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Used processor leads to game ban
(www.heise.de)
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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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What I've read just now is what I'd deliberately not gone looking for up to this point in case I found this out.
Linux and Windows happen to require that the executables that access that information be run with root privileges, but it looks like that's merely an affectation.
It seems that any old piece of software, without root or other privileges, can independently run the CPUID instruction that obtains a processor's serial number.
I do not like this one bit.
Supposedly only the pentium III returns serial info with CPUID though, and even then it can be disabled in the bios.
Why not? Is that information considered sensitive? Personally I tend to avoid running untrustworthy programs outside of a sandbox or VM.
what does that mean? are you not running any programs at all? you cannot know just by looking at the name if a program reads such sensitive info. and its not unlikely that some developer figured it would be a good idea to include it in automatic crash reports
yes, this is sensitive information. its like your fingerprint, you cannot change it. I think its quite obvious. ~~web browsers~~ firefox is fighting to hide more and more that even indirectly could lead to identification. websites can't read this ID, this is just a comparison.
I can know from the code ;P
have you ever used Gentoo? if you do, you know how long it takes to build updated software from source code.
vetting all that, even just the changes would take a lot more time. and it's a constant effort.
Are you a believer in the idea "They who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear"? Hint: You shouldn't be.
And do you know for certain that your sandboxes and VMs don't simply pass through the CPUID instruction? And if they don't, do they rotate their fake CPUIDs? And how often does that happen?