Steam

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/22066965

Creators of risk of rain

Having a unique issue where steam is not logging in for me. Its stuck on the logging pop up and stays like that. Is anybody else having this issue? I'm on Ubuntu, it was just working about 10 hours ago. I made and reverted a change thinking that's what caused it but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I had to run steam through terminal using the command: steam -tcp and got it to work.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/21789832

I just wanted to use my voice to let everyone know about this since it seems to be something they want to Streisand effect. I made a discussion on the stormgate steam page about how their EULA has a bad link to their privacy policy and asked why the information listed in the policy is being collected. It had to go through the review process since it contained links and then after being posted was deleted from my history after an hour (I guess when someone actually laid eyes on it)

For the full details I already made a post in the privacy community asking if this was a common occurrence. I'm attempting to reach out through other avenues for some type of explanation but just getting crickets or brick walls. Please use caution and common sense when downloading and consenting to agreements from game companies.

The highlights if you don't feel like clicking the link:

In particular, we have collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver's license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.

A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver's license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information.

Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.

Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer's interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.

Physical location or movements.

Please leave a comment on this community post if it is impacting you, to let Valve know this is an important issue.

I think they just took a screenshot of the steam logo and put it on top of the medal.

Q1. A few years ago, steam allowed you to sort tag-based releases (e.g. MMORPG) by release date.

But recently they moved to different model. Consider the MMORPG page:

https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/MMORPG/

Now you only have "New & Trending" which does not sort by date:

Q2. Any given steam store page has an option called "View update history":

This data is also provided in your library in the top "What's New" banner:

But this is only for games that you own.

Is there a way to "subscribe" to the update feeds of a set of games; doesn't have to be through steam. An external tools/website would work too.

Cheers!

tl;dr: Watch what you put online and who you friend, especially on Steam. Once it's on the internet, it's there forever.

There's a website similar to SpyPet for Discord, but for Steam. They compile all of our users' profile pictures, name history, comments, URL history, "real name" history, our friend networks, forever, and they give us no option to opt out of it. Not even a private profile will stop it from scouring your friends' lists, the forums, your avatars and name history. So what's the purpose of it?

Stalking. I'm a victim of it.

And despite all of my efforts to not leave a trail leading to my new Steam account, SteamHistory enabled my stalkers to find me.

There are a number of unfortunate folks that have dedicated their time to follow me into whatever game servers I visit and spoil my day. I had deleted my old Steam account and repurchased all of my games on a new account that was privated from the start. I was very careful to not disclose any information that could lead to my identification, including using VPNs and prepaid methods to avoid leaking my real name to Steam. Despite that, my stalkers managed to attribute my new anonymous account to me, even though my profile is private and haven't posted anything. But how? Well, they were "kind" enough to tell me how.

How did they find me? Enter SteamHistory.

The task itself would have been impossible without a massive database of Steam friend networks, but the website simplifies such an endeavor that it is basically trivial. Assume the role of a stalker for a second and that you know nothing about your victim's new account. All you know is that they have a few friends with whom they sometimes play and their profiles are also private. What can you do? Initially, it seems like a lost cause, SteamHistory gives you a lead.

Go on their website and look up your victim's friends. Despite that all involved profiles are private, it is unlikely that the victim's friends would create new Steam accounts and repurchase their games. It's more likely that they would simply private their profiles. With this knowledge, look at each friend's friend history and find the friends that they all have in common, then eliminate all of those in this intersection that you are sure are not your victim. This process will always narrow the scope into only one last person: the target. Bingo. You've found your victim. And you didn't even need any data from them. That's how they found me.

What does SteamHistory store?

They store and put on an exhibit your embarrassing names, your immature profile pictures, for the whole world to see. Your deadname, your abusive ex's comments, made forever available for any imaginable bad actor. They etch in stone the fact that you once were Steam friends with this guy that turned out to be a sexual predator.

So what can you do?

Nothing besides not using Steam. Or get Valve to implement better control of our privacy, but good luck with that. The owner of SteamHistory has been confronted on the matter, and what they said is that you can opt out of data collection by deleting your Steam account. They don't care about the GDPR because they're situated in the US.

So heads up.