I have steam installed on my daily system and I want to know whether steam has any government backdoors or spying. Would be nice to know. I’m on an arch based system if that helps.
edit: I do some very important work on my system which could get me in a little bit of trouble so would be important to know.
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I know it is closed source and collects telemetry. The telemetry they collect should be laid out in their terms of use and all that.
As far as other backdoors, since it is close sourced, not really any easy way to tell that I know of.
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Even if not helpful, I think this random selection of new approach might be some kind of food for thought to be aware of (if Steam used):
- “Debian has a security approach that all is forbidden unless sysadmin explicitly allows.”,
- “A recent beta of Steam for Linux adds pressure-vessel, an experimental mechanism developed by Collabora to put games in containers. This gives the game partial isolation from various aspects of the host system, and in particular allows it to use a runtime library stack that is not entangled with the host’s, with different games using different runtimes.” - Linked to 20 minutes presentation from FOSDEM 2020,
- “Steam for Linux client adds support for Linux namespaces”,
- “Shared Libraries”.
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If it doesnt now, it could at any time be forced to put one in there without informing anyone by the government of the country who’s laws the company is subject to.
so if you cant confirm it doesnt, assume it does
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*Heavy breathing. That might explain a few things that has been happening recently. Thanks.
Would be interested in what you think might have happened due to an eventual back door or spying technique. Could you be more specific by giving us some examples or hints?
Now that might not be a very good thing for me to talk about. Ignore what I said.
I love the level of paranoia in this forum.
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Welcome to the club 
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you”
If the government had secret backdoors, would they tell you?
If there were legislatively-mandated backdoors*, or EULA declared backdoors, you would know.
- Your country’s mileage may vary.
UK gov says otherwise. They are allowed to force companies to decrease security protocols and force companies to pass on any information they collect to the government and to force companies to collect more information if the government want to do so.
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If they are “allowed” as you refer, it sure sounds like a legislative act that fits under my 2nd clause.
Eh. They only declare they have the power to do such things but can hush any company to not tell anyone they are giving access to data and are being pressured by them. Why? Huge fines and possibly other threats too.
It still sounds like it is based on a law. No government does things without a legal excuse to ‘cover their asses’ (a U.S. metaphor). And if not, you wouldn’t know it anyway.
Should be off to the neutral lands of switzerland. The land of privacy and security. The land of gun ownership. The greatness of the mountains. Will be applying for citizenship when all locks into gear in my life. Excited to get away from a country that sucks up to the US and doesn’t care about digital rights.
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Say what? No democracy in the western tradition, maybe.
Where does a government ignore their own law?
You’ll find behind almost every instance, there will be a law they hang their hat on as an excuse. (Even invoking secret laws.) Even North Koreans, Iranians, or Venezuela, will back up their activities with a statist law. I think you’d have to go back to the disappeared in Chile, Argentina, Cambodia in the 1970s-80s for most recent state-sponsored lawbreaking.
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Sometime within the last two decades the U.S. closed the Swiss banking loophole with an agreement.
As this is likely to veer wildly off-topic, I’m going to decline to answer that.