If you’re not going to address the contents then I’m putting you on my blocklist

How will it be installed once the deal closes?

Assuming default settings, the EA App runs a background service with elevated privileges (often as TrustedInstaller on Windows), and automatic updates are enabled by default. That means:

• No user action is required for software updates, including those that install kernel-mode drivers.
• Kernel-level components can be silently updated or extended through routine game patches or EA App updates.
• Any newly introduced or modified driver (e.g., an anti-cheat update) would be signed by EA, but users are not alerted to the depth of the update unless they manually inspect it, which is virtually impossible given the encrypted/proprietary nature of the codebase.

So, once the acquisition closes, any architectural changes to anti-cheat or telemetry mechanisms can be deployed silently as part of routine patching cycles. This does not require a new game release or user intervention.

Has it already been installed?

This is a fair assumption under standard security threat modeling practices.

• EA has already shipped kernel-level drivers (e.g., EAAntiCheat.sys) since 2023, and these are typically installed alongside online multiplayer titles such as EA Sports FC and Battlefield 2042.
• These drivers run with the highest system-level privileges, and the EA App has full access to update them.
• The compiled binaries are not open-source, not auditable, and may include encrypted segments or obfuscated logic, meaning users and third parties have no reliable way to verify what the software is actually doing.

Security best practices assume that any installed kernel-level driver is capable of full system access, including:

• Reading any file or memory region
• Installing persistence mechanisms
• Monitoring user input
• Communicating externally, including via encrypted channels

So yes, if you’ve installed a modern EA game, the capability is already there. The only real change under a new ownership model is intent.

Could this be a concern if the acquirer wasn’t Saudi Arabia’s PIF?

The kernel-level threat model doesn’t change based on ownership, the capabilities remain the same. But the motivations and likely use cases absolutely do.

It is a factual and well-documented reality that Saudi Arabia is:

• An authoritarian regime with little tolerance for dissent
• Known for surveillance and digital repression (including use of spyware such as Pegasus)
• Responsible for state violence, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
• Building a significant intelligence and cyber operations apparatus under the guise of technological investment

In that context, PIF’s ownership of a widely installed, privileged software platform, with millions of endpoints and baked-in telemetry infrastructure, is not just theoretical risk, it’s an active national security concern.

It’s reasonable to assume that whatever institutional restraint EA may have had about using anti-cheat for more than gameplay integrity may now be loosened, or removed entirely.

Does this apply to all EA games? Is it properly disclosed?

EA claims that kernel-level anti-cheat is used “selectively”, primarily in high-profile online multiplayer titles. However:

• There is no centralized or transparent disclosure list showing which games install kernel drivers.
• The EA App and installers do not consistently warn users at install time that a kernel-level driver will be added to their system.
• Detection is only possible after installation, by manually inspecting the installed drivers or using tools like Autoruns, Process Hacker, or Sigcheck.

So while it’s technically true that not all EA games use kernel anti-cheat, the lack of disclosure and difficulty in verifying makes it functionally impossible for the average user to know which games are safe, especially given the bundled update system that can install new software silently at any time.

Games purchased outside the EA App (e.g., on Steam or Epic) often still require the EA launcher to run, meaning kernel drivers can still be deployed through those channels.

How do you play Battlefield 1 on TAILS ?

This is like when legislatures where made to ban plastic straws by the oil and plastic companies.
They knew the backlash would teach legislature to stop meddling in their affairs.

Obviously intelligence agencies are going to be all up in VPN’s juicy businesses. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all actually run by them and below cost so that nobody who would do it for real and not sell them access could actually be profitable.

Instances should be rooted in the dark web, the clear net is quickly becoming the domain of the stupid and parasites (lawyers and statists)

I have long expelled your kind from my life, want to see a magick trick ? POOF, you’re gone

I’m sorry you hit all the branches on your way falling down the brutish moron tree

Pretty sweet then, I was dreading that each “defederation crisis” meant, a separate network was created, making my dream of a self-hosted instance increasingly impracticable

Just Asking Questions in Normal Good Order, Fairly and Fully.

Telling moi to shut up is most illadvised friend, you best become more polite or you will remember the taste of soap in your mouth for a long time.

I am sorry you were raised on anti-human depraved morality that believe sight of the human body is indecent and to touch yourself with lust is sinful. But most healthy people in the world have an healthy relationship with pornography and do not to see children being butchered to squirt their jollies.

I agree most porn in existence is boorish slopsploitation that make me more flaccid than a worm. I yearn to see the copulating artists filming themselves as the centerpiece or erotic creation completely abstracted from the corrupt, mundance and pedestrian influence money and other forms of the grotesque consoomtion machine.

So there’s a different lemmyverse with all the porn on it ? Does it have a name ? Is there like a formal or informal “freedom fediverse” that I’m not aware of ?

I don’t mind seeing some shit, I resent being coddled far more than the occasional boob or nastiness of the world

Also, isn’t defederation kind of an extreme response ? Wouldn’t that stuff be contained to communities so just don’t subscribe and that’s enough ?

I mean, I rather hang out with the cool kids who smoke weed and listen to music that sounds like lawn mower

I can easily open 100 tabs in a minute, for instance, from a list of search result, pickup up promising leads, then flipping through them, I bound the next tab/previous tab actions to my 4th and 5th mouse buttons and if I press both together, it closes the current tab so I can move through them faster. I also select large groups of tabs to make a new window out of it. The moment this issue arises is when I pick one tab out of somewhere and put it in a particular place a particular order in the list of tabs, if you didn’t put it exactly in the gap between two tabs and hesitate for 240ms, then it would autogroup it, often without realizing what had happenned.

It’s more than 2000 some particularly busy days, no I don’t read them all thoroughly, just at a glance I can often tell if it contains what I’m searching for. I wish there where better ways to search all that crap locally, locally save all the tab contents without having to do any more clicks than I already do.

I handle thousands of tabs per day, the other suggestions have resolved it, the 240ms delay is just a tiny bit too short that the function gets triggered occasionally.

Thanks ! browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled=false works! group tabs still work, but auto-grouping no longer works

Yes, it is dangerous even the reflections off the camera could be dangerous. This requires the same awareness of others as handling a laser cleaner.
Here is an article about using a pulse laser to blind a camera sensor
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2024.1345859/full

electronics and industrial supply places, you can rip it off a diode based laser cutter but they’re very chonk, if you’re handy, you’d get just the diodes, lens and then make your own PCB with powersupply. You need adjustable because the light has to be in focus at the distance between you and the camera or else it will be to diffuse to disable the sensor, both too short and too far. You don’t really need a galvo head in this case just mount the pcb on something that can randomnly vibrate the laser in a small radius at the effective distance. You won’t be able to hit the camera sensor steady, you need to paint over it randomnly, with the right focus it will work even on rare occasionnal hits since those sensor are very sensitive to laser light

Handheld scanning infrared laser, 5 to 50 watts Basically laser-clean the sensor out of existence

Well, would it work if we get a few 1$ a month VPS and run mediacms on them ? each one could probably house a couple hundred videos and they have about the capacity to serve, maybe 100 users on gigabit internet with 4TB a month traffic allowance. That’s still a lot of serving video for not a lot of money.

Wow thanks, I was looking exactly for that ! I have youtube music subscription actually but I just don’t want any of google’s shit on my phone