this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10958052

Vanguard, the controversial anti-cheat software initially attached to Valorant, is now also coming to League of Legends.

Summary:

The article discusses Riot Games' requirement for players to install their Vanguard anti-cheat software, which runs at the kernel level, in order to play their games such as League of Legends and Valorant. The software aims to combat cheating by scanning for known vulnerabilities and blocking them, as well as monitoring for suspicious activity while the game is being played. However, the use of kernel-level software raises concerns about privacy and security, as it grants the company complete access to users' devices.

The article highlights that Riot Games is owned by Tencent, a Chinese tech giant that has been involved in censorship and surveillance activities in China. This raises concerns that Vanguard could potentially be used for similar purposes, such as monitoring players' activity and restricting free speech in-game.

Ultimately, the decision to install Vanguard rests with players, but the article urges caution and encourages players to consider the potential risks and implications before doing so.

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[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah no thanks I don't think companies should hand out rootkits to unsuspecting users.

Of course this is capitalist laziness that will envelop the entire proprietary games industry, the only way to kick out cheaters is better net code and actually scaled moderation, but those things cost money and maintnence (as well as dedicated playerbase).

To think otherwise is to boot lick these multi-million dollar corporations.

[–] Aurix@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What a terrible, uneducated comment. The anti-cheat solutions cost developers tons of money. Better netcode to disable wall hacking? Do you just randomly create arguments for your point? There is already as much engine and netcode obfuscation as feasible, strategy games render only few units into the fog of war. You need first a big enough barrier before you collapse the labour intensive moderation which can yield false positives.

Something something capitalism bad.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Whatever you say, at least I'm not the one advocating for people to install spyware from any Tom, Dick and Harry that claims it will "fix cheating"

The other solution is to simply not play those games. It's bad enough that the game itself is nonfree, but if it has DRM/relies on a nonfree network service then it should be ostracized.

But those things require having a spine, so I doubt you'd like them.

[–] Aurix@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago

It is not a claim, it is a fact the cheating hurdle is higher. You clearly are not the target demographic, not affected by cheats and not interested, so you really should not tell others what to do with their hobbies.