Riot Games‘ kernel-level anti-cheat, Vanguard, has received an update that is allegedly altering system firmware to remove the ability of the user to access certain hardware associated with cheating.
Riot Games quoted one post discussing the anti-cheat, replying “congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight.” But how exactly does Vanguard’s new system make “paperweights” out of hardware?
I hate cheaters. I think they should be banned from every single multiplayer game, or restricted to a pool of only other cheaters. With that said, no one has the right to disable your hardware remotely, especially over a piece of entertainment software. Use Linux, refuse kernel-level malware…
CLICKBAIT Why does the article name itself that when it shows a tweet from valorant of them clarifying that they are NOT bricking your PCs???
I don’t like kernel level anti cheats, but I’m happy the people who decided to run Valorant with DMA cheats now have an expensive paperweight (the cheat device, not their pc).
They even say you can still use the cheat hardware on other games if you disable IOMMU on your motherboard, but you cant on valorant.
Slightly confusing wording, but I believe they arent bricking any hardware, just stopping it from working for cheating on their game.
Riot already clarified it’s not bricking hardware. They just posted a picture of dedicated cheat/DMA hardware, that’s useless now, because it cannot be used for Valorant.
this is malware, i dont even care if its to stop cheaters.
Just another reason to boycott such software.
While I am in favor of removal of cheaters from pretty much every online space, I’m not in favor of any company having that kind of power. Only I should be able to brick my devices.
Yeah your game is so important that you get to destroy people’s hardware? Shit should be illegal.
Read the article, it doesnt brick anything, the 6k paperweight comment is “reffering to valorant cheating devices that no longer work” whatever tf that means
Once again the news is spreading a clickbaity headline and everyone reads just that then sprints to the comments
I’m against any kind of kernel level anticheat FOR A GAME.
These kinds of things aren’t there to make then better for you. It’s there to protect investor’s money.
They shouldn’t have access to you’re system and I’d imagine vast majority of people don’t have a clue what this means.
I didnt say anything about any of that, I said you didnt read the article, you just reacted to a false headline
You got ragebaited
Oh and I just realized. I meant kernel level anticheat should be illegal. I didn’t make myself clear. I apologize. I run Linux though, so doesn’t affect me. :-D
Not raged at all. :-) just making a point. Speaking my side. Not disagreeing with you
A kernel level anticheat is basically spyware in all but name and stated benign purpose. This if true is getting on the malware territory. Like who is responsible on the case of false positives.
This was debunked, I think. It apparently doesn’t permanently brick anything, and mainly targets extra hardware bought primarily for cheating.
Fuck Riot though. Glad 2XKO is not doing too hot.
RIP the false positives. o7
Note: don’t play Riot Games games.
Shouldn’t that be insanely illegal? This is literally malware. Even if someone is outright hacking into your servers, you can’t just hack back and ruin their system. There’s a reason the legal side is not supposed to resort to illegal actions, the fuck.
While I agree with you this should be illegal, on the other side they have my sympathy. Also I think cheating in online games ruining others fun and the company should be illegal too. I mean why is that not illegal still is beyond me. It’s not even illegal for companies developing and selling this shit. But to comeback to your point about the illegality to brick hardware through a videogame, I agree with you.
I dunno’, that’s kinda exactly what “scammer payback” does. Though that’s slightly different than them ‘just’ hacking you.
Still agreed that doing it over a video game is just crazy.
People say they won’t switch to linux because it can’t play every game.
Meanwhile games that don’t run on linux do shit like this.
This should spook the hell of anyone still playing anything that relies on that. Imagine have that kind of malware running in your system, with kernel-level priviledges, that could simply fuck up your hardware if it thinks you might be cheating.
nah they genuinely don’t care about anything like this
I would rather have cheaters in my games personally x)
Reckless behavior. Don’t trust a game company to exercise this extreme level of control over a device that you are supposed to own.
Just say no to kernel anti-cheat.
That’s definitely too heavy handed. It’s not uncommon for anti cheat to flag someone erroneously, and to just hand an executioner the ability to nuke your computer without any form of redress is asinine and anti consumer, if not criminal.
Yup, these systems have a history of false positives and flagging legitimate programs as cheating software and messing with a users system, using cheat software or not, to this extent is just absolutely wrong.
It’s a big reason for me why I stopped buying and playing these types of games.
They sound quite smug now, let’s see when it inevitably triggers on someone’s legitimate hardware.
They’re Riot Games. They’ll always be smug.
They already probably did, and I don’t they care, good luck winning that legal case.
