Version 0.16.24

[vangrunz]

Damn, I didn't want to discuss any more, but your answer doesn't let me any choice. It's so full of flaws in your reasoning.

Why am I getting a notification from an age old topic?

That's pretty quick answered:
Because the underlying topic has not been solved satisfactory.

This has to be on by default. No way around this.

So you say a feature that can be abused for data mining has to be turned on by default?

The average player doesn't check the settings "just in case there's a way I could help the developers", so opt-in is a bad idea. A popup after starting the game will be dismissed without much considering. For popup dialogs on crashes, I think Twinsen has you covered:

Apart from the extra implementation time, players will still often click "Don't send", either because that's what they have been doing for many years or because they just want to quickly get back in the game or because they feel that the crash was somehow their fault.

Ask yourself the consequent question: Why are users doing this?

I'll give you a hint:
In the past -and now!- there's too much abuse with direct or indirect data mining. A big part of the internet is affected.

And you can always disable this feature anyway.

At least I can, otherwise I'd have quit playing or blacklisted Factorio's server in my router. But that's not the point. You can't relativize a bad choice with a switch option.

Why do you even care if it's on or off by default?

I do care about my privacy, and I'm watching very precisely who and how is collecting data.

This thing is not supposed to create trust. It relies on trust. Your trust in the developers.

If you talk about trust, then send me the source code of the game. Anything else is out of question.

It's in the EULA. Don't complain about things you blindly agreed to because that was your fault, not the developer's for not bringing this to everyone's attention.

Slow down, Mister. EULA's do change. Anyway, as long as we can talk about such things to each other there's a relationship at eye level.

And, please, I am never be told to accept anything without reason. Never. Please internalize this.

In my opinion, there shouldn't even be an option to disable this. Not for this kind of data at least.

Well, then you'd have one customer less.

If privacy is an illusion, it's probably best not to break it. I know that Windows 10 sends a lot of data. I also know that it sends much more than I think it does. But I don't care. I have nothing to hide from Microsoft. Or any other big company collecting feedback (that is only valuable to them and them only) AND statistics.

You have nothing to hide? Seriously? Not even your privacy? You don't mind that with those data is made much money without share? You don't mind that your data can be found in much data bases, and therefore be abused?

I'm not gonna continue further either because it's "unhealthy". Read the rest of the topic. I just felt like summarizing my points again.

We have exchanged each other's points of view, and we can't get to a consent. That's pretty bad but not to change unless someone is prepared to overthink one's position.

You did not discuss to any of my arguements, did not quote just one of them, but stating over & over again that a data collection against user's will is a good thing. Well, I never will be part of such a system. I honestly regret.

[Gergely]

Damn, I didn't want to discuss any more, but your answer doesn't let me any choice. It's so full of flaws in your reasoning.

Me neither. Same here. Don't get me wrong. This isn't about having the last word. It's about convincing the other party that you are right.

LONG ANSWER

Why am I getting a notification from an age old topic?

That's pretty quick answered:
Because the underlying topic has not been solved satisfactory.

It was until you showed up and started everything again.

This has to be on by default. No way around this.

So you say a feature that can be abused for data mining has to be turned on by default?

Said feature is intended to collect data. It's not "abused" for data mining, it's "used" for it. (If "data mining" is the process of collecting and analyzing data. The actual definition is kind of different.)
To answer the question, yes I do say that such feature has to be turned on by default. Got any better ideas? This is definitely the best possible solution, Period.

The average player doesn't check the settings "just in case there's a way I could help the developers", so opt-in is a bad idea. A popup after starting the game will be dismissed without much considering. For popup dialogs on crashes, I think Twinsen has you covered:

Apart from the extra implementation time, players will still often click "Don't send", either because that's what they have been doing for many years or because they just want to quickly get back in the game or because they feel that the crash was somehow their fault.

Ask yourself the consequent question: Why are users doing this?

I'll give you a hint:
In the past -and now!- there's too much abuse with direct or indirect data mining. A big part of the internet is affected.

Why are users doing this? They don't because the game does not ask them the question.
Why would users do this? I thought Twinsen's quote answered that. But that's for the average user. A non-average user (say one who does read and understand the dialog's message) would click "don't send" because...

1. They do not care about the developers.
2. They do not trust the developers.
3. "It's info sent off of my computer. It doesn't benefit me."

And you can always disable this feature anyway.

At least I can, otherwise I'd have quit playing or blacklisted Factorio's server in my router. But that's not the point. You can't relativize a bad choice with a switch option.

Whether or not it's a "bad choice", is entirely opinion based. It's not in my opinion and I do send crash logs. Most people deem this a bad idea because they do not understand it. Those who do think it's good. As long as the developers can be trusted.

Why do you even care if it's on or off by default?

I do care about my privacy, and I'm watching very precisely who and how is collecting data.

If you do care about your privacy, you turn it off. End of story. But that didn't answer my question. You told me you care about your privacy which has absolutely nothing to do with the check box's default value because you probably changed it anyway.

This thing is not supposed to create trust. It relies on trust. Your trust in the developers.

If you talk about trust, then send me the source code of the game. Anything else is out of question.

You don't need the source code of the game to trust it's developers. I mean... who needs that? The average user wouldn't even understand it. I trust the developers. For what reason, it does not matter.

It's in the EULA. Don't complain about things you blindly agreed to because that was your fault, not the developer's for not bringing this to everyone's attention.

Slow down, Mister. EULA's do change.

Have you ever seen a notification telling you that "we have updated our terms and conditions"? Then if you care, you read it again. If you don't then don't complain.

And, please, I am never be told to accept anything without reason. Never. Please internalize this.

Got it. One can still accept the EULA without reading it for the following reason: "I finally want to play this game." A valid reason for an average user.

In my opinion, there shouldn't even be an option to disable this. Not for this kind of data at least.

Well, then you'd have one customer less.

I challenge you to update to 0.17.0 as soon as it's out, and play with this option enabled until the game becomes stable. (Note: I will be personally doing this.) There will probably be a lot of crashes.
Would you be able to resist Factorio?

If privacy is an illusion, it's probably best not to break it. I know that Windows 10 sends a lot of data. I also know that it sends much more than I think it does. But I don't care. I have nothing to hide from Microsoft. Or any other big company collecting feedback (that is only valuable to them and them only) AND statistics.

You have nothing to hide? Seriously? Not even your privacy? You don't mind that with those data is made much money without share? You don't mind that your data can be found in much data bases, and therefore be abused?

I don't. Not as long as they don't use it against me. Information is valuable, but so is Windows 10. Win-Win.

I'm not gonna continue further either because it's "unhealthy". Read the rest of the topic. I just felt like summarizing my points again.

We have exchanged each other's points of view, and we can't get to a consent. That's pretty bad but not to change unless someone is prepared to overthink one's position.

You did not discuss to any of my arguements, did not quote just one of them, but stating over & over again that a data collection against user's will is a good thing. Well, I never will be part of such a system. I honestly regret.

Well then I go ahead and do just that. Most of them were resolved by others.

HERE YOU GO

You didn't counter them so they are still valid. I quote them here.

Apart the fact you're like 6 months late,

The log only contains basic system information (CPU, GPU and free memory), game display settings, operation log, crash stack trace for the main thread and in some rare cases a minidump. We send that information (if you didn't opt out), in our binary format, securely, through HTTPS to one of our servers. In the next version we even sanitized the log a bit so it does not contain anything that might be seen as a privacy breach, such as IP addresses. We also updated our EULA and included it in the game to mitigate any legal issues.

Source : https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-231

If this still is not enough for you, you can opt-out.

Apart the fact you're like 6 months late,

As I do see, the basic problem (still opt-out) didn't change, so time is actually no matter.

If this still is not enough for you, you can opt-out.

I don't understand why changing to opt-in is such a problem?

Because then you would probably cut crash reports by 80-90%, which would defeat the point of adding automatic crash reporting.

Resolved. Understand that changing it to opt-in would defeat the purpose of this.

If a crash occours, a dialogue can be presented, leaving the player the option to send or not to send (probably most will do). Some games do so, and I can go d'accord with it. But not with any opt-out option, sorry.

I do see that there's an interest in crash logs. But I also do see privacy conflicts. To me, privacy weights heavier than the desire to get crash logs. I don't want anything to be sent without my interaction.

That's a bad idea because most users don't.... #@%*$! Also, you can always opt out.

Another argument what came up was "99% of the users won't become active to activate this feature". Well, 99% are not 100%. It underestimates that there're many people out there which like to help the developers voluntarily. And, by the way, the user is not the alpha or beta tester, even if it's formally a pre-release. By paying money to such a project the developers are in charge to protect private data. Asking the users is legitime; collecting data without questioning is not.

The user has to accept the EULA (which does include this) so it's not just being done "without question".

The developers are in charge to protect private data. That's correct. They collect and store the data and do not give it away to anyone. Data is safe.

Just saying that out of the 1 million Factorio players, less than 60000 are members of this forum. Of course that's not even close to the amount of people who like to waste time writing bug reports.

Additionally, by asking the user to opt in there must be elementary data shown about what will be collected. A simple reference to privacy terms (which can always change) is not enough.

It is shown. It's shown in... err... in the save data path that depends on your os.

You care about your privacy. That's okay, you can disable this function.
Then... let me summarize it in one question:
What is wrong with the default value if you can change it?

[Koub]

You can't please everyone. Some people are paranoid about their privacy. Others just don't give a fuck and display their most private information on social networks. Most are somewhere in between.

I had a colleague at work who, every time he used his phone to call someone, used it a second time to call a random false number, so that no one could know who he had called before with "repeat" key. He also used a cloth to wipe his phone keys every time he used it too, of course. He had neither a mobile phone, nor an internet access at home. He did care about his privacy a LOT. Is it too much ? Maybe. Maybe not. Not for him at least.

You (@vangrunz) seem to care about your privacy more than most. I guess you have no FB, twitter, Google+, linkedIn (or whatever social network) accounts, that you always browse the web with private navigation sessions, maybe even through VPN, and stuff. Of course, an Ad blocker, probably a script blocker are on by default on your browser, and you never use Google, Bing, ... but prefer "privacy friendly" alternative search engines like Qwant or DuckDuckGo. BTW : if all this is not true, then there is a discrepancy between your privacy concern with Factorio logs, and your privacy concern with your own web browsing habits.

At some point, one has to make a choice : Factorio developpers have made what they felt was their maximum to provide optimal privacy to alpha testers without depriving themselves from the automatic log collection upon crash. If you're not willing that deal, it's up to you to opt out, or even if you lost all your trust in WUBE, just deinstall the game and stop playing.

I'm sure they prefer losing 0.001% of their player base for privacy concerns to ensure the remaining 99.999% a better game. I would probably do the same, despite being sad for that lost fraction.

[eradicator]

You can't please everyone. Some people are paranoid about their privacy. Others just don't give a fuck and display their most private information on social networks. Most are somewhere in between.

I had a colleague at work who, every time he used his phone to call someone, used it a second time to call a random false number, so that no one could know who he had called before with "repeat" key. He also used a cloth to wipe his phone keys every time he used it too, of course. He had neither a mobile phone, nor an internet access at home. He did care about his privacy a LOT. Is it too much ? Maybe. Maybe not. Not for him at least.

You (@vangrunz) seem to care about your privacy more than most. I guess you have no FB, twitter, Google+, linkedIn (or whatever social network) accounts, that you always browse the web with private navigation sessions, maybe even through VPN, and stuff. Of course, an Ad blocker, probably a script blocker are on by default on your browser, and you never use Google, Bing, ... but prefer "privacy friendly" alternative search engines like Qwant or DuckDuckGo. BTW : if all this is not true, then there is a discrepancy between your privacy concern with Factorio logs, and your privacy concern with your own web browsing habits.

Ye know, i generally i agree with you on many things. But above paragraph of hidden subtextural ridiculing of privacy concerns is a dick move if i've ever seen one. Ad/script blockers are essential these days if one doesn't want to be infected by several drive-by-downloads a day because web-advertisers don't care the least bit about security, and anybody who says otherwise simply hasn't noticed they're infected yet because malware is much less obvious these days (background cryptominers, hidden keyloggers etc). What you're using to weaken his position is a faulty generalization, a basic logic fallacy. People make compromises - like "using google" or whatever - because there aren't always alternatives (try using those "alternative" search engines yourself and you'll notice). This doesn't automatically invalidate all their other privacy concerns. And it is fucking important that every attempt to grab more of our privacy be very carefully examined. Because once it's gone it doesn't come back. And a benevolent actor like wube is no guarantee at all that everything will go as planned. Companies "loose" data all the time when they get "hacked" because spending money on proper security is apparently not a significant factor in running a successful company.

TL;DR: With shittalk like that you're part of the problem. Making simply talking about privacy impossible. Just because you don't care/are too lazy to think about it doesn't give you the right to ridicule other people who do. You're trying to undermine his position using fauly arguments, without any factual statements and without bringing any actual content to the discussion and i'm awaiting your apology. Seriously.

@Privacy: I doubt any discussion done here will help. Wube has decided on how they want to handle this. The only way to change their mind is to sue them for a possible GDPR violation and see how the court decides.

[Gergely]

You can't please everyone. Some people are paranoid about their privacy.

Thanks for saving my life. It's damn good to be aware of that...

[Oktokolo]

I had a colleague at work who, every time he used his phone to call someone, used it a second time to call a random false number, so that no one could know who he had called before with "repeat" key. He also used a cloth to wipe his phone keys every time he used it too, of course. He had neither a mobile phone, nor an internet access at home. He did care about his privacy a LOT. Is it too much ? Maybe. Maybe not. Not for him at least.

Nothing wrong with that - except that regular phone calls are not encrypted...

You (@vangrunz) seem to care about your privacy more than most. I guess you have no FB, twitter, Google+, linkedIn (or whatever social network) accounts, that you always browse the web with private navigation sessions, maybe even through VPN, and stuff. Of course, an Ad blocker, probably a script blocker are on by default on your browser, and you never use Google, Bing, ... but prefer "privacy friendly" alternative search engines like Qwant or DuckDuckGo.

Hey, that is me. I do use a VPN for all browsing, have my browsersessions deleted on exit, use uMatrix as a restrictive opt-in web firewall on a self-compiled chromium on a self-compiled Gentoo hardened with a self-compiled and extensively hardened Kernel. And i use Duckduckgo as Default-Searchengine and have no social-media accounts (not even Twitter or Mastodon)...
And i explicitly reenabled the crashlog autouploader after the privacy issues got fixed.
Privacy-awareness is not paranoia. Wube fixed the issues and the result is okay for me. I trust Wube that they did not lie about that fixes and that they did not sneaked in other datamining. And therefore i see no harm in having it enabled.

But others might not have the trust because they do not see Wube as beeing any different than Microsoft, Facebook or Google. They might opt out - if they have enough trust to not assume that the real data hog functionality is always on whenever the game runs.
If they do not have that minimum amount of trust, there is nothing that you can do against that. Whatever you say, they will assume it to be a lie. You can't convince them. Neither by making it opt-in, nor by removing the crash-report uploader completely. They will always assume some datamining to be in the game. And you can't prove the non-existance of code.

[Loewchen]

Closed.