this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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[–] WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de 94 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Does this mean league of legends is a weapon

[–] Gloria@sh.itjust.works 55 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Weapon of Mass Distraction.

[–] WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 6 months ago

Psychological Warfare for sure

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 38 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

I mean it installs a rootkit on your computer that gives them full control over everything including what you type, hear, and see as well as the ability to record what you've previously typed and said. It could at any moment also fully disable your computer (as well as millions of other computers) rendering them useless.

Just because they haven't used it that way, don't assume they can't or won't.

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[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, there's always been speculation that Vanguard is spyware. There's absolutely no need or justification for always-on cheat detection.

[–] zewm@lemmy.world 39 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What speculation? It’s literally spyware. You are giving it full low level access to your processor.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Don't get me wrong, Vanguard is BS, and I quit playing riot games because of it. However, simply having low level access isn't sufficient to classify it as spyware, otherwise drivers would be spyware. I still haven't seen any evidence that it currently does anything nefarious with that access, which means it's quite unlikely it's being used for mass surveillance.

To me, there are 2 problems: 1) It could be used for targeted attacks, and the likelihood anyone would find out is much lower than in a widespread surveillance scenario. 2) It could be used to deploy a massive bot-net.

I think the US reclassification here is precautionary in nature.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. I avoid kernel-level anti-cheat not because of any known spying they do (and honestly, anything w/ user-level privileges can read all your personal data), but that they add yet another attack vector for a bad actor. I highly doubt Vanguard gets as much security scrutiny as drivers, for example.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yep, agreed. It's the potential for exploitation that's the main issue.

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[–] RagnarokOnline@programming.dev 4 points 6 months ago

Chemical weapon, maybe.

[–] CaptKoala@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 months ago

A weapon against sanity, yes.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 49 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Gosh I feel like I've heard Tencent has a stake in some other company that isn't mentioned here yet.

what was it . . . hmmmmm

[–] OCATMBBL@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm really not sure which one you mean, because they own interest in a ton of companies.

[–] WhoLooksHere@lemmy.world 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tik Tok is what they're referring to

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 45 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] WhoLooksHere@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tik Tok is the only tencent company I know if that's been labeled a national security risk.

[–] Joeffect@lemmy.world 38 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

They also have a stake in all these companies...

Legaue of legends

Epic games

Ubisoft

From soft

Activision blizzard

WeChat

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Funcom (Conan games and an upcoming Dune game) and Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) as well.

[–] zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 months ago

Wtf they own 100% shares of GGG? https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/1887410/shareholdings

Well idk about supporting POE2 now. Or should I not care?

[–] Dlayknee@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Activision Blizzard

I think the MSFT buyout eliminated their stake in ABK?

Fromsoft is unfortunate, but I honestly don't use any of the rest.

[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I believe discord is also owned by tencent

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Tencent likely has a sizeable stake, but is unlikely to hold a majority stake of Discord.

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[–] Bronzebeard@lemm.ee 42 points 6 months ago (6 children)

They gonna force a sale of League of Legends now?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 18 points 6 months ago

Do Fortnite next.

[–] AngryRobot@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tencent owns 11% of Reddit...

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[–] Freefall@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago (43 children)

We have a puppet coming into the presidency. China will have all the inroads to our government they care to pay for. Tencent and Co. will be a non-issue.

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A US social media giant owns the president. I don't think there going to allow the competition. Muskrat and Fuckerburg have a lot more sway and money.

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[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why is the list not just every Chinese company? do they not know how state capitalism works?

[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Yeah they do. Fascism is state capitalism. They plan to replicate China.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Calling Tencent a "web and gaming giant" is really deceiving here.

It's one of the biggest tech conglomerates in the world. Tencent invest into literally everything: games, social networks, entertainments, cloud computing, finance, AI, other investments... Tencent owns WeChat, Tencent Cloud, Tencent Healthcare just to name a few and helps CCP with surveilance and censorship through these ownings (tbf they don't really have a choice, they're based in China)

100% they are involved in military too so this classification is very much justified.

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[–] Viri4thus@feddit.org 21 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Can't win capitalism? Fret not, everything is national security and we can throw the rules of capitalism out the window :)

And then the west is surprised at the confused look of the global south when Ursula and Biden mention "Rules based order"...

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 36 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I mean it's not like China was open and allowed competition from western companies.

[–] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

But it us kind of insulting when America did incredible violence to the global south to get them to open their markets only throw it all out the window.

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[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

China is state capitalism. Capitalism isn't losing. The West is losing because China is using state funds to buy up successful Western companies, and as their new owner, has the ability to force them to do China's bidding.

Meanwhile the West is completely barred from buying a majority stake in any successful Chinese company and even if it could would not be taking it over on behalf of serving the state.

The problem is China plays by its own rules and those rules are heavily stacked against every other nation. That was fine when they were making junk for Walmart; it's not so fine when it's highly sophisticated electronics and software (that can do whatever China wants it to in the West) ... and to add insult to injury it's often based on stolen Western technology (since us idiots decided to put the factories that manufacturer the designs there).

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

That's horrible. I should Google for more information so I can avoid using companies involved with the military.

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