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Gabe Newell: Valve is not collecting your browsing history

Gabe Newell: Valve is not collecting your browsing history
Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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Gabe Newell, the co founder of Valve Corporation took to Reddit to counter claims that Steam’s anti-cheating system is collecting user’s browsing data. An earlier Reddit thread suggested that VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat system) had been updated and monitored your browsing history to see if you visited sites with advice on how to cheat at online games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

While it seemed to Reddit users that browser history was being collected, encrypted and then sent to Valve servers. Evidence that you visited cheating websites could then be used to ban you from Steam. Today those claims have been answered.

Newell began his Reddit appearance by explaining how it is essential that gamers trust developers and other players, and that players who cheat are a minority who seriously harm the experience of online gaming. While the company doesn’t normally explain their VAC system, as this might make it easier to circumvent, Newell made an exception to stop the data snooping rumors.

Many cheats are commercial – players pay for them. The VAC system scans for known cheats, many of which can be detected because they contact the cheat developer’s server to check that the user has paid to use it. It’s almost ironic, but some cheats actually use Digital Rights Management (DRM) to check that you’re not cheating the cheat!

Gabe Newell states that Valve does not collect or detect any data beyond cheat detection, and that they have no interest in seeing what Steam users browse on the internet. However, as fighting cheats is an arms race, with both sides always improving and trying to beat the other, VAC is not made to be easy to understand by anyone. Newell calls it an ‘inherently a scary looking piece of software,’ even though its intentions are good.

Newell also suggests that another tactic of cheaters that’s cheaper than coding is social engineering, in this case creating distrust of Valve. He predicts more Reddit posts ‘trying to cast VAC in a sinister light’, which would try to mobilize the gaming community against Valve.

He hopes that Valve’s transparency is enough that Steam users continue to trust the firm. He doesn’t, obviously, think Valve has gone evil since getting such a big slice of the PC gaming market (possibly 70%), but says only gamers can judge if that’s correct or not.

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[Source: Reddit]

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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