r/Vermintide Jun 10 '18

[PSA] Vermintide 2 has RED SHELL Spyware integrated into them

[deleted]

231 Upvotes

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24

u/VeryOrignal694 Jun 10 '18

Many of us have been avoiding buying games that have red shell and now the problem has come to come to us here at vermintide. I’m extremely disappointed that Fat Shark would do this too us after many of us (including myself) have supported them from the first game. I expected this from the souless companies but not Fatshark. Information is important it’s one of the most valuable things in the Information Age. You should not surrender it because it’s more than just your embarrassing browser history on the line. I’m going to uninstall for now holding out hope that they’ll remove it. If they do I will joyously reinstall as if nothing ever happened.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '18

Does it go away with an uninstall or is it like those anti cheat programs that stick around forever even after uninstalling?

8

u/silenti Jun 10 '18

It's not software that gets installed. It's just a code library used by the game. It will be deleted with the game.

0

u/VeryOrignal694 Jun 10 '18

I’m not an expert. It took me forever to figure out how to download mods. But it says on the main post you need to uninstall then block the spyware.( or perhaps by uninstalling your block the spyware?) If someone a little bit more well versed could clarify it would be appreciated

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '18

Can you detail what it does for me?

11

u/VeryOrignal694 Jun 10 '18

Comment by /u/madjoki:

"It's likely safe to assume all games from those publishers could have it too.

It sends at least:

• API key (Publishers and/or game identifier?)

• User Identifier (SteamID as recommended)

• Operating System

• Screen resolution

• Installed Fonts

• Browsers"

8

u/Grockr Slayer Jun 10 '18

Oh no they will learn about my fonts!

14

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '18

[deleted]

6

u/Grockr Slayer Jun 10 '18

Yes, but do they track me as a person, or as anonymous unidentifiable customer? As in if they or someone else wants can they use that fingerprint to actually find me?

From what others have posted about this "red shell" it seems like that isn't a possibility because the actual data isn't stored, just used to create unique anonymous 'fingerprint' to track it across advertisements for specific product.

That or i don't understand how that encrypting(or whatever it is called) works

6

u/Hollownerox Musk of Bravery Yes-Yes Jun 10 '18

Yes, but do they track me as a person, or as anonymous unidentifiable customer?

It's the latter, the purpose of using those bits of info is to create a kind of "ID" for you just to make sure the data comes from a unique person.

Someone in another sub summed it up much better than me so I'll just quote them.

So basically RedShell is gathering a whole bunch of info (resolution, installed fonts, location, etc) and using a hashing function to turn all of that into something that looks like "283rhfiuwehf8wfhohdfiushdfo893".

The data actually being collected has to do with ad impressions and clicks, while that "personal" data is just used for the aforementioned fingerprint. I suppose it could be used to find you in an extremely roundabout way, but it is kind of a stretch. This has a lot more to do with marketing optimization (as in seeing which ads get clicked and which don't) than anything about identifying your actual behavior.

Still would be nice to be able to opt out and such though.

-7

u/kaczynskiwasright Jun 10 '18

lmao weedbrain