didymos1120 wrote...
Mesina2 wrote...
^So wait, only private stuff Origin doesn't look at?
Then WTF is with privacy invasion drama?!
People assuming the worst because of the terms of the EULA, which suck. I played around with it and watched what it did in Process Monitor. It's definitely getting directory listings, mostly from the ProgramData folder, but that's pretty much it. It's not actually opening any files other than its own. Not on my system anyway. Nor is it transmitting much data (I ran a packet sniffer on it for awhile). After startup, its network traffic is just some keep-alive requests to Amazon Web Services every few seconds, unless you actually do something like browse the store.
During startup, most of it appears to be the login routine, exchanges of a couple Versign certificates, and downloading a few small xml and html files. In terms of bytes, the bulk of traffic is stuff received, not sent. I didn't try to add up all the sent packets (because a lot of them are just protocol overhead like handshakes and such), but the largest one sent upstream that I saw was all of 453 bytes, and it's not like a constant stream of packets that large. Most are much smaller, and often just stuff like HTTP GET requests.
So what's it sending? Don't know. Very well could be stuff like what apps of interest to them you've got installed (or had installed. A lot of programs leave crap sitting in ProgramData after you've uninstalled them). Whatever it is, though, it's not much.
No offense, but I really have to start questioning your motives here.
You admit you've witnessed it mapping your directories, but you claim we're over-reacting because it didn't send anything.
But you betray a high level of understanding and skill. So you would be aware that it's going to await a "Report" command from the server before returning data, because constantly transmitting that information would waste terrific amounts of bandwidth to receive duplicate data.
Origin doesn't need to continuously transmit the map, it'll be waiting for the report command to be issued, highly likely on a rolling basis so the server doesn't suddenly get barraged by a massive amount of systems suddenly all transmitting directory maps.
The most efficient method of accumulating the data would be to query 1/30th of the total number of accounts each day, as they come on, such that they all update once a month. Keep a list of all systems that haven't updated in the last 30 days, as systems come on, pick them off until you've queried 1/30th, then wait until the next day, repeating with an ever shrinking list. Run a job at 4am on Saturdays or Sundays to repopulate the list with any system that hasn't reported in the last 30 days.
So what's going to happen when "Report" is issued? Nothing in any of EA's games need a map of your program files directory to function. What's it going to do with that data?
There's only one use for that data, to transmit back to EA at some specified time of their choice.