[HN Gopher] Surveilling the Gamers: Privacy Impacts of the Video...
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Surveilling the Gamers: Privacy Impacts of the Video Game Industry
Author : infodocket
Score : 38 points
Date : 2021-07-09 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (papers.ssrn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (papers.ssrn.com)
| api wrote:
| Is anything not spying on you?
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Board games and card games.
| Dig1t wrote:
| I don't think my Debian desktop computer is spying on me.. but
| that may be the only computer that isn't.
| teawrecks wrote:
| _Might_ be.
| shadilay wrote:
| Are you sure the computer inside the computer (Intel ME)
| isn't spying on you?
| quesera wrote:
| Many people are unhappy about Debian popcon.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It's opt-in (and the preselected option is "no" so even if
| you accidentally press enter you won't opt-in) and very
| clearly explained during installation.
| [deleted]
| enlyth wrote:
| I doubt it, I bought a new Sonicare toothbrush and it came with
| an app to supposedly help you track your brushing or whatever;
| I was curious so I installed it.
|
| After updating my toothbrush firmware, I got a prompt on my
| phone asking for it to track my location.
|
| Why does my toothbrush need to know my location constantly?
| anyfoo wrote:
| I got that, too. I said "okay, let's try it out", but the App
| wanted me to register and log in before even being able to
| use it. Even with refusing location tracing, I just don't
| feel like telling Philips when I brush my teeth, and how.
|
| Luckily the toothbrush works perfectly without the App or any
| Bluetooth connection at all, wouldn't have even noticed it
| had Bluetooth if I hadn't looked at the packaging.
|
| My treadmill was a bit different: While unpacking and
| building, I saw what was probably 8 or 9 notices claiming
| that the treadmill is "locked", has to be unlocked by
| registering it with iFit, and _will_ not work otherwise. It
| was everywhere: On the packaging, as a piece of paper inside,
| in the manual, on the treadmill itself... New York Times had
| an article mentioning you just have to hold down the "iFit"
| button for 20 or 30 seconds, and that unlocked it
| permanently. Without having to pair with anything. Weird
| world.
| shadilay wrote:
| What model is it? I recently bought a sonicare and it didn't
| come with an app.
| enlyth wrote:
| DiamondClean 9000
| 1ris wrote:
| because bluetooth and gps are still not separate permissions,
| i guess?
| 542458 wrote:
| On Android at least this seems to be the case. Bluetooth
| leaks data that can be used to locate you, so Android just
| ties the two permissions together.
|
| https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/160479/why-
| do-i-...
|
| IMO this is counterintuitive for users. It would be like
| telling people on windows "This app wants to wipe your C
| drive" every time an app asks for admin permissions - it
| _could_ wipe your C drive, but that's not what it's asking
| for. IMO the permissions should be separate, but the
| approval modal should note that info about leaking
| location.
| gruez wrote:
| >IMO this is counterintuitive for users. It would be like
| telling people on windows "This app wants to wipe your C
| drive" every time an app asks for admin permissions - it
| could wipe your C drive, but that's not what it's asking
| for.
|
| Well the flip side is that they don't warn the users
| enough, and they get roasted by the media for "not
| sufficiently warning the users" or "being complicit in
| user tracking" or whatever.
| [deleted]
| GeneralTspoon wrote:
| Bluetooth permissions are grouped in under the Location
| permissions on both iOS & Android.
|
| This is because Bluetooth _could_ be used to determine a
| user's location by using beacons and constantly scanning or
| whatever.
|
| But this has led to nothing but endless confusion for users
| (and constantly gets highlighted as suspicious in online
| forums), so they really need to come up with better wording.
| Like "This app is requesting Bluetooth permissions, which
| _could_ be used to determine your location".
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| The paper isn't saying games are spying on you. It's saying
| that if someone decided to analyse the data about someone
| playing then they could infer certain things.
|
| I mean sure I guess.
|
| I'm pretty skeptical that this is really occuring though. I
| mean, to what end?
|
| As someone who runs an online game we have text logs of user
| actions, yes. They sit there because it's useful debugging
| info. A server crash happens and we look at the logs of what
| the user was doing at the time. An exploit is reported and we
| look at the logs of what the user doing the exploit did so we
| can fix it. Etc etc.
|
| I really don't know what nafarious thing people imagine is
| really occuring.
| spicybright wrote:
| Same.
|
| On a naive surface level of this, it's a game, not your
| banking account. How much is really at stake here?
| ev1 wrote:
| > I really don't know what nafarious thing people imagine is
| really occuring.
|
| Unregulated anticheat software retaining user clipboard
| contents, sending/uploading arbitrary files, all window
| titles, all processes and computer and username, and any
| other IPs on LAN and ARP cache, sending in plaintext across
| country borders, ignoring GDPR/CCPA/etc.
| LordOfWolves wrote:
| In the meantime, most users with that anticheat software
| installed presume that it is simply looking out for them,
| in terms of eliminating cheaters in __ video game, and
| could not possibly be doing the nefarious things you
| mention. Yet, all of us working in software know this is
| not a far stretch, given the application is already
| designed to gather information about the environment
| surrounding the running game. We have a long way to go with
| software, put simply..
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(page generated 2021-07-09 23:00 UTC)