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Steam (and others) really should scan for that kind of spyware in the files they provide to the players. Add a warning maybe (Contains a known spyware) or flat
by moviuro 8y ago
Steam (and others) really should scan for that kind of spyware in the files they provide to the players. Add a warning maybe (Contains a known spyware) or flat out refuse the editor to bundle that file with their game/app/whatever.
- nerdponx 8y agoI'd be surprised if Valve didn't have their own fingerprinting tech, e.g. for tracking users across multiple accounts (practical, benign use case: banning cheaters who were VAC banned but make new accounts).
- hankhill 8y agosure, I'm pretty sure they check for cheating, but it's not being collected to sell personal data to advertising firms to make an extra buck off the backs of people who already paid for their games
- jrhurst 8y agoThere no real benefit to any of that though. The steam client already collects all the data they need for this.
- nerdponx 8y agoDoes it matter if it's in the client or in the game itself?
- LinuxBender 8y agoThat would be a great start. One of the ways malicious people circumvent that is to leverage the scripting that many of the games support. I have dug into many games that use LUA scripting and have appalling security practices. The worse offender is Garry's Mod. Trivial to dox players and fairly trivial in some cases to take over the players machines.
- ryandrake 8y agoGreat suggestion. I agree that the distributor (Steam) should have to answer why they are allowing this malware to be distributed over their platform. They would reject a game that contained a virus or ransomware, but spyware is OK?
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoSteam is part of the problem, tracking users and the time they spend playing each particular game.
- koheripbal 8y agoThe Steam platform should actually create a VM sandbox for a game when it's running to exactly prevent bad behavior. That's a service I'd actually pay for.
- aeternus 8y agoI'd rather have the operating system provide this protection. Mobile OS, especially iOS really seems like the optimal model. Give apps a secure sandbox by default, and require them to prompt for any external or 'dangerous' permissions. This gives ultimate control to the user.
- codedokode 8y agoWarnings work when you have choice. But if all major games will be labeled then it just won't work. Another idea would be to make an exception in the copyright law to allow anyone remove spyware or offer such services.