If anyone wants to recreate this. I’m 99% the best way to go about this is:
Thanks! I like you space cowboy.
I like pedants. Is it correct that they’re not necessarily equally efficient in both directions? “Air conditioner” to transfer heat away, vs “heat pump” to transfer heat in? Even though both are heat pumps.
There are are certain calls in NT ring -1 that would require similar privilege on the Linux side to translate
Why would that be the case? I have to look this up and read more about it, because I don’t see why that needs to be the case. I’m also not sure if this is still in the context of AC “rootkits”. Because if so, I imagine the security model goes something like this
AC RootKit: Can observe app processes and all memory usage, and modify anything at any time. It observers processes for known cheats, and reports this to the game, either with a callback the game registers, or by directly modifying the game memory.
Wine: Runs in userland. Syscalls are “intercepted” as with all other windows API calls. The NT kernel doesn’t exist here. Wine just tries to answer those calls as if it did.
Game executable: Has some mechanism to talk to-from the rootkit. Likely that the RK itself, since it monitors processes, hooks straight into the game exectuable by either manipulating the memory required for the game to say “ait, RK said you’re cool”, or something like that.
Game executable running in Wine: Runs in userland, and wine has already talked to the Linux kernel and allocated memory. To the loaded game executable running through wine, the memory can be manipulated the same as a rootkit could, because after all, the wine process is the parent process of that memory range.
So, what mechanism is it that an AC RK does, that, from the perspective of a user process running on Wine, cannot be done unless actually coming from the Linux kernel? I honestly cannot think of anything.
Or rather… only possible way I can think of is a “cryptographic guarantee”, in some secureboot based signature and communicating with a remote service in order to authenticate the RK , which the game executable also confirms. Something like that. But this isn’t the case for any of the AC RKs afaik
In order for linux to support kernel level AC a module for the Linux kernel would be needed. And i doubt Linus will ever allow that lol
This is… correct. That in order to support kernel level anti-cheat on Linux, you need a kernel module. But that statement is a tautology.
An NT kernel AC running through Wine, and whether or not it “works” doesn’t predicate on a Linux kernel module being loaded. All it needs is the correct handling of whatever the NT kernel would communicate to the running game, and handle whatever that callback is through some other mechanism that passes the checks.
Most AC software have Linux native clients, and that’s what this “some other mechanism”. And whatever that is in practice, should, with enough reverse engineering, be technically possible for proton/wine to do as well. It’s all running on userland after all. I assume that this is not an easy task to do at all, which is why the only realistic approach is for AC developers to actually be on board, and instead just compromise on the weaker level of anti-cheat protection, compared to what you’d get with a kernel module. As far as I understand, this is the case for GG, BattlEye and EAC. Not all games work, because it depends on the developers “allowing it”.
And as for what the future might bring. I expect that with Linux gaming becoming more popular, it’s only a matter of time before a Linux AC is implemented as a kernel module. Also, neither Linus, nor anyone, need to whitelist a kernel module for it to be loaded. The only one that has an ultimate say there is you, the user.
It’s why games with actual kernel level anti cheat have never worked in proton and never will
Some games that use EAC, BattlEye and GameGuard, work fine in proton. Afaik, whatever these do and are abstracted to, or is offhanded to some linux native process, it’s still all running in userspace. I’m sure this relies on individual game developers playing along with it, and not 100% “proton emulating the nt kernel” in order to “fool them”. Is this the point you’re arguing? That it won’t be possible by a purely proton/wine translation layer?
If you know details on how exactly this works, or want to point to some resource on this, I’d be happy to read more about it.
My guess is that there is nothing technically impossible about fooling a rootkit by faking whatever syscalls from the game, but that it becomes a impossible task to maintain, as the AC developers can make minor changes that would require a lot of hard work to “emulate”. I’d love to learn more, but it was hard to find good resources on this.
The syscall translations that would go to the nt kernel, can be seen as a “fake kernel”, no?
Wine has a process that works as a substitute for the Windows NT Kernel. How that works in detail, which calls are abstracted with an internal model, and which are mapped on to Linux kernel calls, is a bit silly to get hung up on, no?
I think it’s perfectly fine to call that concept a “fake kernel”. I don’t know what you’d need in order to qualify more?
just a translation layer that translates Windows syscalls into linux syscalls
“Just”?. No. It also has an internal model. Which system calls end up as Linux syscalls, and how, is not a stateless translation. The NT kernel is modeled. And although you are right in your straw man argument that it isn’t a “virtual machine”, or an “emulator”. Neither of those are a requirement for the concept of a “fake kernel” either. Seems a bit rude to go so balls out hard against it, as you did.
Why is this comment downvoted? To my understanding it’s entirely accurate…
First thing you mention is such a fun and useful exercise. But as you point out, way overkill. Might even be dangerous to expose it. I got mine to 20kb on top of busybox.
There is something that tickles the right spots when a complete container image significantly smaller than the average js payload in “modern” websites.
It’s when I gave up on US politics. If only it was such that Hillary won… and not that DNC actively conspired to make that happen.
As messed up and anti-democratic so many things are in the US leading to “pick one of two things”. The whole system is fundamentally broken when the selection of those two things is corrupt.
But… when a person I wouldn’t trust to be mentally suited to pack a bag of groceries* or park a car*, is elected president, and gets to pick several supreme court justices… The world isn’t laughing at the US. They were laughing at the thought of Trump being in he primaries. They’re deeply concern that a complete fuckwit ended up in charge, and what that might lead to.
Democracy (i.e. the system of governance) requires informed voters. GOP (the political party) requires uninformed voters.
The only way you can vote Republican or think that the orange baboon can be entrusted with anything more important than throw feces, is one of two thing (or both): 1) you are an idiot / uninformed 2) you are morally corrupt
*: this isn’t a put down directed at people who do these things, but that it requires some mental function in order to not crash the car, or steal some groceries… and I would be equally comfortable with Trump in that regard, as with a 6 year old. Which is to say: not at all. Which puts in perspective what I think of him being president.
Thanks! Much appreciated. I’ll check out Mashle.
I used to watch a lot of different anime during late teens for some years. All of Naruto, Death Note, Monster, Bleach, Code Geass, Sword Art Online, Cowboy Bebop, Madoka, One Punch, Steins;Gate, Samurai X, Attack on Titan, Full metal alchemist, , etc, are just the ones that come to mind.
Recently I thought back on this, and how many shows came out season after season, that I really enjoyed. I wondered how many shows must have come out in the last ten years since I stopped paying attention because of, life.
The first one I thought of giving a go was Frieren. I don’t know if it’s me that changed, or that it just isn’t for me. Either of which are fine. But I just couldn’t get into it. It seemed so utterly boring.
Not sure what my point is… Maybe to ask if it makes sense regarding Frieren, and whether it gets good after some episodes, or of it just isn’t for me any more.
Maybe also to ask for other recommendations from anyone who might feel the same.
They are unfortunately the poster boy for so many political forces all around the world. “Those who cannot correctly identify stupidity are doomed to derp away”. Something like that. Maybe also with a mix of good ol’ malice, and “I got mine! Which proves that I deserved it! Suuuuck iiiit”.
Humans are impressively dumb. So much so that we managed to fuck up a whole planet… which we live in.
The idea of “well, you became obscenely rich at the expense of natural resources and climate… Maybe we should counteract some of the damage with slightly less obscene wealth?” is “political”.
Can confirm. It takes an hour to walk to the city. I have 3 grocery stores within 10 min of walking (checked with Google maps too)
Orange chicken.
It was my comfort food while studying in the US. At Panda Express it was cheap, convenient, and delicious.
Then I tried making it. And… although I could make delicious-er, it was too much work. Then I forgot how much work it was, and made it again, and I swore, never again. I don’t have a proper kitchen or a fryer, and it took me about two hours of active work (if you’re serving 8 people). Most other food I make is max 20 minutes, and the rest is just time passing and heat doing its thing. Even dishes that take 8 hours to prepare, is usually still only 20-30 minutes of labour.
Without the right kitchen equipment. Never again.
I might make it again soon.
No… Not really. But hey. You do you.
Found the Sith
Just an FYI, viewing everything through the lense of “racist/not-racist” is common in the US, and not so much elsewhere.
Your impression that “pretending it isn’t”, is simply… because it isn’t, for most outside the US.
Hope that helps clear this up. Learning about new things is always fun, and a good thing. Right?
I don’t know… I’ve been using ChatGPT4. I use it only where the knowledge it outputs is not important. It’s good when I need help with language related things, as more of a writing assistant. Creative stuff is also OK, sometimes even impressive.
With facts? On moderately complicated topics? I’d say it gets something subtly wrong about 80% of the time, and very obviously wrong 20%. The latter isn’t the problem.
I don’t understand where the “intelligent” part would even come in. Sure, it requires a fair level of intelligence to understand and generate human language responses. But, to me, all I’ve seen fits: generate responses that seem plausible as responses to the input.
If intelligence requires some deeper understanding of the world, and the facts and relationships between them, then I don’t see it. It’s just a coincidence when it looks like it happened. It’s impressive how often that is, but it’s still all it is.