POL System Scan Privacy Issues? OP Updated 5:39am EST Mar 9Follow

Look on the bright side of things, how many people did they catch out before this came common knowledge. How many RMT's had their accounts flagged for hacks. These people done before anyone know about this won't be there at the next camp. Who wins, the rest that are online now and haven't done anything wrong.

Now if SE told everyone in advance that they were scanning, people would turn off windower/hacks and wait for work arounds before they started them up again. The police here in Australia have brilliant road signs for speeding. "Speed Camera's Used in this Area", usually placed after the area that they are in. It's legally allowed because they notified them of the cameras being used in the area which they were used in. Hazy sure, but it works :D

To sum it up, SE can ban you right now with or without the information collected and you can't do squat about it. As noted they can deny the use of the information collected and just say a GM saw you speed hacking (been done before, many times). It's your word against theirs.

After all of this has happened if someone gets banned "without reason" I would think they would actually have a leg to stand on in court. SE would at least have to furnish exactly why service was stopped, since as we know a video game ToS will not hold up in court.

Therefore if you are banned for no reason and you pay your fee's on time and haven't done anything to warrant getting banned they would be neck deep in bad publicity which they do not want. This little program of theirs has already had serious impacts on SE whether they realize it or not.

In fact in light of all of this, I bet there is some lawyers out there who would jump at the chance to take SE on if someone really wanted to pursue it.

I didn't intend to provide some "out" for anyone who might be banned from their system being scanned. Far from it. I'm still a fan of disclosure.

I also think that this issue is of more importance in the current day than it might be years from now simply because there's very little legislation or precedent regarding online privacy and the like.

What we do today determines what we can/can't do tomorrow, in that case, and... hell yes, I'll complain about what I feel is a rights violation if I feel it might impact me at ALL at a later time.

I don't care how nice the update was. My main is 75 THF. I'd love to be fighting Sozu right now, but my desire to play a video game isn't strong enough to override my ethics or ethical expectations in others, especially not when those things are, as in this case, regulated by law.

Ok now this issue doesn't really concern me since I play on a rinkydink ps2. BUT I am really REALLY concerned that SE has determined to violate PC users rights by performing an illegal scan. As I understand business law, no contract however binding can or will be enforced in a court of law if said contract in and of itself violates federal,state laws. SO no matter how well "covered" SE thinks they are, if they are breaking the Computer fraud laws then thier contract isn't worth the paper thier lawyers printed it on. You may agree to it each time you log online, but if it violates federal, state laws it is in and of itself null and void.
A appropriate analogy would be signing a contract to sell your wife into slavery. Since slavery is illegal, the contract could seem as binding as chains but not legally enforcable in any state in the US.
Now it has been about 15 yrs since I went to college, but I don't think our laws have changed so much as to completely take away our personal rights.
So if SE is scanning PC users computers and relaying that information back to SE and it is used in ANY way that violates any law, SE could be in a world of legal trouble. Not in a class action civil suit but from a DOJ<Dept of Justice>
investigation that would then be followed by a class action suit. If SE is smart they will amend thier ToS and post an announcment not only on the website but in plain view for every person that logs on to POL.
I mean really..If they can see fit to keep us informed about download times, speeds , and problems they can take a few mins to cover thier corporate ***.

I am so glad I play on PS2

My thoughts, are simple as this.

If they allowed macros more than 6 Lines (thinking 18) I couldn't care less about windower.

I use Windower, because I don't wanna put 3 macros just for Charming Gear(I am a Beastmaster), than 3 more macros just for fighting gear. than 2 macros for weapon skill gear, than 1 more macro for resting.

That, is.. what? 9 macro buttons? that's an entire line -_-a

That's my two Cents on the subject. Windower is nice, but the scripts are what makes it appealing, at least for me.

True. I've had a lil to drink in the last couple hours.. =.=

I'll just shut up and listen to the topic at hand :p

well? go on~

Oh this is great. This is exactly why SE is so phobic with communication with us. Company policy is any employee that were to comment on our feedback etc, admit to knowing things (like this) can be terminated. Not 100% will be but can be in the sort of way that scares the employees into not(usually) doing so. Of coarse, this is all according to one of those employees XD when I asked.



So now silent SE has the sort of thing happen that they are always afraid will happen, and some guy named Charles may get canned because some other person who prolly gets paid more, failed to think to update the policy before the change(said guy likely gets slap on wrist, unlike poor charles).





In case it was lost on you, I'm not entirely serious...But SE does act phobic about talking to us.

I play on a PS2. The computer my girlfriend plays on is not her main computer, so the only thing on it besides FFXi is her Civilization game.

But I am bothered about this.

All they would have had to do was post an update to the privacy policy. That's it. They didn't even have to tell anyone about it; it states that the act of posting the update is your notification.

This whole thing shows a very unprofessional attitude and lack of respect for their customers.

Ahh, so true. I'm a troll, you've discovered me. So's everyone else who's posted or shown any amount of concern regarding this, and is now awaiting a reply from SEI, or anyone who's dropped by to merely discuss digital rights in the modern age.

Did you even bother to read the thread, or are you just trolling?

Wait, my bad. You're trolling.

It's almost 5AM, I've been up for ages and have a lovely case of insomnia. So for you, I have only sleep deprived sarcasm. I'm really sorry, you should have come by earlier, I might have had something more enjoyable to offer you :(

Take this instead. I hope it makes the sarcasm more enjoyable to you:
WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

My bad, that was just a bit of dangling extra sarcasm.

[quote=KPBeta]Let's face it: this is a massive service in which thousands of people are paying for. SE scanning your systems to determine you aren't doing something you shouldn't be to their game or their servers for that matter is understandable. I'm not calling their secrecy of doing it justified, I'm merely stating: so? [\quote]

So, it (the internet, digital rights in general, etc) isn't well legislated... at all :/

At some point, someone has to step up and write that legislation.

What you can get away with now is directly related to what you could get away with in the past, hence, precedent.

If it's determined legal for a mere game to collect process and memory data without your consent, what's next?

Anti spyware legislation states something to the effect of "you can't make the EULA say I agree to this EULA by running/installing this software" on spyware that automatically installs and runs on your machine (generally it was the sort that said the spyware company could use your machine to relay mail or process their information etc and you picked it up with other downloads or via Windows flaws when visiting websites). I haven't got any references to sites regarding that issue handy, it merely came up in non-forum related conversation with a few computer geeks earlier, but if you can't be ***** to Google references, I suppose I could be convinced :P

Regardless, there was no prior legislation in place to prevent spyware & the associated EULA's from doing that. If noone said "I don't like this" or "Hey I'm pretty sure this is violating my rights" would the legislation have been passed?

There *is* legislation in place in California, however, that states that SEI has to disclose that information is being gathered.

It's really that simple, and I personally don't think it's too much to ask. I like FFXI, and I enjoy playing it. Had the policy been updated prior to the update, I'd have read it and chosen to play or not play based on the updated policy, while being informed.

No policy update = not informing users of the change made, and thus not presenting that choice. Hence, why it's a privacy issue in the first place. You can choose to share your information with other entities (be they human, government, or corporate), or you can choose not to share. It's a privacy rights issue because you have the right to make that choice. See: First sentence of this pargraph. :)

Edited, Mar 9th 2007 5:18am by Arketa

Neither do I, assuming it actually complies with the law. It still doesn't change the fact that the two should have come hand in hand, nor change the end result from the two not being concurrent though (namely that, even after the policy's changed, there was a point at which your rights were violated) :/

I got one of those fancy-schmancy Logitech G15 keyboards they were touting at their conventions, and the only thing it's really done for me is make me look down at the LCD and wonder why my CPU is almost always near-peak while playing :( (The macro keys are horrible for FFXI, IMO, though the media keys are nice, if/when they actually decide to work with FFXI running (might be a profile setting I'm missing), and the blue glow is somewhat pleasant when I care to think about it, but none of it really justifies SEI promoting it ouside of being paid by Logitech to do so...)

Instead of simply making FFXI run native windowed, I wish they'd redo/update the PC client to actually ... I donno? run smarter? Why do I need a spiffy video card if you're going to tax my CPU anyways? tax the damn video card and justify the money I spent *fist shaking*

Edit: I should probably add that I'm talking pre- March 7 update, as I haven't played since then or run POL for longer than it took to read their policies and note that they hadn't changed, so I can't speak for anything it might be doing CPU-usage wise now :P

Edited, Mar 9th 2007 5:54am by Arketa