Clarification Thread Regarding About The Spyware Rumor

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

Please note that Facepunch Studios, developers of Garry's Mod and Rust, have recently updated their EULA to reflect on analytics data that is processed to help fix issues with their games, which include past, present and future.

After the 30th April EULA update, controversy has stirred up causing players to believe their data is being stolen through the use of two DLL files included with all Facepunch games as of the time the EULA update was in place: Analytics.dll and GameAnalytics.dll.

This is not true; two developers, Garry Newman and Willox, have confirmed in a guide encouraging to remove these files and block the IP addresses, that the two files are indeed only used to help the developers implement new features and fixes faster by collecting data from in-game sessions. In an earlier revision of the guide, though, blacklisting the IPs that the data is sent through would have broken a certain amount of services and applications hosted on an Amazon Web Services cluster server; however with the latest revision of the guide, this is no longer the case as a section has been changed to only blacklist certain hostnames related to RedShell and Facepunch's services.

Blacklisting the Facepunch API hostnames or removing the two DLL files (or both) isn't mandatory, as again, they are only used to process analytics data for game startups and to help deploy improvements and fix issues with their games.

A section of their EULA has stated that they reserve the right to monitor players' communications (traffic data) in special cases (for example: when a player has recieved enough reports of targeted harassment in-game) and are allowed to submit the data to other companies and their partners for further analysis.

You can observe the comment made by a developer here[cdn.discordapp.com] and read their End-User License Agreement (EULA) documenting the new changes by following this link.

This thread has been updated to reflect on the latest developments.

[kxom9k]

Ok

[Zeromix]

Finaly someone with knowledge, glad to see this!

[obama]

Originally posted by pivotman319:

Please note that Facepunch Studios, developers of Garry's Mod and Rust, have recently updated their EULA to reflect on analytics data that is processed to help fix issues with their games, which include past, present and future.

After the 30th April EULA update, controversy has stirred up causing players to believe their data is being stolen through the use of two DLL files included with all Facepunch games as of 30th April, 2019: Analytics.dll and GameAnalytics.dll.

This is not true; two developers, Garry Newman and Willox, have confirmed in a guide encouraging to remove these files and block the IP addresses that the two files are indeed only used to help the developers implement new features and fixes faster by collecting data from in-game sessions. Blacklisting the IPs that the data is sent through will break a number of services and Windows applications, for example Amazon, Fortnite (this includes the Epic Games Launcher), Discord, etc.

You can observe the comment made by a developer here[cdn.discordapp.com] and read their End-User License Agreement (EULA) documenting the new changes by following this link.

yes

[radium]

but how are you going to convince all the other idiots

[鈴屋十三]

Вауу!

[꧁Jay꧂]

Originally posted by pivotman319:

Please note that Facepunch Studios, developers of Garry's Mod and Rust, have recently updated their EULA to reflect on analytics data that is processed to help fix issues with their games, which include past, present and future.

After the 30th April EULA update, controversy has stirred up causing players to believe their data is being stolen through the use of two DLL files included with all Facepunch games as of the time the EULA update was in place: Analytics.dll and GameAnalytics.dll.

This is not true; two developers, Garry Newman and Willox, have confirmed in a guide encouraging to remove these files and block the IP addresses, that the two files are indeed only used to help the developers implement new features and fixes faster by collecting data from in-game sessions. Blacklisting the IPs that the data is sent through will break a number of services and Windows applications, for example Amazon, Fortnite (this includes the Epic Games Launcher), Discord, etc.

You can observe the comment made by a developer here[cdn.discordapp.com] and read their End-User License Agreement (EULA) documenting the new changes by following this link.

However, these IPs in the guide have been since replaced with hostnames and they will not break services on Amazon or Cloudflare. Also, these IPs that were included didn't effect Discord, Fortnite, Discord, Windows applications or anything of those sorts.

The guide wasn't about simply the analytics, it was allowing people to block more than just "game startups" as Facepunch said that's all they do. Their EULA gives them permission to so much more such as monitor what other programs running on your PC, monitor chat, 'traffic data', and submit this info to other companies and their partners.

This post has false information in it and the guide was updated within 24 hours to remove those 2 IPs (that again didn't break any of the things you claimed) since Willox commented on it.
Also Rubat is one of the main developers
Edit: I do hope you edit this post as to not spread this false info, if this is supposed to be a clarification post then the things I have commented should be included as it represents fairly the other side.

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

Originally posted by Soarin':

This post has false information in it and the guide was updated within 24 hours to remove those 2 IPs (that again didn't break any of the things you claimed) since Willox commented on it.
Also Rubat is one of the main developers
Edit: I do hope you edit this post as to not spread this false info, if this is supposed to be a clarification post then the things I have commented should be included as it represents fairly the other side.

The details I've provided above isn't false information; GameAnalytics is open-source after all as Willox has stated and I am fine with Facepunch collecting in-game session data.

I don't see any code in the official GitHub repo there that appears to collect any other forms of non-game data (like how RedShell performed) for harmful reasons.

[꧁Jay꧂]

Originally posted by pivotman319:

Originally posted by Soarin':

This post has false information in it and the guide was updated within 24 hours to remove those 2 IPs (that again didn't break any of the things you claimed) since Willox commented on it.
Also Rubat is one of the main developers
Edit: I do hope you edit this post as to not spread this false info, if this is supposed to be a clarification post then the things I have commented should be included as it represents fairly the other side.

The details I've provided above isn't false information; GameAnalytics is open-source after all as Willox has stated and I am fine with Facepunch collecting in-game session data.

I don't see any code in the official GitHub repo there that appears to collect any other forms of non-game data (like how RedShell performed) for harmful reasons.

I've listed the false information above, you've claimed that my guide blocks Discord, Microsoft Services, Fortnite, Amazon and others. I've tested all of those (except Fortnite, don't have it installed) and they worked just fine. Because something is hosted on an Amazon AWS machine doesn't mean it'll block all of Amazon or the internet.

At any rate, that comment was old and I immediately removed those 2 IP addresses from the guide and replaced them with hostnames right after Willox commented days ago.

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

Originally posted by Soarin':

I've listed the false information above, you've claimed that my guide blocks Discord, Microsoft Services, Fortnite, Amazon and others. I've tested all of those (except Fortnite, don't have it installed) and they worked just fine. Because something is hosted on an Amazon AWS machine doesn't mean it'll block all of Amazon or the internet.

At any rate, that comment was old and I immediately removed those 2 IP addresses from the guide and replaced them with hostnames right after Willox commented days ago.

I understand your reasoning with the issues you've pointed out and I'll have to make a mandatory edit here.

[꧁Jay꧂]

Originally posted by pivotman319:

Originally posted by Soarin':

I've listed the false information above, you've claimed that my guide blocks Discord, Microsoft Services, Fortnite, Amazon and others. I've tested all of those (except Fortnite, don't have it installed) and they worked just fine. Because something is hosted on an Amazon AWS machine doesn't mean it'll block all of Amazon or the internet.

At any rate, that comment was old and I immediately removed those 2 IP addresses from the guide and replaced them with hostnames right after Willox commented days ago.

I understand your reasoning with the issues you've pointed out and I'll have to make a mandatory edit here.

If you could I'd appreciate that, and can you include the other side of the argument?

The guide wasn't about simply the analytics, it was allowing people to block more than just "game startups" as Facepunch said that's all they do. Their EULA gives them permission to so much more such as monitor what other programs running on your PC, monitor chat, 'traffic data', and submit this info to other companies and their partners.

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

Originally posted by Soarin':

The guide wasn't about simply the analytics, it was allowing people to block more than just "game startups" as Facepunch said that's all they do. Their EULA gives them permission to so much more such as monitor what other programs running on your PC, monitor chat, 'traffic data', and submit this info to other companies and their partners.

Edited to reflect on the latest developments.

[Toad 900]

So there's no actual spyware with the GameAnalyic documents and the game is safe to play after all? All this spyware news can be confusing and worrying.

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

Originally posted by Toad 900:

So there's no actual spyware with the GameAnalyic documents and the game is safe to play after all? All this spyware news can be confusing and worrying.

It is safe to play, yes.

Opting out is an option by simply heading over to the bin folder and deleting the files. Additionally, you can make them read-only by creating a dummy text file and saving it under the name of those files ending with a DLL extension, then marking them read-only through the properties menu if you wish to permanently opt out of analytics.

[godzillafan2003]

so the game is safe to play ?

[꧁Jay꧂]

Originally posted by godzillafan2003:

so the game is safe to play ?

Always has been safe to play, just an invasive EULA has a lot of people upset. You can safely disable the analytics.