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Developing: Epic Games Launcher appears to collect your steam friends & play history (Up2: Valve responds, See Threadmarks)
- Thread starter Madjoki
- Start date
Anyone have IDA Pro and a lot of times on their hands? I'd be willing to disassemble the client and see what they actually are doing if I had the time.
I would just like to know if anyone can confirm that the file it duplicates to get info bypasses Steam privacy settings?
For example if I set everything on my Steam profile to be all private, does Epic still create a local duplicate file with that info I have declared I want to be private?
For example if I set everything on my Steam profile to be all private, does Epic still create a local duplicate file with that info I have declared I want to be private?
Odd how they have been collecting friends list for a non-extient epic store that doesn't need Steam friends lists in mid 2018
You know for a while I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, those exclusive were shitty moves but I was rationalizing it along the lines of "they need a few big hitters early on to build a community and have people come back to their store, it sucks but I get it"
I even bought Ashen when it came out because I had been waiting a long while to play it.
But now I don't think I'll ever buy anything from them ever again unless drastic changes happen.
All these recent EGS exclusivity announcements are just BS.
It's adding up.
Yeah, those exclusive were shitty moves but I was rationalizing it along the lines of "they need a few big hitters early on to build a community and have people come back to their store, it sucks but I get it"
I even bought Ashen when it came out because I had been waiting a long while to play it.
But now I don't think I'll ever buy anything from them ever again unless drastic changes happen.
All these recent EGS exclusivity announcements are just BS.
It's adding up.
yes because they are scrapping the local files on your computer, the privacy settings is on your online account and determines who and what has access to that.
They are already dismissing this as "the grumbling of the anti-epic group"
This has no bearing on what can be captured locally, its digging into your client installed on your pc. Your private/public settings have to do with whats visible on the web side.
The Epic Game Shop is build over the Fortnite launcher, so they were using that data to make it easier to add friends from Steam.
However, there is an API from STeam for that, and that doesnt explain the other data. So it asks the question why were they doing this (to avoid privacy settings in Steam at least), if they were also using it to get more precise data on gaming habits of you.
Except there is no evidence they're actually collecting any data except that which they have permission to sync. If we did, it would be a clear-cut problem.
If this data is never sent back to Epic, is that considered data collection under GDPR? Remember we have no evidence of data being sent to Epic without permission.
I imagine it would be a massive mess to disassemble it. It's an electron app, so you'd be disassembling chrome. Basically.
Thanks, just got around to reading this. Also saw the update in the OP from Epic.
I guess the next step is to ask if anyone's inspected the network traffic coming from the process and seeing if any of it is a) unencrypted and b) shows more data than Epic is saying they send. On my system, inside Process Monitor I do see signs of network traffic to what looks like an Akamai CDN server as well as several Amazon EC2 machines during its scan of my Steam userdata directory, but for all I know those are totally unrelated.
I'm reaching the limits of my own ability to decipher what's going on here so I'll leave it to people with more knowledge than me for now. But yeah, it definitely looks like they're scanning your userdata folder and doing something with that info. I don't know how to decrypt the SocialBackup files so can't verify those contents, but the Process Monitor stuff at least checks out for sure. (And of course Epic doesn't deny any of the findings, but are being cagey about some of the data.)
I think it's time i deleted my Epic account free games are cool and all but i have many to get through already and only really made it for Unreal tournament back in the day. Thanks for the helpful template Evon
Also I love how some Reddit users have given x3 Gold for that response.... Also the tunnel vision from some users here is something.
Also I love how some Reddit users have given x3 Gold for that response.... Also the tunnel vision from some users here is something.
So the Epic Store is actually just the same client that was just for Unreal stuff. They rejigged it to add in Fortnite support and then now revamped it with the store interface. That is why they've been doing it since before it was the "Epic Game Store" due to it being the same client.
I can answer this.
My Steam account is private.
I have 95 files in the Epic folder (95MB)
Oldest being 2018-05-14, newest being 2019-03-10 (that's YYYY-MM-DD)
Ugh. I guess I have to uninstall EGS when I get home tonight. I buy and play a lot of games on Steam, I'm exactly the kind of user whose data they want to scrape. I'm sure as shit not giving them any help determining which games they need to moneyhat next so they can fuck with me even more.
There goes the copy of Hades I bought.
There goes the copy of Hades I bought.
Why is collected if it's never sent? In which moment the Epic client asks authorization to collect and receive this data? The client only asked me to sync friend lists.
The fact they only admitted collecting the friend steam data while there's eveidence they are gathering way more is quite telling.
Its extremely conspicous they avoided talking about why they look up other information unrelated to the friends list.
That is completely disregarding them looking up our information outside of the proper channels of the Steam API.
They're owned by Tencent, after all. People tend to forget this.
Wait a sec...why was it collecting info about Steam in May...when Epic announced their store later on in the year???
I didn't think they were owned by TenCent. Last time I checked (yesterday?) TenCent owned a 40% stake in Epic, which makes them a large shareholder, but not the owner or even majority shareholder, depending upon how many other companies the remaining 60% is controlled by.
Because the store is built upon older tech - Unreal and Fortnite launcher - which was doing all this before the Store became an actual thing.
Seems Epic have been doing this for a while, so if you use UE for example it still does it.
Any number of reasons. The most obvious being "they plan on using it at some point". It doesn't mean they're using it now, though. If they are, that's a problem obviously.
If the data is being scraped and stored locally, they don't necessarily have to ask authorization. Videogames don't have to ask permission to create a log file containing your OS, Windows Location, installed drivers, CPU details, GPU details, and stuff like that. They DO have to ask permission to send this data back to the game's developer.
I wouldn't put it past Epic to at some point confusingly ask whether you would like to not not not not not not send data about time played to Epic, however.
It's just a different launcher though, just install it and stop complaining so much! JUST DO IT! /s
Haven't installed it and definitely won't be installing it now. Was already turned off by who owns them and how aggressive they've been.
10:1 odds no one in the media will even look at this twice.
Because Steam is bad and doesn't curate its library properly.
And are also a monopoly sometimes.
Every day I see the Borderlands 3 thing exclusive to EGS and every day it breaks my heart
That asshole tried to sell games on G2A, I wouldn't really trust his judgement on what a viable store is.
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If one thing has amazed me in the whole EGS saga, it's how firmly some high-level people have their foot ensconced in their mouth.
This has never been about importing your Steam friends to a store that didn't even exist at the time. It's a serious violation of privacy, yet no "journalist" will talk about this.
According to this website: Fortnite Guide- Now Add Steam Friends In Fortnite - VoStory the functionality that lets people import their Steam friends into the EGL was added with Update 4.3 of Fortnite. That update was released on May 30, 2018. The first files scrapped by the EGL on my computer were generated on May 4, 2018. Did those files travel in time?
Are you surprised though?
I mean, really? It's Randy, I have zero doubt he will do that.
I have no idea what any of this means. If i already have my friends and game list public on my steam profile, should i be worried?
No they were put there as a competitive way to gain a competitive nature on a very competitive platform. Competition!
Also reports from some websites are starting to file in, but as expected they conflate the issue and take the PR stance for granted especially handwaving in the lede.
https://www.pcgamer.com/au/epic-steam-data-reddit/
https://www.pcgamesn.com/epic-launcher-spyware