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At least PunkBuster is spying for a relatively noble purpose: preventing cheating in online games. Cheating absolutely destroys the experience in multiplayer ga

At least PunkBuster is spying for a relatively noble purpose: preventing cheating in online games. Cheating absolutely destroys the experience in multiplayer games and has killed many games. This is spying with the sole purpose of spreading ads and making money.

Alupis 12y ago
So because a few people decide to cheat at a game they paid for, everyone who paid full price for the game is forced to install spyware which can and does modify files on your pc, take screenshots as you play the game, monitor your mouse inputs, keyboard, etc...?
- meowface 12y ago
  I think that is fine, personally. Obviously others might not. You have to specifically agree to install/allow PunkBuster, and you can choose to play on servers that don't use PunkBuster. With Lenovo not only is there no opt-out, but you're not even aware of the adware and root CA installation. The "spyware" only spies on modifications to the game client in any way and tries to detect non-human involvement, which of course includes inspecting the file system and RAM. In theory it could harvest irrelevant information from your hard drive or memory, but no reverse engineer has ever made such a claim to my knowledge. Valve Anti-Cheat does very similar things, but is run by what many consider to be a trustworthy company, so not that many people take issue with it. If one trusts the company that distributes the spyware, it's not really a problem, in my opinion. If Valve were to ever violate that trust, it would severely harm their business. I also strongly disagree with DRM, because it only harms other players while providing no benefits. In contrast, online cheaters can completely ruin the playing experience for online games, and have heavily contributed to the death of some games. I also have no issue if people decide to cheat when in single-player mode. If you pay for the game you should be able to do whatever you want if you're not affecting others. It's only a problem when they're playing with other people over the Internet. PunkBuster and VAC only run when you're playing in online mode.
  - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
    It's not fine because, as is the case with Superfish, this type of software leaves gaping security holes that blackhats can exploit no matter how noble the vendor is.
    - meowface 12y ago
      What security holes does PunkBuster introduce? Adware like Superfish and game client modification detection like PunkBuster are very different kinds of software. I do not support anything like Superfish.

Alupis 12y ago

So because a few people decide to cheat at a game they paid for, everyone who paid full price for the game is forced to install spyware which can and does modify files on your pc, take screenshots as you play the game, monitor your mouse inputs, keyboard, etc...?

meowface 12y ago
I think that is fine, personally. Obviously others might not. You have to specifically agree to install/allow PunkBuster, and you can choose to play on servers that don't use PunkBuster. With Lenovo not only is there no opt-out, but you're not even aware of the adware and root CA installation. The "spyware" only spies on modifications to the game client in any way and tries to detect non-human involvement, which of course includes inspecting the file system and RAM. In theory it could harvest irrelevant information from your hard drive or memory, but no reverse engineer has ever made such a claim to my knowledge. Valve Anti-Cheat does very similar things, but is run by what many consider to be a trustworthy company, so not that many people take issue with it. If one trusts the company that distributes the spyware, it's not really a problem, in my opinion. If Valve were to ever violate that trust, it would severely harm their business. I also strongly disagree with DRM, because it only harms other players while providing no benefits. In contrast, online cheaters can completely ruin the playing experience for online games, and have heavily contributed to the death of some games. I also have no issue if people decide to cheat when in single-player mode. If you pay for the game you should be able to do whatever you want if you're not affecting others. It's only a problem when they're playing with other people over the Internet. PunkBuster and VAC only run when you're playing in online mode.
- kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
  It's not fine because, as is the case with Superfish, this type of software leaves gaping security holes that blackhats can exploit no matter how noble the vendor is.
  - meowface 12y ago
    What security holes does PunkBuster introduce? Adware like Superfish and game client modification detection like PunkBuster are very different kinds of software. I do not support anything like Superfish.