Marcus should have known better. He was a second-year computer science student. He knew that pinging a secure anti-cheat database directly was impossible without proprietary access tokens. But desperation is the ultimate override for common sense. He clicked download.
The file was tiny—only 420 kilobytes. No icon, just the default white window of a generic executable. He bypassed three different Windows security warnings, clicked "Run Anyway," and held his breath.
Marcus let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. It worked. The software had successfully read his hardware and confirmed the ban. Then, a new line of code appeared that he didn't expect.
[>] Initializing HWID BAN TESTER... [>] Scanning local hardware components... [>] Motherboard UUID: 4C4C4544-004D-1051-8043-B2C04F483332 [>] CPU Serial: BFEBFBFF000906EC [>] Status: BLACKLISTED.