Origin (EA) looks to be scanning your privacy...

[DownyTif]

Hello all,

Every gamer (well almost) have heard about the EULA problems of EA's Origin. Well, it turns out being far more disturbing. Germany is currently exposing that Origin is scanning your personal files (tax reports, phone history, etc). I just wanted to warn you fellow gamers.

Here is a link that contains a great summary:
http://www.overclock.net/video-game-...e-germany.html

A link showing that Origin starts scanning your PC even before you accept the EULA:
Origin verstößt klar gegen deutsches Recht? - YouTube

Keep an eye on this!

[funky monk]

Another reason to add to my list of why I refuse to use Origin.

[belk]

before you even accept??

wait I hardly have any personal information on my gaming pc

[DownyTif]

Yeah... I had to install it to retrieve my free copy of ME2 (giving away because I bought DA2)... I wasn't sure at all... but since it was the only way...

I can't tell you how quick I uninstalled it just after. But now I discovered those sites and looks like Origin did have a lot of time to gather information dammit.

[roliath]

more origin nonsense...

Yay. Conspiracies. So let's see what Origin really does, shall we?

If you hook process monitor onto Origin you will not see Origin scanning anything, independently of how long you use it. So what triggered the OP's screenshot?

Origin on installation will try to find games installed on your harddrive and automatically register them within Origin. It does that in a couple of different ways:

It reads the windows games registry
It looks for games in Program Files
It looks for games in ProgramData (where, for unknown reason the OP's SMS and tax software are storing the data instead of the user profile where that data should go!)
it reads the xfire config if it finds one for games

If you look at the screenshot closely you will see that it does not actually read any files. Instead it looks for their existence and recursively walks the directory. It does not read any of your files, at least not judging from this screenshot or anything I have found on my machine.

Lastly if you monitor the network traffic that Origin causes you will see that it does not transmit anything of value to EA. So far I have not seen anything bug login credentials being submitted.

But it's always so much more fun to assume that software is inherently evil. You can hook a syscall monitor on any application and you will see that it operates all over the drive. That's not something unique to Origin. Steam will do the same if you click the "add non steam game" button.

//EDIT: something I forgot: I think people should not run any sysinternals tools without a basic understanding of what they do or at least not jump to conclusions.

[DownyTif]

Some people are claiming that everything transmitted from Origin is encrypted, which doesn't allow people to really know what was transmitted.

I cannot confirm, since I don't want to install Origin

EDIT: and to my knowledge, the author of the quote above is wrong about Steam. To my knowledge again, Steam checks your installed software, just like when you click on "Uninstall Program" in Windows. This is different than scanning a PC.

[XX55XX]

Pshaw. People said the same thing about Steam back when it was required for their Half-Life 2 installs. Look at the praise Steam gets now.

EA has no interest in your personal information, and should anyone technically savvy enough discover that they are stealing personal information, then we should initiate a class-action lawsuit. But I see no evidence that Origin is necessarily more evil than the other software you install on your computer.

[DownyTif]

Pshaw. People said the same thing about Steam back when it was required for their Half-Life 2 installs. Look at the praise Steam gets now.

EA has no interest in your personal information, and should anyone technically savvy enough discover that they are stealing personal information, then we should initiate a class-action lawsuit. But I see no evidence that Origin is necessarily more evil than the other software you install on your computer.

We will know soon enough. According to the first link in my OP, looks like the news is on the radio, in the newspaper and on the website (top article) of the most important information source of Germany.

I'm just stating what I read in the link.

[roliath]

Some people are claiming that everything transmitted from Origin is encrypted, which doesn't allow people to really know what was transmitted.

I cannot confirm, since I don't want to install Origin

EDIT: and to my knowledge, the author of the quote above is wrong about Steam. To my knowledge again, Steam checks your installed software, just like when you click on "Uninstall Program" in Windows. This is different than scanning a PC.

i can claim anything without providing facts, people berate origin just because they love valve. origin is fine and works great.

[hockeymass]

Ignorant people should not have access to the internet.