BF2S Forums HAHA how idiotic!!

Sgt.Gene wrote:

vanmani wrote:

Sgt.Gene wrote:

Ya, but in order for EA to see the sites you visit they scan your cookies. When you input information into your computer over the internet, it is stored in cookies. Which means, everything I do over the internet, everything I type into my borwser is recorded.

Why talk when you're clearly wrong?

a) the picture is not even a photoshop, it's done in MS paint I'll hazard. The creator wasn't even TRYING to make it look real.
b) Cookies are a terrible place to look to see what siets you visit, and it would be a very poorly designed web page that stored your input in cookies.

Cookies are just little pieces of data that the web page can specify to store on your computer, generally they can be used to identify some feature you want to the server. i.e. it might store what particular stylesheet you have chosen to use on a particular site.

When you fill in a form on a webpage it will generally just be sent to another script/page on the server, which will store that information or act on that information server-side. The only way this information would be stored on your local computer is if your browser has some browser specific "remember my form information" feature enabled.

People have THEORISED that 2142's spyware stuff may scan cookies to determine if you visit certain popular websites which do store cookies, although this could be thwarted by simply disabling cookies. Seems more likely to me that it would try and scan through your history lists for IE/Firefox/Safari/Opera or whatever. This could also be thwarted by turning off or clearing that list, if you really wanted to.

It does seem more likely to ME, as someone who actually knows something about what he's commenting on, that they would be looking at IP addresses to determine location. Location based targeting is probably as fine-grained as would be useful for an advertising service on BF2142. i.e. no point in giving an ad for Wal-mart in Australia, 'cos we don't have Wal-mart! Similarly, no point giving an ad for Woolworths in USA 'cos they don't have Woolworths!

I see very dubious value in knowing what sites you've visited to target ads. They already know you're a "game player" who "purchased and is playing BF2142 online". That's enough. Seems unlikely that they're going to send you ... comic book related ads just because you visited penny-arcade. Way too much maintenance involved in updating those kinds of lists, for virtually no gain. However, I won't say it's impossible.


In short, your browser only records what you tell it to. And there is browser specific implementations on how to do this. EA could use this to target ads, but there would be far too much maintenance involved in it for very limited benefit. Seems far more likely that they would just be pushing location based advertising, which can be done easily and cheaply based on your IP address, which is apparently what the guy in the interview said it did.


Edit: History has nothing to do with your cookies.

Ok, so will you please explain:
1. Why do they need a disclaimer, if they are just tracing my IP
2. What the fuck are they installing on my machine (besides the game)
3. If this has nothing to do with looking at anything on my own computer why not keep the ad's serverside?

Chaos81 wrote:

dubbs wrote:

It looks like I did that already.

http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?pid=880784#p880784

The funny part is, you didn't.

Last edited by dubbs (2006-10-17 17:42:00)

-MP-Nuke1266 wrote:

Jesus.... some of you are paranoid! I'm a grey hat hacker myself and I'll tell you that EA isn't going to fuck up your machine with 2142. While I don't particularly like giving out my IP, nobody's going to see it. It's automated. They are installing software to look in your cookies. Cookies in fact DO have something to do with history. Among other things, cookies contain the domain that set them. If this software can find said domain, and compare it to a list of domains, then have the system select a picture to upload pertaining to said domain, you can get a "history" of the sites that have set cookies on your system, which is a lot nowadays. Now, I have a question: what if you were to, say, clear your cookies before installing, and play the game, what ads will it show? Anyone know if there are default presets?

The ads would be server side, but it would probably slow down the server to have it checking everyone's "histories", selecting presets from lists, and uploading custom data  to every player, dynamically. Either that, or EA was being too lazy to develop their own SS software, and decided to use the client side IGA Worldwide software, instead. The latter seems like a more logical idea, too. You'd have to compile a list of every domain to track, and every picture to display. Then again, it wouldn't be THAT hard.

And on the disclaimer, shame on you for not already knowing why disclaimers are issued in this day and age: nobody wants to be sued. Simple as that.

That last pic, BTW, doesn't look photoshopped. In fact, ads like that could add a bit of depth to the game IMO. To me, that looks nice ans subtle, not BIG SHINY LETTERING or the like.


If the ads are that nice, feel free to track my cookies. I don't have many to track, though


EDIT!

To answer all 3 of dubb's questions at the same time,

THEY ARE DOING THIS TO DELIVER TARGETED ADS TO YOU, THE PLAYER. There. Killed all 3 birds with one stone.

Last edited by -MP-Nuke1266 (2006-10-17 18:29:39)

Private_Adam wrote:

Look what i found



Does this look photoshoped?

Last edited by _j5689_ (2006-10-17 19:01:35)

Sgt.Gene wrote:

Ok, so will you please explain:
1. Why do they need a disclaimer, if they are just tracing my IP
2. What the fuck are they installing on my machine (besides the game)
3. If this has nothing to do with looking at anything on my own computer why not keep the ad's serverside?

Last edited by RoosterCantrell (2006-10-17 20:06:08)