I'm going to guess the majority are people that don't care that much, rather than people with such good security knowledge that they can stop a games distribution platform from spying on them.

Also, Epic is inherently online. Like, it needs an internet connection to distribute the games. Is it even possible to use it for that whilst also stopping it from phoning home?

[+] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz -9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well yes, they don't care that much, so I'm not see the hypocrisy you implied.

The Internet is a series of tubes. The tubes that deliver you file content are rarely the same tubes that carry usage and telemetry data. You can also open or close these tubes at will. Like a Valve!

[–] mob@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I don't think you understand how the Internet actually works, which is perfectly fine. Just weird to act so confidently giving silly advice

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In order to decide if they want to send you the games, they need identifying information in the form of your account, otherwise they won't give you the games, which may well be in a different "tube" (it's okay, I know they're called ports, you can use real terminology).

Any programmer worth their salt will know that the way to prevent this kind of tampering is to make the phone home data go through the same port as the account data. That way you can't block it and keep using the service. This especially makes sense since the phone home data will necessarily be tied to your account.

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's nothing to do with ports. Teach yourself how to use a hosts file and you'll be a happier user

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

Okay, so you're saying they can't also bundle the authentication and data collection to the same host?