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This will always be a cat and mouse game. There are some anti-cheat software more intrusive than others. Even Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) which is considered by many

This will always be a cat and mouse game. There are some anti-cheat software more intrusive than others. Even Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) which is considered by many to not be very intrusive, used to intercept DNS queries to detect communication with paid cheats DRM. Most anti-cheats also scan all processeses memory and even files to detect know cheat signatures. They tend to run with high privileges and some take in-game screenshots for analysis. Basically they have permissions to do anything and receive silent updates. I wonder if statistical methods to detect cheaters result in too many false positives.

blattimwind 6y ago
> Even Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) which is considered by many to not be very intrusive, used to intercept DNS queries to detect communication with paid cheats DRM. I was surprised hearing this. It seems like what they actually did was if VAC already found something, it checked the hashes of the contents of the DNS cache against a list as a second check. That's quite a bit different from "intercepting DNS queries". Overall VAC always made a reasonable impression on me as far as privacy and security are concerned (no SYSTEM services, no kernel driver, no screenshots, no scanning and uploading random files etc.), although this non-intrusive approach naturally limits the kinds of cheats it is able to discover. I feel like the approach taken by Vale is, on the whole, well balanced. Source: https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Steam-Software-69900/Specials/Steam-VAC-soll-DNS-Cache-ausspionieren-1109977/ https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Steam-Software-69900/Specials...
- ruialmeida 6y ago
  Yes, thanks for clearing up the intercept part, I didn't remember how they did it exactly. They do make right decisions in my opinion to balance security/privacy issues at the cost of less ability to detect cheats. I think they also have a pretty good record of not banning inocent people.

blattimwind 6y ago

> Even Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) which is considered by many to not be very intrusive, used to intercept DNS queries to detect communication with paid cheats DRM. I was surprised hearing this. It seems like what they actually did was if VAC already found something, it checked the hashes of the contents of the DNS cache against a list as a second check. That's quite a bit different from "intercepting DNS queries". Overall VAC always made a reasonable impression on me as far as privacy and security are concerned (no SYSTEM services, no kernel driver, no screenshots, no scanning and uploading random files etc.), although this non-intrusive approach naturally limits the kinds of cheats it is able to discover. I feel like the approach taken by Vale is, on the whole, well balanced. Source: https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Steam-Software-69900/Specials/Steam-VAC-soll-DNS-Cache-ausspionieren-1109977/ https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Steam-Software-69900/Specials...

ruialmeida 6y ago
Yes, thanks for clearing up the intercept part, I didn't remember how they did it exactly. They do make right decisions in my opinion to balance security/privacy issues at the cost of less ability to detect cheats. I think they also have a pretty good record of not banning inocent people.