The real takeaway here is the lack of care and regard that Anet exercised in the implementation of this anti-cheat system, and the callousness and ego demonstrated by the programmer posting his updates to Twitter.

Kind of like walking into Target. They are scanning you even before you enter the doors now days, and tracking everything you do or buy. Even more so if you use their credit card. The reason they can do that is because you agree to their terms...

This is also a reason why I would never log on to a Corporate companies "free WiFi" ...

It should have limited effect on any competently written online game as the game state would be decided by the server, not the client.

So in essence it can be constitute as cheating even if you don’t break any game mechanics directly but simply automate actions which most online games prohibit.

The smart thing to do is to look for when tools are actually injecting themselves into your process, not just looking for the presence of the process itself. That is just a completely inept way of going about it.

Anyway: Whether he botted or not is not the point of the thread. Even if everyone they caught would have cheated (according to their and your definition) that's still a pretty significant privacy intrusion from ArenaNet.

That has nothing to do with the commonly accepted definition of cheating. Using in game mechanics which harm the player base in some way is considered cheating in every competitive game ever made. "The devs messed up" is not an OK to do whatever you like, that would ruin these games.

So Starcraft, Counter Strike, and PUBG all have botched game designs? Please..

The more you participate, the more stuff you get (for various values of 'stuff') is the central design conceit of just about all MMOs. Breaking it is one of the most drastic and damaging ways to cheat.