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.

  • r00ty@kbin.life
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    11 months ago

    Well base operating system or hardware driver. There are exceptions, the pps driver for timekeeping makes sense to be kernel level too.

    But games developers? No, they have no right to ring 0. I understand they want to protect from cheats, but they’re just moving the battleground to a part of the system that results in blue screens/panics when it fails. And cheat developers will follow them there and even move to the hypervisor if needed, trust me on that.

    • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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      11 months ago

      Not to mention MSI releasing a monitor with built-in AI to highlight enemies for you that almost definitely counts as cheating, yet there’s nothing they can do except ban the hardware all together.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        Please tell me this perfectly plausible stupidest-thing-ever isn’t a thing.

        This is how I felt about those monitors with crosshair overlays built in. Silly at best, or in games that purposely don’t put a crosshair unless you’re aiming or something, scummy at worst…