Sliv
321 posts
"Bricking someone's hardware" is a wild way to say "Vanguard enabled a standard Windows security feature that blocks unauthorized memory access."
If a player takes the shady DMA cheat card out of their motherboard, the PC boots perfectly fine. Riot didn't fry their circuits; they just put a lock on a door.
And please stop using "false positives" as a shield for people who bought literal hardware exploits. A standard gaming PC doesn't accidentally grow a Direct Memory Access card running custom spoofed firmware. If your PC got flagged by this update, you didn't accidentally download a bad patch; you spent $300 to cheat at a video game and got caught. Nice try though.
bubbles@NoLimits057
No company should be legally allowed to brick someone’s hardware. And for the people saying this could help stop cheaters — false positives exist. That means legitimate players could end up having their hardware disabled or flagged despite doing nothing wrong.
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@NayeemX1 @CatabolicState @Pirat_Nation @FBI this guy, right here. Literally self reporting to make your jobs easy.
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@CatabolicState @Pirat_Nation Kid, even if its child porn Google drive doesnt have detection system to trace and ban it. This is a fake news, because i store worst stuff than this there, more than decade passed nothing happened
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A Japanese manga artist lost his entire Google account forever after he uploaded private files from an old comic he drew to Google Drive.
Google’s AI checked the files and flagged them as not allowed. He asked Google to review it again, but they rejected his appeal and banned the account immediately.
He can no longer access years of his private drawings and lost access to many websites and services that used his Google login.
The artist said this is very embarrassing and causes him a lot of trouble. He warned that it might not happen to people who always follow every rule, but others should be careful.
So Google is scanning files that people upload to its cloud storage even if they are supposed to be private. I wonder how long they have been doing this.
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@Gigabear_X @Noxtradm Enforcing OS built in security features is not malice or outside of the law. The instability is caused by setups that are heavily customized to be able to read protected memory. It "damages" and "breaks" nothing.
A judge would laugh at this case and toss it.
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@Noxtradm You're not allowed to damage people's hardware, and Riot by all accounts is create a situation where that will happen with full knowledge.
All they have to do is ban the accounts, but instead, they make IOMMU changes to fault flood these boards to break them on purpose.
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No.
Once activated, Vanguard trojan destroys hard drive partitions and digs into the firmware of many PCIE devices, bricking them to the point you will need to manually flash them. Stop using the terminology "Cheat Card". These PCIE devices are based in security and research, they are used for debugging.
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@SpectralPoli @ManaByte They have specified this only hits people who are found cheating. And not only that, all they are doing is ENFORCING built in OS security infrastructure.
It doesn't even disable normal DMA devices.. It's only causing issues for custom setups trying to access protected memory.
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@tielborlis2 @ji00gu @Sae1521451 @ManaByte I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you on this point. How invasive Vanguard is it's own discussion.
But from a legal standpoint for this situation, they have nothing to worry about.
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@sliver22 @ji00gu @Sae1521451 @ManaByte Not yet, but the fact they can do this alone should be disturbing for all and should be heavily regulated if it isn't already
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Valorant cheaters who bought DMA devices aren’t having a good day.
Momoi Saiba Official@Peach_Fightr
Riot casually gloating that they put a malware that can brick your PC if they feel like it
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@lackofemotion_ @frantz_willian A tweet from a random social media manager making a joke about people spending money on cheating hardware that will no longer work on Riot games is a sign you should spend less time on the internet.
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@frantz_willian o tweet chamando hardware de peso de papel me dá enjôo mesmo assim
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Apesar de eu não trabalhar mais na Riot (2021 ~ 2025), adoro desmistificar os folclores que a comunidade gera em cima desse assunto em específico, então vou frisar algumas coisas aqui em cima de comentários e publicações que vi sobre este tema:
Essa atualização não vai quebrar sua máquina, na real, ela nem mexe no hardware, a Riot já utiliza mecanismos da Microsoft/Windows desde 2022, e esse é só mais um deles, a grande diferença é que agora o Vanguard irá invalidar acesso desses dispositivos maliciosos direto no sistema operacional, através do mecanismo do IOMMU.
Outro ponto muito importante, isso é um dos sistemas de ultimo recurso da Riot, e como diz o bom ditado, não vale a pena usar uma bazuca pra matar uma formiga, então eu diria de forma otimista que 95% das contas do Valorant nunca sequer chegarão perto de ativar esse sistema, pois ele demanda restrições específicas, que só são engatilhadas quando o perfil suspeito já possui histórico com cheating.
E por ultimo e mais importante ainda, percebe como eu só citei Valorant neste texto? Sim, este sistema possui o foco no Valorant, se você só joga o seu jogo de fadinha, ai mesmo que você não vai nem ver a pontinha do foguete...
Ou seja, e a sua placa de audio de procedência duvidosa vindo da China? não, ela não vai ativar um falso positivo que irá explodir seu pc, e seus dados não estão sendo vendidos no mercado negro!
Mais Esports@maisesportsbr
🚨 Riot atualiza o Vanguard para combater hardwares de cheats DMA avançados, podendo danificar dispositivos. Segundo relatos, a nova atualização do anti-cheat da Riot danifica o firmware de dispositivos utilizados nesse tipo de trapaça ao detectá-los. Os aparelhos podem ser reparados, mas a prática levantou discussões. A atualização mira hardwares com firmware SATA e NVMe modificados, usados para ler a memória do jogo e burlar sistemas anti-cheat tradicionais. A Riot também teria trabalhado com fabricantes como ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte e ASRock para corrigir vulnerabilidades relacionadas ao acesso DMA.
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@tielborlis2 @ji00gu @Sae1521451 @ManaByte I don't like Vanguard either, but I think you are just making things up based on random x posts without actually understanding how any of this works. Riot is enforcing already built in OS security infrastructure.
They aren't hitting machines with custom malicious changes.
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@ji00gu @Sae1521451 @ManaByte It literally locks them out of windows, they have to reinstall it to fix it
Personally I think its fairly deserved shouldn't be cheating, but a company can't get away with damaging hardware because they felt it was necessary
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@MadScientist_42 @GamersPrey @riotgames I'm pretty confused on how this has anything to do with bonuses for Department of Defense personnel
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@GamersPrey @riotgames No. And you're defending FELONS. This violates 10 USC 1030.
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Well, that escalated quickly.
There’s been a wave of claims by cheaters about Vanguard “bricking” their PCs, so let’s clear that up: Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices.
The photo we posted is a picture of cheat hardware devices that are sold explicitly for cheating in VALORANT (not normal PCs or PC components). Through our latest updates, Vanguard now makes those devices worthless for VAL, but does not in any way brick PCs or PC components or PC software.
Our latest update enforces standard platform security features, like the Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU), on accounts identified as using Direct Memory Access (DMA) cheating devices. These protections are already part of modern systems and when enabled, they block DMA cheat devices (such as those shown in the photo) from accessing memory in downstream applications, like our games.
If a cheat setup continues attempting to cheat after those protections are enabled, the system may generate hardware faults or instability. This is expected behavior under IOMMU when attempts are made to read protected memory.
Disabling IOMMU allows the cheat device to function again, but IOMMU will still be required to play our games. This means the cheat device won’t work with our games, but your PC isn’t “bricked.” We would not, and cannot, impact your PC’s functionality in any other fashion.
This functionality only applies to systems attempting to use DMA cheat devices, and players who are not using DMA-based cheat setups are not affected.
We’ll keep investing in anti-cheat to protect competitive integrity, and we’ll keep being as transparent as possible about how those systems work.
Riot Games@riotgames
congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight
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@HipnoAmadeus0 @ZombieHedgehog_ @QueenieandBlue I love how everyone claiming they use em dashes all the time for some reason never used them before llm's started becoming readily available.
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@ZombieHedgehog_ @QueenieandBlue Em dashes are the GOAT stop shitting on it as AI it's just proper writing
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@empyriangaming And that one prompt drained all of your daily tokens Sadge
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@TexasFanVY10 @not__vee @IMAO_ "Know your history"
Bro, I don't care what side of the argument you are on, either way this comment makes you sound like a moron.
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Interestingly, Xena Warrior Princess had a black Helen of Troy thirty years ago, but race wasn’t a big deal back in the 90s.
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@IggyLux @veggie_eric They aren't, they are just pretending to seem like they are intelligent or to have an excuse for being called out on something they wrote recently with AI.
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@veggie_eric There's a difference between - and — (em dash) I see a lot of confusion constantly.
In the US em dash is not common on like any device unless it automatically does it with two dashes (--)
So unless ya'll are typing the keycode Alt + 0151 on PC, why are ya'll using it if not ai?
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genuinely hate that I can no longer use "—" in anything I write anymore
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@ndao471 @KobeissiLetter CEO's can all be replaced, this makes no sense.
China's leadership is very intelligent whether you agree with their government or not. They don't want a World War just as much as the rest of the world doesn't, their government isn't being ran by social media retards.
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@KobeissiLetter What would happen if President Xi decides to arrest them all.
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This is absolutely insane.
President Trump is currently flying to China with all of the following people to request "deals" with China's President Xi:
1. Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO
2. Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO
3. Tim Cook, Apple CEO
4. Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
5. Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone CEO
6. Kelly Ortberg, Boeing CEO
7. Brian Sikes, Cargill CEO
8. Jane Fraser, Citigroup CEO
9. Larry Culp, General Electric CEO
10. David Solomon, Goldman Sachs CEO
11. Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron CEO
12. Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm CEO
President Trump also says there are "many other" CEOs joining him on the trip who have not yet been disclosed.
Never in history has such a trip even remotely near this scale and caliber occurred.
This Trump-Xi meeting is far bigger than most realize.
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@NoWokesThanks @verbalriotshow @SandfallGames If you think E33 was woke then you are the reason why these companies don't take our voices seriously and we end up with morons like Sarkeesian.
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@verbalriotshow @SandfallGames Game was woke.
Female empowerement, sensible men who show they fragile side, DEI black people in the inspiration of France of Belle Epoque, forced too in many starting cutscenes, funded by ultra woke pushing national french CNC (director made the queer opening of Olympics).
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Hey ya'll at @SandfallGames...
We loved Expedition 33 and we supported you because the game was fun and well written. But If you let this snake anywhere near the next game you will lose all the good will you built as well as a shit-ton of money. She's a poison pill for games.
Fandom Pulse@fandompulse
Anita Sarkeesian posts herself with the Expedition 33 dev team: "Went to GDC like I do every year. Didn't take many photos like every year, but here's some proof of life." "2. Met a bunch of Clare Obscur folks..." Was this game a woke plant all along?
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@YorchTorchGames @fandompulse Saying they sealed their fate for taking a picture with someone at the game awards that they might not even be familiar with is a brain dead take
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@fandompulse Mega Crit and Sandfall Interactive sealed their fate.
Associating themselves with feminist activists is poison.
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Anita Sarkeesian posts herself with the Expedition 33 dev team:
"Went to GDC like I do every year. Didn't take many photos like every year, but here's some proof of life."
"2. Met a bunch of Clare Obscur folks..."
Was this game a woke plant all along?
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@JosephJacks_ @clkbsfth lmao this guy expects us to take him seriously... Good lord I didn't even care that it was obviously written by an llm, but not admitting it and expecting people to believe you is just comical.
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PREDICTION:
Anthropic will surpass Alphabet in revenue by mid-2028.
This is not a bull case or an acceleration scenario — it is a continuation of the curve already in evidence.
Anthropic’s ARR went from $1B (Jan 2025) to $9B (Dec 2025) to $30B (Apr 2026) — a 3.3x step in a single four-month window, and the curve has been steepening, not flattening.
My projection actually assumes deceleration from here: $100B by end of 2026, $340B in 2027, $850B in 2028, $1.4T in 2029, $2T by 2030.
Crossover with Alphabet happens at ~$575B in mid-2028, not because Anthropic accelerates beyond today’s pace, but because Alphabet — locked at ~15% YoY in a mature ads-and-cloud business — cannot match enterprise AI’s adoption physics.
As @rodriscoll intelligently observed recently, Gemini tokens served grew by only 60% in the last quarter … while Anthropic grew by 10X.
Three drivers make the continuation structural, not speculative: customers spending >$1M/year with Anthropic doubled from 500 to 1,000 in under two months post-Series G (these are multi-year expanding contracts with near-zero churn — switching a deployed agent stack mid-flight is operationally untenable);
Claude Code is the wedge, not the product, dragging the rest of the platform — agents, MCP,
healthcare, biotech — into every Fortune 2000 deployment as an attach point;
and compute supply is finally non-binding with the 3.5GW Google + Broadcom deal (2027+), this weeks SpaceX partnership, and 1GW of standing Google capacity for 2026.
For most of 2024–2025 the bottleneck was supply, not demand. That constraint is releasing exactly when the demand curve is steepest.
The standard objection — “no company has ever sustained this at scale” — applies a software-era frame to a labor-era business.
AWS, Azure, and Meta decelerated at $50–100B because they sold tools to the economy.
Anthropic is selling cognitive capacity into the economy.
The TAM isn’t enterprise software ($800B). It’s labor ($50T+).
When the denominator is two orders of magnitude larger, “deceleration at $100B ARR” stops being a law and starts being an assumption.
The crossover isn’t a maybe. It’s a function of timing. Mid-2028 is when I think Anthropic surpasses Google.
JJ@JosephJacks_
Anthropic will have a higher valuation than Alphabet in < 18 months.
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