25 may patch added spyware again and EU regulations

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

OK, look:

1. As if Microsoft or GOOGLE didn't already know everything about you and your life and your mom's life and your dad's life and your entire family's lives.
2. As if players weren't typing full credit card information in through arenanet servers already.
3. As if anyone cared about "the interesting picture/video files" on you're computer.
4. As if when hunting for interesting picture/video files on various sites, you weren't already jumping nose deep into dangerous virus/spyware/malware/trojan territory to begin with. Which mind you, are REAL threats to your privacy.
5. As if every website that you ever went to, or every app that you own, didn't already set various cookies and other mechanisms to completely track everything that you do on the internet.

Arenanet has the courtesy to let you know it's happening. Appreciate it.

I mean don't get me wrong, I hate the idea of "invasion of privacy" just as much as anyone else, but it's real and it's happening. Upon this, if you had ever taken any serious participation upon such a debate, you'd really ask yourselves: "Where should the line be drawn between my privacy and a company's responsibility?" Great examples of this are Microsoft & Macintosh of course. Have you ever really thought about the power these companies possess to be able to identify and report criminal behavior? How responsible are they for their hardware, software and all of it's capabilities? Do you really think it is safe for human beings to NOT have their activity tracked while using the full capabilities of internet technology? I am not referencing only macro level instances such as the Wikipedia scam but also more casual instances such as cheating getting out of control and ruining a game franchise <- This is no good for the company or the players who love to play the game. Where and at what point does an individual person's privacy end and a company's responsibility begin?

Just to put things into perspective here.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Rufo.3716" said:I'm all for getting rid of cheaters but installing software to look at what programs are running on said computer isn't the way of doing it.

That is one of the many ways commercial solutions used by other games do that. Blizzard do that. Riot do that. The various popular shooters do that. Most random MMOs do it. In fact, since it is one of the simpler ways to detect people cheating, and works to catch many people.

It is also not, y'know, mandatory that it be the exclusive way this happens. ANet can use this, and they can apply other methods such as detecting impossible movement, simultaneously!

(Not that we have anything even remotely resembling proof that this has actually been done, of course. OP too busy to demonstrate anything like that...)

Kinda tired of reading "everyone does this so it's okay". No, it's not. But gaming industry is already used to exploiting their position for many years now.

Unninstal the game if you're uncomfortable with it.Btw. if you're using Chrome, Google is gathering as much if not more data than Arena Net, if you have a smartphone, boy... I'm sure you don't have a facebook, twitter or any other social media account and post nothing on it.Anti-cheat software is the most efficient and effective way to deal with hackers and cheats. And it's probably the only one that can do live, automated tracking. All other "security experts" solutions will probably be some sort of "spyware" as you call it.If you play

ANY

online game you'll have that running on your computer.To be honest i'd much rather have a proprietary anti-cheat (which is what Arena Net is apparently running) than other anti-cheat programs that will invariably try to run 24/7 on your computer.

As a customer with paid account I can voice my opinion about ArenaNet actions. I'm not offensive, I'm not rude, I state that I am not fan of their actions regarding collecting data from PC. And I will not stop doing so, whether you like it or not. Thanks for advices but I have my own decision making making mechanics and I never asked you for advice on the matter.

[Yannir.4132]

Why is this thread in the PvP Forum anyway?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Yannir.4132 said:Why is this thread in the PvP Forum anyway?

I assume it is because only pvpers are bothered by cheating.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Rufo.3716 said:I'm all for getting rid of cheaters but installing software to look at what programs are running on said computer isn't the way of doing it.

And your better solution is...?

Double-checking client sided calculations from time to time. You only need to check less than 0.01% of all calculations to filter out hackers within seconds.For example when the client announces its damage to the server, the server uses the player's stats and the same rng-seed to see if the result is correct. --> no more one-shot hacksThe server measures the time between skill activations --> no more 0-cast-time hacksThe server checks the player's health before and after receiving a hit --> no more invincibility hacksBasically you simulate the client and compare it to the actual client.

Invisible walls, gear inspection and similar hacks that only deliver information but don't alter client behaviour are harder to detect. On the other hand they're less important since they don't give that big of an advantage.

[Vayne.8563]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Rufo.3716" said:I'm all for getting rid of cheaters but installing software to look at what programs are running on said computer isn't the way of doing it.

That is one of the many ways commercial solutions used by other games do that. Blizzard do that. Riot do that. The various popular shooters do that. Most random MMOs do it. In fact, since it is one of the simpler ways to detect people cheating, and works to catch many people.

It is also not, y'know, mandatory that it be the exclusive way this happens. ANet can use this, and they can apply other methods such as detecting impossible movement, simultaneously!

(Not that we have anything even remotely resembling proof that this has actually been done, of course. OP too busy to demonstrate anything like that...)

Kinda tired of reading "everyone does this so it's okay". No, it's not. But gaming industry is already used to exploiting their position for many years now.

Kinda tired of having to deal with people cheating in games and getting over without actually playing. If you have a better solution, I'd sure like to hear it. I didn't buy a game to play with cheaters. I don't think cheating, exploiting or hacking is okay.

People are paid for offering security solutions, I see no reason to provide them for free for you :)

People pay for people writing software, or implementing solutions. They seldom pay for someone saying what they're going to do. No one is asking you to write a security protocol. But if you don't have a solution that's better, and I suspect you don't, then the whole conversation is pointless. Cheating needs to be dealt with, this is one way of dealing with it. As a personal preference I'd rather have this than more cheaters. Your mileage may vary.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Rufo.3716" said:I'm all for getting rid of cheaters but installing software to look at what programs are running on said computer isn't the way of doing it.

That is one of the many ways commercial solutions used by other games do that. Blizzard do that. Riot do that. The various popular shooters do that. Most random MMOs do it. In fact, since it is one of the simpler ways to detect people cheating, and works to catch many people.

It is also not, y'know, mandatory that it be the exclusive way this happens. ANet can use this, and they can apply other methods such as detecting impossible movement, simultaneously!

(Not that we have anything even remotely resembling proof that this has actually been done, of course. OP too busy to demonstrate anything like that...)

Kinda tired of reading "everyone does this so it's okay". No, it's not. But gaming industry is already used to exploiting their position for many years now.

Kinda tired of having to deal with people cheating in games and getting over without actually playing. If you have a better solution, I'd sure like to hear it. I didn't buy a game to play with cheaters. I don't think cheating, exploiting or hacking is okay.

People are paid for offering security solutions, I see no reason to provide them for free for you :)

People pay for people writing software, or implementing solutions. They seldom pay for someone saying what they're going to do. No one is asking you to write a security protocol. But if you don't have a solution that's better, and I suspect you don't, then the whole conversation is pointless. Cheating needs to be dealt with, this is one way of dealing with it. As a personal preference I'd rather have this than more cheaters. Your mileage may vary.

Designing a security solution, damn, even investigating for potential security problems without providing any solutions at all is paid service :)

[Sinful.2165]

I am not a fan of this kind of monitoring either but I like cheating and hacking even less.

Who cares what Anet sees running on your machine? If you are doing something you’re uncomfortable being monitored doing then do it on a different machine.

No one wants a plague of cheating just because a few people are uncomfortable the current methods of enforcing fair game play.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@"Sinful.2165" said:I am not a fan of this kind of monitoring either but I like cheating and hacking even less.

Who cares what Anet sees running on your machine? If you are doing something you’re uncomfortable being monitored doing then do it on a different machine.

ANet do not see what is running on your machine, or at least, they didn't last time. They gathered a cryptographic checksum of the things running, and returned that. Those are, by design, "impossible" to transform back into the input. So, the only way ANet could use them would be to have the checksum of what they were interested in already. Anything they don't know before, they don't know afterwards.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

The May 25th update was exactly as explained in the note in News and Announcement, and nothing more.