Your Data, Plainly

01Who we are

This site and the SYSCALL online service are run by Chilling Moose OÜ, which publishes its games as Chilling Moose Games. We decide what the service collects and why, and we answer for it.

This policy covers the pages at syscall.chillingmoose.com, the online service that runs behind them, and the two games that talk to it: SYSCALL ][ FIRMWARESyscall 2: Firmware (called Firmware below, and once known as SIGNALS) and Algorithms. Most of it is about Firmware; Algorithms has a section of its own.

03Turning it on

Firmware asks once. After your first passing run it shows a card titled "Compare your scores online?", which lists what the service stores and what it never stores, and offers two answers: Yes, Compare Online and Not Now. Not Now means no: online stays off.

You can change your answer at any time in Options, on the Online page, and the Leaderboard screen has a Turn On button. The game plays exactly the same either way.

While online comparison is off, the game sends nothing at all. The only exception is a request you make yourself: Export my data or Erase my data, which reach the service once, when you choose them.

04What the game sends

With online comparison on, Firmware sends one message for every passing run, of every type: Signal, Bench, Shuffle, and Driver. Each holds:

• which puzzle it was, and a short fingerprint of that puzzle's version;
• your solution, exactly as the game saves it (for a Shuffle board, the arranged program with the number of swaps you made);
• the scores the game measured on that puzzle's ranked benchmarks, and none for a Shuffle, which is not ranked;
• the time the game put the message in its send queue, which the service uses only for a daily puzzle and does not store;
• the sign in key the service gave your game, which proves the message is yours.

Every request also names the game and its version, for example SyscallFirmware/2.0.0 (windows), with steam added in the Steam edition. The game reads back what the service says about your result: histograms, ranks, the share of players you beat or tie, and boards. A Shuffle gets none of these, because it is won or lost: the service checks it, keeps it, and ranks nothing.

When the service cannot be reached, the game holds passing solutions in a queue on your computer, up to 1000, and sends them later. Nothing else is sent: no play time, no hardware details, no crash reports, no usage tracking.

For now, only the Windows edition talks to the service. On Linux and every other system, online comparison reports the service as unreachable and nothing is sent.

05Your player and your name

The first time the game reaches the service, the service makes up a random player id and a sign in key for your copy of the game. The key goes back to the game; the service keeps only a one way SHA-256 hash of it, so not even we can recover the key.

The service also assigns a four digit tag. On the boards you appear as PLAYER #4821, say, until you choose a handle in Options, on the Online page: then you appear as SPARKY #4821. A handle is 3 to 16 letters, digits, and spaces; it is stored in capitals, and a short list of slurs is refused. Clear it and you are a numbered player again.

A player is one record across every game that uses the service, so a Steam account that signs in to two games is one player with one export.

06Steam

Signing in through Steam

In the Steam edition, with online comparison on, the game signs you in through Steam. It asks Steam for a sign in ticket made for our service and sends it, together with your Steam name. The service asks Steam to confirm the ticket and learns your SteamID64, a public number Steam uses for your account. The ticket itself is not kept.

The service stores your SteamID64 and your Steam name, refreshed each time you sign in. The name is tidied before it is stored: invisible characters removed, spaces collapsed, and at most 32 characters kept. A name that is empty afterward, or that trips the slur list, is dropped, and you appear as a numbered player. Steam players are always shown by their Steam name, so they have no handle.

If you played online before your first Steam sign in, those results move to your Steam player and the earlier anonymous player is erased, so nothing you earned is lost.

The Steam Rating leaderboard

The Steam edition of Firmware also posts your rating to a Steam leaderboard named Rating whenever a solve changes it, whether online comparison is on or off. Only Signal and Bench puzzles count toward the rating. That board lives on Steam, not with us. Its entry holds your Steam name and your rating, with the number of puzzles counted and your points on each benchmark as details. Valve's privacy policy covers it, and erasing your data from our service does not remove it.

Our service writes nothing to Steam for Firmware.

07Every run checked again

The service never takes a score on trust. It runs every solution it receives again, with the same verifier the game uses, on every test. A solution that fails is turned down and not kept. When the scores the game claims differ from what the service measures, the service records its own and never stores the claim. A Shuffle whose count of swaps is missing, or lower than its arrangement needs, is turned down. A Shuffle that passes is kept with the scores the service measured, but it is never ranked. Only the scores the service measured itself reach the boards.

08Leaderboards

The boards are public, inside the game and to anyone who asks the service. An entry shows your rank, your name as described above, your score, and when you reached it. Each board also names its record holder. Histograms and percentiles count players without naming them; a percentile is the share of players you beat or tie.

Every Signal, Bench, and Driver puzzle has boards. A Shuffle has none. Its runs are stored with the rest, so we can study the puzzles, but they are never ranked and never shown on a board.

09What the service keeps

10How we use it

• To rank your Signal, Bench, and Driver results: histograms, ranks, percentiles, puzzle boards, and the global rating board.
• To keep the boards honest, by running every solution again before it counts.
• To improve the games. We may study accepted solutions in bulk, for example to set par or find a fault in a puzzle. Such a study copy holds the internal player id and the solution text, never names, handles, Steam ids, keys, or hashes.
• To keep the service running and safe from abuse, using rate limits and the service logs described below.

We use your data on the strength of your consent, which you give by turning online comparison on and withdraw by turning it off or erasing your data. The service logs rest on our legitimate interest in running a secure service.

We never sell your data, never use it for advertising, and never share it, except as this policy describes: requests reach us through Cloudflare, which protects and delivers this site and sees your connection in doing so, and the Steam sign in is confirmed with Valve.

11On your computer

Firmware keeps a few files for the service in an online folder inside its save folder (on Windows, %LOCALAPPDATA%\SYSCALL Firmware\online):

• your sign in key, sealed with Windows data protection so that only your Windows account can read it;
• your player's name and tag, as the service last gave them;
• the queue of solutions waiting to be sent, and a list of those already sent;
• the boards the game last downloaded, so they show while you are offline.

Your puzzles, solutions, and scores live in the game's own save files and never depend on the service. So do the boards you build in Sandbox: each is a file in a sandbox folder inside the save folder, and Sandbox sends nothing to the service, whether online comparison is on or off.

12Export and erase

Both live in Options, on the Online page, and both work whether online comparison is on or off.

Export my data

Downloads everything the service holds about you, in every game, as one JSON file, and saves it in your Documents folder as SYSCALL Firmware online data followed by the date. Other games reach the same export at GET /v1/players/me/export.

Erase my data

Asks first, listing exactly what goes. Then the service erases your player and everything linked to it, in every game at once: your id, handle, tag, Steam id and name, every solution you sent with its scores, your bests, and your ratings. After that the game clears its sign in key, its queue, and its saved boards, and turns online comparison off. Your puzzles, solutions, and scores in the game stay. Other games reach the same erase at DELETE /v1/players/me.

If the service cannot be reached, nothing is erased anywhere, and the game says so, so you can try again. Turning online comparison back on later starts a new player.

13How long we keep it

• Your player. Until you erase it, or until the service has not heard from you for 730 days. Then it is erased with everything linked to it.
• Service logs. The server logs each request's method, path, status, and duration, and keeps them for 90 days. The logs hold no addresses, keys, or solution texts.
• Backups. The database is backed up every night, and each backup is kept for 30 days, so anything erased is gone from the backups 30 days later.
• Turned down solutions. Never kept.

14Algorithms

Algorithms is a C algorithm practice application from the same studio. Its rankings are opt in from the application's options, and while they are off it sends nothing.

When they are on, it sends the C source of each solution you finish. The service compiles it, runs every test, hidden ones included, and keeps the solution with the cycles, lines of assembly, and memory it measured. That feeds per problem boards, a combined score per problem, and an overall total.

Algorithms uses the same anonymous player, tag, and handle rules, the same lists of what is and is not stored, the same export and erase, and the same retention as above. It has no Steam edition, so nothing about Steam applies to it, and it has no daily problem.

15This website

These pages set no cookies, run no scripts, and load nothing from other sites: the fonts and images come from this server. Visiting them sends us nothing beyond the request itself, which the service logs record as described above. Requests pass through Cloudflare on their way here.

16Your rights

You can see everything we hold with Export my data and remove it with Erase my data, at any time and without asking us. You may also write to us to ask what we hold, to have it corrected or deleted, or to object to how we use it, and we will answer within a month. You have the right to complain to a data protection authority: in Estonia, where Chilling Moose OÜ is based, that is the Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon), or you can turn to the authority where you live.

17Changes

If what the games send or what the service keeps ever changes, this page changes first, with a new date at the top.

18Contact

Chilling Moose OÜ
[email protected]