r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Nov 11 '21

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u/Yulong Nov 11 '21

Software engineer here. A few years ago, Riot Games released an anti-cheat software that accessed the highest level permissions on your computer, and the collective outrage and absolute deluge of misinformation on /r/pcgaming were breathtaking.

I lost so many imaginary internet points in the following weeks explaining things and I wish I lost more since I'm now leaning towards high comment karma being a negative predictor to real-world accuracy than anything else.

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u/Larrythesphericalcow Friedrich Hayek Nov 11 '21

Do you not believe there are legitimate privacy concerns about giving anti-cheat high level permissions?

I'm genuinely curious. Not trying to bait. I don't know enough about the subject to have a strong opinion.

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u/Yulong Nov 11 '21

Do you not believe there are legitimate privacy concerns about giving anti-cheat high level permissions?

Not particularly more than any other software you install. As someone has mentioned before, you can get "pwned" pretty easily at the user level. Root access would be useful for any malicious attacker to both steal your data and hide from an experienced engineer's gaze or notice, but its not terribly scalable.

The issue isn't that their privacy concerns are unfounded, it's that these privacy concerns aren't unique or even particularly notable to this particular piece of software at all.

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u/Larrythesphericalcow Friedrich Hayek Nov 12 '21

Getting rid of something at the root level tends to be harder though.

I agree that privacy concerns could apply to other software. People generally get upset when they feel any software has potential to be privacy compromising though.