this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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On March 20th, 2026 MSI released a BIOS update for B650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi motherboard. One of the changes says "Implemented the anti-cheat mechanism."

I looked around their forums and people seem to agree that it refers to Microsoft Pluton security processor.

Does anybody know what this change is actually about? Is it another initiative by Microsoft to further lock people out of their computers? Would it somehow hinder using Linux with this motherboard?

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[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 79 points 1 week ago (14 children)

https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/vanguard-security-update-motherboard

I am so deeply annoyed that

  1. Vanguard demands this level of control over user systems

  2. Vanguard seems to be the only entity handling a threat vector most people simply ignore. I suspect not even crowdstrike and the like could handle malicious pci devices. Well, vanguard can't either, it's just a cat and mouse game. But they are definitely trying in an area where most seem to have given up, but it's absurd that it's a fucking game anticheat that's doing this.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Vanguard is proven spyware. If you installed that shit, I'd wipe the OS and reflash the BIOS.

[–] ElectroLisa@piefed.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Do you have a source of this information?

[–] leagman1@feddit.org 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No, but it feels right and it sounds cool.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It is spyware by design, but whether it's being used maliciously is still in question.

It does send encrypted traffic to China, though, and while that alone isn't proof of nefarious behavior (could be anonymous metadata/logs for development purposes), it's extremely suspicious

[–] leagman1@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

I was just memeing bro.

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