[CONCERN] Activision is very creepy, potential botnet and webcam stalking

[Froze]

Want to share an interesting video which alleges various creepy things Activision might have done. I actually uninstalled the game after this and i feel like more people should be aware at the very least.

This video is mostly evidence based speculation with no real confirmation from Activision...but you be the judge on whether or not the evidence used is good enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAe6cGN1o5w

These are some quotes from the video creator.

1. 3:55 "Call of Duty is using files in your computer designed to access your camera's video feed-"

2. 4:01 "Call of Duty, immediately on startup has direct access to your camera despite the game and anti cheat not at all requiring camera access"

3. 4:48 "This software is capable of using your camera to read and analyze your emotions"

4. 5:26 "Activision has designed a system that does a few things by reading the emotional state of a player using visuals-"

5. 6:10 "So activision has created methods and systems that read player emotions in order to drive palyer transactions and rig matchmaking"

6. 6:28 "So the game has unrestricted camera access, can see your face and hear your voice without you giving them permission to see your face or hear your voice outside of voice chat--unless somewhere in the ToS there's a loophole that we signed up to-"

7. 6:44 "So CoD has camera access as soon as the game starts up and Activision has patents that suggest that a camera can be used in-game to measure your engagement levels and do whatever else it has to do"

8. 8:35 (after reading an explanation in the patent) "This is essentially what is called a botnet which is a computer virus, which is a felony"

9. 9:14 "This patent seems like they simply patented a botnet"

10. 10:00 "The game doesnt close properly, it has processes that stay open once you quit"

11. 10:23 "They're using your computer, yes, yours to train NPC AI players on the side while you're not even in the game"

12. 10:50 "It networks a bunch of computers that have cod installed together, then uses that processing power to run simulations with these NPC bots so that they can learn how to appear more indistinguishable from human beings."

13. 11:01 "They're using the processing power of your computer and your console without you knowing to train their own NPC bots to further perpetuate the manipulative nature of the game"

14. 11:30 "So that means when you're playing, some kind of software within CoD, is requesting to have access to the actual video feed of your monitor"

[dexter]

So this guy is saying that everyone should stop playing COD because it botnets and accesses everything on your computer and scans your face but he is still playing and uploading content on it.

Why would you believe him when he doesn't even believe his own words.

[dexter]

You are being grifted just enjoy the game if you are having fun and stop watching these weirdo youtubers

[Knight]

EU lawsuit. Investigation.

[Froze]

Originally posted by dexter:

So this guy is saying that everyone should stop playing COD because it botnets and accesses everything on your computer and scans your face but he is still playing and uploading content on it.

Why would you believe him when he doesn't even believe his own words.

I wouldn't believe him if he didn't show patents. On the topic of a hypocrite, if that hypocrite is telling the truth i'll still believe it. When a smoker says to not smoke, i'll do just that.

When a smoker tells me the negative health effects of smoking, i'd completely agree and if that means i'm being grifted? well grift me more! such a meaningless word.

[dexter]

Originally posted by Froze:

Originally posted by dexter:

So this guy is saying that everyone should stop playing COD because it botnets and accesses everything on your computer and scans your face but he is still playing and uploading content on it.

Why would you believe him when he doesn't even believe his own words.

I wouldn't believe him if he didn't show patents. On the topic of a hypocrite, if that hypocrite is telling the truth i'll still believe it. When a smoker says to not smoke, i'll do just that.

When a smoker tells me the negative health effects of smoking, i'd completely agree and if that means i'm being grifted? well grift me more! such a meaningless word.

Patents don't mean a lot though. Activision has over 1000 patents. Patents are just the rights to an idea, not the intent on using it. Most companies patent things so that other companies can't use that idea, or if they want/need to, they would have to pay you(the patent holder) to use it. Patents are a whole business of their own and they don't mean the business use them(or intent to).

The patent has to mention(and it does, but he seems to completely ignore it) what situation it will be used in. In this case it mentions that it would be used to scan a users face and then display it as an avatar on the GUI. That's it. They also don't need a patent to do anything so idk why it matters. They could literally be spying on you and logging everything your PC does but if someone else holds the patent for the method they are doing it in, all they would have to do is pay the patent holder and they could do it. Patents don't mean anything.

He also talks about how the new cod has so many DLLs. Well yea.
1. It's much larger than older(simpler games), so it requires more code. Making their own code is more work so they use others' code.
2. The game is integrated into COD HQ, which holds a ton of different games so they all have their own DLLs that they need.
3. He seems to imply that fewer DLLs is better. Which is just wrong. A big issue that call of duty has is it's file size. Now imagine if they didn't use any DLLs. They'd have to remake so much code. This would require WAY MORE time and WAY MORE money to create a game and take up more size as the game gets more bloated and complex and would be way too hard to maintain a yearly release schedule. I mean the guy literally called ntdll.dll "suspicious". Almost every game you play will use ntdll.dll.

Also a large point of this video is that the game accesses your camera because of NvCamera64.dll. He says that it is a dll that gives you access to your camera. This is a bold faced lie. NvCamera64.dll is a dll used in Nvidia's Ansel utility, which is basically a picture mode thing that lets you take pictures and apply filters in real time while moving in a free camera. Tons of other games use this dll file. It has nothing to do with a camera on your computer. Just an in game photo mode.

[Froze]

Originally posted by dexter:

Originally posted by Froze:

I wouldn't believe him if he didn't show patents. On the topic of a hypocrite, if that hypocrite is telling the truth i'll still believe it. When a smoker says to not smoke, i'll do just that.

When a smoker tells me the negative health effects of smoking, i'd completely agree and if that means i'm being grifted? well grift me more! such a meaningless word.

Patents don't mean a lot though. Activision has over 1000 patents. Patents are just the rights to an idea, not the intent on using it. Most companies patent things so that other companies can't use that idea, or if they want/need to, they would have to pay you(the patent holder) to use it. Patents are a whole business of their own and they don't mean the business use them(or intent to).

The patent has to mention(and it does, but he seems to completely ignore it) what situation it will be used in. In this case it mentions that it would be used to scan a users face and then display it as an avatar on the GUI. That's it. They also don't need a patent to do anything so idk why it matters. They could literally be spying on you and logging everything your PC does but if someone else holds the patent for the method they are doing it in, all they would have to do is pay the patent holder and they could do it. Patents don't mean anything.

He also talks about how the new cod has so many DLLs. Well yea.
1. It's much larger than older(simpler games), so it requires more code. Making their own code is more work so they use others' code.
2. The game is integrated into COD HQ, which holds a ton of different games so they all have their own DLLs that they need.
3. He seems to imply that fewer DLLs is better. Which is just wrong. A big issue that call of duty has is it's file size. Now imagine if they didn't use any DLLs. They'd have to remake so much code. This would require WAY MORE time and WAY MORE money to create a game and take up more size as the game gets more bloated and complex and would be way too hard to maintain a yearly release schedule. I mean the guy literally called ntdll.dll "suspicious". Almost every game you play will use ntdll.dll.

Also a large point of this video is that the game accesses your camera because of NvCamera64.dll. He says that it is a dll that gives you access to your camera. This is a bold faced lie. NvCamera64.dll is a dll used in Nvidia's Ansel utility, which is basically a picture mode thing that lets you take pictures and apply filters in real time while moving in a free camera. Tons of other games use this dll file. It has nothing to do with a camera on your computer. Just an in game photo mode.

I mean about the patent thing, a creepy patent still makes the creator also creepy. No matter whether or not it's actually implemented, it shows how the creator has these ideas to manipulate people, showing how creepy they are, in this case Activision. And just the idea of someone scanning your face when video gaming should put you off no? unless you're desensitized to privacy concerns. This paragraph of yours ending with "Patents don't mean anything" really comes across as you coping and not wanting it to affect players negatively just because you like to play cod.

For the DLLs it's more so that Activision is misusing that DLL not that it by itself is a dangerous file.

Overall it's really hard to believe someone that genuinely says "Patents don't mean anything"...much easier to believe that this big company that has records of being evil is doing...evil things.

Also try rebutting the last point he made about running the game in the background so Activision can train their AI.

[arobro]

This is a conspiracy crank. Branch of Bush goes beyond claiming COD touches the webcam, but actually taking pictures of you before each match starts to influence the match-making.

A simple test can see if call of duty is accessing your webcam. Many webcams have hard wired led lights that are on when the webcams is in use. The light is not on. (hard wired webcams can not be hacked)

He is making a leap from COD including a dll file, to accessing your webcam without considering many other plausible explanations.

"the game doesnt close properly, it has processes that stay open once you quit". For content, the video is not talking about an edge case, but every Steam user.

I have written a script [Call of Duty - What is running] that tests if any of the COD processes remain open on your system including the anti-cheat. https://github.com/ArrowGamingCode/COD-Scripts/

COD does not run in the background. In the video, Call of Duty is shown running in Task Manager, well I tested that, and it closes when I exit COD. But what do we expect from a crazy claiming the players in multiplayer are an AI bot simulation.

[Froze]

Originally posted by arobro:

This is a conspiracy crank. Branch of Bush goes beyond claiming COD touches the webcam, but actually taking pictures of you before each match starts to influence the match-making.

A simple test can see if call of duty is accessing your webcam. Many webcams have hard wired led lights that are on when the webcams is in use. The light is not on. (hard wired webcams can not be hacked)

He is making a leap from COD including a dll file, to accessing your webcam without considering many other plausible explanations.

"the game doesnt close properly, it has processes that stay open once you quit". For content, the video is not talking about an edge case, but every Steam user.

I have written a script [Call of Duty - What is running] that tests if any of the COD processes remain open on your system including the anti-cheat. https://github.com/ArrowGamingCode/COD-Scripts/

COD does not run in the background. In the video, Call of Duty is shown running in Task Manager, well I tested that, and it closes when I exit COD. But what do we expect from a crazy claiming the players in multiplayer are an AI bot simulation.

Understandable, the background process thing is also weird for me as i dont think it happened to me in my 1100 hours of playtime spanning from MWII to BO6.

[Pure & Rustic]

haha

[Child Labor]

So are they actually accessing the camera? And was the guy correct

[arobro]

Originally posted by Child Labor:

So are they actually accessing the camera? And was the guy correct

No. This is comparable to someone telling you to drink bleach.

[Eli]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.