Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby Astarisk » Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:28 am

wolf1000wolf wrote:
Astarisk wrote:There is an expectation that when running a certain piece of software that it connects only to the entity that it is expected to connect to. In terms of the hafen client the default and only expected behavior is that it should strictly be connecting solely to the hafen server.

Ok, a solid point that I agree with.

Astarisk wrote:Shubla's implementation breaks this common understanding by introducing his own third party connections to his servers without the potential to opt-out of it at all. We can put some blame on foreign users for their failure to read and understand fluently but it is Shubla who has broken the commonly understood expectation -- while only providing at the time the most minimal of warning. Though even now he just offers up a more upfront than before but still vague enough warning.


This is less straight forward though, right? While I do agree that it would be better to have opt-in and in all honestly, shubla SHOULD put in some sorta optin/out at this point from an ethical pov, saying it breaks the understanding of a program "only connecting to what it is expected to" isn't quite correct because one of the main features of shubla's client is the "map site". The understanding of folks using the client is that it is connecting to some sorta other server beyond hafen's servers, no?

I don't think the argument here that ppl can't or didn't read the post from where they got the client would make as much sense here. It's less "not reading the TOS" and more "did not read the feature set"?

I'm not quite sure I fully understand what you were trying to say. So I'll do my best to try to fully respond.

You say that there should be an expectation of understanding since it is a service that naturally needs to connect to a third party and is advertised as a main feature in Shubla's client, I think that is what is being said? So the argument is that people should read the feature set list so they know what is going on?

This is Shubla's Features list. It is barely informative of anything at a glance.
Shubla wrote:Features
Extensive list of features is available in changelog
There is a site with food stuff info.
Also a map site, token for markers can be accessed in client settings.


To take it further you can even look at the change log itself, which is another step away from the main body of features. The closest you find is this.

- Added food & map service integrations



So at a quick glance you don't even really have an understanding as to what is going on. You can find more information in the thread but it is hidden behind a spoiler tag and not quite upfront.

The client automatically sends grids, markers and player location to mapping servers, the aim is to make a global map, where you can see your villagers, share markers etc.
Some important points:
Grids are merged into global map, but the grids are kept private for some time after world reset, to guarantee privacy, so that people cannot deduce where your place is. Also, grids are not updated, so if you build a big village, it will not be visible on the map, if the tiles were sent before building the village. So do not worry about your privacy or safety! If you have opinions about the topic please come discuss to pasta discord.
If you want private map, contact me via discord PM and give your token, so I can mark it to generate grids.
Player location and marker data is not shared, and can only be accessed with the token that is located in the client Pasta Settings menu.
You can share your token with your friends so you can use the same map with player locations and markers of all people who use the same token, when the map is eventually published.


That provides a little more information but it is still very vague and not entirely honest or upfront about what is happening. In fact the statement "Player location and marker data is not shared, and can only be accessed with the token that is located in the client Pasta Settings menu." is entirely dishonest and I'd argue offers a false narrative. Your location and marker data is not shared to everyone at anyone's whim, but it sure as hell accessible by Shubla and any associates he wishes to offer up the information to. The fact that Shubla has been fighting so hard to not offer up changes makes it very hard to want to trust the nature of his character and to blindly believe that none of the aforementioned information will be shared. I believe the best excuse he has offered up was that "he is too lazy" to implement anything involving them :roll:

Now the idea of a mapping service is not even a new concept. We have seen both APXEOLOG (viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67266) and Vendan (viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67298) release their own versions of this service that can be self ran. I have also written my own version of an auto-mapper so I understand what information is needed to make a world map and I can inform the public -- along with even Loftar saying it, that Shubla absolutely does not need to collect all he is collecting if the intention is just to make a community map. It is really that simple, there are far more viable and anonymous ways to achieve this effect. The goal of these services is to have the client automatically send grids, marker and player location to mapper services. However, none of the public clients have these features enabled by default and pointing towards a 3rd party ran server by a client creator posting in a public forum. Shubla just says what the service does - he was not upfront at all about it being the default de-facto forced service that it is revealed to be. Alongside there also being an understanding of the default implementation of this feature being entirely opt-in. Every client has included an option to use these services, but none of them has forced them on you. Shubla went against the default behavior that has been established as sort of precedence in the community.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby wolf1000wolf » Wed Apr 07, 2021 4:24 am

Astarisk wrote:Now the idea of a mapping service is not even a new concept. We have seen both APXEOLOG (viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67266) and Vendan (viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67298) release their own versions of this service that can be self ran. I have also written my own version of an auto-mapper so I understand what information is needed to make a world map and I can inform the public -- along with even Loftar saying it, that Shubla absolutely does not need to collect all he is collecting if the intention is just to make a community map. It is really that simple, there are far more viable and anonymous ways to achieve this effect. The goal of these services is to have the client automatically send grids, marker and player location to mapper services. However, none of the public clients have these features enabled by default and pointing towards a 3rd party ran server by a client creator posting in a public forum. Shubla just says what the service does - he was not upfront at all about it being the default de-facto forced service that it is revealed to be. Alongside there also being an understanding of the default implementation of this feature being entirely opt-in. Every client has included an option to use these services, but none of them has forced them on you. Shubla went against the default behavior that has been established as sort of precedence in the community.


Thanks for taking the time to do a thorough response. My original point was in reference to your point on how the established norms (common understanding) are that a client to hafen should only connect to the hafen servers. My thought was that since it's stated in shubla's post that one of the main features was a map site, then players should also understand that the client would be sending information to a 3rd party server aka shubla's map site.

Of course, in hindsight, this might be due to my bias of having researched into what shubla's map site was.. and I can see how someone who didn't dig further would assume the "map site" was just like the old "map services".
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby azrid » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:20 am

wolf1000wolf wrote:I can see how someone who didn't dig further would assume the "map site" was just like the old "map services".

This is a very important point. Shubla offers to the plebs a new innovative service.
That is also the reason I don't agree with people who keep crying about shubla stealing code. He built a great feature on an existing thing.
Shublas client is also one of the only clients to offer the common folk bots. The other client was Ardennes'(rip o7).
The popularity of shublas client is warranted for a good reason. Even using the simplest bots like wood chopping shows you what a big advantage it is. It feels great having all that free time doing something else.
The problem with bots is that not everyone has access to them but shubla made that gap smaller between botters and non botters.

Its easy to hate shubla for a lot of people because they have previous shubla baggage to carry around.
Shubla has been a very active forum poster and a lot of people made a huge stink about him a while back.
They had enough of his CnI posts and organized a forum shitpost spree on discord where everyone could see their malicious behavior(I assume they learned from this mistake by now).
Some said they wanted to force jorb and loftars hand into doing something about shubla.
There was a lot of bad words thrown around at our moderator, developers and shubla on discord after it was all said and done.
The result of shubla not being completely removed created this outrage.

The last drop was the fact that shubla managed to force the developers hand in stead by doing his boat stunt.
For this reason a lot of people will forever hate shubla.
Shubla managed to humiliate the group of people who came after him by doing what they wanted to do but completely by himself.

A group in this community likes bullying people they don't like until they are forced to dissapear.
These are some people who have been victims of this group:
Jalpha (free thinker), Granger (ex mod), Dani (organizer of an alternative faction)
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby Zentetsuken » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:41 am

azrid wrote:
wolf1000wolf wrote:I can see how someone who didn't dig further would assume the "map site" was just like the old "map services".

This is a very important point. Shubla offers to the plebs a new innovative service.
That is also the reason I don't agree with people who keep crying about shubla stealing code. He built a great feature on an existing thing.
Shublas client is also one of the only clients to offer the common folk bots. The other client was Ardennes'(rip o7).
The popularity of shublas client is warranted for a good reason. Even using the simplest bots like wood chopping shows you what a big advantage it is. It feels great having all that free time doing something else.
The problem with bots is that not everyone has access to them but shubla made that gap smaller between botters and non botters.

Its easy to hate shubla for a lot of people because they have previous shubla baggage to carry around.
Shubla has been a very active forum poster and a lot of people made a huge stink about him a while back.
They had enough of his CnI posts and organized a forum shitpost spree on discord where everyone could see their malicious behavior(I assume they learned from this mistake by now).
Some said they wanted to force jorb and loftars hand into doing something about shubla.
There was a lot of bad words thrown around at our moderator, developers and shubla on discord after it was all said and done.
The result of shubla not being completely removed created this outrage.

The last drop was the fact that shubla managed to force the developers hand in stead by doing his boat stunt.
For this reason a lot of people will forever hate shubla.
Shubla managed to humiliate the group of people who came after him by doing what they wanted to do but completely by himself.

A group in this community likes bullying people they don't like until they are forced to dissapear.
These are some people who have been victims of this group:
Jalpha (free thinker), Granger (ex mod), Dani (organizer of an alternative faction)


Did you really just swing this situation in to playing the victim card.
Probably the saddest thing I've read in a while.

Are you really going to sit here and try to tell us that the kid who has clearly spent 100s if not 1000s of hours, through nearly 12000 posts, over the last 7 years, trying his absolute HARDEST to be an undeniable antagonist in the community is being unfairly bullied?

Are you really going to sit here and try to convince 100s of people who have lived through near daily reminders of this behaviour, that you have some deeper insight in to this 1-time stunt by him and that it was meant to be presented genuinely and innocently, unlike the 100s of other stunts he has pulled?

This is the most dishonest, shameful and sorry attempt at emotional manipulation I have ever read.


Besides, his intentions are a mute point.
He nefariously collected tons of unnecessary data without proper warning or reason.
Even though he put a bandaid on it - he still has the data.

Both him and his project need to be removed from the community to set a precedent.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby azrid » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:59 am

Its a history lesson. You are a part of it too.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby Undefined » Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:05 am

azrid wrote:words


I don't care about any of the people involved in this historic event and I'm not associated with any of them on any side... I am however aware of what is and isn't good, clean, ethical coding practice. This whole affair most definitely isn't - I don't involve myself in in-game political nonsense or internet forum dick measuring, but in this case I feel very strongly that what Shubla's mapping "service" did is wrong and unethical by its nature of being entirely hidden, his response to being called out on it and initial refusal to ensure the "service" is opt-in and known by users was also very inappropriate and basically a dick move.
While I really had no real feelings previously, I now indeed think he's a bit of a twat.

I still would suggest and have suggested that people don't use this client and instead use the version posted with the literal spyware removed if they want to run Pbot scripts or Ender's, which is a far cleaner codebase for actually playing.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby cherryquartz » Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:50 pm

azrid wrote:
wolf1000wolf wrote:I can see how someone who didn't dig further would assume the "map site" was just like the old "map services".

This is a very important point. Shubla offers to the plebs a new innovative service.
That is also the reason I don't agree with people who keep crying about shubla stealing code. He built a great feature on an existing thing.
Shublas client is also one of the only clients to offer the common folk bots. The other client was Ardennes'(rip o7).
The popularity of shublas client is warranted for a good reason. Even using the simplest bots like wood chopping shows you what a big advantage it is. It feels great having all that free time doing something else.
The problem with bots is that not everyone has access to them but shubla made that gap smaller between botters and non botters.

Its easy to hate shubla for a lot of people because they have previous shubla baggage to carry around.
Shubla has been a very active forum poster and a lot of people made a huge stink about him a while back.
They had enough of his CnI posts and organized a forum shitpost spree on discord where everyone could see their malicious behavior(I assume they learned from this mistake by now).
Some said they wanted to force jorb and loftars hand into doing something about shubla.
There was a lot of bad words thrown around at our moderator, developers and shubla on discord after it was all said and done.
The result of shubla not being completely removed created this outrage.

The last drop was the fact that shubla managed to force the developers hand in stead by doing his boat stunt.
For this reason a lot of people will forever hate shubla.
Shubla managed to humiliate the group of people who came after him by doing what they wanted to do but completely by himself.

A group in this community likes bullying people they don't like until they are forced to dissapear.
These are some people who have been victims of this group:
Jalpha (free thinker), Granger (ex mod), Dani (organizer of an alternative faction)



Did you really justify him stealing Alg's code by saying 'its ok because he helped the nabs and made it better'? Thats even worse than some of the other 'logic' ive seen on here. He STOLE something then tried to financially benefit from it, thats wrong however you look at it.

Shubla is most certainly not the victim here, you trying to make him seem so is frankly ridiculous, he has continuously made shitty decisions, lied, stolen, bitched, whined, caused trouble, continues to do so and idiots like you defend him blindly. He constantly complains about people botting and doing better in game than him, yet you praise him for making bots, do you see the lack of logic there? Are you implying its fine for nabs and Shubla to bot but not fair for anyone else to do it? He has been harvesting data from people, data he doesnt need to do his 'service to the community', then when confronted about it, he refused to change it until Loftar got involved.
How you can see any positive in what Shubla does/ who he is, astounds me, he is a bad person with no morals and a victim mentality that is concerning.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby snapko » Fri Apr 09, 2021 7:33 pm

Out of curiosity, can Shubla share amount of daily users of his client? Since he is gathering the data anyway, because I'm pretty sure only vocal minorty is actually crying, which includes people who has different motives in pushing this spyware agenda.
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby Zentetsuken » Fri Apr 09, 2021 7:43 pm

snapko wrote:Out of curiosity, can Shubla share amount of daily users of his client? Since he is gathering the data anyway, because I'm pretty sure only vocal minorty is actually crying, which includes people who has different motives in pushing this spyware agenda.


Lots of people don't realize because it was done in such a shady and undisclosed manner. There are surely tons of people who simply read that there is a working client and have been using it ever since because they haven't seen these informative warning posts. Hopefully the next patch that requires a client update will get some people back in to this subforum and allow them to make a more informed choice (if the devs actually allow his client to continue to be distributed on their forum by then).
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Re: Don't use shubla's client(Purus Pasta), it's spyware

Postby MagicManICT » Fri Apr 09, 2021 7:55 pm

snapko wrote:Out of curiosity, can Shubla share amount of daily users of his client? Since he is gathering the data anyway, because I'm pretty sure only vocal minorty is actually crying, which includes people who has different motives in pushing this spyware agenda.

Well, Facebook has been doing this crap for over a decade now, and there's definitely a vocal minority against it there. If I were to go biblical on the matter, Sodom was doing all kinds of "popular" acts, but so much wasn't righteous. When the one godly man stood up and said "don't do it," nobody else listened. I'm not saying companies like Facebook are the equivalent of Sodom and will cause the destruction of the world (or will they?). Just because only a few people are crying out, and everyone else seems to be ok with it, doesn't make the thing right or moral and those that are crying out whiny or crazy.

Overall, the vocal minority is that for a lot of reasons, first and foremost is that the majority are either clueless or just don't care enough to make a fuss (and that's way oversimplifying the majority).

bigger issue here, that hasn't been discussed, is what is shubla's network security like? This is a community that is full of hackers, wannabe hackers, and script kiddies. If he isn't running decent enough security, should anyone be trusting him with information that can get their game experience ruined? I seriously doubt he is. That is why people should be opting out of that auto-map information collecting.
Opinions expressed in this statement are the authors alone and in no way reflect on the game development values of the actual developers.
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