JAFO

Nah.. according to @MaxwellsDemon, this doesn't happen.. there's no profit in tracking an individual this way.

I'd argue that if I'm not doing so for illicit personal gain, it's not fraud.. and I'm comfortable with that. Besides, I'd argue that since governments can run legalised protection rackets by calling them "income tax", they're in no position to point the finger at me.

In addition to what @The Dunatian said above, there is the more important principle, which is that they assert they have the right to do so, if they wish. And that's a fundamental point of disagreement, for me.

You forgot to mention first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, mailing address, geolocation, age, gender, date of birth, zip code.... This is exactly why, if I can't avoid giving out such information, whenever possible, I'll give false information.. help to poison their database. As Robert Heinlein's character Friday put it: "with all governments everywhere tightening down on everything wherever they can, with their computers and their Public Eyes and ninety-nine other sorts of electronic surveillance, there is a moral obligation on each free person to fight back wherever possible—keep underground railways open, keep shades drawn, give misinformation to computers. Computers are literal-minded and stupid; electronic records aren’t really records . . . so it is good to be alert to opportunities to foul up the system. If you can’t evade a tax, pay a little too much to confuse their computers. Transpose digits. And so on..."

So what do you call it when a company collects personal data that they have no need to know?

I have a spare pi I might do this with.. how do you find the wifi range with it, given that you're no longer using the modem's antenna?

Yep.. I'm one of 'em. Wish I could afford to contribute more, to be honest.. I love your mods, but until I'm fully employed again, can only do so much. (don't watch twitch though.. timezone differences make that difficult) I don't see that happening either, to be honest. Especially given that even though the FAQ on the KSP site has removed the bit about being free to install on multiple computers, they've kept the part about them being more than happy for people to monetise streaming the game, so long as due credit is given.

Oh please.. profits come from a whole lot of "one sales". A business might, for tactical/strategic reasons, take a loss on a sale here or there in anticipation of a bigger sale down the track, but in toto, if they didn't make a profit on every sale, they'd be out of business PDQ. But it's not just one customer, is it? When you can track everything about every single one of your customers, at next to zero effort, that becomes powerfully useful information.. and the information that isn't useful to you personally can be sold to other businesses.. Just because you're not doing so, in your particular market, whatever that may be, doesn't mean it's not going on. It's a huge growth industry, as you'd know if you took the time to investigate it yourself.

Why not? It's my life, and if I'm not hurting anyone, what I do or don't do is nobody else's business.

Garbage. They might tell you that, but it's not true.. Just had a deck installed out the back? Maybe you'd be up for a new BBQ to go with it.. Got a taste for fine red wines? There's loads of companies would love to know that, and pitch their own wines to you.. You're what's called a "qualified" lead.. far more valuable than some random person off the street, because you've already demonstrated that you're interested in the kind of product they want to push. The more you know about the likes and dislikes of an individual, the more you can tailor your efforts to extract money from that individual. And if you can't use that info, there's someone else out there who can, and most importantly, is willing to pay for it.

But the rest of my life is off-limits. I hold political opinions that are strongly disliked by every government on this planet. As governments everywhere get more and more repressive, how long until that will be used against me, if they can connect what I express to me personally? The problem with letting corporations and/or governments insert the thin edge of the wedge is, they e v e r s o s l o w l y insert it deeper and deeper, until one day you wake up to find they've cut your throat with it. Read Snow Crash some time, and see if you want to live in that kind of world. Because we're being taken quite deliberately in that direction.

Please tell me you're not that naive.. what do you think targeted advertising is all about? You.. specifically.. your every like and dislike.. interests, tastes, what medical conditions you google, the works. Insurance companies are already using peoples medical searches against them.

FYI, I only heard about all this today.. didn't even know 1.4 was out until today.

In other words, like with the data Red Shell collects, enough to uniquely "fingerprint" you.. collated with other data from other sources, easily enough to build up a detailed personal profile on you.

Believe me, I'm about to do just that. But I am seriously liquided off that I need to. I'm guessing you haven't run into one of the more obnoxious places where they insist that it's a necessary part of the sales process.. Usually they'll try to pass it off as needed for warranty purposes or something. I know of cases where they came very close to refusing to complete the sale unless the customer complied.

Absolutely.. it's why I pay cash whenever possible, never sign up for "loyalty" cards or programs, and never enter competitions.. because all the data they collect (and usually on-sell) on you is worth far more to them than what they give you in return.. certainly it's never done from the goodness of their hearts. Where do you think all that "personalised" junkmail you get comes from? On-selling of your personal information. If I go into a store and buy a product, what the hell makes that store think it's entitled to personal information about me, like a phone number, name, address, or anything else? They have my money, they don't need to know about my life as well.. that's none of their goddamn business.

No axe to grind against T2 at all.. What I have an issue with is the entire business of tracking everything we do and turning that information into a commodity. It's bad enough with so-called "free" services like gmail and farcebook.. at least you know that if it's "free", the real product is YOU. But it's especially insulting when you pay for something, and companies still think they have the right to as much information about you as they can legally get away with.

It's very underhanded.. and from where I stand, data-mining skates right on the edge of (and sometimes crosses over into) being spyware. From Red Shell's information page for gamers: The opt-out form allows you to opt out of web-based and cookie-based tracking with a single click.. but if you want to opt out of game-based tracking, they require you to contact them by email.. effectively handing them your email address for free. Unless you do as I intend to, and use a disposable email address for the purpose. But I'm guessing they'd need other potentially identifying info on you, in order to (presumably) remove you from their system. So it stinks whatever way you go.. I get so damn sick of all this "opt-out" BS we're forced to go through. Opt-in should be the default required by law. This. Exactly.

Hmmm.. ok, colour me very unimpressed. Looking through Red Shell's website, they do a lot more than simply integrate with Steam, too. See my next post. Agreed.. I'm not a software dev, but an IT tech with a heavy interest in computer/network security, and that's exactly what I'd do, too. Fully agree.. Unfortunately, I need to be familiar with Win10 for work reasons.

Since Redshell is essentially a Steam thing, from what I can see on their website, I'm wondering if this is something only affecting Steam installs? I bought directly from the KSP website, so I guess I'll soon find out.

Ahh.. there's been a good bit of that, I've noticed.. people assuming that MH parts and features are also part of stock 1.4, and getting upset that they can't find them.

Going by what @Ultimate Steve, @DoctorDavinci, and @xEvilReeperx are saying above,* far from removing it, they've actually extended it to more companies and removed the "opt-out" thing altogether. * I can't say for certain, as I've yet to install 1.4 and test for unexpected/unwanted connections myself.. probably will get onto that tomorrow.

Maybe that's because there never have been any 1.85m parts?

The EULA has been brought more into line with every other EULA for every other game out there, and some folks are freaking out and over-reacting, same as always. In short, there is no story.. just a lot of Chicken-Littles running around like headless chooks screaming that the sky is falling and the world is about to be destroyed, yet again.

When someone takes the time to update it.. the wiki is a community-driven site, where updates are done by whoever feels like it. Feel free to help out yourself. Just register an account, learn how to do wiki formatting/editing, and go for it!