[wernerb]

But your friends have accepted your request for friendship and your friends are not expecting you to spy on them correct?

[_wkvo]

Exactly. The 'Offline' feature exists specifically to set that boundary, and the backend completely ignores it.

[rvnx]

It's about when your friends were last signed-in in their account. From my understanding:

    Invisible = Sign-in but do not broadcast the games you are playing (though your profile will show that you signed-in)

    Offline = Stay offline and do not sign-in

[nemomarx]

I mean the invisible status is supposed to hide all that, yeah. Why have a "show as offline" if it still shows activity like going online?

[rvnx]

> Steam "Offline" status leaks exact login timestamps (Valve: Won't Fix)

On the profile of a friend you can see the last time they signed-in to their account:

https://preview.redd.it/can-anyone-beat-my-last-online-frien...

Before it was public, and now restricted (for a couple of years already) to friends only.

I guess this is why they won't change it, since it's a feature.

[_wkvo]

Incorrect. "Invisible" is a privacy control, not just a UI filter. While the official client freezes the text, the backend still broadcasts live last_logon and last_logoff Unix timestamps in the ClientPersonaState packet. This leaks exact real-time sleep/wake cycles via the socket, completely bypassing the privacy toggle.

[rvnx]

But is it different from the "last signed-in" info that you see on the profile ? (genuinely asking)

Because from the fields in the protobuf I somewhat suspect it's the same, but I get your point of view as well

EDIT: If it's not, then my bad