Gaming → Even Balance (PUNKBUSTER) Problems

Someone should forward this thread to TechTV news (»www.techtv.com/news/inte ··· ,00.html ) so they can keep us updated on this case:

said by CylonRed:

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Do I even think PB would look at my files (other than to see the name of the file) NO - I don't. It would be FAR to costly for them to do this and FAR to easy to track it to them. They would lose their entire business if they did and hence a deterrnet in and of itself where MS has no such deterrent.

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I'd like to make three points about this:

1) It might be costly in terms of PR for them to do it, but you gave them permission to do so when you agreed to their EULA, so you'd have limited legal recourse if they decided to sell your info to the highest bidder. It's hard to get the privacy cat back in the bag once it's escaped... and there are cases where formerly-legitimate operations have done exactly this when the alternative is bankruptcy, government pressure to obtain information, or other duress.

2) Whether or not it's detectable is also debatable -- if you don't know how they're doing it, you don't know what to look for. AFAIK, PB is closed-source, so you don't really know how they're doing it except by observing detectable behavior, which by definition doesn't include undetectable behavior.

3) You're extending your trust not only to EB as a company, but to every employee and vendor to which EB grants access to its PB servers. Are you familiar with their employee hiring process, or vendor selection? If so, do you trust it not to allow a malicious actor legitimate access to your resources?

Again, it's your decision whether the risk is worth it. I'm not telling you what's bad or good, I'm just describing what is.

1) Yep - I accepted the EULA - nuff said.

2) PB doesn't need to be closed source for me to know. I run things so that there can only be one 2 or ways for anyone to get the info. I also do not store passwords to financial institutions on my PC, I do not have credit card numbers on my PC (or even SS#), and only part of my savings/checking account # is in Quicken - the rest would have to be guesses as well as my pin.

3) I have yet to find a problem with their hiring. It is something that I have to deal with daily in all aspects. The question can be extended to the following:

Do you trust your banks tellers?
Do you trust your banks proff encoding department (they help clear all checks)?
Do you trust your stock broker?
Do you trust your waiter/waitress?
Do you trust your utility companies (if you pay by CC or even check)?
Do you trust your store cashier?
Do you trust your online store?

I think anyone gets the idea - you are not in charge in ANY of the hiring in ANY of these instances and you have to have some trust to the same info - if not worse info like Debit card # (potentially more dangerous than knowing the CC #).

bigbrother: For BF, and many of the games where PB support wasn't integrated from the start there exists a master ban list that is contributed to by server admins. They take updates of the MBL and paste them into the bans folder on the server. EB also maintains a global ban list for those enterprising individuals that that chose to run hacks that modified the Punk Buster software. EB takes those pretty seriously and metes out a rather harsher penalty for it. So, its really a combination of manual users and EB distributing global autobans.

Frankly, there havent been a ton of people busted for hacking in BF. Whether thats from PB not catching the cheats, or there not having been that many cheaters to begin with, I do not know. I would tend to believe the former as the screenshot feature seems to catch quite a few that slip through the software scanning.

Theres a ton of info about it on punksbusted.com (I listed the site incorrectly above.)

said by aberrant:

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said by :

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Dude, PB is great tool from stopping cheating monkeys. He got caught, that's what it have to do you get caught you get banned. So normal players don't have to put up with your hacking and enjoy the game. I runned PB since counter-strike 1.5 days. All my buddies run it. Whole lan party (50 computers) run it 24/7 for battle field and CS guess what noone got banned because no one cheated. If you don't want to install it play on non pb servers. Its NOT your right to play on PB servers YOU don't own any servers SERVER ADMINS choses what he wants to run. If you DON'T agree with that START YOUR OWN server and choose wtf you wan't to run on it. End of story. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Same bs with valves protection stupid kids cheat and when get busted they cry to valve and on forums how they NEVER NEVER hacked. Please we heard it all before and we are glad your banned less annoying hackers on servers.

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Nice rant. Did you even read what I was saying? Note: I've never been banned from any game because I refuse to install punkbuster in the first place due to their overbroad EULA. If it doesn't bother you that they have access to any of your files at any time, then go ahead and use it. Just as nobody's stopping me from NOT using it, nobody's stopping you from deciding the risk is worth it.

As soon as playing a game is more important than the loss of confidentiality on my system, I'll re-evaluate my decision not to allow PB on my machine.

In the meantime, I suggest you re-read what I posted, and you'll find that your previous post makes no sense as a reply to anything I wrote.

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Ok? I wasn't even replying to you. But no one is forcing you to use PB. Don't wan't to install it? We don't wan't you to play with us. Simple?

I have to say that I'm impressed with kids stating incorrect information. Before you make ignorant comments, read what this is about. It doesn't matter to me if you think this is a stuipid case, but it is a case in development.

I play games for the enjoyment. I also like the fact that I can play on a server that attempts to remove cheaters. I do not like the fact the way Even Balance acted. No, I didn't cheat, no I didn't take a new key from EA. Again people have accused me on this forum of taking a new key. Again, those are the people who didn't read.

The fact is EB needs to change their EULA. I like their product, but it doesn't give them the right to do anything they want on my system. THIS IS THE PART THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESS. WHY OFFER A SERVER THAT DOES GOOD, THEN TREAT CUSTOMERS POORLY AND THEN DECIDE TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANT ON YOUR COMPUTER.

For those that are blind to the fact that EB can do anything they want on your system, and you agree, you need to re-evaluate things.

Yes, I can take EB to court, and that is in the process. Their EULA will change in time. If not, I will continue my march against them. By Friday, my website will be up and running.

Quibbly

LOL....diluted fool...

Mwaaaaa...I'm gonna make a change...mwaaaa
Buy a senator. You'll have better luck.

said by quibbly:

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I have to say that I'm impressed with kids stating incorrect information. Before you make ignorant comments, read what this is about. It doesn't matter to me if you think this is a stuipid case, but it is a case in development.

I play games for the enjoyment. I also like the fact that I can play on a server that attempts to remove cheaters. I do not like the fact the way Even Balance acted. No, I didn't cheat, no I didn't take a new key from EA. Again people have accused me on this forum of taking a new key. Again, those are the people who didn't read.

The fact is EB needs to change their EULA. I like their product, but it doesn't give them the right to do anything they want on my system. THIS IS THE PART THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESS. WHY OFFER A SERVER THAT DOES GOOD, THEN TREAT CUSTOMERS POORLY AND THEN DECIDE TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANT ON YOUR COMPUTER.

For those that are blind to the fact that EB can do anything they want on your system, and you agree, you need to re-evaluate things.

Yes, I can take EB to court, and that is in the process. Their EULA will change in time. If not, I will continue my march against them. By Friday, my website will be up and running.

Quibbly

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HAHAHAHA

Oh please don't sue me because you dont like my reply

said by chanur:

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said by Qumahlin:

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I love internet forums for the reason that everyone becomes an expert in everything, they are all lawyers and/or know lawyers.

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Yes, on this we agree.

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I agree as well, and everyone automatically charges him of cheating on BF PB servers...

said by RR206:

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LOL....diluted fool...

Mwaaaaa...I'm gonna make a change...mwaaaa
Buy a senator. You'll have better luck.

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And how old are we today? Biggest group of assholes I have ever seen. If you don't like his post don't read the freakin thread

said by GTJiga:

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said by chanur:

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said by Qumahlin:

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I love internet forums for the reason that everyone becomes an expert in everything, they are all lawyers and/or know lawyers.

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Yes, on this we agree.

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I agree as well, and everyone automatically charges him of cheating on BF PB servers...

said by RR206:

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LOL....diluted fool...

Mwaaaaa...I'm gonna make a change...mwaaaa
Buy a senator. You'll have better luck.

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And how old are we today? Biggest group of assholes I have ever seen. If you don't like his post don't read the freakin thread

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No we should go his way and sue him for making posts we don't agree with.

What don't you agree with?? What did this guy do wrong??

You say that you play games for the mere enjoyment; however, this whole charade that you're embarking upon indicates that it's more than just pure entertainment value.

You said that EB needs to change their EULA. Did you stop to think that many company's EULA's contain the same (if not, similar) stipulations prior to using their product? So who are you planning on attacking next? Microsoft, perhaps?

One thing you fail to realize is that you ARE NOT an EB customer. Did you buy something from EB? I would have to say "NO". You purchased a product made available by EA. EA, along with many other respectable companies, simply integrated this FREE solution into their products. EB does NOT have to treat you fairly, as their aren't the ones DIRECTLY offering this FREE product. Now if EA treated you unjustly, which OBVIOUSLY was NOT the case, then I WOULD SUPPORT YOU whole-heartedly in your efforts. Once again, you ARE NOT an EB customer, but rather an EA customer.

said by Cig_R:

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You say that you play games for the mere enjoyment; however, this whole charade that you're embarking upon indicates that it's more than just pure entertainment value.

You said that EB needs to change their EULA. Did you stop to think that many company's EULA's contain the same (if not, similar) stipulations prior to using their product? So who are you planning on attacking next? Microsoft, perhaps?

One thing you fail to realize is that you ARE NOT an EB customer. Did you buy something from EB? I would have to say "NO". You purchased a product made available by EA. EA, along with many other respectable companies, simply integrated this FREE solution into their products. EB does NOT have to treat you fairly, as their aren't the ones DIRECTLY offering this FREE product. Now if EA treated you unjustly, which OBVIOUSLY was NOT the case, then I WOULD SUPPORT YOU whole-heartedly in your efforts. Once again, you ARE NOT an EB customer, but rather an EA customer.

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Couldn't put it better my self.

said by Cig_R:

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One thing you fail to realize is that you ARE NOT an EB customer. Did you buy something from EB? I would have to say "NO". You purchased a product made available by EA. EA, along with many other respectable companies, simply integrated this FREE solution into their products. EB does NOT have to treat you fairly, as their aren't the ones DIRECTLY offering this FREE product.

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Thats what the hell I've been tryin to say...But he just tells everyone to read the thread...

Never mind the children who are trying to ruin a good thread. Can't wait till spring break is over and the kids are back in school.

This isn't about going after every company that has an EULA, this forum is about Even Balance. It started because of the treatment from Even Balance and the treatment I received. The case is more about their EULA and how it needs to be changed. No, it's not about receiving personal attention, but to bring attention to everyone that uses Punk Buster. Those that have read the EULA and understand what it implicates are the ones who should post on this thread. The rest need to post on a different thread.

By myself I might not be able to make a change, but I'm willing to put forth all my effort to make a change. Once more people join up with me (this will be on the website), we will make a change. For those that are just here to make rude comments, this change will even impact you (even though you will never pay attention to the positive change and how this effort will help secure your privacy in the future).

Those that are here just to try to ruin a good thread, enjoy your privacy of speech. For that right was granted from the blood of thousands. Have you ever though about that? While your here bashing my effort, your spitting on the grave of thousands.

Enjoy your day,

Quibbly

said by CylonRed:

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1) Yep - I accepted the EULA - nuff said.

2) PB doesn't need to be closed source for me to know. I run things so that there can only be one 2 or ways for anyone to get the info. I also do not store passwords to financial institutions on my PC, I do not have credit card numbers on my PC (or even SS#), and only part of my savings/checking account # is in Quicken - the rest would have to be guesses as well as my pin.

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You don't have to store anything. They can grab screenshots too, remember? All they need to do is grab one while you're logged in, or use a box revealer when you're logging in.

quote:

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3) I have yet to find a problem with their hiring. It is something that I have to deal with daily in all aspects. The question can be extended to the following:

Do you trust your banks tellers?
Do you trust your banks proff encoding department (they help clear all checks)?
Do you trust your stock broker?
Do you trust your waiter/waitress?
Do you trust your utility companies (if you pay by CC or even check)?
Do you trust your store cashier?
Do you trust your online store?

I think anyone gets the idea - you are not in charge in ANY of the hiring in ANY of these instances and you have to have some trust to the same info - if not worse info like Debit card # (potentially more dangerous than knowing the CC #).

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These are different in that there are laws expressly prohibiting fraudulent transactions -- generally the case whenever money is involved. What isn't protected (at least in other states than CA at this point) is disclosure of personal (HIPAA aside for the moment) information by a private (nongovernmental) organization. THAT's the risk here.

For financial transactions, there's also generally a limit on consumer liability for fraud. However, what OTHER nonfinancial information about you is on your machine? Perhaps some medical history. Perhaps the names, ages, and pictures of your kids, along with your address and the address of their schools and names of their teachers. Couple this with a screenshot of your current bank statement, and you've got some pretty scary possibilities as far as ransoms go. And EB doesn't have to be directly involved if there's a malicious actor out there with access to PB. I'm certainly not insinuating that a company like EB would approve of, let alone be involved in, this sort of activity.

Couple PB with government pressure to obtain information on individuals and their ability to request information without a warrant in lots of cases, and you've now got the conspiracy nuts going bonkers (especially since there's a tie between the government and PB via America's Army). Could EB stand up to an FBI request to view files on gameplayers' systems? If AOL and public libraries can't do it, why would you think EB would fare any better?

I work in information security for a large financial institution, so I'm perhaps hypersensitive to these issues. But just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get me, using whatever tools are available -- and if they're tools that I expressly agreed to have used against me, so much the better for them.

And you have to think about all this just to play a game that's been ruined by cheaters. It's sad on so many levels.

Very interesting thread ... If I was Punk Busters I would refund your $40 back and be done with it -- you can't sue for more than the service cost you unless some other damage was done.

It sucks, its not right, but it is what it is.

I love this country of ours, but, I hate the fact you can pull anyone into court any time for any reason.

If you like playing online games, host your own with the people you know. Life is too short, if you have that much money donate some for the homeless as I'm sure you already do.

Outstanding Deviant One. No, your not a conspiracy nut, you just make a valid point. I never tied America's Army with the involvement with EB, buy you do make a valid point. This is just more ammo for my case.

By selecting "Yes" to punkbuster, you are opening yourself up to multiple possibilities.

Thanks for your input. Positive and to the point.

Quibbly

Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 1355 hrs. pst.

To quibbly:

I haven't taken the time to read through all the posts. However, I too think that you would lose were the trial ever go to a final judgment. Somewhere along the way, the Harris Co. people, who sound like some kind of ombudsman pro bono group, will pressure you to accept an apology and perhaps some merchandise.

EULA is what they call an "adhesion" constract. There isn't any bargaining involved, you either accept or do not. Such contracts are more difficult to enforce than contracts resulting from actual bargaining between the parties because it can be assumed that one of the parties, you, didn't read the long contract, and the other party, EA, has a disproprtionate amount of power in the transaction. Courts usually throw out these contracts when they suspect something underhanded has been done, but this one seems straight forward.

I don't believe you will have to pay the other party's attorney's fees. In this country, alone of all the countries in the world, we subscribe to the "American Rule" which means that, win or lose, everyone pays his own attorney fees. In every other country in the world, the loser pays the winner's fees. The court can award attorney fees to the winning party, but usually doesn't unless the plaintiff's or defendant's case seems frivilous, (or he doesn't like your face).

I assume that you are quite young, in your teens or early twenties. You have an academic appreciation of the legal system. It doesn't work as put forward in "Civics & Government". Briefly, civil law is basically extortion under color of law, with the party having the deepest pockets invariably winning by being able to hire top legal talent, or simply stalling and running up its. opponents bills until he goes broke or gives up. This would happen to you were it not for the fact that Harris Co. won't foot the bill indefinitely. Once their attorney sees the lay of the land, he will force some minimally face saving agreement on you, or tell you to pay the legal bills yourself.

[Tangentially, criminal law is, in reality, a venue where you get as much justice as you can afford. I refer you, by example, to the O.J. Simpson case. A money-is-no-object defense agains a prosecution by incompetent civil service apparatchiks. Let's see. Hmmmm. Who won there?]

You are going to waste an enormous amount of time, be tremendously frustrated if you take this matter to heart, and stunningly chagrined when you discover that nothing works unless oiled by repeated applications of money.

If you are considering professions, please be aware the the legal profession is concerned with money; not with ethics; not with justice; not with right and wrong It's money. How many hours can you bill? How far will your client be willing to go with this? How much can I squeeze out the the insurance company on this claim by threatening multi-millions? The second criterion for importance in law is "status". I wanna be a judge. I wanna be a federal judge. I wanna be a Supreme Court Justice. (Yes, You Honor, you are right. You are absolutely right. You are a magnificent credit to the bar and the majesty of the American JUdiciary and the centuries of Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. The opinions of Plato, Socrate, Maimonides, Sir Frances Bacon, and Oliver Wendell Holmes pale into insignificance beside the wisdom of your legal reasoning. And you know I' m not inclined to flattery.)

Compared to attorneys, prostitutes are a model of probity and humility.

I suggest that you write a letter to E.A., notifying them that you are withdrawing your complaint, and never go near a courtroom for the rest of your life.

Should you fail to heed this advice, remember what I am telling you now and you won't be needlessly disappointed. NOTHING is going to happen. Just as you showed up, I assume, for those three hearings you mentioned, and EA didn't, you will continue to show up for procedures that are delayed and delayed and delayed, as if your time were worthless, which it is to the court because you don't have any Money.

If you ever hit the Lotto jackpot, and have millions to kick around, revisit this case with attache cases full of dollars, and you will WIN! There is nothing that more impresses a judge than a plaintiff who hires the best of his colleagues that money can buy.

Again, you ARE NOT an EB customer; thus, you ARE NOT entitled to any type of support from this company. You ARE an EA customer and have EVERY RIGHT to address your complaints and concerns with EA. Does that make sense, or are you going to carry on the the "children" comments? I wish that spring break was over as well, so that you can go back to school and learn the difference between "what is" and "what isn't". You are attacking the wrong people, regardless of how EB treated you.

And I will say this AGAIN so that you can understand the difference: You ARE an EA customer. You ARE NOT an EB customer. You DID pay for an EA product and their services. You DID NOT pay EB anything for their FREE product, nor do they offer any services. Hence, you are NOT entitled to any customer support from EB and their retort to your childish gripes are truly justified. Now if you find difficulty in comprehending these differences, then you obviously are ignorant and lack the mental capacity of most of the children (and adults) that have been posting in this thread. At least most of them can comprehend this concept better than you can.

said by :

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Move along, nothing to see here.

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Ok Quibbly if you look like the pic in this message I'll abandon my perspective and join up. I'm easy.

said by highhatsize:

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To quibbly:

I haven't taken the time to read through all the posts....
{Much commentary on the state of law in America}

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Good post. Cynical but unfortunately true.

said by aberrant:

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said by CylonRed:

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1) Yep - I accepted the EULA - nuff said.

2) PB doesn't need to be closed source for me to know. I run things so that there can only be one 2 or ways for anyone to get the info. I also do not store passwords to financial institutions on my PC, I do not have credit card numbers on my PC (or even SS#), and only part of my savings/checking account # is in Quicken - the rest would have to be guesses as well as my pin.

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You don't have to store anything. They can grab screenshots too, remember? All they need to do is grab one while you're logged in, or use a box revealer when you're logging in.

quote:

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3) I have yet to find a problem with their hiring. It is something that I have to deal with daily in all aspects. The question can be extended to the following:

Do you trust your banks tellers?
Do you trust your banks proff encoding department (they help clear all checks)?
Do you trust your stock broker?
Do you trust your waiter/waitress?
Do you trust your utility companies (if you pay by CC or even check)?
Do you trust your store cashier?
Do you trust your online store?

I think anyone gets the idea - you are not in charge in ANY of the hiring in ANY of these instances and you have to have some trust to the same info - if not worse info like Debit card # (potentially more dangerous than knowing the CC #).

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These are different in that there are laws expressly prohibiting fraudulent transactions -- generally the case whenever money is involved. What isn't protected (at least in other states than CA at this point) is disclosure of personal (HIPAA aside for the moment) information by a private (nongovernmental) organization. THAT's the risk here.

For financial transactions, there's also generally a limit on consumer liability for fraud. However, what OTHER nonfinancial information about you is on your machine? Perhaps some medical history. Perhaps the names, ages, and pictures of your kids, along with your address and the address of their schools and names of their teachers. Couple this with a screenshot of your current bank statement, and you've got some pretty scary possibilities as far as ransoms go. And EB doesn't have to be directly involved if there's a malicious actor out there with access to PB. I'm certainly not insinuating that a company like EB would approve of, let alone be involved in, this sort of activity.

Couple PB with government pressure to obtain information on individuals and their ability to request information without a warrant in lots of cases, and you've now got the conspiracy nuts going bonkers (especially since there's a tie between the government and PB via America's Army). Could EB stand up to an FBI request to view files on gameplayers' systems? If AOL and public libraries can't do it, why would you think EB would fare any better?

I work in information security for a large financial institution, so I'm perhaps hypersensitive to these issues. But just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get me, using whatever tools are available -- and if they're tools that I expressly agreed to have used against me, so much the better for them.

And you have to think about all this just to play a game that's been ruined by cheaters. It's sad on so many levels.

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They can't take screenshots because I don't have the info on my PC - they won't get passwords or account numbers. I see no reason to have teacher names om my PC (when my kid can go to school). When I am looking at my credit card bill all they will be able to see is $ amounts - not even the CC#. My bank statement is by regular mail - where A NYONE who got ahold of the mail could get the info easier than trying to get it off my PC.

I do not see any reason for ANYTONE to have their entire life on the PC - from SS#'s to account numbers. If the govt wanted to spy on you they won't do it thru PB and they already can do that if they wanted. Fighting PB will DO NOTHING to avoid this - not in any way shape or form and it is fantasy to think it will.

Do I have the funds to continue this, yes. My age? 35. Profession: Network Engineer and Software Developer. Present position: Director of I.T. for a large multi-location medical group.

Now that's out of the way, I will continue my efforts. For the postivie side, I have received 89 emails in regards to this that are positive. I have also received funding from multiple companies in the Houston area. While this takes place, I will continue to increase my revenue for this case. For those that disagree, wonderful. At present, I have a large group of people who are supportive in this and will back me up to the end.

said by CylonRed:

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I do not see any reason for ANYTONE to have their entire life on the PC - from SS#'s to account numbers. If the govt wanted to spy on you they won't do it thru PB and they already can do that if they wanted. Fighting PB will DO NOTHING to avoid this - not in any way shape or form and it is fantasy to think it will.

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I'm not suggesting fighting PB at all. I'm suggesting that if you're one of the many people who do have information on your machine that you consider confidential, you realize the risk you're taking by clicking through a EULA that gives a company express permission to view anything on your system. To you, it's worth the risk, since you don't have anything of value on your machine. To me it's not worth the risk -- even though my confidential information is encrypted, there's no defense against memory snooping or keylogging, both actions that are possible AND PERMISSIBLE via PB.

As to your dismissal of governmental interference -- don't be so hasty. They're requesting data from datamining companies, from financial institutions, from the post office and other mail services, and from ISPs and libraries. I haven't seen any evidence that they've got any declared limits on whom they'll ask to get information that they think they'll need.

Based on the number of penetration tests I've done over the years, the majority of computer users out there store at least some confidential/embarrassing information on their PCs. Should they not be aware of the risk of granting this program access to their systems? Sure, PB is only used for anti-cheating... now, and as far as you know. Can conditions change sufficiently for it to be used in a different manner? I'd suggest that it's not only possible, but more likely over time as actors -- both malicious and official -- realize the power they've got over unsuspecting users.

Bottom line: Fighting PB is not the goal. Educating potential users about the ramifications of accepting that EULA should be.

Quibbly, with that said, it's very sad to see that a 35 year old male cannot comprehend the difference between being a customer of one company through payment of their products (and services), and NOT being a customer of a company whom you have not paid any services to. You are truly a product of your own "childish" comments, and I hope my B.S. in Computer Science does not lead me towards a similar demise that you (and your IT background) are inevitably going to face.

The part you seem to have problems with is...

Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by PunkBuster software includes, but is not limited to, devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer on which PunkBuster software is installed.

I'm pretty sure this is the lingo that has to be said for them to check for known hacks residing in memory(available for use while in game) and also the ability to verify that the punkbuster files are valid and haven't been altered(along with probably the game files), this means verifying file validity thru checksums which means they have to figure out the number of bits in each file.

I've basicly quit playing CoD till Punkbuster is released, and for that matter, I'm probably going to quit buying games without some type of anticheat. I just don't enjoy getting online to be aimbotted or wallhacked. Can I just go to another server, sure, but more then likely I'll see them there too... Hell, I even pay for a 20 man public server which I don't even have set to CoD cause I'm having to boot cheats left and right.

IF you people are that paranoid at EB looking at your files, then just get either an xbox or PS and you'll have nothing to worry about or have a seperate computer just for gaming.

Instead of putting your money towards fighting an EULA, how about start up a watchdog group online collecting information about programs that have these type of EULAs. Maybe you can get some people who work on these projects let you know why they are doing it.

But hey, if you can win this and they can't scan the hard drive anymore, you've basicly created a huge win for all cheaters everywhere, just alter some of the punkbuster files and punkbuster will never find a hack again on their computer!