Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
4 
Report this post
Well yes it does. The most important aspect - stealing your data whenever they want to works like a charm.
I guess you could protect yourself by unplugging the ethernet cable after the files get downloaded or setting the firewall to block all but steam and then uninstalling this spyware immidiately. Still, it's enough to make me not want to play this game unless the deluxe edition will get really cheap one day.
Like I said - I dont do multiplayer for games like this, so theres no reason for it to drop itself on my system. Nor does ANYTHING in the install/store page/eula ect tell you its going to get drive by downloaded and activate itself. Thats the hallmark of a trojan, a backdoor to your system that installs itself during installation of another program without warning.
Had I not happen to wander back over to the screen during Steam's 1st time set up (not even the actual game running - Ive never actually booted the game yet) and see it being installed, I wouldnt have caught it till the next time my antivirus scanned.
Case in point, it is identified as a PUP/trojan by both MBAM and Avast. Thats enough right there.
Why there isnt a huge outcry is beyond me (I think just because people dont read EULAs so arent aware of what this things actually doing - I know if I hadnt caught it, I wouldnt have noticed till my virus scan a few days later, then would have just deleted it) so Im doing my part by posting and letting people know exactly what it is.
Please let everyone you can know that its basically an attempt at a legal trojan masquerading as anti-cheat software.
im good
Thing that gets me is the (paraphrased) "by downloading punkbuster you agree that being able to play cheat-free games is more valuable than any privacy issues or damage that may arise from having punkbuster on your system" part of the EULA.
Its like "I dont give a ♥♥♥♥ that I just put a giant gaping orifice that any two bit hackster could get into on my system, I just dont want that f'in no-clipper and ability spammer to be able to cheat!"
"Um, dude. That hacker crew just ran off with everything on your drive and are taking out international loans in your name, and dropped a bunch of kiddie porn on there just for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles. And the US government was in there too. Nevermind a bunch of data miners selling your info to the highest bidder, and also those naked pics you took of your GF... "
"Yeah, but the cheeeeaaters!"
Its Idiocracy.
Very well said!
I've always said that if people want to cheat at a game... Let them! Especially single player games. Hell most games hould come with cheat codes already in them like Saints Row or the like.
Some people like using trainers or cheatcodes in games just to have fun, especially in an open world game like GTA or Just Cause or such. Not everyone is looking for a "Bro-Challenge" in everything.
And if they cheat on a multiplayer game then put them on a server that caters just to the cheaters so they can all cheat with eachother. Problem solved without any extra spyware or uplay or origin or any of those other malware providers.
I'm just damn tired of being forced to install back-door malware AFTER I have already paid for a game, and for a part of the game I will never use "multiplayer". (you don't agree to the EULA untill you install the game, and most of it is insanely difficult to understand for the 99% of gamers that are not lawyers.)
The saddest part is I have yet to see any of these punkbusters, securoms, anti-cheat programs actually stop the cheaters....
So what is the point in the first place?
That is like companies that think saddling legal owners of their games with "anti-piracy" crap that makes legal copies unplayable to the point that the pirated version works better, is some how a good idea (starcraft 2, simcity, spore, and so on)... How sad is that?
That was my reaction too. I saw it being d/led and vaguely remembered hearing bad things about it, so I started researching it and went ho-lee-sh!te. Fortunately, due to the field I work in, I can read legalese, so was able to sort through the EULA (I'm*not* a lawyer & dont work in law tho) .
But yeah, no warning, no plain-english "do you want to use this...here is what it does." AFAIK, theres no actual EULA acceptance before installation *at all*. The reason is pretty obvious, if it was open about what it did, no one would allow it. Oh, and note the word "devices" in the EULA That means any peripherials, tablets, cameras flashdrives ect that happen to be connected are fair game too. Hell, the way this things written, they might be able to go after your entire wireless network.Please let as many gamers know about it as you can. The more people that are aware of it and how bad it is, the less able they are to steal your info.
@Sir Dookface McFerretballs (nice name!): I totally agree with everything you said. And I REALLY dislike these companies hiding shady practices behind extremely obtuse pages long EULAs, knowing that most of us dont read them. Thing is, is even with the EULA, Punkbusters in a real gray area, because THERE WAS NO EULA AGREEMENT that I (and I'm sure most of you here as well) agreed to.
In addition, I highly doubt that EULA would actually hold up in court. Its really badly written, does not define a bunch of terms and is WAY broad. I think the creators are counting on the secrecy and lack of knowledge about it. Id love to take them to court on it, but I dont have that kind of money to hire a couple lawyers. Maybe there should be a Kickstarter campaign!
Hell, I was cleaning up a not-very-tech-savvy friend's old laptop and I found it on there! And he isnt even a gamer! He didnt even have any games on that laptop, and definitely doesnt play multiplayer. We were at a loss to figure out where it came from, but it wouldnt surprise me if hackers were drive by d/ling it with exploits built in.
Also, I havent been able to verify the truth of the rumors, but I have read that when you use Punkbusters actual "uninstall" option, it doesnt actually remove the entire thing but leaves bits of itself behind, and that you have to use the Removal Tool to actually get it all.
Can anyone verify that?
Yeah I can attest to that. And you "DO" have to use the removal tool after uninstalling if you want to get rid of it all, otherwise it leaves DLL and other files behind for who knows what reasons.
I found a fun thing with EULAs... Since there is no Notary to make it official, just make your own EULA that simply says "I do not agree to your EULA and by letting me install your software that I legally own, you agree that is perfectly okay anyway and overrides your EULA for mine." and put that in the game install directory, I'd like to see either one of those hold up in court since there is no witness, no notary, no proof you were actually the one to click the button.
pbsvc.exe is the file you are looking for it should be hidden in the first paragraph of this page under the word "here" http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=pbsvcfaq.php
Once you uninstall it make sure you update your malware protection to block it in the future just in case.
They really make it hard to remove this stuff or even find support... They run themselves like they have mafia connections. That and the page layout is a blast from the past looking like something out of netscape from the late 90s. *laughs*
The issue I have with Punkbuster isnt so much what it is *supposed* to be doing. Its what it *actually* does.
In theory (as you said - unproven), an anti cheat program that was open and honest about running - ie it only ran when the game was running in multiplayer on the anti-cheat server, alerted/asked the player when it was turning itself on and off, limited itself to examining only the in-game files that could be altered to cheat, asked the player if it wanted to use the service upon the original d/l of the game, limited any screenshots collected to in game screenshots to verify the cheating, and when deleted using its own uninstall option in windows didnt leave pieces behind - would be acceptable. Still kind of invasive, but for some people, it would be acceptable. And there wouldn't be an issue. You didnt want it, you just didnt allow the download and/or play on the servers where it runs.
Punkbuster does NONE of those things I listed. And as you said that is where the issue is.
They basically drive by download you, and then put an EULA saying "because we drive by downloaded you, we can scan your entire network and take screenshots and data images whenever we want". Issue is, since you didnt agree to the EULA, there *is* no EULA.
Thats why the text of any software EULA appears and you have to click "yes". That way, if you sue the company, they can say "well, you saw the agreement". There has been instances of other companies trying to pull fast ones by changing their EULAs, knowing people dont generally read them, that were then pulled when people went WTF and made an outcry. (Look up General Mills and Facebook EULA issues). But still - they HAD EULAs that popped up on d/l or use of the software. You cant agree to something you dont know exists. So that is why the practices of Punkbuster wouldnt hold up in court, if someone had the time or resources to take them there.
The broadness of the EULA aslso could be called into question, as well. I couldnt create, say, a word processing tool, and then had a EULA that said that it could run all the time and could scan your drive and take your online bank account info, and that was ok cuz I put it in the EULA and you agreed to it. It wouldnt stand up in court, either. But punkbuster basically does that too.
@ Sir DMFB - Thanks for that link. Just another mark putting them in the "trojan" category - "doesnt actually uninstall itself w/o some kind of tool". Yeah, that site looks like 1998 or so. Gee, I wonder if they weren't making it purposefully hard to find? They wouldnt do *that* now, would they?