Does ESO Logs or any addon track your account id number?

CrashTest
CrashTest
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I'm not referring to our @ account names. I mean the actual number under all of our accounts and characters.

I'm trying to find out how much data ESO logs and addons collect.
  • SlippyCheeze
    SlippyCheeze
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    technically, a whole lot of addons use the unique ID numbers for your characters, and so on, as part of their SavedVariables structure to separate out the data by, y'know, character, account, server, and so forth. ZOS wrote the code behind that, in fact.

    in terms of "addons collect", though, I think you have a, uh, "category error" going on here: the ZOS addon API has ONE AND ONLY ONE way to send data ANYWHERE except for the local computer: opening a URL in the game, which will bring up an unmodifiable dialog box prompting you with the URL to be opened. (more below; this is the executive summary.)

    What I'd like to know is: WHY do you ask? what is the problem that you are trying to understand or solve?


    the only other way an "addon" can collect anything is for you, personally, to run some additional software that sends the data out to the world. for example, the UESP log uploader, or the Tamriel Trade Center client, implement that for their various own saved data.

    there is also ABSOLUTELY NO WAY for an addon (ie, the lua code) to run a program. so, withhout you, the human, actively letting that third party software run, no addon could ever "send data" anywhere without permission.

    it is also pretty much exactly impossible to send data *inside* the game to another account without a physical human pressing a physical button to make it happen: only secure, ZOS-approved code can actually send a chat message; addons can only fill in the text field and let you press the button to send it, and so on for other methods of sending data inside the game universe. (to avoid spamming and theft, primarily, but still, coincidentally provides you with strong privacy assurances.)

    it *is* possible for an addon to export a small amount of data, on the order of 1 to 3 bytes, every couple of seconds, to people you have explicitly grouped with in the game. this theoretically could be exploited to pass information to someone without your permiossion, if both sides used an addon, but the limited bandwidth and the need to explicitly group our characters, make it pretty impractical.
  • Baertram
    Baertram
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    I mean the actual number under all of our accounts and characters.

    ?
    What exactly do you mean?

    We got the account @ nsme and a character name, a server unique characterId. All of that is known locally. And you can see the charname and @accountname ingame, in guilds or groups or even the chat. So nothing secret here.
  • Dagoth_Rac
    Dagoth_Rac
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    Baertram wrote: »

    ?
    What exactly do you mean?

    We got the account @ nsme and a character name, a server unique characterId. All of that is known locally. And you can see the charname and @accountname ingame, in guilds or groups or even the chat. So nothing secret here.

    He means the unique and unchanging database key. Like you can change your character name 100 times but that character still has all the same gear and achievements and skill points and so on. Because all of that is linked to some database key like 97635679357965678567821547789, not your character name. And no matter how many times you change your name you are always database key 97635679357965678567821547789. Sort of like changing your name in real life will not change your social security number (or SIN in Canada, or NIN in UK, or whatever your local unique citizen ID is).
  • Baertram
    Baertram
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    Okay, well, seems it's trackable then. Disable the logger in the settings then. And if it still logs and sends to the log files data you can even find out who it was if e.g. only 1 warden was in group, or only 1 was not sending non anymous data.

    All in all you can always make some connections to the data, if wished. You are never fully anonymous.
    In the end of depends on what ppl do with that info. Collecting data is nothing wrong, humans can only be abusing it :'(
  • CrashTest
    CrashTest
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    technically, a whole lot of addons use the unique ID numbers for your characters, and so on, as part of their SavedVariables structure to separate out the data by, y'know, character, account, server, and so forth. ZOS wrote the code behind that, in fact.

    in terms of "addons collect", though, I think you have a, uh, "category error" going on here: the ZOS addon API has ONE AND ONLY ONE way to send data ANYWHERE except for the local computer: opening a URL in the game, which will bring up an unmodifiable dialog box prompting you with the URL to be opened. (more below; this is the executive summary.)

    What I'd like to know is: WHY do you ask? what is the problem that you are trying to understand or solve?


    the only other way an "addon" can collect anything is for you, personally, to run some additional software that sends the data out to the world. for example, the UESP log uploader, or the Tamriel Trade Center client, implement that for their various own saved data.

    there is also ABSOLUTELY NO WAY for an addon (ie, the lua code) to run a program. so, withhout you, the human, actively letting that third party software run, no addon could ever "send data" anywhere without permission.

    it is also pretty much exactly impossible to send data *inside* the game to another account without a physical human pressing a physical button to make it happen: only secure, ZOS-approved code can actually send a chat message; addons can only fill in the text field and let you press the button to send it, and so on for other methods of sending data inside the game universe. (to avoid spamming and theft, primarily, but still, coincidentally provides you with strong privacy assurances.)

    it *is* possible for an addon to export a small amount of data, on the order of 1 to 3 bytes, every couple of seconds, to people you have explicitly grouped with in the game. this theoretically could be exploited to pass information to someone without your permiossion, if both sides used an addon, but the limited bandwidth and the need to explicitly group our characters, make it pretty impractical.

    There was an addon author who claimed to have all the stats on his addon's users because his addon sends him user data.

    If I'm understanding you correctly, that's impossible for him to know just with the API that ZOS provides unless he bundles his own additional software with his addon that uploads data by user permission. The addon can't secretly send data without us knowing or our permission. Correct?
  • CrashTest
    CrashTest
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    Baertram wrote: »
    Okay, well, seems it's trackable then. Disable the logger in the settings then. And if it still logs and sends to the log files data you can even find out who it was if e.g. only 1 warden was in group, or only 1 was not sending non anymous data.

    All in all you can always make some connections to the data, if wished. You are never fully anonymous.
    In the end of depends on what ppl do with that info. Collecting data is nothing wrong, humans can only be abusing it :'(

    Do you know if ESO Logs will update any name changes? I run logs on all my raids. If someone changed their name, would old logs reflect their name change? I'm wondering if someone I've dropped from raid can just change @ and character names and rejoin without notice, like how the game tracks name changes so your ignore and friends list always shows their new name.
  • SlippyCheeze
    SlippyCheeze
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    CrashTest wrote: »
    There was an addon author who claimed to have all the stats on his addon's users because his addon sends him user data.

    Which addon, and author? The specific context would help give a more sensible answer, but ... in general, they probably don't. You mention ESO logs, so I'm going to assume that is the context.

    The exception would be if the data were visible to them somehow (eg: they grouped with you, and had the encounter log enabled, or their addon captured details from in-game events), or if the data is captured by others and then uploaded to the author through third party software.
    CrashTest wrote: »
    If I'm understanding you correctly, that's impossible for him to know just with the API that ZOS provides unless he bundles his own additional software with his addon that uploads data by user permission. The addon can't secretly send data without us knowing or our permission. Correct?

    They definitely can't (a) send data out of the game in real-time, either locally or to the internet, and (b) can't easily send data to the internet without *someone* cooperating and sending it for them by, eg, running local software or manually uploading it.

    It would be quite difficult, and ZOS have blocked multiple ways that could, send data without the user knowing inside the game. So, things like "mail details to your account" are likely impossible, and if it was found ZOS would probably act to block the (in their opinion) exploit that allowed it.


    OTOH, the people running Tamriel Trade Center probably do have, eg, the account name for everyone who was ever in a guild with anyone who used TTC, simply because that is publicly available data, and TTC uses it as part of tracking guild store activity, etc.

    so.... yeah. public data (as far as ZOS are concerned), which includes your account name—because it is visible to anyone who encounters you in the world, for example, or is in your guild—could be available to them.

    something extracted about your account, without any interaction, from your system? not really. and probably not "legally" under the ZOS terms of service. (legally, in the sense that ZOS can enforce those in a court, but not legally, as in a crime.)


    all the data in the encounter log can be sent to the eso logs website, and it will include combat events from your character if someone in the group with you records the log and uploads it. (that is "public info" and "someone else uploads" in action.)

    if you have set yourself anonymous in the logs, they could capture info that lets them figure out who anonymous-12 is, but they probably don't. even if they did, it'd be (a) rude, (b) almost certainly a TOS violation, and (c) kind of pointless. but it wouldn't really give them anything the folks in the trial or dungeon couldn't work out for themselves anyways.


    I should probably ask, too: what is your concern here? Just knowing your account name (eg: @SlippyCheeze), or the unique ID and name of your character (8798292094729190, "K'sharraji Rian Slippychz"), doesn't do much of anything for anyone.

    Edited by SlippyCheeze on December 24, 2023 5:41PM
  • CrashTest
    CrashTest
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    Which addon, and author? The specific context would help give a more sensible answer, but ... in general, they probably don't. You mention ESO logs, so I'm going to assume that is the context.

    The exception would be if the data were visible to them somehow (eg: they grouped with you, and had the encounter log enabled, or their addon captured details from in-game events), or if the data is captured by others and then uploaded to the author through third party software.

    They definitely can't (a) send data out of the game in real-time, either locally or to the internet, and (b) can't easily send data to the internet without *someone* cooperating and sending it for them by, eg, running local software or manually uploading it.

    It would be quite difficult, and ZOS have blocked multiple ways that could, send data without the user knowing inside the game. So, things like "mail details to your account" are likely impossible, and if it was found ZOS would probably act to block the (in their opinion) exploit that allowed it.


    OTOH, the people running Tamriel Trade Center probably do have, eg, the account name for everyone who was ever in a guild with anyone who used TTC, simply because that is publicly available data, and TTC uses it as part of tracking guild store activity, etc.

    so.... yeah. public data (as far as ZOS are concerned), which includes your account name—because it is visible to anyone who encounters you in the world, for example, or is in your guild—could be available to them.

    something extracted about your account, without any interaction, from your system? not really. and probably not "legally" under the ZOS terms of service. (legally, in the sense that ZOS can enforce those in a court, but not legally, as in a crime.)


    all the data in the encounter log can be sent to the eso logs website, and it will include combat events from your character if someone in the group with you records the log and uploads it. (that is "public info" and "someone else uploads" in action.)

    if you have set yourself anonymous in the logs, they could capture info that lets them figure out who anonymous-12 is, but they probably don't. even if they did, it'd be (a) rude, (b) almost certainly a TOS violation, and (c) kind of pointless. but it wouldn't really give them anything the folks in the trial or dungeon couldn't work out for themselves anyways.


    I should probably ask, too: what is your concern here? Just knowing your account name (eg: @SlippyCheeze), or the unique ID and name of your character (8798292094729190, "K'sharraji Rian Slippychz"), doesn't do much of anything for anyone.

    I should've actually separated my two original questions, sorry for the confusion. I'm not referring to ESO Logs as the one saying he had all our data. I'm talking about a different addon that I won't mention here because of naming and shaming rules. I just wanted to know if he was lying or not.

    Since that question was kind of related to something I wanted to know about ESO Logs (see my post above), I just asked both questions together.
  • Baertram
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    Whatever data he is have collected it's official api and possible then. Means it can only read your name and current ststs eg likr health etc. It cannot read your gold, and other info. For that you yourself need to enable that addon in your local pc and upload the data somewhere.
    Or you must be grouped and all using the same addon which sends data to the group members and they upload it somewhere.

    So whatever they say they got it's either ***, or officially seeable ingane either way or they hacked something which is against the Tos.

    You should always have to do something to send data, manually. As long as you did nit press buttons to do so actively there shouldn't be anything of concern here.

    Beside that what data do you have in the game that troubles you? Even if addons locally undertakes at your pc collect something: what should that be? Your achievements status, your titles, your mounts, actual crown count... Nothing of any value for anyone isn't it? :-)
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