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Turn off Hardware Stat collection from Unity

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by NicBischoff, Apr 24, 2017.

  1. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    Hey Guys,

    I've now noted multiple times that from 5.5 onwards, Unity seems to be communicating with a stats server without my permission from a compiled game (not a web game, literally from the desktop build).

    **
    EDIT
    **
    Ryiah has corrected me and it is OPT-IN.

     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
  2. Carwashh

    Carwashh

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    Debug build?

    How long ago?
     
  3. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    Nope, not a debug build.

    It is definitely a stats server because it also resolves to stats.unity

    I am using Unity 5.5.3f1 - I was on 5.3 that definitely didn't connect out.

    I caught the connection with little snitch on OSX.
     
  4. Carwashh

    Carwashh

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    How long ago did you email support?

    And are you sure you don't have Unity analytics turned on? :p
     
  5. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    I emailed support on Friday AM - They may still get back to me, let's see.



    Hi Unity,

    I compiled a game and detected that the game was trying to contact: Connect to stats.unity3d.com on TCP port 443 (https).

    Please can you explain what this is and where I can turn it off? Why is a compiled game trying to reach your server?

    Thanks.
     
  6. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    I am not using Unity analytics - I just confirmed it was not enabled - or even logged in.

    Can anybody else monitor a build and let me know what your firewall etc does.
     
  7. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    I see this:
    http://hwstats.unity3d.com/index.html

    UNITY HARDWARE STATISTICS 2017-03
    So you're making a game. How do you make it nice and perform well on your player's device? What hardware do end-users have? We think these are very important questions. So here's what we do:

    When a game made with Unity is initially installed, the hardware and software profile of the end user device is submitted (see our privacy policy for what exactly gets sent). We aggregate and compute statistics of this information. This can be incredibly helpful for Unity game developers in helping them to make good content decisions and optimize performance of their games.

    The hardware data comes from users who installed some sort of Unity game, so it represents combined statistics of all Unity game players. Your particular game might be targeted at different type of users with different hardware.

    -

    Why is this not OPT IN!?
     
    Novack likes this.
  8. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    Because not a significant number of people opts into such things and correlations between the type of user who opts in and has a certain hardware type might make smaller sample sizes useless for stats.


    I do get your frustration though, my firewall defaults to "though shall not pass" for outgoing connections as well and I always have to click through a million permissions to get stuff to even work.


    I wonder about the legal side because Germany has very strict data privacy laws and I wouldn't be surprised if you needed to release your game on Steam with a EULA that links Unity's privacy agreement and forces the user to agree to that as well. I mean websites can't even use cookies anymore without the user opting in actively.
     
  9. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    I get why they are doing it, but as devs we should be able to control where our apps and games connect. Heck, even if it was ticked by default that would fine. In terms of the firewall, if you block stats. the next time you run it it just attempts to connect to a new server address. :(
     
    Novack and Martin_H like this.
  10. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    It is an opt-in. You can find it under the Player Settings entry of the Build Settings.

    analytics.png
     
    NicBischoff likes this.
  11. NicBischoff

    NicBischoff

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    I stand corrected. Thanks Ryiah. I do appreciate the clarification.
     
  12. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    huh? That shows (and, is , as far as I know) opt-out.
     
    Novack, Peter77, angrypenguin and 3 others like this.
  13. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    It's actually opt out. Opt in means a user has to choose to enable a service, and it's off by default. Opt out means a user has to choose to disable a service, and it's on by default.

    If you do nothing, Unity gets its analytic data.
     
    angrypenguin and Ryiah like this.
  14. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    You people knew what I meant. :p
     
    QFSW likes this.
  15. Player7

    Player7

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    It should be something we should be able to opt out of so that it does not run.. let the player decide if they want to opt into statistic collection.. that is how it should be, instead unity bypass the end users choice and lay it on the developers who also don't even have a F***ing choice if even if they did want it disabled by default.. good job unity

    ...I have nothing in my game that needs to communicate with the outside world from a player computer not even my own servers, yet because the game is compiled with unity and it embeds this phonehome statistic crap it will indeed trigger any players firewall (fuk it triggers mine everytime I do a build with a different filename) at least if they have a decent one that notifies of detected outgoing connections. Funnily enough its only on windows that end users actually have access to decent firewall software, linux and osx equivalent software eco system for such things is fking S***.. which honestly says alot about the average security/privacy of such os desktop setups imo.

    Interestingly enough unity games are always flagged as untrustworthy by most the S***ty antivirus companies, yet anyone installing a piece of S*** data collecting antivirus suite will never have it triggered on all of the spyware, keyboard logging crap that is built in and infested to the very core of winshit10.. weird that ..not.
     
    Stardog likes this.
  16. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    You can... just get pro.
    Virtually every marketplace collects anonymous stats. If you distribute via steam, itch.io, kongregate, app store, win store, google play, amazon, whatever... that data is being collected regardless of whether or not it was unity. It's anonymous, aggregated stats, it is nothing to worry about.
     
  17. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    This is literally in the EULA (they TELL you this happens on both dev and client sides). I don't like being spied on any more than anyone else but Unity gives me so much satisfaction I truly could not care less. Facebook I might dump if that wasn't my primary contact for all of my friends.
     
  18. Player7

    Player7

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    yeh i know

    everyones doing it... i'll do it tooooo yaaay
     
  19. ZJP

    ZJP

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    According with https://unity3d.com/fr/legal/privacy-policy

    * unique device identifiers (e.g., IDFV for iOS devices and Android ID for Android devices) );
    * IP address;
    * country of install (mapped from IP address);
    * device manufacturer and model platform type (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, etc.) and
    * the operating system and version running on your system or device;
    * language;
    * CPU information such as model,
    * the number of CPUs present, frequency, and instruction set support flags;
    * the graphics card type and vendor name; graphics card driver name and version (example: "nv4disp.dll 6.10.93.71");
    * which graphics API is in use (example: "OpenGL 2.1" or "Direct3D 9.0c");
    * amount of system and video RAM present;
    * current screen resolution;
    * version of the Unity Editor used to create the game;
    * sensor flags (e.g., device support for gyroscope, touch pressure or accelerometer);
    * application or bundle identification ("app ID") of the game installed;
    * unique advertising identifiers provided for iOS and Android devices (e.g., IDFA or Android Ad ID);
    * and a checksum of all the data that gets sent to verify that it did transmit correctly.

    Some Unity developers use Unity’s analytics and ad services which collect additional information. See FAQs on Unity Analytics and Unity Ads below.
     
  20. Simon-O

    Simon-O

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    So it's not possible to create a GDPR-compliant game using Unity Free? What a farce.
     
  21. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    You need read and understand what GDPR is. Anonymous data is fine.
     
    xVergilx and Ryiah like this.
  22. Stardog

    Stardog

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    This should be disabled by default and not a pro only feature.

    It's unacceptable for an offline Windows build to be triggering firewalls.
     
  23. Tautvydas-Zilys

    Tautvydas-Zilys

    Unity Technologies

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    Hardware stats shouldn't be triggering firewall. If you get firewall prompts in a development build, it's the debugger and the profiler.
     
  24. NiallSoe

    NiallSoe

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    Hi,

    We are concerned by the inclusion of the user's IP address, as outlined here: https://unity3d.com/fr/legal/privacy-policy

    We are pushing GDPR updates across a few titles with significant numbers of players and we are unable to disable the HW Statistics. The checkbox is turned on in the player settings but we are still hitting the end points in the on-device release builds. We do not use Unity Analytics.

    We are running 5.6.5p3. There is no mention of it being fixed in the latest 5.6 release (5.6.5p4).

    Any info on this would be really appreciated!
     
  25. ceebeee

    ceebeee

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    This control seems to be enabled for personal level developers now as of 2018.3 Is this intentional?
     
  26. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Might be a GDPR thing? Or a bug.
     
  27. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    I hope it's the former. It seemed like it was a little weird that GDPR compliance was a pro level feature.
     
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  28. Simon-O

    Simon-O

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    It's not anonymous if it has identifiers in it, is it? To call out the two obvious ones from the list:

    * unique device identifiers (e.g., IDFV for iOS devices and Android ID for Android devices) );
    * IP address;

    The ICO has explicitly stated that IP addresses are considered personally identifiable, and that's before we get to your scooping up IDs designed to be unique.

    I think you need to read and understand what the GDPR is.

    Depends on your firewall. I have one that alerts every time a new process tries to access the internet. More to the point, why on Earth do you think I'd consent to you uploading that data and using my internet connection silently and without my consent?
     
  29. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Maybe because you gave your consent willingly already?

    https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service
    https://unity3d.com/legal/privacy-policy
     
    NerdIt- likes this.