do that? Hell no! Unreviewed closed source ring-0 code is literally the single most dangerous thing you can put on your computer. You remember that whole Cloudflare nightmare where (basically) one intern made a single oopsie and took down every airline and a large amount of the Internet? Yeah, that's what unreviewed closed source ring-0 code can do. Does it have vulnerabilities? No one knows, and you're not allowed to find out.
NO ONE is allowed to check to see if it just creates a bug that any program can use to erase your entire hard drive. The only way you'll ever find out is in a global catastrophe, when you and several million other people find out one day that they let an intern screw around with the single most important part of your CPU, and that'll be the day that you lose everything on your computer.
Which is why most Linux users would never allow a gaming company that only cares about their video game and nothing else on your computer control EVERYTHING about your computer. They want to boot a hypervisor kernel with kexec to operate at boot, giving them the ability to do whatever they want even if you remove the program? They can. The second you load a kernel module, you no longer have any control over your computer except what they let you do. It's their computer, not yours.
Very few Linux users would allow that so they don't bother writing it.
skuterpikk@reddit
This is the true answer.
99% of people doesn't know what anti-cheat really is and what it does. When concidering the capabilities of said software, combined with the "security through obscurity" and the fact that nobody knows if there's any bugs/backdoors/etc -intentionally or not,
This kind of software is per definition, mallware. Mallware that people willingly install on their computers.
Mallware that potensially is just as dangerous as the Zeus or StuxNet worms, maybe even worse, since people actually pays to have their computers infected god damn it.
whosdr@reddit
Sidenote, trying to figure out if you did mean Cloudflare or if you're referring to the CrowdStrike fiasco. (Maybe there was another big event I somehow missed)
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
You're absolutely right, typo. Fixing it
whosdr@reddit
Given all the Cloudflare issues today, I can see how that'd happen. I bet that's been quite the hot topic for discussion today.
TheOneTrueTrench@reddit
Oh man, it's been either Intern or AI week for like 3 months straight between AWS, GH, CF, Azure...
ausstieglinks@reddit
i can't figure out what your point is...
You can absolutely run non-free software, including kernel modules, without releasing the source. You only have to give the source under the same terms when you redistribute the combined work, because you're now benefiting from the work of other free software developers by combining your work with theirs.
It's spelled out right in the GPL v2 that linux is licensed under.
But you cannot build a free software DRM that is effective, therefore you cannot include it in the linux kernel because it would violate the terms of the license through which you obtained the source. But if you feel strongly about DRM and anti-cheat, please by all means make your own kernel, drivers, system daemons, and userland to support it!
I suspect you think you're being super clever here, but actually missing the point sadly :/
MatchingTurret@reddit
It's the non-free software that doesn't want to run on a free platform. They are the ones refusing to run on Linux. Linux would be happy to host them.
sublime_369@reddit
Why do refugees always want to turn their new safe haven into a carbon copy of the hellhole they've just escaped from?
shroddy@reddit
Because it is not heaven and hell, both Windows and Linux have their advantages and disadvantages, and playing online games is one of the advantages of Windows, so refugees want to bring that advantage to Linux as well and so we are here discussing how that might be possible without bringing too many of the disadvantages as well.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
any disadvantage is not worth the cost. Folks who want that should base their stuff on a BSD where there is no similar problem. It's also easier to add linux compat to such things.
perkited@reddit
For gamers, gaming is the most important use of their PC. Many distros are courting gamers in an attempt to increase the number of Linux users. I can understand the reasoning (more users means more attention from software and hardware developers), but we also need to understand that in general gamers don't care about open source/free software philosophy.
natermer@reddit
DRM is a scam.
It only works in secret. As soon as people know how it works then it is completely broken. Even though DRM uses encryption it isn't the encryption that keeps the media or whatever "safe" from unauthorized duplication. It is the fact that they hide how the decryption actually works that allows DRM to exist.
It survives as a concept only because DCMA in the USA has violated free speech by making it a crime to talk about how specific DRM implementations work.
That is they have criminalized sharing information on how to break DRM. This is the only reason DRM is still a thing. From a technology standpoint it is infeasible. It only exists through political force.
People are free to install whatever they want on their Linux systems, including DRM systems. It is just that it depends on secrecy and secrecy isn't something that you can do with free software like Linux.
So if somebody wants to provide DRM modules to you and you install them yourself then there is nobody that is going to stop to that, provided it complies with copyright law.
Linus nor anybody else is able to create a "closed source Linux" that would enable it be DRM-friendly because copyright of the kernel is owned by thousands of people. It is impossible to get them all to agree on creating a special version with a different license. This is done on purpose to keep Linux free software.
the_abortionat0r@reddit
Anything in the kernel must be open source or else it loads as a kernel module AFTER the rest of the kernel limiting it's abilities.
Also drivers and the like go in the kernel not random programs.
Can you kids learn more about this before asking for magic nonsense?
INITMalcanis@reddit
Because kernel anticheat is essentially a rootkit that for some reason a lot of people have decided to ignore that it's a rootkit (because after all when has a gaming publisher ever acted greedily or unethically?). Apparently, playing games with toxic communities and predatory "micro"transactions is just that important to them.
You're asking for a compromise between keeping your house secure and leaving the key on a hook outside your front door.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
I just dont understand fanaticism because that's what this is, I also lock my house door but last time I moved and had to bring a bunch of furniture I had my apartment door unlocked so that I can move easily in and out the house and technically while I was down getting something from the truck one could get in my house or the movers helping me and who where in my house while I was down to their truck to get something with their colleagues could steal something
But sometimes in life you make CONTROLED RISKS in order to do something, and loading a kernel that allows anticheat/"rootkit" to work for the purpose of enjoying your games and what not and then reboot to the normal kernel whenever you dont is a controlled risk.
dumpaccount882212@reddit
The issue is that your example is flawed. What you proposed is handing out your key to a stranger and hope they don't abuse that power, ignoring the wealth of historical examples of them doing just that.
But that's not the core problem. Like many have said - anyone can do that. Epic Games could say "hey we have released our own kernel with signed keys so you can play with our Anticheat on" and maybe it would be ok legally (because there might be licensing problems that they would need to work around). But the cost alone would be huge. The benefit little, considering the tendency for people to actively poke around with the kernel and a penchant for FOSS folks to try to circumvent stuff like that ultimately making the anticheat less secure.
I'm not saying that you're in the wrong for wanting to play your favourite games ofc - to each their own - but the interest from companies, groups and individuals simply doesn't seem to be there for a wealth of reasons. For the core kernel group of developers the risks far outweigh the benefits, same with companies, and the work for an individual would be monumental.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
It is not flawed how many people do you know that have lost their bank accounts or visa numbers or whatnot because of a cheat engine or netflix drm?
dumpaccount882212@reddit
You mean how many people have had adverse effects by installing a rootkit on their computer owned, controlled and handled by a third party?
Plenty really. Too many to even comment on.
(Also sidenote: "Netflix DRM" - there are ways around that specific issue btw. Not as elegant I grant you but they exist)
dennycraine@reddit
I don’t understand the fanaticism around supporting things like call of duty for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of users.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Fanatisicm is to think that people that game are a fraction of a fraction or saying that only call of duty has this issue (although to be frank probably linux users are not that much more numerous than call of duty gamers )
dennycraine@reddit
You missed the point.
MatchingTurret@reddit
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without telling me you have no idea what you are talking about.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without telling me you have no idea what you are talking about.
SanDiedo@reddit
Educate yourself of what is rootkit and why it’s bad. Rootkit anticheats shouldn't even exist.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Educate yourself about liability. There is a difference between technically correct and what actually happens. All these anticheats are in the EULA and are associated and bind by the companies distributing the service, hence whateve malice they cause makes them legally liable and since you mentioned that how many people do you know who's bank accounts or whatever got stolen by any company behind an anticheat or DRM program ? is it 0 ?
The insecurity you speak of is a mere technicality those companies dont care to see your dog pictures nor will they steal your bank accounts.
Furthermore I didnt say allow them by default just have a kernel revision ready to be downloaded (not by default packaged with a distro) if the user wants and agrees to do so perfectly knowing what he gets into.
SanDiedo@reddit
"are in the EULA and are associated and bind by the companies distributing the service, hence whatever malice they might cause in theory, would make the associated companies legally liable for the damages"
😂😂😂😂😂 NO
Seriously, that's the point - they atually deny all responsability in case something happens and nobody is ready to throw 5000$ legal expenses to prove hijacked game process caused important data loss.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
well if its serious data loss then I dont see any reason not to. but even this isnt what a rootkit does... this could be a bug from anything that could cause data loss a rootkit is access behind your back to steal important data and make use of it e.g your ebanking credentials or whatnot.
dgm9704@reddit
Oh boy. Anyone can make any sort of kernel they want. Nobody(?) wants a rootkit on their computer.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
one who wants to watch netflix but doesnt want to use windows.
dgm9704@reddit
Fair enough I guess… I do watch Netflix on my linux computer, am I missing something?
FattyDrake@reddit
I think what OP is referring to is Netflix doesn't stream full resolution (i.e. 4k) on Linux.
dgm9704@reddit
Ok cool, I only use 1080p
shroddy@reddit
4k, maybe even 1080p if they didn't change that.
mina86ng@reddit
If you have no problem running other people’s rootkits on your computer, what’s your problem with Windows? You’ve already given up your privacy to Netflix and Activision. I might sound snarky, but I am serous. If you’re not alright with Windows, why do you want Linux to turn into Windows?
dennycraine@reddit
like don’t consoles exist?
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
You'd be better off with a mac.
Sosowski@reddit
That’s a call of duty problem, not a Linux problem
WokeBriton@reddit
I want to say that's nobody who understands, but knowing how stupid some people are, I can't say for certain.
dgm9704@reddit
I guess one scenario could be a dedicated gaming pc with just the game and any required rootkits etc.
WokeBriton@reddit
I can accept that would be a working solution for many until someone with nefarious intent manages to break into the game rootkit and sells the solution to others with similar intent.
plane-kisser@reddit
move control and authority to the multiplayer server and patch vulnerabilities in the local codebase, the job of anitcheat can be done outside of the local machine and many games do just well that way. your greatest examples are valve games themselves. hell, the whole world of the internet operates this way, you dont need a rootkit to shop on a website for instance, you shouldnt need one to click on dudes in a video game either.
FattyDrake@reddit
Server side anti cheat has proven to not he as effective. The reason kernel level anticheat works so well it prevents users from running the game if they have certain other things running. This eliminates casual cheating (which was the intention, you'll never eliminate cheating entirely) and forces those who want to cheat to go to exceptional lengths including expensive hardware if they want to cheat. And those methods have a chance of being detected with kernel anticheat but no chance by the server.
Not saying it's a good thing, just explaining why some companies resorted to it. CS GO using VAC still has a lot of noticeable cheating.
plane-kisser@reddit
prove it
FattyDrake@reddit
You can't detect a DMA PCIe card from a server.
plane-kisser@reddit
and exactly how does that prove server based anticheat is inherently less effective? i'm not the one making claims here about effectiveness and i was serious when i asked for proof of your claim.
FattyDrake@reddit
Sorry, I didn't see your edit before my reply. I also want to make clear I agree with you. I'm not saying Linux should even attempt any kernel level anti-cheats.
I guess what I'm trying to get across is that it's not an authority issue as much as an attestation issue. The game (and therefore server) wants to know if a computer booted cleanly and that the end user is who they say they are. This is fundamentally something purely server-side anti cheat can't provide.
FattyDrake@reddit
I know how this goes. I can show you the proof game companies release and you'll turn around and say, "You can't trust them, they're the ones making the anticheat."
There are just things a server can't detect, another thing being whether a game is running in a VM or not.
No matter what I (or anyone else says) you'll retort that cheaters still exist, which is true. But that assumes the goal is to eliminate cheating, not reduce it and get rid of easy, casual methods of cheating. Which kernel anti-cheat does very well on closed systems like Windows.
etal19@reddit
I don't think this is a kernel development issue, more a lack of commercial interest.
The gaming companies could decide to port their anticheat engine to linux in some form of a kernel driver. They will have to figure out how to lock down the kernel so the user will not be able to circumvent it, probably some sort of secure boot & tpm combination. Then keep maintaining this as new kernel versions are released.
There is the question of how to get this to the users, maybe they launch their own gaming distro or team up with valve or join one of the existing distros so there is an official "Ubuntu gaming" kernel (just an example).
The reality is that I doubt they see the linux users market as big enough to warrant the investment and I for one sure as heck am not going to run any kernel level code from these companies if I have any say about it.
FattyDrake@reddit
The lack of users is definitely the biggest reason. Before Riot implemented Vanguard, they explained why they didn't care about Linux users who play League: there was less than 1000 of them with a game of tens of millions of active players.
The equation might be changing as Valve sells more units, but there would have to be in the mid to high 10's of millions of units sold before game devs start expending effort.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
It's also a legal and licensing issue.
dennycraine@reddit
Like, that’s not how this works.
Like I find it a shame that people want keep not understanding that anti-cheat isn’t about anti-cheat, it’s about controlling the software.
Like, there’s nothing stopping YOU from working on this. If it was something that brought significant value it would already be worked on.
Like the issue is like that its not really all that important to allow this in the Linux ecosystem and there’s never going to be a large enough market for publishers to care about it.
WokeBriton@reddit
Why do you think someone responsible for the kernel of a secure OS would/should sign up to some agreement with a commercial entity to allow it to install a rootkit in that kernel?
If your use case is to play particular games which want to install a rootkit, the best OS for playing those games isn't linux. No, I'm not trying to tell you to go back to windows. Perhaps you could dual boot with windows and use linux for everything other than games which do that.
papajo_r@reddit (OP)
Because if you isolate this behavior on a particular kernel revision you will have tons of additional users using said kernel you write code for and can have braging rights that your code runs in double the machines or 10 times the machines it runs now, and people could revert/reboot to the non anticheat/drm engine compatible kernel any time dual boot is a loot messier and slower and bothersome and resource hungry
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
just stick with windows please. The Linux kernel is open source and under the GPL license. If Linux wasn't under the GPL i probably wouldn't even be using it, because it's not particularly technically superior to the BSD OSes. The BSDs are licensed under such a way where what you ask is completely possible to do.
WokeBriton@reddit
A large part of why linux is trusted is that the kernel is very tightly controlled by Torvalds and that the code is very publicly audited. Game dev companies have reasons to not publish their code, and I doubt they would publish details of anti-cheat code for obvious reasons.
If he allowed unsafe code to be added, trust in the kernel would be destroyed for many people, especially those who use linux for servers.
Servers make up a huge share of linux installations. The small number of extra users your games MIGHT add would be massively dwarfed by server admins moving to something else.
Consider how much money companies like IBM have put into kernel development by employing linux devs and allowing them to work on and contribute code to it, because it serves their business purposes to have such a secure and easily audited OS kernel. If Torvalds allowed such unsfae code to be added, I have a strong suspicion that companies pike IBM would spend that dev money elsewhere. My choice is to keep this kind of dev money in linux.
As I said before, if your use case is to play particular games which install a rootkit, the best OS for those games isn't linux. I'm still not trying to tell you to go back to windows. Perhaps you could dual boot with windows and use linux for everything other than games which do that. If you want to avoid the hassle of dual booting, perhaps you could use 2 different computers; one for games which install rootkits and one for the security that linux brings.
opa_brass@reddit
Bragging rights don't pay the bills and exposure is hardly a currency in this field. As said by others already: There are means to achieve this that are also available by corporations providing these DRM solutions. The market isn't there.
razorree@reddit
and who would block you from patching that kernel ? it has to be signed (so no one can modify it). and who would maintain it? (spend time on it/money).
WaitingForG2@reddit
Coincidentally, Valve collaborated with Arch exactly for that. "Secure signing enclave" both for kernel and packages. So Valve spent more money, and Arch spending right now time to implement it.
https://rfc.archlinux.page/0059-automated-digital-signing-of-os-artifacts/
https://github.com/archlinux/signstar
So maybe, just maybe, it could be solved down the road, but it also would mean that there will be limitations with distros that will be capable of being "trusted", and likely it will affect distributions themselves too, to take away some user control for sake of playing nice with DRM and ACs, as or else someone could just spoof it.
MmoDream@reddit
I dont want a rootkit or spyware in my pc, like probably everyone here, but i feel you, i miss league of legends that i use to play on linux, i would love to see some solution for anticheat in linux. Or instead of 'anticheat' something that garantizes that companies 'security', if that is really what they want, because things like vanguard running all the time even If you are not playing sounds more like an excuse to harvest usar data...