Electronic Arts

DexEngineer wrote:Origin not required in ME3? Good news. But how do you know that?

Well you're not restricted to only using Origin and you never have, I've been working on an open-source GPLv3 version of Origin since Christmas to showcase the Rupture API that Origin was designed and built around, You'll have choice of which client you want to use either it be Origin, Open-Origin or other derivatives of the software.

http://openorigin.sourceforge.net/

DexEngineer wrote:Origin does not search hard drive? Process Explorer says something else.

I'm also the Director of Operations and developer for Process Hacker. A very, very advanced utility compared to the features of Process Explorer.

Personally, I would say you're not experienced enough with the internals of Windows to be able to accurately understand the information presented by Process Explorer (let alone Process Hacker) to know what a process is actually doing.

http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/

If Origin was scanning your hard-drive, I defiantly would be having words with the Origin team

dmex wrote:I'm also the Director of Operations

What sort of Operations?

dmex wrote:I would say you're not experienced enough with the internals of Windows to be able to accurately understand the information presented by Process Explorer (let alone Process Hacker) to know what a process is actually doing.

Are you experienced enough to explain?
Those few extra features like better NET integration or detail token information does not make it a miracle. Besides it "bypasses security software", which is bad behaviour.
So, what would be my choice: PE from Microsoft or PH from Director of Operations?

Open Origin? Oh, dear!
I find only: "Alpha version almost ready, because I like to tease heres a screenshot"

If it doesn't scan your hard drive, all good.

However, does the EULA still support more in depth scanning?
To my knowledge it hasn't changed since the rewording that acknowledged concern about privacy and eliminated the clause that implied passing on information to third parties.
Which, incidently, was a laudable action.
Better would have been the recognised 'good practice' of offering users the choice to opt out if they so wish, but credit where it's due.
It was the right direction to move in.

Anyway.
Back on track.
The EULA.
If it remains the same, then even if currently Origin is not misbehaving, it could do so at a later date with full legitimacy.
So, has it been altered to make such permissions no longer part of Origins agreed remit?
I'd love to learn that this was the case.

DexEngineer wrote:What sort of Operations?

Thats the job title for new releases, tech support, legal, PR etc...

DexEngineer wrote:
Are you experienced enough to explain?
Those few extra features like better NET integration or detail token information does not make it a miracle. Besides it "bypasses security software", which is bad behaviour.

How is bypassing security software for the purpose of process termination bad behavior? You should be able to terminate all and any process be it malware or 'security software' if required.

DexEngineer wrote:
So, what would be my choice: PE from Microsoft or PH from Director of Operations?

I would recommend staying with PE, Process Hacker is designed for developers or internals enthusiasts.

DexEngineer wrote:
Open Origin? Oh, dear!
I find only: "Alpha version almost ready, because I like to tease heres a screenshot"

Yes, I started it three weeks ago and the code is pre-alpha and still being designed, I'll have something available once a few main features such as Installing games are sorted

Midarc wrote:If it doesn't scan your hard drive, all good.

However, does the EULA still support more in depth scanning?
To my knowledge it hasn't changed since the rewording that acknowledged concern about privacy and eliminated the clause that implied passing on information to third parties.

If it remains the same, then even if currently Origin is not misbehaving, it could do so at a later date with full legitimacy.
So, has it been altered to make such permissions no longer part of Origins agreed remit?
I'd love to learn that this was the case.

@Midarc

I'm no lawyer but from what I understand about the changes to the EULA, they do not allow 'in depth scanning' of any files/data or user information on your system.

You can also Opt-out of sharing information via your profile page under 'Contact Options'
https://profile.ea.com/myprofile.do

dmex

dmex wrote:Personally, I would say you're not experienced enough with the internals of Windows to be able to accurately understand the information presented by Process Explorer (let alone Process Hacker) to know what a process is actually doing

This was rude. You do not know that. At the same time you did not prove your level of expertise.
A question... You have EA logo as avatar. Are you EA developer or associated with EA in any way? Just a question.

DexEngineer wrote:This was rude. You do not know that. At the same time you did not prove your level of expertise.

I don't see how it was rude or why I would need to prove my level of expertise, PE doesn't show disk activity and your comment "Origin does not search hard drive? Process Explorer says something else." didn't make sense which shows a lack of experience with using the software

PE shows various Object Manager objects from Windows (threads, libraries, handles etc..) allocated by Windows internally and by the process that can be unrelated to a process itself. For example, Handles; There may be a list of handles referenced and allocated to a process but it doesn't mean the process created those handles, they can be referenced by ntoskrnl for internal system routines, by dependent libraries, by other processes/services or even system drivers for a long list of purposes.

DexEngineer wrote:A question... You have EA logo as avatar. Are you EA developer or associated with EA in any way? Just a question.

Yes.

dmex wrote:Yes

It is not convincing. Try a little harder. Anybody can claim that by placing EA logo as avatar.
A link to official EA announcement with your nickname included will be enough.
Something like this: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/7976813.page#19537600
No hard feeling, I just want that everybody here is safe.
It's about common good, after all, right?

dmex wrote:I don't see how it was rude or why I would need to prove my level of expertise, PE doesn't show disk activity and your comment "Origin does not search hard drive? Process Explorer says something else." didn't make sense which shows a lack of experience with using the software

1. You focus on my lack of experience instead of proving that Process Explorer cannot show drive activity. You obviously missed PE's lower pane which indicates various activities of selected process, including drive activity.
You are not an expert, you know. Thus, this...

dmex wrote:Personally, I would say you're not experienced enough with the internals of Windows to be able to accurately understand the information presented by Process Explorer (let alone Process Hacker) to know what a process is actually doing.

makes you what? Ignorant!

2. You promote software which bypasses security software, you are associated with EA (hard to believe) and you are developing Open Origin, which sounds ridiculous. On top of this you are Director of Operations, which is quite funny.

Do not hijack this discussion and help people!

dmex wrote:

If Origin was scanning your hard-drive, I defiantly would be having words with the Origin team

Since you used the past tense of the word ("was scanning" you might wish to have a word with the Origin team.

EA is on record as having admitted that Origin in fact did initially poke around in places it shouldn't have, but claimed it was 'a mistake'. Current versions are told to not do this (I wouldn't know as I would never trust Origin enough to install it), so current installations will most likely not do this. For now.

With forced updates, and no choice but to agree if you have Origin-required games installed, I'm not waiting with bated breath for what random suits in EA will do later on, though, if someone think it can garner in some extra temporary cash in personal bonuses.

If you are unaware of the above info, you can try searching for info on how EA did consumer relations with the german populace after the BF3/Origin affair blew up in their face and people started returning used games/codes to the stores and the stores accepted these returns as legit because of Origin.

The EULA have changed more times already than I care to keep count of, and will most likely keep this pattern, so even using anything that is stated currently in it as claims for anything seems silly at best. Any "rights" in that document are nonexistent due to the document having changed so frequently with EA being the ones dictating what it says with no real contractual discussions taking place between EA and the customer actually "signing" it.

Now, just to be clear on something: I'm not saying you are intentionally portraying misleading info. I'm just stating that even though you may be affiliated with EA, there are several hands in that company and it seems every hand aren't fully aware of what the other hands does. If you catch my meaning I know the internal communication problem from my own company, so it's no biggie that it happens here too.

As for your earlier question about ME3 requiring Origin, asking that specific question in the bioware forums caused threads to be locked by default by the devs, and the only info people could actually dig up about it was on EA's EULA pages where the EULA for ME3 stated accepting Origin was required.

I stopped paying attention to ME3 now, cause even though I wanted to buy the final chapter of the series the way Origin was handled have just turned me sour to whole thing. I don't want Origin on my system and the whole blackout/coverup way of handling things on the bioware forums made me jaded towards the whole thing. I haven't bothered checking up with Biowares ME3 since I bought SW:TOR which allows me to NOT install Origin. Considered my game library of unplayed games bought on sales, even if I stop playing TOR I won't have to look at any Origin-required game in the future either.

DexEngineer wrote:1. You focus on my lack of experience instead of proving that Process Explorer cannot show drive activity. You obviously missed PE's lower pane which indicates various activities of selected process, including drive activity.
You are not an expert, you know. Thus, this...makes you what? Ignorant!

The lower pane of PE shows Handles and loaded libraries, not drive activity.

DexEngineer wrote:
2. You promote software which bypasses security software,

Yes, For the sole reason of process termination. I won't apologize to the developers of spyware, malware and rootkits who use security software to hide their illegal software and prevent it from being terminated.

DexEngineer wrote:
you are associated with EA (hard to believe) and you are developing Open Origin, which sounds ridiculous.

I was offered a job at both Microsoft and EA but I wanted to work with EA, My friends also found my choice hard to believe.

I started Open Origin three weeks ago as a utility for the EA community, I'm sorry if you believe a community project by the users for the users just as Firefox, Chrome and hundreds of other open-source applications are developed is ridiculous.

DexEngineer wrote:
On top of this you are Director of Operations, which is quite funny.

I earned the role after years of hard work developing the project, Laughing at that is insulting.

DexEngineer wrote:
Do not hijack this discussion and help people!

Yes stop talking about my software on the EA forum.

SalsaDMA wrote:

dmex wrote:

If Origin was scanning your hard-drive, I defiantly would be having words with the Origin team

Since you used the past tense of the word ("was scanning" you might wish to have a word with the Origin team.

EA is on record as having admitted that Origin in fact did initially poke around in places it shouldn't have, but claimed it was 'a mistake'. Current versions are told to not do this (I wouldn't know as I would never trust Origin enough to install it), so current installations will most likely not do this. For now.

With forced updates, and no choice but to agree if you have Origin-required games installed, I'm not waiting with bated breath for what random suits in EA will do later on, though, if someone think it can garner in some extra temporary cash in personal bonuses.

If you are unaware of the above info, you can try searching for info on how EA did consumer relations with the german populace after the BF3/Origin affair blew up in their face and people started returning used games/codes to the stores and the stores accepted these returns as legit because of Origin.

The EULA have changed more times already than I care to keep count of, and will most likely keep this pattern, so even using anything that is stated currently in it as claims for anything seems silly at best. Any "rights" in that document are nonexistent due to the document having changed so frequently with EA being the ones dictating what it says with no real contractual discussions taking place between EA and the customer actually "signing" it.

Now, just to be clear on something: I'm not saying you are intentionally portraying misleading info. I'm just stating that even though you may be affiliated with EA, there are several hands in that company and it seems every hand aren't fully aware of what the other hands does. If you catch my meaning I know the internal communication problem from my own company, so it's no biggie that it happens here too.

I'm aware of that info, there's quite a few videos on youtube showing what Origin was doing at the time, I wasn't with EA back then but when I checked Origin using my own software it did look like a bug with the Windows API (FindFirstFileEx) that caused it to enumerate the entire filesystem instead of Origin's own folders.

Most of it was media hipe around that stupid bug, The media completely replied upon Process Monitor (and the explanations of unqualified users) which doesn't show the API used or the parameters (that showed it was a bug), there was also zero scree-shots or qualified analysis of Origin ever uploading anything and you'll notice none of the big names of the tech world even bothered to mention or run a story (Mike Russinovich, Paul Thurrott, ZdNet, Neowin etc..) which says something about what they discovered when looking into it.

SalsaDMA wrote:
As for your earlier question about ME3 requiring Origin, asking that specific question in the bioware forums caused threads to be locked by default by the devs, and the only info people could actually dig up about it was on EA's EULA pages where the EULA for ME3 stated accepting Origin was required.

I stopped paying attention to ME3 now, cause even though I wanted to buy the final chapter of the series the way Origin was handled have just turned me sour to whole thing. I don't want Origin on my system and the whole blackout/coverup way of handling things on the bioware forums made me jaded towards the whole thing. I haven't bothered checking up with Biowares ME3 since I bought SW:TOR which allows me to NOT install Origin. Considered my game library of unplayed games bought on sales, even if I stop playing TOR I won't have to look at any Origin-required game in the future either.

Cheers for the info, I'll have to have a look at that EULA.

dmex

dmex, I just stopped by Biowares ME3 forum to check up on the status there, and Chris priestly posted a thread 1 day ago called "Origin and Mass Effect 3 " where he specifically states the following:

1) Will Origin be a requirement to play all versions of Mass Effect 3? (Digital and/or from a retail brick and mortar store)
Yes, Origin is required for all PC editions of Mass Effect 3, physical or digital.

So I will take that as official as it can get.

dmex wrote:I'm aware of that info, there's quite a few videos on youtube showing what Origin was doing at the time, I wasn't with EA back then but when I checked Origin using my own software it did look like a bug with the Windows API (FindFirstFileEx) that caused it to enumerate the entire filesystem instead of Origin's own folders

FindFirstFileEx search for directories and files of one level only, not each and every directory to the deepest level. I have tested Origin in November and it was still behaving like that. Users do not need to prove that this does happen. EA must prove that does not.

dmex wrote:Most of it was media hipe around that stupid bug, The media completely replied upon Process Monitor (and the explanations of unqualified users) which doesn't show the API used or the parameters (that showed it was a bug), there was also zero scree-shots or qualified analysis of Origin ever uploading anything and you'll notice none of the big names of the tech world even bothered to mention or run a story (Mike Russinovich, Paul Thurrott, ZdNet, Neowin etc..) which says something about what they discovered when looking into it

You missed the point. Bug or no bug (obviously not), this is about EULA, as shown in the title of this thread.

DexEngineer wrote:You missed the point. Bug or no bug (obviously not), this is about EULA, as shown in the title of this thread.

Forgive me but may I ask what evidence do you have that allows you to say it was "Obviously Not" a bug?