Origin a.k.a. Spyware

[Twisp]

Apparently EA's Origin service is causing quite an uproar in Germany thanks to it collecting all sorts of personal information.

http://www.overclock...ge-germany.html

"Origin analyzed my tax program!"

On the Amazon forums the Origin program caused a massive outcry. People used Process Monitor to scan Origins behaviour and posted pictures of the program accessing files of their tax management program (Picture/Video) and their cell phone manager (Picture).

[The_Observer]

so you have to install Origin and accept the TOS with EA to install BF3. And while Origin is installed, and running it scans the entire contents of the hard drive and can record all the installed programs. Moreover, EA may check whether you have installed illegal software.

NICE ONE!!!

[nominak]

so you have to install Origin and accept the TOS with EA to install BF3. And while Origin is installed, and running it scans the entire contents of the hard drive and can record all the installed programs. Moreover, EA may check whether you have installed illegal software.

NICE ONE!!!

...

They don't care if you have illegal software installed. They can't do anything about it.

[Astra.Xtreme]

More than likely it's just scanning for hidden or disguised hacks. It's very doubtful that they're actually collecting any sort of information.

[The_Observer]

...

They don't care if you have illegal software installed. They can't do anything about it.

If we agree with the terms of use, the computer is spying on literally - from Electronic Arts (EA). This affects all users of the EA download service "Origin" to be installed to play "Battlefield 3" must. Every gamer has installed, the "Origin", is almost unbelievable expanded to EA: EA scans the entire contents of the hard drive and can record all the installed programs. Moreover, EA may check whether you have installed illegal software and EA can hold, which devices are connected to the computer. EA may also store the IP address of the computer and so the computer at least identify the short term on the Internet. Finally, EA requires that one with his real identity with "Origin" logs. That means the company can do as well as any content on the computer to assign a name.

[Pupik]

Apparently EA's Origin service is causing quite an uproar in Germany thanks to it collecting all sorts of personal information.

It doesn't collect any information. A guy on reddit explained what you see in the screenshots pretty well: http://www.reddit.co...armless/c2vbjty

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:

1. It reads the windows games registry
   
2. It looks for games in Program Files
   
3. 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!)
   
4. 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.

[tsupersonic]

Yet another reason not to use Origin. It really is a shame that EA forces you to use this garbage...

[Slammers]

For god sake it's already been stated a couple of times in this thread that it is NOT spying on you.

http://www.reddit.co...armless/c2vbjty

People are so quick to accuse.

[The_Observer]

It doesn't collect any information. A guy on reddit explained what you see in the screenshots pretty well: http://www.reddit.co...armless/c2vbjty

thats very interesting!

[+John. Subscriber¹]

This is what happens when people only read half a story, or hear it off a guy who heard it off a guy. If this were true there'd have been absolute uproar by the gaming community and the service would have been stopped.

[madd-hatter]

If we agree with the terms of use, the computer is spying on literally - from Electronic Arts (EA). This affects all users of the EA download service "Origin" to be installed to play "Battlefield 3" must. Every gamer has installed, the "Origin", is almost unbelievable expanded to EA: EA scans the entire contents of the hard drive and can record all the installed programs. Moreover, EA may check whether you have installed illegal software and EA can hold, which devices are connected to the computer. EA may also store the IP address of the computer and so the computer at least identify the short term on the Internet. Finally, EA requires that one with his real identity with "Origin" logs. That means the company can do as well as any content on the computer to assign a name.

This is so badly written I think it broke my brain.

[Raa]

I don't like Origin. Like BF2, I just want to launch my game, connect to a server and play.

But oh no can't do that in BF3. Gotta click the shortcut. Login to Origin. Launch a web browser session. Then I can play.

If that's not long-winded, I don't know what is.

[acnpt]

Why are there so many buffer overflows?

Edit - Not a security hole

Do these errors indicate a problem? No, they are a standard way for the system to indicate that there?s more information available than can fit into a requester?s output buffer.

In other words, the system is telling the caller that if it was to copy all the data requested, it would overflow the buffer. Thus, the error really means that a buffer overflow was avoided, not that one occurred.

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