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Call of Duty: Warzone players have had enough of cheaters and can’t protest kernel-level anti-cheating
The new “Call of Duty: Warzone” anti-cheat system called Ricochet will include a kernel-mode driver that enables Activision to access any memory location on your PC. Reddit users t_hugs3 When they say that this power of Activision is “inappropriate”, it seems to represent a lot of war zone players-they have been killed by so many cheaters that they can “honestly be in this view.”
“I play Call of Duty to relax, not to be fooled by a kid who spent $30 on a targeting robot…” wrote Another user. “If the kernel-level driver prevents this, then do it.”
Riot Games may hope to achieve similar effects to its Vanguard anti-cheat system, which also uses kernel-mode drivers. When Vanguard was announced as FPS Valorant’s mandatory anti-cheat software in 2020, the words did not give it too much slack. Many people think this is an intrusive and dangerous cross-border, some people think it heralds what is about to happen-we are now seeing the widespread use of kernel-mode drivers. Since then, Genshin Impact and Doom Eternal have had their own kernel disputes.
Why are kernel-mode drivers controversial
When Riot announced Vanguard in 2020, the use of kernel-mode drivers in anti-cheat systems was nothing new. Easy Anti-Cheat also uses a kernel-mode driver, just to give an example, but Vanguard caused the first major controversy on this issue. Part of the reason is that Riot made public its use of kernel-mode drivers, introducing a concept that is hard not to attract attention to many players.
Ordinary user mode software is isolated from the rest of the PC and cannot directly send instructions to the CPU, nor can it interfere with the memory used by Windows and other software. On the other hand, kernel-mode drivers can do whatever they want.
Most importantly, Riot made it clear that Vanguard’s kernel-mode driver is started with Windows to ensure that cheaters cannot start and hide themselves before it, giving it the rather sinister characteristic of an all-seeing eye that never blinks. . This also doesn’t help. In the early days, Vanguard was known for interfering with non-cheat software that it considered unsafe, such as certain CPU temperature monitors.
Anti-China sentiment also played a role in fueling the flames. Riot is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which also owns some shares in Activision Blizzard and Epic Games. The theory of the new Cold War spy is mixed with the topic of daily PC security issues. Riot stated that Vanguard drivers “will not collect or send any information.” In any case, it does not need a kernel-mode driver to do this, but this has not prevented the publication of Internet posters.
Riot added a taskbar icon to make it easier to exit or uninstall Vanguard, but insisted on its own position, saying that it must cheat with cheaters on its own territory. Many people eventually accepted the deal, and although Valorant is not completely without cheaters due to its aggressive anti-cheating strategy-no popular competitive game is-but it is certainly not plagued by cheaters like Call of Duty: Warzone.
Reception to Ricochet
Activision’s current advantage is that it can take a path that was cleaned up by Riot. Players have become accustomed to the idea that a kernel-mode driver means more effective anti-cheating, which helps Activision say that Ricochet will only run when running the Call of Duty game. In fact, it may not make much difference in security, but it sounds better.
And “Call of Duty: Warzone” players are so tired of cheaters that if it means fewer hackers, some of them might let Activision use their PCs to perform Satan’s summoning rituals.Although there are still voices opponents of kernel mode anti-cheating-one Top Comments Say Activision “no business messing up the core”-I don’t see any offensive signs from the theater player base.The only thing related to bounce I can find the petition on Change.org Ask Valve to announce a sequel to the game “Ricochet”.
A complex issue involves a community of artists who use Call of Duty assets to produce custom 3D renderings and videos. Ricochet may interfere with their use of the name Greyhound. Ashley Wise, who is responsible for dealing with the influencers of Call of Duty, Said she is investigating these issues, But currently cannot guarantee anything in one way or another.
I know the concerns of the 3D artist community about RICOCHET ♥️ Love our artists and editors, study it in depthOctober 13, 2021
Otherwise, if “Call of Duty” players are involved, the biggest question is how effective Ricochet works. Just because it contains a kernel-level driver does not mean that software cheats will not get it, there are other cheating methods, such as using hardware controller emulators like Cronus Zen, which can be programmed to provide players with the advantage of automatic input .
Like Riot’s Vanguard, Ricochet is more than just its kernel-mode driver. Activision calls it “multi-faceted” and says it is still using “new server-side tools for monitoring and analysis.” This may be a way to detect non-human input, but like 3D rendering artists, capture controller simulation may affect non-cheaters in unexpected ways, so this is also a concern.
Ricochet’s anti-cheat kernel driver will first enter the “Call of Duty: War Zone” and release its new Pacific Map sometime in the next few months. It will also appear in Call of Duty: Vanguard sometime after its release on November 5. (The next Call of Duty has the same name as Riot’s anti-cheat system, which makes things very confusing.)