

Steam for Mac not very Mac-like, running as superuser? - godDLL

http://superuser.com/questions/140785/is-steam-for-mac-effectively-running-as-superuser
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pixelbath
Valve games include cheat prevention. To properly use cheat prevention, a
program has to inventory other running programs and apply heuristics.

It also downloads, executes, and occasionally updates (in the background)
files for games you have through Steam.

So, yes, it would need access to do all of these things. It might seem
shocking to a Mac user, but us on Windows have programs do this sort of thing
all the time (and you don't hear us gassin' on about it (I apologize for the
Futurama reference)).

Cue posts about "that's the problem with Windows" or similar, but I honestly
don't see any other way to detect cheating automatically. You can manually
"spec" players, but any sufficiently advanced aimbot built with stealth in
mind won't insta-aim like a bot, and any half-competent cheater (hah!) will
not make it obvious he's map hacking.

Sorry Mac users, I have little sympathy. You wanted Steam, but don't like what
it does. Uninstall the Mac version if it's bothering you that much, and boot
into Windows XP.

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lanaer
It actually doesn't need access to download & update games, since those are
simply kept inside the user's home directory.

It also doesn't need admin access to view all running processes, any user on a
unix system can do so.

That being said… I'm pretty sure Steam never actually asked me for an admin
password (and I run in a non-privileged account), so I'm not quite sure what
this guy is talking about.

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pixelbath
Ah. I'm completely shooting in the dark, since I use Steam on Windows.

Can a normal *nix user also examine in-memory bytecode for other processes?
(actual query; I have no idea)

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lanaer
Hm, on that point I'm not sure.

In any case, Steam isn't running with any elevated privileges on my own system
(I already had access enabled for assistive devices, which Steam only seems to
need to actually launch its games), so I have no complaint on a security
standpoint.

My only complaint with Steam so far is that it hardcodes the directory it
stores the games. I want to put them elsewhere.

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chrisbolt
Why not just submit this as a link?

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godDLL
My bad. Can't edit it now though.

