Players rave and rant about the wonders of kernel level anti cheats, and how games like Valorant barely have any cheaters compared VAC secured Counter Strike...
It’s kernel-level control of your system, basically rootkit malware that you choose to infect your computer with. Keep in mind, it’s always running, whether you’re playing a game or not! By definition, it literally has more control of your system than you do signed in with your own private password. Ask yourself this: if the anti-cheat was compromised, sold, re-prioritized, bypassed by hackers or foreign interests, etc… How would you even know?
I understand that all this sounds paranoid, but remember that you chose to give it system-wide access! I likely hate online cheaters at least as much as you, but the potential security/privacy implications are far too great, not to mention the performance hit every single game with kernel-level anti-cheat suffers…
This isn’t really different from most software on your system. I can exfiltrate plenty of your data on Windows without root. And are you reviewing the source code of every application you run?
Keep in mind, it’s always running, whether you’re playing a game or not!
Not necessarily. You can close the software. You’ll need to restart your computer before launching Valorant, but it absolutely does not need to be running while you aren’t playing.
It’s kernel-level control of your system, basically rootkit malware that you choose to infect your computer with. Keep in mind, it’s always running, whether you’re playing a game or not! By definition, it literally has more control of your system than you do signed in with your own private password. Ask yourself this: if the anti-cheat was compromised, sold, re-prioritized, bypassed by hackers or foreign interests, etc… How would you even know?
I understand that all this sounds paranoid, but remember that you chose to give it system-wide access! I likely hate online cheaters at least as much as you, but the potential security/privacy implications are far too great, not to mention the performance hit every single game with kernel-level anti-cheat suffers…
This isn’t really different from most software on your system. I can exfiltrate plenty of your data on Windows without root. And are you reviewing the source code of every application you run?
It’s a problem when Riot does it, but not Nvidia?
Not necessarily. You can close the software. You’ll need to restart your computer before launching Valorant, but it absolutely does not need to be running while you aren’t playing.
Otherwise known as a driver hehe
But they’re all valid points.