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Epic Games, Inc.

About

Epic Games Inc. (founded in 1991) and its subsidiaries develop games for the desktop, console, Internet and mobile market.

The company is best known for its own game engine "Unreal Engine", which they have been constantly developing since 1998.

In 2012, the Chinese Tencent Holdings Limited entered Epic Games Inc. and holds 48.4% of the shares. This has always been a concern for gamers who do not trust Chinese investors.
Status:
 Independent company
 620 Crossroads Blvd., Cary, NC 27518, USA
 (919) 854-0070
 support@epicgames.com
 

 

Forced online mode with Epic's API

In this example from Satisfactory , players are automatically forced into Epic Games' online features. The responsible API is also linked to a telemetry service, so that blocking (e.g. to protect one's own privacy) is made more difficult and partly impossible, since a game either no longer works at all or only half of it works with deactivation.

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  Satisfactory Epic Spyware

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Sha-256: C5BADA69F282DC126E1319FF948EFCBCE4D0AF76EA013CFC8B7509D05926AF16
Second Extinction

At the start of the game, up to 8 callbacks are made, which update after some time and newly acquired records. Thus, an active game with the Epic Online Service can contact several dozen Ipv4 addresses and servers during a gaming session. This ensures that players are continuously monitored and collected data is routed to the servers used by Epic.

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  Steelrats Datarouter Telemetry

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Sha-256: 3CA54C67C62A6ED097B16AEB810A6DCF38B127E8F008CFCD9C4160E8103F0B39

 Products with Epic Games, Inc.


     
     
     
     
     
     

 API


As part of its operations, Epic Games, Inc. collects raw data and telemetry from users and devices to improve the user experience and performance of its products and services.

The public API platform, which is operated by Epic Games and offers developers access to various services and functions to facilitate the development of games and applications, serves as a means to an end.

The API includes various services such as authentication, profile management, friends, matchmaking, leaderboards and more. The problem here with, however, is that these functions are accompanied by online coercion.


 ETSource


Another sniffing piece is the etsource.epicgames.com, which is similar in its basic structure to the leading Datarouter telemetry. Session data is recorded. Identifiers can be found in the example. The product Valhalla Hills, time stamp, machine/device ID, platform data, product version and much more.

Like the detailed Datarouter telemetry, the ETSource serves as event tracking and is activated at every game start and also records the end of its own session. The funny thing here is the "anonymization" of the user ID, which is contrary to a unique UUID.

 
POST /ET2/CollectData.1?SessionID=%7B2563ADBB-4012-4154-78FF-9BB1074DCDF7%7D&AppID=UEGame.UnrealEngine.Release%7CEAAD595D401B126B71E7A2A875E338CC%7CValhalla%20Hills&AppVersion=4.10.1-0%2B%2B%2Bdepot%2BUE4-Releases%2B4.10&UserID=ANON-%7B2FE11109-48F8-40C6-507F-2298E7B30731%7D HTTP/1.1
Host: etsource.epicgames.com
Accept: */*
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
User-Agent: game=ValhallaHills, engine=UE4, version=4.10.1-0+++depot+UE4-Releases+4.10
Pragma: no-cache
Content-Length: 300
{
"Events" : [
{
"DateOffset" : "00:01:19.597",
"EventName" : "SessionStart",
"IsEditor" : "0",
"Platform" : "Windows",
"ProjectDescription" : "Valhalla Hills",
"ProjectID": "EAAD595D401B126B71E7A2A875E338CC",
"ProjectName" : "Valhalla Hills",
"ProjectVersion" : "1.0.0.0",
"UniqueDeviceId" : "ecac91580de36ee424a63ca1e4ddb91d"
}
]
}

 Websocket & Heartbeat Callbacks


The API queries contain a callback function and open websockets that make contact with domestic servers at intervals of seconds. However, the procedure can also be found in other titles.

 
https://api.epicgames.dev/notifications/v1/3c63055a9e824095bbd0193d7af28b5e/connect
https://api.epicgames.dev/lobby/v1/3c63055a9e824095bbd0193d7af28b5e/lobbies/connect

CONNECT
heart-beat:30000,30000
accept-version:1.0,1.1,1.2

 Involved Addresses


Epic Games, Inc. uses various services of the AWS platform of Amazon.com, Inc. These include

  1. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) - a virtual server hosting platform that allows Epic Games to create, run and scale virtual servers.
  2. Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) - Scalable cloud storage service used to store game files, assets and other important data.
  3. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) - automatically distributes traffic to multiple EC2 instances to improve load balancing.
  4. Amazon CloudFront - a content delivery network (CDN) that can be used to deliver content such as game updates and downloads to players around the world.
  5. Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) - a service that provides managed relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle that can be used to store game data and user information.
  6. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) - Scalable, managed file storage service that can be used to share files between multiple server instances.
  7. Amazon Route 53 - a scalable DNS web service that can be used to resolve domain names to IP addresses.

Based on the list, some IPv4 addresses come together, which are contacted in games and the in-house distribution platform. A large overview of involved domains and IP addresses can be found in the hosts-files.

IPv4 Epic Online Service (EOS) - 03.09.2023 - CRC32:
Details: Ipv4_EOS.txt - Filesize: 5.27 kB
Sha-256: E58C3FCDF2DD644D0DD5B005415269E023E19DA1CEBA98C9CE29EB5BC72AD8EA

 Datarouter Telemetry


The Epic Datarouter is a data processing and analysis tool developed by Epic Games that primarily serves to collect and process data of user behavior and interactions in various applications of Epic Games. The scope of functions of Epic Datarouter includes

  1. Data collection: The Epic Datarouter collects data from various sources, including the user interface of applications from Epic Games, APIs and other data sources.
  2. Data processing: The datarouter uses the collected data to perform complex queries and analyses. It can also aggregate, transform, and clean up data to optimize for analysis and reporting.
  3. Data analysis: The datarouter can analyze data to gain insights and trends and identify problems. It can also create dashboards and reports to give users an overview of key metrics.
  4. Data security and privacy: The Datarouter has extensive security and privacy features to ensure that the data collected is safe and secure.
  5. Integrations: The datarouter can be integrated with various tools and platforms to export data to other systems or import data from other systems.

Overall, the Epic Datarouter allows Epic Games to collect and analyze extensive data on user behavior and application performance to improve the user experience and performance of products and services.

 
https://datarouter.ol.epicgames.com/datarouter/api/v1/public/data?SessionID=%7BE549AE4E-4C26-02A2-B35B-0689B62E33D1%7D&AppID=UEGame.UnrealEngine.Release%7CAB6A8CED4F42A48205A72ABBEACA344B%7CJUMP-FORCE&AppVersion=4.19.2-0%2B%2B%2BUE4%2BRelease-4.19&UserID=ANON-%7B105D305B-404D-396E-1F78-08A6DF4334BA%7D%7C%7C&AppEnvironment=datacollector-source&UploadType=eteventstream

 

 
https://api.epicgames.dev/telemetry/data/datarouter/api/v1/public/data?SessionID=%7BF8957C13-44D6-40E3-EBBD-D580F08D05DC%7D&AppID=EOSSDK.PhaseRelease.ReleaseBuild&AppVersion=1.5.0-12496671%20-%20%2B%2BEOSSDK%2BRelease-1.5-CL-12496671&UserID=&AppEnvironment=Production&UploadType=sdkevents

 Blog entries for Epic Games, Inc.


  1. 🇪 - [In-depth] Block Spyware von Epic Games, Inc.
  2. 🇩 - Easy Anti-Cheat