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.
Pie in the sky idea, but anti-cheat feels like something that should be built in to OSs as part of anti-malware. So instead of game devs inventing their own invasive anti-cheats chock full of kernel-level vulnerabilities, you build the kernel-level parts into the kernels and then applications can request assurances such as: don’t allow my program to be debugged, patched, don’t allow anything with these checksums to run or these kernel APIs to be used. The things kernel-level anti-cheat software are supposed to do can absolutely be useful in a wider security context, but it’s hard to trust those building them because they compromise security in another way or are believed to be using them for malicious purposes as well.
this is actually a pretty based idea