red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 4 日 上午 11:25
isolate Steam Discussions on firewall
hello. I need to disable just Steam Discussions (not all Steam community services) on firewall. I know how to configure firewall, but I need to know which exact ports to block. I asked Steam Support and they sent me here for help.
Thanks in advance.
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正在显示第 16 - 30 条,共 31 条留言
Spawn of Totoro 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 6:08 
引用自 red_dwarf
Thanks for ideas. I want to block it also for other devices, not just PC so I need to do it on router. But it looks that parental control on router can't see urls and keywords. It goes right through. Do I have some paranoid DNS on providers side or something like that? It feels like mission impossible.

Family View is account bound, so will block from any hardware or device.

引用自 red_dwarf
yes, it is in PARENTAL CONTROL and there is thing Website Filters. I enabled parental control and added policies.

In routers firewall settings I can block IPs, ports, forward ports, filter MAC. So parental control is only valid place to handle addresses. But it does not work.

There is the possibility that it can't block URLs and even then, someone using a VPN on their device can still bypass it.

For the first part, you may need to look into a router that specifically does what you want with a URL.

For the VPN... well, that is not going to be possible to prevent if one decides to go that route... unless you lock it from the Steam account with Family View.
最后由 Spawn of Totoro 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 6:12
引用自 red_dwarf
isolate Steam Discussions

I don't remember how to do it & frankly I never used or even learned the specifics, but I remember that there's a way to set up routers to "adjust" web pages based on their content.

I've heard about people doing this as a joke with public access points that they set up.
One person left their router as having a public access point BUT, it inserted some code into all of the web-pages anyone would request, that would make the page render upside-down.

...and it gets better than that. Another person made it so their router actually ran a script that checked for IMG (image) tags in the requested web-page & just replaced ALL of those, with a picture of a carrot before distributing it to the person / device that requested it.
They called it "Carrot Net", was even what they set the public access point's name to.



I'm not just saying this for the sake of funny stories but because there's some way to get a router to alter data that the user requests (no matter who the user is) - even to alter it specifically only when a script finds certain things on the requested web-page.

If you can figure that out, you can have it erase the HTML that gets sent to the end-user for any pages that contain something unique to the ones that you want to block. (Screw it up and you'll get blank pages half the time, though, instead of only when you want to get blank pages.)

I'm sure the pages you want to block have some sort of unique content in the HTML code, though - heck it doesn't even have to be HTML, it could just be the line displayed at the bottom of this & every page: "© Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries."
[The Steam store also uses a copyright message - HOWEVER... it uses a different one.]
[Using this particular string would also block profiles & user-content pages. You'd need to tweak your settings a bit more if you figure out how to do the "Carrot Net" trick.]



(Side-note, moral to this story, if you need one beyond its utility function, is that you shouldn't use wireless public access points, if at all possible, because people, who know how to configure this router feature, can insert code into the web-pages you request.)
(This is also one of the two primary reasons you're advised to never share personal information over the wifi at internet cafes & other such public locations.)


:seewhatyoudid:
最后由 Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 7:15
Judgmental Amaterasu 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 10:55 
引用自 Spawn of Totoro
...
There are 10,000 possible combinations that the digits 0-9 can be arranged to form a 4-digit pin code.

If each PIN entry takes approximately 40 seconds, it would take up to ~111 hours to bruteforce a 4 digit PIN.

...

Unless they gave it a cool-down, it doesn't take 40 seconds.

Having done this to gain access to the secret base of the Bomber's Gang in Majora's Mask (without playing their little hide and seek game), I know that a code that is less than 6 numbers only takes a few seconds to enter / try a permutation of. (I hope to do a video of that one day, with commentary ("Is it 12345? How about 12354? 12435? ..." {finally gets it right} "Kid: ummmm yeah... that's right, I guess if you know the code I have to let you in...", but I don't actually have the proper equipment to record it.)

Just to see how long the extra digits of 6, 7, 8, & 9 would take to try, though, I tried it on a customer locker (with my own stuff in it) at Wal-Mart that used a 4 digit pin. After doing it for a bit realized it would take 10 hours of me (or someone) doing that, which might look a little suspicious to security but if the code is in the 4000 range, it would only take about 5 hours, etc.

Security never came & talked to me & I think I tried digits for half an hour.
(On my own stuff but lockers at Wal-Mart are self-assigned so they don't necessarily know that it was my own, given that they are told to check people's bags too.)
(The lockers were also made of crappy plastic... tbh, if someone wanted to steal from someone, they could have probably just ripped the door open with a hard-yank but that's destructive & destructive testing usually isn't permitted.)

Also, honestly, the 4-digit number that most people are going to use is 4 digits from a birthday MM/DD/YY combination.

It might have some more security measures than that which I know (such as the below mentioned max attempts) but the pin security still leaves something ...a lot actually... to be desired, imo.

引用自 Spawn of Totoro
...
Then there are the number of attempts the system allows before locking it out.
...
That's good to know ...& you're sure about that?

I wasn't sure where to read up on it (probably something simple I overlooked) & didn't feel like testing it and possibly having to contact support (iirc, I did test it but not to the point that it ever locked my account).

引用自 Spawn of Totoro
...
I use Family View with my 11/yo son. He doesn't even try to get past it as he only wants access to his games.
Then you have a very respectful son that you've done a good job teaching boundaries, if that is the case.


:seewhatyoudid:

There's literally a lock out after x failed attempts.
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 10:58 
引用自 Spawn of Totoro
引用自 red_dwarf
Thanks for ideas. I want to block it also for other devices, not just PC so I need to do it on router. But it looks that parental control on router can't see urls and keywords. It goes right through. Do I have some paranoid DNS on providers side or something like that? It feels like mission impossible.

Family View is account bound, so will block from any hardware or device.

引用自 red_dwarf
yes, it is in PARENTAL CONTROL and there is thing Website Filters. I enabled parental control and added policies.

In routers firewall settings I can block IPs, ports, forward ports, filter MAC. So parental control is only valid place to handle addresses. But it does not work.

There is the possibility that it can't block URLs and even then, someone using a VPN on their device can still bypass it.

For the first part, you may need to look into a router that specifically does what you want with a URL.

For the VPN... well, that is not going to be possible to prevent if one decides to go that route... unless you lock it from the Steam account with Family View.

Thank you for the answer. I think that only option for me is to close steam community service ports completely. I didn't want to do that, because it is paid subscription.

Maybe blocking access to discussion history through menu in discussions would be helpful, because it is widely abused to harassment. One guy I know already deleted valuable account, and now purchasing non-DRM games to stay out communities. He was not bad guy, but people who didn't agreed with him decided to cancel him.
Spawn of Totoro 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:03 
引用自 red_dwarf
Thank you for the answer. I think that only option for me is to close steam community service ports completely. I didn't want to do that, because it is paid subscription.

Maybe blocking access to discussion history through menu in discussions would be helpful, because it is widely abused to harassment. One guy I know already deleted valuable account, and now purchasing non-DRM games to stay out communities. He was not bad guy, but people who didn't agreed with him decided to cancel him.

What paid subscription? The forums are free to use for any account in good standing.

You can't block people from you discussion history.

Others can not "cancel" your account. The user could simply not use the forums and can set their profile to private.

What exactly are you trying to do and why?
最后由 Spawn of Totoro 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:04
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:04 
引用自 red_dwarf
isolate Steam Discussions

I don't remember how to do it & frankly I never used or even learned the specifics, but I remember that there's a way to set up routers to "adjust" web pages based on their content.

I've heard about people doing this as a joke with public access points that they set up.
One person left their router as having a public access point BUT, it inserted some code into all of the web-pages anyone would request, that would make the page render upside-down.

...and it gets better than that. Another person made it so their router actually ran a script that checked for IMG (image) tags in the requested web-page & just replaced ALL of those, with a picture of a carrot before distributing it to the person / device that requested it.
They called it "Carrot Net", was even what they set the public access point's name to.



I'm not just saying this for the sake of funny stories but because there's some way to get a router to alter data that the user requests (no matter who the user is) - even to alter it specifically only when a script finds certain things on the requested web-page.

If you can figure that out, you can have it erase the HTML that gets sent to the end-user for any pages that contain something unique to the ones that you want to block. (Screw it up and you'll get blank pages half the time, though, instead of only when you want to get blank pages.)

I'm sure the pages you want to block have some sort of unique content in the HTML code, though - heck it doesn't even have to be HTML, it could just be the line displayed at the bottom of this & every page: "© Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries."
[The Steam store also uses a copyright message - HOWEVER... it uses a different one.]
[Using this particular string would also block profiles & user-content pages. You'd need to tweak your settings a bit more if you figure out how to do the "Carrot Net" trick.]



(Side-note, moral to this story, if you need one beyond its utility function, is that you shouldn't use wireless public access points, if at all possible, because people, who know how to configure this router feature, can insert code into the web-pages you request.)
(This is also one of the two primary reasons you're advised to never share personal information over the wifi at internet cafes & other such public locations.)


:seewhatyoudid:

I tried to go with hosts file to redirect steam discussions, but it worked for whole domain only. I think I will need extra firewall between router and network if I want to configure it properly.
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:12 
引用自 Spawn of Totoro
引用自 red_dwarf
Thank you for the answer. I think that only option for me is to close steam community service ports completely. I didn't want to do that, because it is paid subscription.

Maybe blocking access to discussion history through menu in discussions would be helpful, because it is widely abused to harassment. One guy I know already deleted valuable account, and now purchasing non-DRM games to stay out communities. He was not bad guy, but people who didn't agreed with him decided to cancel him.

What paid subscription? The forums are free to use for any account in good standing.

You can't block people from you discussion history.

Others can not "cancel" your account. The user could simply not use the forums and can set their profile to private.

Maybe it is problem if someone can just create account and go straight to discussions to make noise. I never tried that. I was talking about Steam community services. It is paid. If you don't pay, with limited account there is not access to them.

Which functions can I not use with a limited account?
Posting frequently in Steam discussions (whatever it means, it is 15 years, I don't remember. By description it is limiting posting to discussions. Payment is needed to use it properly.)

Too bad. Why is discussions history so important? Why all people must have option to track anyone by this feature?

Others can attack you constantly not only in discussions wherever you comment, but they also follow you out of Steam discussions. There in nothing to do about it other then let them win. They are young with a lot of time. Now they have more time than ever.

But I appreciate your help. Unfortunately problem still exists, even if ignored it still exists. I prefer mental comfort over Steam discussions.

Thank you
最后由 red_dwarf 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:25
Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:34 
引用自 red_dwarf
...
I tried to go with hosts file to redirect steam discussions, but it worked for whole domain only. I think I will need extra firewall between router and network if I want to configure it properly.
That's different than what I was referring to but that could probably work too - you have to get the formatting correct, though, or yeah... it will just block whole domains instead of sub-domains.


引用自 red_dwarf
...
Maybe it is problem if someone can just create account and go straight to discussions to make noise. I never tried that.
...
Also, if you just don't want people to bother you in topics that you've posted in, you can use this URL:
https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata/MyForumMetadata
Then go down to the "Comment Thread Subscriptions" header, and there will be a list of links to every topic & profile that you've subscribed to. You can click each of them and unsubscribe from each of them - it's a bit tedious but you won't get notifications from any of those anymore.

If you want to use Community content such as uploading screenshots & don't want people bothering you, you can manually set each screenshot that you upload so that comments are entirely disallowed on it. (There's a checkbox that you just uncheck for "allow comments" on this item.)

引用自 red_dwarf
...
Too bad. Why is discussions history so important. Why all people must have option to track anyone by this feature? ...
...
It's public is why.

If you want to discuss things privately with people, use an I.M. chat client instead, such as... Steam chat.

People probably won't just accept random invites & you are required to actually have people on your friend list (or be in a group chat that they're in) in order to actually chat with them BUT... chats are "technically" not public; ...& on Steam, chat data that is older than 15 days gets purged from the user-side.



引用自 red_dwarf
...
Others can attack you constantly not only in discussions wherever you comment, but they also follow you out of Steam discussions. There in nothing to do about it other then let them win. ...
...
Words are not an attack. :bbtcat:
I would prefer it if people didn't insinuate that words are [an attack] either because this normalizes the concept of responding violently (&/or claiming "assault") to something someone says, which is a social response that is bad ...like... REALLY bad.

Words are words.

...Anyways... if you want to prevent someone specific from commenting on your Community content, profile, & sending you friend requests, then you go to their profile, click the "More" button (that has the down arrow) on the right, then choose, "Block All Communication".

If they make alts & they're actually alts saying "Hey, it's me again!" then you can use that same "More" button on their profile to file a report against them.

引用自 red_dwarf
...
One guy I know already deleted valuable account, and now purchasing non-DRM games to stay out communities. He was not bad guy, but people who didn't agreed with him decided to cancel him.
Not sure what you are talking about when you raise concerns of people "cancelling" you. If you mean "cancel culture", they can't really do anything to you if you haven't posted your personal information anywhere & are using a strong password.
Blocking the Steam Community Discussions won't remove any content that you've already posted, though.

Keep in mind that just because you make a webpage inaccessible for yourself, it doesn't stop being accessible to others.


:seewhatyoudid:
最后由 Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 上午 11:37
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 12:22 
引用自 red_dwarf
...
I tried to go with hosts file to redirect steam discussions, but it worked for whole domain only. I think I will need extra firewall between router and network if I want to configure it properly.
That's different than what I was referring to but that could probably work too - you have to get the formatting correct, though, or yeah... it will just block whole domains instead of sub-domains.


引用自 red_dwarf
...
Maybe it is problem if someone can just create account and go straight to discussions to make noise. I never tried that.
...
Also, if you just don't want people to bother you in topics that you've posted in, you can use this URL:
https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata/MyForumMetadata
Then go down to the "Comment Thread Subscriptions" header, and there will be a list of links to every topic & profile that you've subscribed to. You can click each of them and unsubscribe from each of them - it's a bit tedious but you won't get notifications from any of those anymore.

If you want to use Community content such as uploading screenshots & don't want people bothering you, you can manually set each screenshot that you upload so that comments are entirely disallowed on it. (There's a checkbox that you just uncheck for "allow comments" on this item.)

引用自 red_dwarf
...
Too bad. Why is discussions history so important. Why all people must have option to track anyone by this feature? ...
...
It's public is why.

If you want to discuss things privately with people, use an I.M. chat client instead, such as... Steam chat.

People probably won't just accept random invites & you are required to actually have people on your friend list (or be in a group chat that they're in) in order to actually chat with them BUT... chats are "technically" not public; ...& on Steam, chat data that is older than 15 days gets purged from the user-side.



引用自 red_dwarf
...
Others can attack you constantly not only in discussions wherever you comment, but they also follow you out of Steam discussions. There in nothing to do about it other then let them win. ...
...
Words are not an attack. :bbtcat:
I would prefer it if people didn't insinuate that words are [an attack] either because this normalizes the concept of responding violently (&/or claiming "assault") to something someone says, which is a social response that is bad ...like... REALLY bad.

Words are words.

...Anyways... if you want to prevent someone specific from commenting on your Community content, profile, & sending you friend requests, then you go to their profile, click the "More" button (that has the down arrow) on the right, then choose, "Block All Communication".

If they make alts & they're actually alts saying "Hey, it's me again!" then you can use that same "More" button on their profile to file a report against them.

引用自 red_dwarf
...
One guy I know already deleted valuable account, and now purchasing non-DRM games to stay out communities. He was not bad guy, but people who didn't agreed with him decided to cancel him.
Not sure what you are talking about when you raise concerns of people "cancelling" you. If you mean "cancel culture", they can't really do anything to you if you haven't posted your personal information anywhere & are using a strong password.
Blocking the Steam Community Discussions won't remove any content that you've already posted, though.

Keep in mind that just because you make a webpage inaccessible for yourself, it doesn't stop being accessible to others.


:seewhatyoudid:

blocking whole page will do the trick. Because when I google some problem, answer is often in Steam discussions. When I have some observations, I'm sharing those directly. And there is moment when I'm vulnerable. I also want someone to react so I'm subscribed on discussion.

Sometimes I forget to unsub when I'm no more interested and it brings those problematic people who write dishonest comments in way that reports are just ineffective. For example he say "You talking to anyone is probably waste of time.". It is honest opinion by the Steam rules so even when I report that, no action is taken. I have so many blocked people that I can't have even so many friends on my account lvl.

Some people are living an Steam, so they know how to use alt account so you never know. I just noticed that one of "friends" is added long time ago is on friend lists of people I was dealing with last few months so I unfriended and blocked him. He was actually responsible for one troll in Doom forum deleting his account. I thought he is something like moderator, but I found that he is probably something else.

I have not time and nerves to be insulted every time by some bored kid playing discussions rather than games. Some people was adding me just to tell me - hey, they want to ban you - Like what?
ペンギン 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 2:43 
"Discussions" are tied to:
steamcommunity.com and steamcommunity-a.akamaihd.net

which are also tied to emoticons, pictures, badges, skins, groupids, friends, news, discussions, profile and economic stuff. They also linking to thirdparty spyware.

Some related ipv4:
104.74.78.101, 23.32.119.55, 104.115.82.10, 104.73.230.192, 190.98.152.19, 23.10.118.254, 104.115.82.97

As already mentioned from other users, use wildcards and/or block the https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/

Another alternative addition is to modify the client-ui and delete the community menu in the header
最后由 ペンギン 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 2:53
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 2:57 
引用自 ペンギン
"Discussions" are tied to:
steamcommunity.com and steamcommunity-a.akamaihd.net

which are also tied to emoticons, pictures, badges, skins, groupids, friends, news, discussions, profile and economic stuff. They also linking to thirdparty spyware.

Some related ipv4:
104.74.78.101, 23.32.119.55, 104.115.82.10, 104.73.230.192, 190.98.152.19, 23.10.118.254, 104.115.82.97

Thank you very much. Those addresses are from your region. I have another addresses here. But I can try to block some IP's if it will have some effect.
ペンギン 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:01 
But be aware, it's possible you block the whole community functions - It was only an example of used addresses - as for that, Steam is a pain
最后由 ペンギン 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:02
red_dwarf 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:05 
引用自 ペンギン
But be aware, it's possible you block the whole community functions - It was only an example of used addresses

yes, I will probably block all of it. I will use Discord forums related to games. I have great experience there. But I will miss other Steam services I paid with subscriptions.
ペンギン 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:10 
https://hosts.gameindustry.eu/#ValveCorporation

Maybe it's a help for your project....collected already some stuff about Steam connections - German descriptions an titles but it's not difficult with online translators these days ;]
最后由 ペンギン 编辑于; 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:13
Satoru 2020 年 11 月 5 日 下午 3:11 
You could you know just not use the discussions? Like is that so hard?
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发帖日期: 2020 年 11 月 4 日 上午 11:25
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