Steam Chats Now Having a URL (Privacy Conern)

[Dalek:.]

This has been going on for a while now, but I feel it's a bit of a concern that Steam chats now have individual URLs that can be linked directly back to you when clicking on website links.

In essence, if a website or app owner were to look at the source of their traffic, they could see a Steam URL link that looks something like: steam-chat.com/chat/clientui/?l=english&cc=us&build=1234567890 - while the link does lead to a blank page, whoever clicks on the link will have their country location and language given away to the website. Whereas previously, none of this information was given away.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of exploit that can give away a chat log of some kind through these links.

Valve, please remove chat URLs when clicking on website URLs/links in Steam chat. Thanks.

[Satoru]

taht seems kind of silly given taht the website owner already knows your country just from the IP address the request comes from. Hell they get WAY more information from that than what is supposedtly exposed in that URL

Like I"m not sure how that information is somehow 'bad' given that the site owner can get lots more info from just teh request itself than some ultra generic non personal information in the URL

[Dalek:.]

Publicado originalmente por Satoru:

taht seems kind of silly given taht the website owner already knows your country just from the IP address the request comes from. Hell they get WAY more information from that than what is supposedtly exposed in that URL

Like I"m not sure how that information is somehow 'bad' given that the site owner can get lots more info from just teh request itself than some ultra generic non personal information in the URL

You raise a good point. I suppose there's also the other scenario where someone uses a VPN and the link gives them away. But the main point I want to address is that the chat URLs as far as I can tell will directly lead back to you which I don't think any other chat client does.

[Satoru]

Publicado originalmente por Dalek:.:

Publicado originalmente por Satoru:

taht seems kind of silly given taht the website owner already knows your country just from the IP address the request comes from. Hell they get WAY more information from that than what is supposedtly exposed in that URL

Like I"m not sure how that information is somehow 'bad' given that the site owner can get lots more info from just teh request itself than some ultra generic non personal information in the URL

You raise a good point. I suppose there's also the other scenario where someone uses a VPN and the link gives them away. But the main point I want to address is that the chat URLs as far as I can tell will directly lead back to you which I don't think any other chat client does.

But again it seems odd to be worried about the 'site owner' getting information, when they are already harvesting tons of info from you just by visitin gtheir site anyway. Meaning that the rather non-specific information of language and country seem kinda like the least relevant things to be worried about in a 'privacy' perspective.

And note the url 'doesnt lead back to you' so I'm again kinda unclear on that part too. the url doesnt expose any relevant information, nor any personal information either. Also note that the URL is https meaning the ISP can't even see the header information anyway since its encrypted in the TLS tunnel. Meaning even your language/country information is obvfuscated by anyone doing a MitM attack

[wuddih]

?!
when you click a link in chat it does not have a referrer. the target website knows crap where you come from.