Hiding system info/specifications from spring/Balanced Annihilation

[very_bad_soldier]

They are bitching about what ba sends.

Please, pray enlighten us as to why this data is teh evils.

Please don't try to make it look like someone is trying to make drama out of it. Obviously not the case. But it is my data and I don't want to share it to the world. Please just respect that. Do I have to justify to anyone why I am not happy with it? I don't think so.
I think it's sane to act according to "If something is not yours then don't touch it (without asking)".

[Forboding Angel]

Because the entire argument is abject stupidity.

Please try to use constructive, substantiated, criticism. (Silentwings)

[Ares]

I remember when system specs were viewable in playerinfo long ago, then for a long time it was disabled.

Then around the time decay retired and Forboding "BA Killer" Angel bringer of Discord TM entered dev circles those stats started appearing again.

Its inclusion is motivated by the desire to maximise special effects while minimising balance, because having in-game stats is handy to Forbs while he fine tunes exactly how much Blur our machines can handle at 3000 units.

User was warned for this post, Felony 1. Please avoid personal insults. (Silentwings)

[constatinus]

dansan- system_info.lua

[Forboding Angel]

Please don't try to make it look like someone is trying to make drama out of it.

Except... That is exactly what "someone" is doing.

[Silentwings]

I also have the impression that several people are making drama-free and reasonable requests about how their personal data is handled.

On one of my (two) machines I have replaced my own system info with " << HONK >> ", for technical reasons.

[Forboding Angel]

Pray do tell how very generic system statistics are "Personal Data".

[raaar]

I'm wondering about this too, how hostile are people to have OS/hardware data collected...

I'd add something to my game like a gadget that collects that and adds it to replays in standard format that could be processed and displayed on the replays site or something.

That'd be very useful for developers.

[Silentwings]

how ... system statistics are "Personal Data"

For example, in the EU, they would be considered collection of "personal data" because, within the Spring community, the particular combination of specs is very likely to be unique to an individual, and could contribute towards actions that affected the individual. In fact, in my actions as a lobby moderator I have sometimes used system info (hashed and supplied via a different route) to identify and affect particular individuals in this way.

Note that users have agreed to broad data collection and sharing (to other users) in Springs EULA, so there is no issue of specifics - our developers can collect this data if they want too. It seems simply an issue for BAs devs to respond to concerns of a few players, to be weighed against the usefulness of the stats.

@Forboding Angel: As said above, I would be grateful if you (as a non-BA developer) could note the number of postloves received by viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36301#p582770 and try to make a more constructive contribution to the discussion.

I suspect a more serious issue is that some people will play Spring from machines on which security matters - and would prefer to hide their system specs in case it accidentally advertised flaws in e.g. drivers and OS versions.

[Forboding Angel]

Get off your high horse.

This idea that this:

Code: Select all

CPU:  Intel i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz
CPU cores:  4 / 8
RAM:  32727MB
GPU:   GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
GPU VRAM:   11264MB
1732x1150:24bit @59Hz (windowed)
OS:  Windows

CPU cores:  6 / 12
GPU:   GeForce GTX 770
GPU VRAM:   2048MB
2560x1420:24bit @59Hz (windowed)
OS:  Linux

CPU cores:  1 / 4
GPU:   Intel Graphics 550
1440x786:32bit @60Hz (windowed)
OS:   Darwin 16.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 16.6.0: Fri Apr 14 16:21:16 PDT 2017; root:xnu-3789.60.24~6/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Is unique, is utter and complete bullshit and you damn well know it.

User was warned for this post, in combination with other posts above of similar nature. Please take requests for a more constructive approach to your posts seriously. Felony 2, 6. (Silentwings)

[dansan]

I'd add something to my game like a gadget that collects that and adds it to replays in standard format that could be processed and displayed on the replays site or something.

That'd be very useful for developers.

I'm almost done with this: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=36294
The API will store arbitrary key/value pairs, but will handle the Lua Platform table keys smarter.
I am currently in the process of writing the parsing+export of what BA dumps into replays.
Whatever you dump, a requirement for the API will be to have per entry:

• accountId (int: 21341)
• CpuName (str: "Intel i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz")
• osFamily: (str: one of "Windows", "Linux", "MacOSX", "FreeBSD", "Unknown")

Those three values combined identify a single machine. I assume a player can have multiple machines, but they'd have different CPUs. The same machine with different OS will be listed separately to collect separate driver information per OS.
I'll be finished in a few days and will enable the service somewhere and then we can have a RFC round about the API and stuff.

[gajop]

Forb, you are both doing yourself and this project a disservice by acting so unnecessarily hostile towards others. Please try to leave out anger or frustration when constructing your responses.

[Forboding Angel]

Those three values combined identify a single machine. I assume a player can have multiple machines, but they'd have different CPUs.

No, that's not correct. You are making the assumption that that combination does not exist anywhere else in the world. For all you know, this is a machine pulled off the shelf at a big box store and it will have thousands if not millions of twins. Additionally, the info presented here is not enough to uniquely identify the cpu, mobo, memory etc.

All you really know is cpu type/speed/cores, memory amount, gpu info, os. None of this stuff is uniquely identifiable, and to say that it is, is disingenuous at best and at the worst completely false.

To assume that no one in the world has that same gpu, memory amount, cpu and OS is nuts, and to then say that that is uniquely identifiable? You know that isn't true. None of this info is unique.

If you were pulling serial numbers off of hardware, that would be different. But this is generic system setup info.

Forb, you are both doing yourself and this project a disservice by acting so unnecessarily hostile towards others. Please try to leave out anger or frustration when constructing your responses.

This is a stupid discussion that shouldn't even be happening, because none of this information is capable of uniquely identifying a user and you and everyone else who knows anything about hardware is well aware of that fact. Ergo, the fact that this discussion is even being entertained is ridiculous.


Silentwings likes to get buttmad anytime anyone calls him out when he's full of it. Using postloves, are you serious? They might be an indicator, but if you're using them as a metric, you're insane.

[gajop]

It is much more important how one discusses than whether they're right and wrong. Please try to understand that.

Also, it is very much possible to identify people based on their hardware and software, depending on how much information you have access to. See https://amiunique.org/fp for example -> I am uniquely identifiable among 400k browser fingerprints. In a small community like Spring, where you have country ID as an additional feature, it's probably not that much more difficult, even with fewer info.

PS: You are not reading dansan's post completely. I'm not sure it was even directed to you. Being able to infer machines uniquely (not sure why you'd want to do that though) might well be possible from a combination of accountID + CPU + OS, with some level of inaccuracy of course, as the accountID uniquely identifies a player, and the rest just tells apart their machines.

PSS: If you want to use postlove as a metric of something, see this post on how people want you to not behave: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36301#p582770

[dansan]

per entry:

• accountId (int: 21341)
• CpuName (str: "Intel i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz")
• osFamily: (str: one of "Windows", "Linux", "MacOSX", "FreeBSD", "Unknown")

[this] is disingenuous at best and at the worst completely false.
[this] is nuts..

Less anger, more benevolent reading.
If you find an error in someones {idea, work}, try to help instead of rant.
If you'd done that, you'd probably have found the accountId in the list.

[Silentwings]

@Forboding Angel:

assume that no one in the world has that same gpu, memory amount, cpu and OS is nuts, and to then say that that is uniquely identifiable?

Dansans points seem to correct your impression of his own post pretty clearly, but leads me to think you had not read viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36301&start=20#p582826 very carefully either.

As it says, what matters (at least, within the EU) for the question you'd asked is whether or not the data collected could be used to identify and affect individuals within the Spring community - which, as said, it is.

... because, within the Spring community, the particular combination of specs is very likely to be unique to an individual

In case it is not clear: world-wide identification based only on system info is not claimed (by anyone, afaics), not possible, and not relevant.

Obviously, I'd suggest reading more carefully before throwing accusations - although it is a step in the right direction, which is appreciated, to see that you have offered enough substantiation to your criticism for us to identify the errors.

[nixtux]

Im no CPU snob but im 99.9% sure in this small community that i could be identified by CPU alone.

@Dansan when it's up and running please check for me, i have speced a few BA games so my details will be there.

[Ares]

Distributing peoples data without consent is illegal

[dansan]

• The accountIds are hashed.
• The hashed accountsIds are never to leave the database (not part of any API reply).
• Code will be OSS, abma will have full access to the DB and logs: he can verify that nothing is executed or stored, that is not in the public code/forum posts.
• The data is collected to make statistics - not for identification. Queries should be like "top 20 gpus" or "percent of cpus with < 2 GHz" or "lowest SDL major version" etc. We are talking about collections / averages of data, not single entries. What would those be useful for?
• Queries have not even been defined yet - please publicly state your desires.

[very_bad_soldier]

I think we were talking about data that BA is sending out to every player there is, right? So I assume you are using the same mechanism for your stats dansan? I personally have no problem sending this data to a trustworthy dev to gather statistics (while I don't want it to be send just to every player). Maybe it can be modified so people can opt-in separately for sending data to dev and/or to everyone?