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Resolved Does the PowerBuilder Runtime and Frameworks included in PowerBuilder 2021 send information to Microsoft and others?

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  1. Alexander Manes
    Alexander Manes
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Monday, 17 June 2024 06:51 AM UTC

Hello PB Community,

a customer of ours complained that our application is apparently contacting servers on the internet and not starting up correctly, if he blocks internet access (which he wanted to do in his industrial environment).

We have our applications running in complete offline environments, so I think the fact that the application is not starting up correctly, when the customer blocks internet access, has somenthing to do with HOW his security software blocks the internet access of our application - and probably blocks the further excution of our software altogether.

The thing that we are interested in is: So far, we were not aware that our PB applications (currently compiled with PB 2021) are contacting any third-party web-services.

I have attached a log/screenshot from that customer claiming our application is trying to connect these HTTPS services during startup. It seems that at least 2 of these servers belong to Microsoft. This is not something we have implemented, we are not using any web-serivces from our application!

Is anyone aware of this?

Can this be proven wrong or correct?

If this is the case, does anyone have an explaination which third-party services are contacted by the PowerBuilder runtime / included frameworks and for what reason?

Thank you in advance.

 

Attachments (1)
PowerBuilder-App-Startup-Problem_blockedInternetAccess.png PowerBuilder-App-Startup-Problem_blockedInternetAccess.png
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connecting to database using ado.net
Responses (4)
Andreas Mykonios
Andreas Mykonios Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 17 June 2024 07:46 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

Hi.

Not much info, but arc.msn.com is used by microsoft for telemetry. I don't believe that it's related with PB in any other factor than PB being built using VC++. Also PB has some libraries that have dependency on .net. Are you deploying any of them (example dll to save as xlsx). I understand you are deploying a native application (win32 or win64). Am I right?

Now, googling for graph.windows.net I see that it is related to Azure. Is there any chance you connect to a cloud based database?

Andreas.

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Armeen Mazda @Appeon
Armeen Mazda @Appeon Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 17 June 2024 14:12 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

PowerBuilder runtime does not connect to the Internet or send any data either to Appeon or third-parties.  So it must be something added to your app or customer's environment that is doing this.

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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Tuesday, 18 June 2024 16:04 PM UTC
I also believe this is also true for the PFC framework.

My STD Framework does not collect any telemetry information.

Of course, I cannot speak for older frameworks other than the above.
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Alexander Manes
Alexander Manes Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 17 June 2024 14:40 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 3

Thank you Armeen for your statement.

Thank you Andreas for your considerations.

We have not implemented anything in our native application that calls those services and the fact that this is the only customer who has one of our applications lock up during startup makes me think the customer needs to first examine whether his security system is actually blocking our application's execution - and possibly the calls to those services originate from the security software rather than the PowerBuilder runtime.

 

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David Peace (Powersoft)
  1. David Peace (Powersoft)
  2. Monday, 17 June 2024 14:53 PM UTC
Unfortunately the Screen show does not show what application is making the calls. Perhaps they can run Fiddler on the Client PC to detect which software is making calls out. Mind you I think as you suggest it's their security software that is stoppng your App starting and these two things are probably unrelated.
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Roland Smith
Roland Smith Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 17 June 2024 17:41 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 4

I think Andreas hit on the likely culprit. Windows built in telemetry is tracking the performance of your app and transmitting that back to their servers.

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