Hosts: Blocking *.midasplayer.com breaks king.com site, games and apps

[zmni]

I only play candy crush saga and I found this 3 causing problem with functionality of the site, games and apps:

k1.midasplayer.com
contenido1.midasplayer.com
p.midasplayer.com

I'm sure some of the other 130 midasplayer subdomains also used for hosting site, other games and apps assets.

[lightswitch05]

@zmni thanks for the ticket. My wife is a candy crush addict- she plays on the app. She also plays a lot of other other games by the same company. I feel confident if there was an issue I would have heard about it immediately, so I’m hesitant to do anything about this.

Do you mind giving more details? Perhaps steps to reproduce?

[zmni]

1. Install dnscrypt-proxy on laptop.
2. Configure dnscrypt-proxy and use this powershell script to update blacklist.
3. Setup laptop hostednetwork (ad-hoc wi-fi).
4. Change ip dns laptop and hostednetwork to dnscrypt-proxy ip.
5. Connect phone to the hostednetwork.
6. Now you can monitor phone & laptop dns request by opening the blacklist log.

[lightswitch05]

Thanks, zmni, I know how to monitor DNS requests on my network. I also know how to use MITM Proxy to monitor the actual network requests being made. What I don’t know how to do is reproduce an issue by blocking these domains. As far as I can tell, these blocks to not break anything except for advertising. Any steps to reproduce bugs caused by blocking these domains would be appreciated. Screenshots are welcome too.

[anudeepND]

I don't play candycrush but I got reports regarding my host file that it blocks domains that are needed to load advertising videos, if a user watches a video of some duration he gets perks like coins and other game stuff. But my hostfile blocks such domains as it comes under advert serving domains. @zmni are you referring to this issue?

Here comes the shady part:
The privacy policy of King games states that:

"By downloading, accessing and/or playing our games or using our other Services, you consent to the collection of information about you by us. Most of this data comes directly from you or your device, such as device information, country and region, and game play information. We use this data to provide our games and Services to you, including for the purposes of optimisation, preventing fraud, customising in-game offers and verifying purchases. We may also use it for the other purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, including for Marketing and Advertising purposes."

So they collect information as every other free apps/software providers do.

But....

"Unless you opt out as explained below, we and our third party partners use information collected about you to send you marketing communications about other King games and related Services based on your interests. For example, we may send emails, serve ads within our Services or place ads on third party websites, apps and Internet-connected devices.

You consent to our marketing partners collecting and using information about you to improve advertising, targeting and measurement systems as described in their privacy policies.

[lightswitch05]

Thanks for the insightful comment @anudeepND! These hosts are clearly advertising related, beyond that I have reliable reasons to believe blocking them have little to no side effects. If users of this list want to watch ads for some imaginary integers, then it’s on them to mange whitelisting them. For now I have no plans to take action on this ticket, but I’ll leave it open for a while incase more users wish to add their two cents.

[zmni]

Sorry, I misunderstood it. English is hard.

I only check 1 game (candy crush saga), I don't know whether other games are affected or not. The game it self works fine (browser pc / android), but many2 images doesn't load properly. Screenshot chrome console log:

Homepage blank

Broken avatar

Other broken images

---

Acctually, I agree with @lightswitch05, I can simply whitelist the domain.

Maybe move the domain to aggressive list?

[lightswitch05]

Thanks for the info @zmni - I’ll checkout the website later when I’m on my computer. I think most people play these games on apps- not the website directly. For now I’m going to leave it in the base list, but let’s leave the ticket open for tracking and see if others have the same issue

[dnmTX]

@lightswitch05 i can confirm that the website is broken and by the look of it k1.midasplayer.com delivers only images.

[lightswitch05]

closing due to inactivity