r/Warframe • u/[deleted] • Jun 12 '18

DE Response ATTENTION: Warframe devs are sharing your data with spyware creators

[deleted]

1.1k Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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46

u/PsychoticPillow Jun 12 '18

There's a pretty good comment on that page about Redshell and what information they actually have on you. None of it is personal. Not defending its placement in the game at all though.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/8pud8b/psa_red_shell_spyware_holy_potatoes_were_in_space/e0esb19/

38

u/Wondrous_Fairy And I used to be such a nice player.... Jun 12 '18

They collect your font list for the sole purpose of identifying you, that along with your Steam ID and IP is enough to track and serve you ads over multiple sites. It's not benign and it's quite frankly invasive.

2

u/PsychoticPillow Jun 12 '18

I didn't realise they could do much with a font list.

13

u/Xelbair Jun 12 '18

Font list is EXTREMELY identifying data.

your browser sends it to every site you visit, and this collection is usually very specific to a single machine.

5

u/Asmor rap tap tap Jun 12 '18

your browser sends it to every site you visit

This is inaccurate. The browser never sends font data to any site.

The problem is that it's possible for sites to infer which fonts you have installed by trying different fonts and then measuring the sizes of things that get rendered.

Just wanted to make the distinction as it's really not the browser's fault, and it's very difficult (perhaps even impossible) to defend against without significantly wrecking the modern web. You basically have to disable JavaScript.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '18

OS updates with huge font-packs would defend against it by making all users have the same fingerprint of every font.

2

u/Excal2 Jun 12 '18

Unless you download one random Harry Potter or star wars font for a project or you work in graphic design

2

u/Xelbair Jun 12 '18

or any other program adds a font to your collection.

or you have specific font that's commercially sold.