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Will kernel-level anti-cheat ever work on linux?
(lemmy.zip)
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this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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I'm not a programmer or cheater or anything, but I think the answer is yes and no. Yes it could technically be done and even work as intended as long as the device is locked down to prevent the user from replacing the shipped kernel (which would be a bad thing for users). However, savvy people could (in theory) make custom kernels that lie to the kernel module, causing the module to report there is no cheating when there is. It's my understanding that it's close to the current situation with Windows and virtual machines and anticheat: you can cheat by running your game in a VM and then have that virtual hardware extract secret information or flip bits in the right spots. Most competitive games will refuse to run in a VM for this reason.
Kernel level anti cheats require secure boot. You can't just "lie" and load an unsigned kernel.
You can add your own signing keys to the UEFI and boot an modified bootloader and Kernel that you have signed yourself. So yes, it is possible to "lie"
For such a locked down system, akin to game consoles or smartphones, would be needed. And even those get jail broken and manipulated, so "total security" on there is not complete but easier to check and ensure. Another way to make sure that the code is not manipulated would be to put all those games into the cloud and have every player only play via streaming. All the code would then run on secured, locked down and verified machines.
Another technique that helps is to limit the amount of information shared with clients to need to know info. This can be computationally intensive server-side and hard to get right .. but it can help in many cases. There are evolving techniques to do this.
In FPS games, there can also be streaming input validation. eg. Accurate fire requires the right sequence of events and/or is used for cheat detection. At the point where cheats have to emulate human behaviour, with human-like reaction times, the value of cheating drops.
That's the advanced stuff. Many games don't even check whether people are running around out of bounds, flying through the air etc. Known bugs and map exploits don't get fixed for years.