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KSP 1.8 - No analytics, no game?

swjr-swis

By swjr-swis
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swjr-swis

swjr-swis

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Posted

More Unity Analytics crap as part of the new engine, I notice. Connecting, crash reporting, performance reporting, tracking, 'standard events'. And the ever so ironically named 'data privacy' - yes, that is actually in the same filename as 'analytics'; got a good chuckle outta that one.

Except now, unlike up to 1.7.3, we can no longer disable it entirely by deleting/renaming the DLLs - the game basically either doesn't load at all, or gets indefinitely stuck in the loading screens (thank you for that, btw, it's the first time I've been able to see all the available loading screens).

So, from 1.8.0 on, this means no analytics, no game?

I guess I no longer need to wait for a definitive version of KSP. 1.3.1 it is.

 

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Snark

Snark

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My own personal approach to muzzling the analytics, last time around, was to just add some entries to my hosts file so that any network traffic to the relevant internet sites would just get redirected to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) and end up just shouting down a hole.

[UPDATE]  Various folks were asking about which DNS sites I'm specifically blocking, i.e. what to add to the hosts file to muzzle Unity analytics.  I've posted that later on in this thread, here:

 

Edited by Snark
Added link to later post with useful entries.
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swjr-swis

swjr-swis

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11 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Ya don’t expect the game to work properly if you just delete files.

The game doesn't require those files, or the functions they contain, to 'work properly'. As quite strikingly illustrated by the fact that all versions from 1.4.0 (when they first decided to include/enforce analytics) to 1.7.3 work perfectly without those files, without even generating a single line of error or warning in the logs.

Unless of course it's coded explicitly to fail or loop indefinitely when the call doesn't get answered.

 

14 minutes ago, Snark said:

My own personal approach to muzzling the analytics, last time around, was to just add some entries to my hosts file so that any network traffic to the relevant internet sites would just get redirected to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) and end up just shouting down a hole.

Personally I prefer not to lay my trust in code that has already proven to first call and report home and then ask me if I want to continue allowing it (and signify so by a convoluted method of registering to their website to 'let them know my preference', which the game then has to connect to every single load to check :confused:). You sure you know all the hostnames the engine will try connecting to? How about after the next patch?

Spoiler

:D "Hi. I want to walk through your home every day on my way to work to admire your beautiful decorations. Will you agree to leave your door open for me?"

<_< "Uhm, no. I don't want you in my home. Please leave."

:D "Ok, no problem. Let me leave a note in your living room to remind myself that you told me not to walk through your house. That way, I can check it on my way through every morning and remember that you told me not to do this."

:blink: "Ok, good, bye. ... Wait, what?"

 

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eddiew

eddiew

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52 minutes ago, Snark said:

My own personal approach to muzzling the analytics, last time around, was to just add some entries to my hosts file so that any network traffic to the relevant internet sites would just get redirected to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) and end up just shouting down a hole.

Be interested in a snippet of that file if you have chance :)  I always seem to get things backwards in there :blush:

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paul23

paul23

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Analytics are always opt in, what are you talking about?

 

The game is sold to Europe. You cannot send analytics without first asking for explicit permission, and that question has to be a meaningful choice (so it should still work without).

 

I cannot believe they'd not follow a direct law. Of course there are people who commit crimes, but I cannot believe they're like drug lords directly shooting at the law.

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Pecan

Pecan

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21 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

More Unity Analytics crap as part of the new engine, I notice.

Take Two Interactive.

Take your data non-interactively.  Everyone warned about this sort of thing, although they've been quite well behaved until now.  Just imagine what they'll get up to in wholly-owned KSP 2.  Massive price-hike and monetisation, even if microtransactions as such have been ruled out (for now).

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Terwin

Terwin

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2 hours ago, Boris Kerball said:

Hi guys/ help

is there a prob with 1.8 I have no prograde tools for getting to mun or altimeter when re-entry. my KSP has no addons a reinstall yesterday

It sounds like there is a bug where sizing the nav-ball below 95% can cause problems with it properly displaying things like altitude.  Not sure if it applies to orientation tools or not.

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swjr-swis

swjr-swis

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14 minutes ago, Pecan said:

Take Two Interactive.

Well, they did move to a new Unity version, and Unity themselves have not exactly been model citizens on that respect. It may just be coded in now and there's no choice? I have not yet had the time to research the matter. So I'll still give the benefit of the doubt towards the new KSP Overlords on this one.

For the record: I'm not accusing anyone, I'm venting a frustration. It just annoys me no end to see how it's been silently enforced now. Just when it starts looking like there may finally be a new version of KSP to move on to.

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DoctorDavinci

DoctorDavinci

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3 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Well, they did move to a new Unity version, and Unity themselves have not exactly been model citizens on that respect. It may just be coded in now and there's no choice?

Yes, Squad did have a choice on whether to include Unity Analytics as they specifically have to include it themselves into their code

Now this isn't saying that T2 or Private Division didn't tell them they had to include it but the point is that someone had to specifically make the choice to do so since Unity does not force a game developer to include it

Citations:

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UnityAnalytics.html

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UnityAnalyticsDataPrivacy.html

Been reading the Unity online manual the past year and have learned a thing or two

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swjr-swis

swjr-swis

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28 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Been reading the Unity online manual the past year and have learned a thing or two

Ok well, I don't like what that says about this, but thank you for doing the research I didn't find the time to do yet.

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klesh

klesh

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22 hours ago, Snark said:

My own personal approach to muzzling the analytics, last time around, was to just add some entries to my hosts file so that any network traffic to the relevant internet sites would just get redirected to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) and end up just shouting down a hole.

 

Could you be more specific?  I've got a "How to edit your host file" video going, and I'm looking at my host file in Notepad.  What are the relevant internet sites I need to be redirecting to 127.0.0.1?

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steve_v

steve_v

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16 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Don't know what are you talking about.

I clicked the button, went on a website and opted out. Three clicks.

Marking your user ID as "Please don't spy on me" on the very site that does the spying isn't at all reassuring. How about not giving them a unique user/install ID to begin with?
Contacting the analytics server to check whether or not to contact the analytics server is ridiculous. This needs a killswitch on the client end, and users shouldn't have to muck about with hosts files or firewalls just to muzzle the phone-home code.

Reposting because it's an excellent illustration as to how insane this situation is:

On 10/18/2019 at 9:23 AM, swjr-swis said:

:D "Hi. I want to walk through your home every day on my way to work to admire your beautiful decorations. Will you agree to leave your door open for me?"

<_< "Uhm, no. I don't want you in my home. Please leave."

:D "Ok, no problem. Let me leave a note in your living room to remind myself that you told me not to walk through your house. That way, I can check it on my way through every morning and remember that you told me not to do this."

:blink: "Ok, good, bye. ... Wait, what?"

How hard can "Didin't sign up for analytics: don't do analytics" be anyway?

 

6 hours ago, cantab said:

To be honest crap like this comes with running proprietary software.

Crap like this comes from accepting, and more importantly buying, crap like this.

 

 

Yes, the user can fight their way around the lack of an analytics killswitch... But the user wouldn't have to, if the software vendor didn't behave like an adversary to begin with.

@SQUAD: Please stop behaving like an enemy to your users and give the privacy-concious and the paranoid a simple way out. It can't be that difficult.

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Guest

Guest

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On 10/18/2019 at 9:33 AM, The Aziz said:

Don't know what are you talking about.

I clicked the button, went on a website and opted out. Three clicks.

That relies on trusting the other party to actually uphold the opt out.

Like keeping your cookie jars in your kid's bedroom.

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panzer1b

panzer1b

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While im not concerned myself since i have 3 firewalls all set to block KSP from sending or recieving anything, i do think this forced analytics is utter BS from a customer loyalty perspective.  I really like this game, but adding a forced analytics crap into it is very low, especially since that feature has nothing to do with actually playing it (and the whole monetize private data many companies are getting into just makes me sick).

 

Ill continue to support this game as usual, but if KSP2 comes with crap like this (and that will be a MP game so ill have to allow it online if i want to do MP stuff), i might reconsider my current stance of looking at buying it...

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