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.
I understand people here are not that big of a fan for kernel level anticheats, but if cheaters are able to easily bypass a non-kernel level anticheat, what other choice do they really have?
Edit
January 20th, 2024 7:03 PM (19:03) EST: While all of you have good points, I’m not backing down on this. Yes, I get the privacy concerns but have we thought about the application could possibly only be sending/receiving data for updates to the anticheat, maybe sending data only when the game is open (or the launcher), or something like that? Again, I’m not backing down, I said what I said. I’m fine with all of you disagreeing with what I said, but I won’t back down.Edit2
January 20th, 2024 7:11 PM (19:11) EST: I did not realize until now that Tencent has a stake in Riot Games. I see your concerns now, but I’m still not backing down.For the company its the best solution.
If you don’t care about your entire computer except for gaming its fine.
If your computer has any meaningful data then its just depressing that you as a user have lost control of your device to play LoL.
I thought server side anti cheat was the most effective. Since it can’t be modified by clients and tracks clients for impossible behaviour.
It is but history has shown it’s not easy and locked down clients do help (see consoles).
I had some information that I was going to say about server side anticheats, but I accidentally typed over it, and at least on Android, I could not find a way to undo my mistake. It was going to be about a game I play that has a server side anticheat.
Because it just moves the fight to kernel level where the stakes aren’t task crashed, but blue screen instead.
Is there a reason to think kernel-level anti-cheat isn’t (easily) bypassable? The next step is recording users and their input devices like a speed-run substitution or an at-home exam, which I presume could become (easily) bypassable too.
Are there any companies which have even tried to explore other options?
Valve basically does that with their overwatch system.
For anyone else trying to find info on this like me and just getting a ton of Overwatch 2 in the search results… here’s an article about Valve’s Overwatch anti-cheat in CS:GO: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/csgo-overwatch-guide
Super helpful thank you! That’s pretty neat.
There’s a company that has AI powered anti heat and they claim it is amazing, but also claim very few companies people wanna work with them. A hint that they know their player count would suffer.
I struggle to imagine how they get training data for games and specific cheats, and data for just good players using Intuition from experience.
For CSGO it’s trivial - the “Overwatch” system literally provided demos of players cheating that the AI could learn off of. I think Valve themselves were looking into something called VACnet that kinda did the same thing.
What determines if the video is the player cheatering? The fact it was mass reported or is someone paid to confirm? Some cheats are obvious to see but many are not. Is it not true that good players can appear to be cheaters to other players lacking experience or information? There will be some false positives.
The system works by having players vote on whether a clip is cheating or not - the guidance is to vote yes if the player is cheating “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Players are weighted with a trust score (how much the majority agrees with them), so you can’t just spam “innocent” on every clip and avoid bans that way, because the system will start ignoring your votes. You must first trip something in order to get into the overwatch queue anyway, which is what VACnet is about, increasing the amount of cheaters that end up in the overwatch system.
I mean I’d believe everything is bypassable, but I also believe that the Kernel Level Anticheat makes it more difficult to bypass, if that makes sense.
I know what you mean: a barrier to entry reduces cheating while a work-around is unknown, or yet implimented and shared.
The kernel manages interactions between software and hardware: simply it has total control of your computer. Cheaters ruining my game during my time off are annoying but a company having that level of power over millions of computers is a concern on the level of society.
I also understand your point.
Wouldn’t it just mean the cheat tools also move into the kernel space and keep doing what they’re already doing? Whether people will trust that or not I have no idea but I’ll wager people willing to use cheats in an online PVP game probably won’t care that much.
I mean that would make sense I guess, but it would mean they’d have to spend time and resources to figure it out. I get your points entirely.