Steam might be sending websites you visit to Valve. - General

Well I'll just go out and say it. I enjoy hentai anime.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;43950079]It seems the general reaction to this is "who cares", makes me wonder what people would be saying if it was Origin doing this...[/QUOTE] Honestly, I understand and agree with opposition to privacy invading software. But when it comes to my own personal privacy, I don't really do much of anything that I mind other people knowing about.

It's a shame that I couldn't break ties with Steam even if I wanted to. Too many games invested, too many good sales, etc.

Edit: I just notice this got bumped afterhand Gabe posted on Reddit about this, calm down. Stop being sensationalist for a second and think about it... [URL="http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1y70ej/valve_vac_and_trust/"]http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1y70ej/valve_vac_and_trust/ [/URL]

This thread is so painful to read

They already have access to my credit card data, so meh.

[QUOTE=Ybbat;43965962]Edit: I just notice this got bumped afterhand Gabe posted on Reddit about this, calm down. Stop being sensationalist for a second and think about it... [URL="http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1y70ej/valve_vac_and_trust/"]http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1y70ej/valve_vac_and_trust/ [/URL][/QUOTE] What he said. Quote, for those too lazy to click: [quote]Trust is a critical part of a multiplayer game community - trust in the developer, trust in the system, and trust in the other players. Cheats are a negative sum game, where a minority benefits less than the majority is harmed. There are a bunch of different ways to attack a trust-based system including writing a bunch of code (hacks), or through social engineering (for example convincing people that the system isn't as trustworthy as they thought it was). For a game like Counter-Strike, there will be thousands of cheats created, several hundred of which will be actively in use at any given time. There will be around ten to twenty groups trying to make money selling cheats. We don't usually talk about VAC (our counter-hacking hacks), because it creates more opportunities for cheaters to attack the system (through writing code or social engineering). This time is going to be an exception. There are a number of kernel-level paid cheats that relate to [this Reddit thread]([url]http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1y1uuc/vac_now_reads_all_the_domains_you_have_visited/[/url]). Cheat developers have a problem in getting cheaters to actually pay them for all the obvious reasons, so they start creating DRM and anti-cheat code for their cheats. These cheats phone home to a DRM server that confirms that a cheater has actually paid to use the cheat. VAC checked for the presence of these cheats. If they were detected VAC then checked to see which cheat DRM server was being contacted. This second check was done by looking for a partial match to those (non-web) cheat DRM servers in the DNS cache. If found, then hashes of the matching DNS entries were sent to the VAC servers. The match was double checked on our servers and then that client was marked for a future ban. Less than a tenth of one percent of clients triggered the second check. 570 cheaters are being banned as a result. Cheat versus trust is an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. New cheats are created all the time, detected, banned, and tweaked. This specific VAC test for this specific round of cheats was effective for 13 days, which is fairly typical. It is now no longer active as the cheat providers have worked around it by manipulating the DNS cache of their customers' client machines. Kernel-level cheats are expensive to create, and they are expensive to detect. Our goal is to make them more expensive for cheaters and cheat creators than the economic benefits they can reasonably expect to gain. There is also a social engineering side to cheating, which is to attack people's trust in the system. If "Valve is evil - look they are tracking all of the websites you visit" is an idea that gets traction, then that is to the benefit of cheaters and cheat creators. VAC is inherently a scary looking piece of software, because it is trying to be obscure, it is going after code that is trying to attack it, and it is sneaky. For most cheat developers, social engineering might be a cheaper way to attack the system than continuing the code arms race, which means that there will be more Reddit posts trying to cast VAC in a sinister light. Our response is to make it clear what we were actually doing and why with enough transparency that people can make their own judgements as to whether or not we are trustworthy. Q&A 1) Do we send your browsing history to Valve? No. 2) Do we care what porn sites you visit? Oh, dear god, no. My brain just melted. 3) Is Valve using its market success to go evil? I don't think so, but you have to make the call if we are trustworthy. We try really hard to earn and keep your trust[/quote] [editline]19th February 2014[/editline] TL;DR calm your tits and read Gaben's response.

Good ol' Gaben making sure we know what's up.

[QUOTE=geel9;43968310]Good ol' Gaben making sure we know what's up.[/QUOTE] since when has gabe or valve been known for communicating with its community [B]at all[/B]

[QUOTE=Mbbird;43968315]since when has gabe or valve been known for communicating with its community [B]at all[/B][/QUOTE] Apparently since yesterday.

I'd rather valve have it then my government. Plus I believe GabeN when he says its used as a way to catch cheaters. I have nothing to hide from steam. If you didn't already know hardware surveys usually contain all your programs installed on your os.

What would Valve even do with your porn details? Selling it seems really unlikely.

[QUOTE=Aide;43982176]I'd rather valve have it then my government. Plus I believe GabeN when he says its used as a way to catch cheaters. I have nothing to hide from steam. If you didn't already know hardware surveys usually contain all your programs installed on your os.[/QUOTE] I would rather have Valve [I]be[/I] my government.

Valve you really don't want to know about the shit I like.

Yay for spreading misinformation! Btw Cheatpunch is totally a Trojan guys.

[QUOTE=ChronoBlade;43949146]So if I post a picture of my ass, then what's chargers is that going to be like? [B]You got banned for posting your ass.[/B][/QUOTE] Bad news for Postal.

Your fapping session is never safe again. [U]Unless[/U] you activate your webcam and fap furiously [U]WITH[/U] hats on.

[QUOTE=Dog;43942670] [B]How can I be more secure?:[/B] Flush your DNS Cache with 'ipconfig /flushdns' before starting Steam (turning it off completely on Windows will probably make it shit the bed, but it's possible) Switch to a GNU/Linux distribution as it does not support DNS Caching natively.[/QUOTE] This is literally the most irresponsible advice you could throw out there for such a non-issue and you should genuinely be ashamed for putting it out there.

I understand if people [sp]namely, people that use my computer[/sp] stumble across my porn history but for people to intentionally seek it out is just down right weird.

please valve, my niche gay porn kinks are none of your concern

Looks like my kinky porn is no longer private NSA must be behind this