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Did anyone "read" the licence agreement for this game?
The-Raven
Member Posts: 234
I usally don't. I am like most and figure everything is ok and I want to play the game so I just click "accept" and next 
But for whatever reason read this one.
Is it normal for these licence agreements to ask you to accept the fact that they will inspect "every file on your hard drive" ?
It came right out and said their software could be considered "invasive" and will without notice to me send my PC updates.
Is this normal?
oh....and I canceled the install. I do not like the idea of giving anyone the "ok" to inspect every file on my hard drive.
Comments
Wow, I read through the agreement after seeing your post, and also will not be installing this one...Thanks for the heads up.
Here is some of the agreement:
.....
Licensee further acknowledges and accepts that Castle Thorn software may be considered invasive. Licensee understands that Castle Thorn software inspects and reports information about the computer on which it is installed to other connected computers and Licensee agrees to allow Castle Thorn software to inspect and report such information about the computer on which Licensee installs Castle Thorn software. Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by Castle Thorn software includes, but is not limited to, devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer on which Castle Thorn software is installed.
and
Licensee also acknowledges and agrees that Castle Thorn software is self-updating, which means that future updates will, from time to time and without any notice, automatically be downloaded and installed as a normal and expected function of Castle Thorn software.
Well, we took the time to ask them about this and pretty much it is for emergency patching of the client as well as anti cheating, if they ever need it (they haven't yet it seems).
I'm pretty sure all games that have anti hacking/cheating software built in or running alongside it has something similar to this. If they did not include this they probably could not even check what you have running in the background while playing the game to ensure you are not running a malicious program of sorts.
I'll still be playing this game, along with all of the other games I play that use anti cheating software. This game, to me, is far too enjoyable to allow some legal fine print to scare me. If that was the case, I wouldn't be playing any online games or visiting any sites that insert cookies.
Do you understand the international laws about "cookies" like where they can reside, what they can do without the users permissions and so forth?
A licence agreement that you read and have to "click" a button stating you agree to what the software is going to do if you install it and web site cookies are just a little different.
I do not think the wording you have used in your agreement is something many other software licence agreements have used. You can be assured that I will be checking.
While you state "we only use this for our own purposes...." does not take away the fact that you are asking for the right to inspect EVERY file on my entire hard drive and that you are going to use that information as you see necessary. What you see necessary today does not mean that is what you will be seeing tomorrow and giving you full access to my files is something I will not do.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Scanning system to detect cheats is ok. But you should change the lisence agreement so that users would have to agree only to scans to find out cheats, not to scans for any other purpose. And then it would be similar to other MMORPGs.
I did a look around the games I play, and this EULA sounds an awful lot like the one you agree to when you have a game that uses "Punkbuster", so there's a bunch of games out there with a similar EULA
I recently bought Civilization IV, and even though it's not a MMORPG, it has something called SafeDisc, that scans your computer for CD burning programs.
Too bad we have to have cheaters, hackers, and thieves that make this crap necessary
Most companies want permission to scan any programs that running while logged on, not any and everything on your hard drive. That is not normal, even for the process of looking for cheaters.
Agreed. what if they get a disgruntled dev who decides to start sniffing around player's computers? The EULA has basically been written in a way as to allow the open invasion of privacy on a player's computer system, with no recourse for action if said access is abused, because of the way the EULA is written.
While I'm sure the devs have no ulterior motives, I would suggest noone worried about this issue install this game until the EULA, which you must agree to in order to play, is rewritten in a manner consistent with the intended use of player info and prescribed limits on info which is accessible to devs of the game concerning cheat/hacking/bot programs vs. personal files and data which are in no way legitimately needed to accomplish the task.
Edit: If the devs do not intend to rewrite the EULA, then there should be a stickied warning in the StarQuest Online section of these forums, with a copy of the EULA included, to let potential players know of the possible risk involved due to the present wording of the EULA, so that they may decide whether they are okay with this before they agree to the EULA ingame.
From Wikipedia:
Games which use PunkBuster
* America's Army
* Battlefield 1942
* Battlefield 2
* Battlefield 2142
* Battlefield Vietnam
* Call of Duty
* Call of Duty 2
* Crysis (support announced)
* Doom 3
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
* Far Cry (support suspended)
* F.E.A.R. (As well as expansion pack)
* Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising
* Knight Online
* Medal of Honor: Airborne
* Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
* Prey
* Quake III Arena
* Quake 4
* Return to Castle Wolfenstein
* Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix
* Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
* Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown
* Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
* Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
* Ultima Online
* Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
* War Rock
And if a disgruntled dev was going to snoop around on your computer, is the EULA going to stop them?
Now, show any of those games saying they are entitled to access all files on your computer. I also only see one game (UO) that requires credit card or other personal identifying details to play. Details easily obtainable if someone is given access to your entire computer.
Second of all, no, it wouldn't stop them. However, it removes all liability for such an action from the devs. And on the devs end, if they ever needed to present that EULA in court to back up a claim against any user, or to defend against any claim from a user, any competant lawyer would laugh at them and refuse the case before he ever allowed that document to be presented to a judge or jury, simply because of that wording.
The way the EULA is worded makes it null and void as any type of legal document. Someone could run a free server of that game, and never be sued for IP infringement, as that EULA as presently written is completely and totally unenforceable. Also, in many states, absolute removal of liability for possible damages occuring due to the companies negligence and/or fault (i.e. allowing access to every file on a persons computer, which the EULA states is allowed, therefore creating a serious security risk) is illegal. Whether the devs do indeed access all the files on your computer is irrelevant, as their "contract" states that they do.
And finally, if the devs have access to your entire computer, so do any hackers who access the company's game servers/database.
From Punkbusters EULA:
"
Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by PunkBuster software includes, but is not limited to, devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer on which PunkBuster software is installed. Further, Licensee consents to allow PunkBuster software to transfer actual screenshots taken of Licensee's computer during the operation of PunkBuster software for possible publication."All the games listed above use Punkbuster
I ain't sayin I like this, I am saying it's not fair to bust CST's chops for it
Hmm, never played with Punkbuster before, so never paid much attention to it 'til now. I'm surprised they've gotten away with that this long.
Me too
Castle Thorn already changed their EULA because of this discussion
See why I like em ?
From the SQO website:
Due to some concerns over the wording of our End User License Agreement (EULA), we have changed the wording to make our intentions clear.
This is the OFFICIAL DOCUMENT, superceding any others before it
http://www.castlethornsoftware.com/EULA.RTF
The new section reads:
"Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by Castle Thorn software is limited to devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer known to be used for the purpose of reverse engineering, packet sniffing, or other activities used to gain advantages in the game not intended by the game’s designers."
Good deal. In fact, I was just getting ready to post this: http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=privacy.php , as it explains why PB has gone unchallenged. Basically what Castle Thorn has just done.
Edit: Furthermore, I'd like to add that I was not condemning CT as a company, so much as their original EULA, as it could have been detrimental to both their customers and themselves. Nice to see they cleared it up.
Cool
NOW COME PLAY WITH US
Zorvan for President!
The-Raven for Secretary of Defense!
I really like how you guys lay the smack down. Sounds like this game could be used as a trojan.
As for CastleThorn, you suck. Fix the exploits instead of resorting to snooping.
And in case i forgot to mention, you suck.
Anti-cheating software is a necessary evil in a lot of cases. The same for DRM. People have an inherent dishonesty and these are methods of keeping the 'honest' man honest. If there is a software without any method of controlling cheating, people will cheat if it's easy to do.
Will this stop hackers? Of course not. It simply discourages the average player from cheating. Besides, to get around this, you just have to have a second machine running the packet sniffer, like what they did with EQ's Macroquest. Not really that big of a deal, but just enough to discourage the average player.
Did you even read the thread? Who deleated my other post?
I understand that CT has changed their wording... but there are laws that define these charactoristics as virus activity.
Under current US legislation, any program that installs updates and/or other software without the express permission of the owner of the computer is considered a virus. The EULA cannot be used to circumvent these requirements.
"Express permission" can be granted in a number of ways. Either by requireing a person to click "OK" or by having a person enable a setting to recieve automatic updates are both ways to satisfy the express permission requirement. That is why you see many programs offer the automatically install updates option during the end of a software installation.
CT (and all other companies) could suggest this during install... but still need the user to enable the feature. In addition, CT should (if they do not already) refuse to allow a client with an older version number to connect before applying any new updates. This will require all users to apply the updates, even if they have to manually accept each one.
As for the scanning of all files on the hard drive, this is defined as virus behavior by current US legislation as well.
There is not any need to allow a game to scan and harvest whichever information they want (even if they claim it is for cheating purposes) from your hard drive. The only place a piece of software needs to look for cheat programs is memory. Since a program cannot be running unless it is in memory, there is not any reason that the hard drive needs to be scanned.
The argument can be made that virtual memory (aka pagefiles) are on the hard disk. This does not mean that the program needs to scan the disk... all the contents of virtual memory are addressed in the memory tables of the OS. Virtual memory is access the same as physical memory, therefore there should ne be any permission needed for games to scan the hard drive and harvest whatever data they want in order to curb cheating. It's all in the memory.
A better solution for the EULA would contain something along the lines of:
"Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by Castle Thorn software is limited to devices and any files or programs located in the memory, or virtual memory, of the computer known to be used for the purpose of reverse engineering, packet sniffing, or other activities used to gain advantages in the game not intended by the game’s designers."
Granted, I'm not a regular on these forums, but this EULA issue annoys the hell out of me. I do have to say that I applaud CT for responding to these concerns the way that they did. I just feel that I cannot install this game, nor any game that uses PunkBuster (thanks for the info about that) onto my system... there is not any way that these companies can guarentee that their software will not be used to harvest things like my SSN, or account information. And there is not any way I can prove they did... they look for sniffers which is what I would need to verify they are not stealing valuable information off my system. I would have to use an external PC to sniff, and I don't feel like looking at all the RAW data just to feel safer when I play a game.
Most important lesson learned from the thread...
READ THE EULA!
Well...dont cheat and you dont have to worry about anything.
Afraid to share your porn? :P
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
for those that think themselves in the know, what do you think WOW does? hmmm?
this is no different than what blizzard does (and a few more i would wager, they just dont say), might want to check your files if you play wow, you might be surprised.
can you smell that?!!...............there is nothing quite like it.....................the smell of troll in the morning............i love that smell.