Version 0.17.59

[mmmPI]

That's some informations on privacy, but it's unrelated to telemetry from what i read.

telemetry is almost never opt-in AFAIK.

Valve doing it is one thing, but a game that requires identification over the internet to play LAN because the game dev wants to know who play and how much time even if they don't use steam, is a thing that prevent/deter player.

If there is a thing such as " no server without telemetry" that's what it means, and that's close to a DRM that doesn't say its name, which can be deceptive for a game on GOG.

That's why i'm curious, i advise the game everytime someone ask we which game i'm playing and that's almost the only thing people ask me

EDIT: yes typically i have disabled the crash log, because when i have 1, usually i fiddle around until i can make a proper bug report, so that would yield 10 20 crash report, and sometimes i even cause crash when i fail at editing some mods,those doesn't need be sent over the internet
EDIT2: It clearly says in the 17.59 changes that direct-connect and LAN games does not require user authentification ,only public multiplayer , i assume equals "valve matchmaking". Which in this case, is not the thing called "no server without telemetry".

[BlueTemplar]

Telemetry = remote gathering of data, in this case, data about crash logs

AFAIK, under GDPR, telemetry involving Personally Identifiable Information (like IP addresses, and probably user names in installation folder paths?) can only be opt-in.
However, IIRC, opt-out is allowed with anonymized data.
Of course, one runs into the issue that the more the data is anonymized, the less useful it is, but it's not the only contradiction in GDPR...

Just checked in config.ini :

Code: Select all

[other]
; Options: true, false
; enable-crash-log-uploading=true

Ok, so it's opt-out.

Yeah, I've disabled crash reports on one PC that I know that has bad RAM (some got through, sorry...)

public multiplayer , i assume equals "valve matchmaking"

Why would you assume that ? Factorio doesn't have its MP split (and incompatible) between Steam, GoG, and Wube... I'm not sure, but doesn't Steam "friend" matchmaking still go through Wube servers so that the game can be publicly advertised ?

Oh, and GoG doesn't give any guarantees about not having multiplayer DRM.
(they for instance have some potential legacy DRM in the form of cd keys : they can be used to prevent two identical keys to connect to the matchmaking server, not sure if there are still any games affected by that ?)

[Koub]

AFAIK, under GDPR, telemetry involving Personally Identifiable Information (like IP addresses, and probably user names in installation folder paths?) can only be opt-in.
However, IIRC, opt-out is allowed with anonymized data.

There are a lot of fantasy and false beliefs about GDPR. One would probably need a jurist who's specialized into the subject to have relative certitudes (as with most laws), but the basic understanding I have of gdpr for day job reasons is that :

opt-in, opt-out, or not even being able to opt-out can all be compliant with gdpr. What must be ensured is :
- Tell exactly people what personal data you collect, why, for how long, what you're going to do with their data, if it's going to be processed, and how, ...
- Collect as little data as possible for your needs (aka don't collect data you don't need), don't keep it longer than you absolutely need
- Ensure the personal data you have collected is safe for as long as it's under your responsability (cypher it, for example).

This is the core thing. But there are also other aspects like : give a means to people to know what personal data from them you have at any moment, a means for people to ask for destruction of your personal data, as long as you don't have legal obligation to keep the aforementionned data, report quickly any breach that could expose personal data, ...

Because of my day job, I have to know the basics about GDPR, and the above is what I have understood (hope I'm not wrong )

[aka13]

AFAIK, under GDPR, telemetry involving Personally Identifiable Information (like IP addresses, and probably user names in installation folder paths?) can only be opt-in.
However, IIRC, opt-out is allowed with anonymized data.

There are a lot of fantasy and false beliefs about GDPR. One would probably need a jurist who's specialized into the subject to have relative certitudes (as with most laws), but the basic understanding I have of gdpr for day job reasons is that :

opt-in, opt-out, or not even being able to opt-out can all be compliant with gdpr. What must be ensured is :
- Tell exactly people what personal data you collect, why, for how long, what you're going to do with their data, if it's going to be processed, and how, ...
- Collect as little data as possible for your needs (aka don't collect data you don't need), don't keep it longer than you absolutely need
- Ensure the personal data you have collected is safe for as long as it's under your responsability (cypher it, for example).

This is the core thing. But there are also other aspects like : give a means to people to know what personal data from them you have at any moment, a means for people to ask for destruction of your personal data, as long as you don't have legal obligation to keep the aforementionned data, report quickly any breach that could expose personal data, ...

Because of my day job, I have to know the basics about GDPR, and the above is what I have understood (hope I'm not wrong )

I know from my work for certain that you can not mail people with business offers even when they gave you their business card, without them specifically SIGNING a document, that you are allowed to contact them now.
We are in fact expecting specialized people to appear who use GDPR as a lever to pull extortion scams.

[mmmPI]

Telemetry = remote gathering of data, in this case, data about crash logs

I understood it as the measurement of audience (for which telemetry is often used as synonym in TV and press), that is only one kind of application of telemetry that is never opt-in almost. That's what you use to determine how much you gonna sell your advertisment. You need reliable figures, it's complicated by law to get them because that roughly imply spying on a random number of people.

Which is already pretty controversial for TV and Radios, but for "new" internet businesses, that's called introducing backdoor, to get information on people to sell them product. Which is obviously even worse

public multiplayer , i assume equals "valve matchmaking"

Why would you assume that ? Factorio doesn't have its MP split (and incompatible) between Steam, GoG, and Wube... I'm not sure, but doesn't Steam "friend" matchmaking still go through Wube servers so that the game can be publicly advertised ?

Yeah why, got lured into thinking the majority is the only way maybe i happily find myself wrong in this case.

The fact that it's public implies to me more responsabilities concerning monitoring the illegal things people can say. Which is a reality in most countries , thus i could understand the authentification.

It's not needed to play lan games, which is the same as direct connexion. Which is fine to me because that would be a non-sense, but hey that wouldn't be the first time.

[sowieso]

As the devs gave no justification for this anti-feature, I might be wrong about the telemetry thing. Thinking about it some more, it's probably only to harass pirates and at the same time honest customers who want to run a private server on the internet without user verification. It's not necessarily telemetry, but DRM at its finest.

I wrote telemetry because I assume user verification works by making requests to official Factorio servers about the user to connect. This would allow to log who's playing when and on which server. That is telemetry. But to be fair, I don't know which user authentication system they use, it could be implemented without phoning home too. My first guess was that this change is to gather more statistics, but it's probably made for DRM reasons.

Btw, I can't tell if this is GDPR compliant. If they are collecting data they have to inform about it and minimize and secure the data. As I guess it's a kind of copy protection they have a legitimate interest and are save on this as long as the previous requirements are fulfilled. But I don't know if they collect any data to begin with. Would be nice to know.

The crash-log data collection has nothing to do with this, but that's probably a GDPR violation.

Anyway, it's a small evil move, fck DRM! I wonder what's in the dev's minds to think this bad move is suddenly necessary.

[DaveMcW]

Anyway, it's a small evil move, fck DRM! I wonder what's in the dev's minds to think this bad move is suddenly necessary.

Public matchmaking is done through Wube's servers. Why should they provide free matchmaking for pirates?

[mmmPI]

Thinking about it some more, it's probably only to harass pirates and at the same time honest customers who want to run a private server on the internet without user verification. It's not necessarily telemetry, but DRM at its finest.

LAN games, direct-connect, and Steam still don't require user verification.

I would say pirates and also honest customers can still run private servers no ?, it is the same as direct-connect, direct i understood as you don't have a matchmaking you can only meet people when you have their number already like the telephone, you can't meet at Wube's place.

If those people do, Wube cannot be held responsible if they start talking about doing more illegal things.

In the case they host PUBLIC server, then Wube could be responsible if people meet in their server to talk about illegal things.

I wrote telemetry because I assume user verification works by making requests to official Factorio servers about the user to connect. This would allow to log who's playing when and on which server. That is telemetry. But to be fair, I don't know which user authentication system they use, it could be implemented without phoning home too. My first guess was that this change is to gather more statistics, but it's probably made for DRM reasons.

If you want to implement DRM into your game, i don't think you sell it on GoG on the other hand. I know of some games that makes mandadory the user-verification over the internet every time you want to make a new game, to get a new seed for map generation. they don't pretend it's telemetry.

I would bet more on the statistic thing, maybe also legal obligation regarding expanding player base and getting closer to version 1.

[Sanqui]

User verification must be enabled for public multiplayer games. LAN games, direct-connect, and Steam still don't require user verification.

These kind of changes make me really sad. I bought this game on Gog and it breaks my heart when the devs integrate more and more DRM. First the restricted mod portal, now no servers without telemetry. Do you have any justification for this new anti-feature?

The justification is simple. If you bought the game, and you go on the multiplayer server list, and join a server, you will expect everybody who's playing there to have also bought the game. If you happened to join a server without name verification, your experience may be worse, because there may be griefers and impersonators.

This is not a DRM feature, and I'm not sure what you mean by telemetry. You can still join a server with name verification disabled if you wish to do so by connecting to it directly, and you can still run a server that does not contact our servers.

[sowieso]

You can still join a server with name verification disabled if you wish to do so by connecting to it directly, and you can still run a server that does not contact our servers.

Thanks for the clarification! I thought exactly that wouldn't be possible anymore. Sorry for the confusion.

[BlueTemplar]

Technically it is DRM : Digital Management of Rights used to blacklist some accounts.
But you can't say that all forms of DRM are evil (except maybe if you think that legal commerce over the Internet is evil..?)

If you want to implement DRM into your game, i don't think you sell it on GoG on the other hand.

Well, see for instance Worms : W.M.D., which not only has multiplayer DRM on GoG, the multiplayer itself (as well as mods?) are incompatible with the Steam version :
https://www.gog.com/forum/worms_series/ ... nst_itself

Or how Stellaris was Steam-exclusive for a couple of years, seemingly because Paradox wanted to do multiplayer "right" ?

Note also that GoG (like Wube) uses DRM when you want to download the game installers (even when those are completely DRM free) - they can't afford to have the direct download links open to anyone !

[mmmPI]

But you can't say that all forms of DRM are evil

Last time i tried it was faily easy !

Well, see for instance Worms : W.M.D., which not only has multiplayer DRM on GoG, the multiplayer itself (as well as mods?) are incompatible with the Steam version :
https://www.gog.com/forum/worms_series/ ... nst_itself

Oh this is bad, and not just because i was wrong .

Or how Stellaris was Steam-exclusive for a couple of years, seemingly because Paradox wanted to do multiplayer "right" ?

Oh this is very bad please stop !

Note also that GoG (like Wube) uses DRM when you want to download the game installers (even when those are completely DRM free) - they can't afford to have the direct download links open to anyone !

That is not what is commonly refered to when people use DRM, although technically being one. The way of getting the product is secured via DRM system, the product itself is not infected with spyware and usable after your purchase. But i take notice that DRM has a wider meaning. I had always thought it meant something like "dumb regard on monetization" i have been wrong my whole life

[posila]

Note also that GoG (like Wube) uses DRM when you want to download the game installers (even when those are completely DRM free) - they can't afford to have the direct download links open to anyone !

That is not what is commonly refered to when people use DRM, although technically being one. The way of getting the product is secured via DRM system, the product itself is not infected with spyware and usable after your purchase. But i take notice that DRM has a wider meaning. I had always thought it meant something like "dumb regard on monetization" i have been wrong my whole life

Requiring log-in to access optional online service is not DRM. If you don't have login or even if you do and we shut down our servers, you still have access to all the content (which is what DRM is supposed to protect).

[mmmPI]

Requiring log-in to access optional online service is not DRM. If you don't have login or even if you do and we shut down our servers, you still have access to all the content (which is what DRM is supposed to protect).

I don't trust the namings of things, it seems very subjective or depending on locations/juridiction, what belongs to "digital rights management".

I am happy with how i can use Factorio, i wish long life to your server, and i am happy i could use the game even after a zombie apocalypse, i will place a copy of it in my bunker when it's built, near the steel axe, in this case i will get a retro-feeling using version 0.17.59 because now it's 0.17.64 and this gets a bit old

thanks for clarifications !