Update: A Valve employee took to reddit to counter what was said in the bug report:
Hi! Valve employee here. The bug report is incorrect. VAC will not ban you for simply having catbot in your user name (either your steam profile or on one or more of your linux accounts).
The bug report--and I suspect many of the posts in this thread--are a tactic employed by cheaters to try and sow discord and distrust among anticheat systems.
VAC has many different types of detections and we cannot discuss what they do publicly because doing so makes them less effective. However, one thing I can disclose is that all detections require that the detection occur while a user is actively cheating and connected to a VAC-secured server.
Linux historically hasn't been a problem for cheating--the base rate of cheating is significantly lower on Linux than it is on Windows. Unfortunately, a "healthy" community of cheaters grew up around catbot on linux and their impact on TF became large enough that they simply could no longer be ignored. Those banned users are very annoyed that VAC has dropped the hammer on them.
Kisak moderates many of valve's github bug repositories for us in an attempt to keep the bugs high quality and actionable. The VAC team asked him to close the issue in question and to indicate that github was not an appropriate location to discuss VAC bans. He did so, and we support this action.
For proof that I am a Valve employee, you can check my posting flair in the other subs I post on (/r/CSGO and /r/tf2) or a mod can message me and we can work on confirmation using my work email and PMs.
So in this case what Valve is doing is fine. They're getting rid of cheaters and that's how it should be.
Original article
Happy New Year! Let's start 2018 with a bit of a joke shall we: Knock Knock. Who's there? Catbot. Banned.
It seems one user came across an unfortunate issue playing Team Fortress 2 on Steam, as they were VAC banned for having their Linux desktop username contain "catbot".
I can certainly understand when a bot comes along, if it uses something so easily identifiable then as a quick temporary solution you could ban it like that until it's fixed. However, that's obviously not a good long-term solution and will (like in this case) cause an issue for users. It's not even a good short-term solution, considering how many millions of possibilities there are for a username to have "catbot" in there somewhere. Going by usernames just isn't a good idea, it's just not. Why is it not? Bots can just use random names, then this doesn't even become a temporary fix, it becomes useless.
This is what Valve replied with:
Good day, I've received word from the VAC team that this is intentional and not open for discussion on Github.
In general VAC issues are not handled on Github in any capacity and further issue reports on this may result in being banned from the Valve Software issue trackers.
Ouch. I get why they don't want their GitHub filling up with VAC issues (it's not the right place after all), but threatening a ban just like that, without any suggestions on what the user could do is a bit harsh don't you think? Considering this GitHub request is talking about bans, to then threaten a ban from the Valve GitHub trackers—come on.
Valve has done a lot of good for Linux gaming and continues to do so, but I think it's still important to highlight issues, even if they are on the stupid side.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mountain Man 1 Jan 2018
Last edited by Mountain Man on 1 Jan 2018 at 2:04 pm UTC
operation ditch valve in favor of gog itchIO and other stores lets do it
in fact lets go even further one month of no steam challenge commence!
A bad idea with good intentions. Linux gamers can't afford to ditch Valve at this point, not at least until GOG delivers on Galaxy ( don't hold your breath seen as they said they are not working on it ) or Itch.io starts selling a lot more high tier titles.
I read, although im not sure how true this is that it is not just your steam username but also your Linux machines hostname
It's not always good to put all your virtual eggs in one virtual basket :)
https://github.com/nullifiedcat/catbase-2017
This is literally the laziest "fix" they could have come up with
Last edited by Lonsfor on 1 Jan 2018 at 3:06 pm UTC
The "one user" who made the issue, has pinned CS:GO cheating tools on GitHub. The guy almost certainly had used catbots, and that's how he found it. Oh, and the next two users also have cheating tools/bot tools for Valve games in their GitHubs...
I'm not saying everyone in that thread has used catbots though, in-fact most probably just found the issue and tested it out.
But yeah. Deserved, (probably calculated by Valve to cause) no actually innocent people affected, and also a very small amount of effort for Valve to implement (letting the VAC team get on with actually adding more detection to the system).
Last edited by Code Artisan on 1 Jan 2018 at 4:27 pm UTC
Investigate more, see what is really going on. And realise you are not in control of your purchases if using Steam. Valve is.
Mysterious things not to be spoken of, it seems...?
Linux gamers can't afford to ditch Valve at this point…I personally have all the rights to ditch Valve however I want. And Valve can not do anything to me. Because I don't even have Steam account and neither is planning to, ever. :D
Also it's always a good idea to capitalise on the GOG connect when it becomes available.No, it is not. GOG said it will remove "connected" games from user's library if for one reason or another they vanish from his/her Steam account. Get banned on Steam and you can say "Goodbye!" to all games "connected" from it. :|
15. Q: If I no longer have the game in my Steam library, do I still keep it on GOG.com?
A: If a game is removed from your Steam account for any reason, such as through manual deletion or a refund – we reserve the right to remove the games from your GOG.com library.
I have no idea what VAC or catbot means.Probably, some Valve's anti-cheater fervor. This happened in the past. Old stuff, really.
Also a note ; GOG and CDPR doesn't like Linux as half as your love towards them.
Sometimes i wish to turn back to these dark days, before 2013. Valve does not deserve these kind of treatment.
Outside of hardware-based signatures and cloud gaming, programs like this can't be countered. This was what i feared when steam came to linux; that it become the platform of choice for cheaters. edit: this is also why you will never see clients like esea on linux.
Please elaborate, as it is i can't make sense of your comment, since people have been cheating on windows (and mac) ever since games existed. In fact, all the cheaters in Valve games i encountered used windows. And don't pretend hacking windows or any system is impossible, i see no reason why it would be any different on the aforementioned systems.
Linux enforcing GPLv2, an anti-cheat operating at the kernel level (eg: ESEA) would be useless. The kernel being open source also gives much more power to hackers to hide their programs from anti-cheats. There is also the fact that gpu drivers are open source too; you could add special feature and recompile the amd driver.
I know you can cheat on Microsoft Windows too, this is why i said only hardware and cloud solutions would be 100% effective.
Last edited by Code Artisan on 1 Jan 2018 at 6:25 pm UTC
Why don't you just stay out of this discussion then?Linux gamers can't afford to ditch Valve at this point…I personally have all the rights to ditch Valve however I want. And Valve can not do anything to me. Because I don't even have Steam account and neither is planning to, ever. :D
Why don't you just stay out of this discussion then?I dunno… Why should I?
If someone finds it completely acceptable to tell on behalf of everyone what we can and what we can not afford, then I have all rights to say what I think myself. :P
Same old GOG lovers…Thank you. Your opinion is very important to us.
But honestly, what has GOG to do with this news? And, BTW, all your post can be "corrected" by substituting "GOG" with "Valve" and it will remain being "correct".
Last edited by Alm888 on 1 Jan 2018 at 6:46 pm UTC
Mountain Man 1 Jan 2018
GNU/Linux users can afford to ditch Valve. Something else would fill the void, quite easily.It was literally decades before Valve filled the void in the first place. If we abandon Valve, how many more decades will we wait before someone else replaces them?
Why don't you just stay out of this discussion then?I dunno… Why should I?
If someone finds it completely acceptable to tell on behalf of everyone what we can and what we can not afford, then I have all rights to say what I think myself. :P
Same old GOG lovers…Thank you. Your opinion is very important to us.
But honestly, what has GOG to do with this news? And, BTW, all your post can be "corrected" by substituting "GOG" with "Valve" and it will remain being "correct".
If it isn't important , then don't quote it and don't put effort to reply.
I wonder what GOG done for Linux exactly if you say it will remain correct if we replace Valve with GOG.
Work on drivers , X.org , Vulkan , Wayland?
Pushing Linux as a viable platform?
Bringing VR to it?
I'm not a Valve lover but i want to support them by using their store because they support Linux , unlike GOG.
GustyGhost 1 Jan 2018
Valve only did anything as a backup plan.Yes, sure, but even just for that they did more than anybody else for Linux gaming recently in that regard. It is the result that matters imho.
I think you're a bit naive about this. Microsoft does not retain a desktop monopoly more than 20 years after Win95 because power is with the users in the end. Well, maybe "in the end"--as Keynes said about market equilibrium in the long run, "In the long run, we are all dead".GNU/Linux users can afford to ditch Valve. Something else would fill the void, quite easily.It was literally decades before Valve filled the void in the first place. If we abandon Valve, how many more decades will we wait before someone else replaces them?
Valve only did anything as a backup plan. Gaming was growing before they did anything, even desura was there first. If Valve get uppity, I would simply go elsewhere. Power is with the users in the end, and it's good to remind companies of this sometimes.
Monopoly power exists. Perhaps equally important, network effects are powerful; every major network* that the Linux platform is shut out of reinforces its status as a second-class citizen. Steam is a very major network; deliberately shutting ourselves out of it would reinforce the status of Linux as a second class citizen. That would be a really stupid strategic move if one wants Linux use on the desktop to prosper.
Not that any of this matters. Vanishingly few people are going to leave Steam because of something like this; calling for a boycott is an irrelevance.
* "Network" should be taken very broadly here to include any software ecosystem thingie that people on other platforms can and do use a lot. So for instance, MS Office, or DirectX. That's why it would be good if Vulkan supplanted DirectX 12, and it's good that Office runs on Wine (even though I personally don't like Office and never use it outside of work).
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 1 Jan 2018 at 7:47 pm UTC
I wonder what GOG done for Linux exactly if you say it will remain correct if we replace Valve with GOG.OK. This news had initially nothing to do with GOG, yet, you could not resist to accuse GOG "lovers" of "unethical" behavior.
Here you go!
Same old Valve lovers taking their chance to defend Valve, with forgetting being mindful of Valve's actions: enforcing DRM and vendor lock-in, not giving a sh*t about promised release cancellations AKA "SteamOS Sale", big Vive launch fiasco, introdusing crappy "Steam Runtime", making yet another Linux distro (but without Linux logo!) as a way to get rid of "fragmentation"…I took the liberty to actually add some facts to the post in order to fill it with substance and dilute pure emotions of the original. Hope, you don't mind. :S:
Also a note; Valve doesn't like Linux as half as your love towards them.
Sometimes I wish to turn back to these dark days, before 2010 (first Humble Indie Bundle). Valve does not deserve this kind of praise.
I'm not a Valve lover but I want to support them by using their store because they support Linux , unlike GOG.No, you are not "supporting Valve", you are outright bashing users of other services and stores, commanding everyone we should be eternally thankful to Holy Glorious Valve Almighty for its kindness and love (of which we are not worthy, apparently).
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