Ottomateeverything @ Ottomateeverything @lemmy.world

Posts

0

Comments

322

Joined

2 yr. ago

Like he said as the second sentence of his comment...

You've never worked in enterprise then.

These solutions are skipping the majority of the core problems he mentioned. And even the problem you're trying to solve here isn't even fully solved by this solution. You're taking a narrow sliver of one point in his argument and arguing about that and just tossing out the rest. Even if we accepted your proposal, Linux still isn't enough of an answer here.

While I don't really disagree, look at the market share of Chromebooks. If "most people" only needed internet access, "most people" would be on Chromebooks by now. It's not like they're unknown anymore.

Yeah, and it's likely way less costly to the company to just buy a new win 11 computer than it is to pay an employee to train on new software. Not to mention the cost of paying someone to find someone to do a Linux conversion, paying the person doing the conversion, and the loss of productivity as the person learns. Not to mention the cost of changing IT infrastructure, hiring new IT people to manage those machines, etc.

There's a reason companies don't just switch at the drop of the hat. There's too much commitment and institutional knowledge already and moving is not a simple change.

I can't agree with this more. People like to sell Linux as a magic bullet, but it does not and will not everything everyone needs without maintenance and people really like to hand wave or downplay that need.

Sure, you could find a solution for what they're using now. What happens when they need something else and they're so tech illiterate that they don't even know what you did to their machine? They wouldn't even know how to install new software, and if they did, they wouldn't know they need to click the Linux version, etc. It's not always about feasibility and available options, it's often about the fact that people just won't fucking know what to do. Even if you assume there are enough options available, they won't know how to do so.

And every step Microsoft takes to shoot themselves in the foot, and every step Linux takes to make this easier, everyone comes screaming about how much this could change things.

But until Linux has a HUGE market share - like in the 30-70 percent range - developers are not going to take it seriously and alleviate this process. Even with how well MacOS does, this is not even a solved problem entirely there - there are still hang ups and still software that doesn't get released for mac. Linux would have to pass where Apple is today for this to become remotely accessible to an every day person.

And even THEN there's the question of different Linux distros.

I really do not understand how server anti cheat is not way easier.

In a clean slate, it is. It's also way more effective (except for things like wall hacks, aim bots, recoil suppressors, etc, but most of those things are only really important and popular in competitive FPS). It's also much simpler to understand and to leave no "holes" behind. It also lives in the developers domain so it can't be "compromised" or circumvented.

The thing is that client side "anti cheat" can be commoditized. Every game with server authority/anti cheat needs specific server software to run their game logic. Client anti cheat is basically "look at everything else running on the system and see if any of it seems suspicious". As such, there's not really anything "game specific" to these - they basically are just a watch dog looking for bad actors - so as such, one company can come along, make one, and sell it to other devs.

This being "off the shelf" and not something the dev team has to think about besides a price tag means that management is just going to buy a third party solution and check off the "anti cheat" box on their task list.

I feel like devs are caught up on realtime anti cheat and not willing to do anything asynchronous.

First, this is a management problem and not the devs. Any dev worth their salt knows this isn't really a good solution.

But I'd say the more relevant and prominent thing here is that game companies just don't want to have to run servers anymore. It's a cost, requires dev time, and requires maintenance, and they don't want to do that. If these games had servers running the game world like games used to, they'd inherently have their own "anti cheat" built in for free that wouldn't necessarily catch everything but would do a better job than some of these. And it could be enhanced to cover more bases.

But studios don't want to do this anymore. It's easier to make the game p2p and slap an off the shelf anti cheat and call it a day.

Some games still require matchmaking servers etc, but the overhead there is way lower.

Or they really like paying licensing fees for client-side anticheat.

Not that I agree with the decision, but it is definitely cheaper and faster than the alternative. But picking something like nprotect totally fucking baffles me. There are better options.

I just don't understand how any competent software engineer or systems admin or architect trusts the client so fervently.

In some ways, same. Every project I've been on that has gotten anywhere near client side trust I've fought adamantly about avoiding it. I've won most arguments on it, but there are some places where they just utterly refuse.

But then there are things like New World.... I don't know how the fuck that shit released like it did. The number of things trusted to the client were absolutely baffling. I expected Amazon's first foray into gaming to be a fucking joke, but I was totally appalled at how bad it turned out. They even touted hiring ex blizzard talent to get my hopes up first.

It does

https://steamdb.info/tech/AntiCheat/nProtect_GameGuard/

https://www.resetera.com/threads/helldivers-2-incorporates-nprotect-gameguard-on-pc-a-kernel-level-rootkit-anti-cheat-technical-director-responds-to-the-controversy-on-reddit.808530/

I don't know if this makes me "a redditor" somehow or what, but....

As a dev, I am deeply troubled by the gaming industry so calmly walking into kernel anti cheats. It's insane and being tossed around like it's nothing.

Helldivers especially, since they picked one of the sketchiest ones and it's a game that entirely doesn't need it.

I have no idea if Reddit has suddenly picked up on this, but I've been pissed since at least Valorants release, but have seen more YT videos talking about it recently.

He built his business by scamming warehouses... They're both dirt. Bezos just isn't as insecure and doesn't try to gloat where everyone can see his insanity.

And coincidentally YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon Music, all of Apple Musics competition, just all happened to not implement this? All of Apples competition just decided to not add a pretty critical function to the people of that ecosystem? When they all do it in Google's?

Yeah, I don't buy that. At all. Sure the API might be there, but you know who gatekeeps those APIs? Apple. This smells a lot more like Apples fued with Google over turn by turn directions bullshit. Especially when we can see how blatantly hostile to Spotify Apple is willing to be.

It seems a lot more likely that Apple is holding that API over their heads and refusing to allow access to it, than it does that all their Apple Music competition just happens to have all conveniently forgotten to implement a pretty core feature in Apple's ecosystem, while remembering to do it in Googles.

It's very much not on Spotify. It supports services apple decided aren't competing with Apple Music. Look at all the things missing, as your article points out.

It's crazy how much bullshit Apple can pull, and even semi educated people will come to their defense blaming other people for apples failings.

Yeah, that's really really fucking stupid.

Wait, you still can't use HomePod/Siri to control Spotify? How the fuck does this company continue to exist? Why do people put up with their fucking garbage?

Yeah, because that's basically irrelevant. Their problem is about where payment is made and how ridiculous it is to have users have to set up subscriptions on the web. Having them sign up there doesn't help that problem at all. It's just Apple fishing for more sympathy.

I have no experience with them, but FYI a bunch of people were recommending sceptre for dumb TVs in other threads.

I had a programmer lead who rejected any and all code with comments "because I like clean code. If it's not in the git log, it's not a comment."

Pretty sure I would quit on the spot. Clearly doesn't understand "clean" code, nor how people are going to interface with code, or git for that matter. Even if you write a book for each commit, that would be so hard to track down relevant info.

Yeah, I totally agree with you, don't get me wrong. I think it's bullshit to switch terms. And also bullshit to write terms that just say "if we fuck you over, you can't do anything about it".

I just wanted to point out that the legality of it probably wouldn't hold any actual water so don't be totally paranoid about it and take it with a grain of salt. For anyone who's a little more torn.

But yeah, Idk that I'd keep the device at that point either.

No.

IANAL, and not that it really makes this bullshit any better but...

It's unlikely that agreeing to terms of service that claim you waive rights to any class action lawsuit would actually hold up as legally binding in court. Many of these agreements aren't reply binding are already legally gray... Plus, universally vaguely signing your legal rights away in any contract doesn't hold any water either.

I highly doubt you'd actually lose any rights to a check box that's bound to "you can't ever sue us".

As an introvert, as much as I feel weird aroind people, I feel even weirder video chatting with people I've never met in person. In that situation, I have no idea how to read people and the expectations are way harder to try to meet. This makes meetings even worse until I meet them.

While I agree that forced in person work daily is insane, the OP is complaining about meeting people in person once after many years, which feels equally as ridiculous. IMO even for widely dispersed teams, meeting a few times a year seems ideal.

Yeah, I've met many people who literally have never spoken up in a meeting unless called upon.... And then you meet them in person and they talk all the time.

Online dynamics are entirely different and it doesn't work at all for some people.

But for most people it's functional but much less so than in person. Humans were wired for in person interactions. Not just cropped compressed video of a persons face.