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[Ninja-Matic]

All of this should therefore have come to Bashiok very surprising, which he did not expect during the publication of his real name.

He needs to be fired, STAT. I mean... seriously... this guy cannot possibly be any kind of intelligent. I'm sure single-celled organisms contain more intelligence than this guy.

Did he actually believe this information would not arise? Holy hell. It's 2010 - not 1915.

 

[water_wendi]

Don't participate in the realID friends system at all. No friends of friends to worry about.

i find it easier to not participate in Blizzard games. This forum move will not be the last.

First the B.net merger where you had to use your email as a login (which is a no-no that anyone in net security will tell you). Then it is Real ID is something you can opt-in so you can keep in touch with real life friends (but we learn later that friends of friends also know your name.. not only that but even if you dont use Real ID at all your name is in the system.. i tried the macro and my name came up via whisper). Then its if you want to participate in the forum community or get technical help you are required to divulge your legal name.

Its too much risk to play a game, sorry.

 

[ChronicleX]

Blizzard would be doing this with or without Activision.

Bullshit. If Blizzard was the kind of company to pull this shit off, they would of done it years ago with their first WoW Expansion. Activision is a soulless pile of anal fungus, if they were not then Infinity Ward would still be the same company it was last year.

 

[water_wendi]

Blizzard would be doing this with or without Activision. I'm not so sure why people think Activision has anything to do with this... Blizzard is not the small little dev company they used to be. They can make greedy backhanded corporate decisions without the help of the parent company.

im sure the same can be said of the stuff that happened with Infinity Ward.

 

[Evlar]

First the B.net merger where you had to use your email as a login (which is a no-no that anyone in net security will tell you).

Like.... Amazon?

 

[joelseph]

I vote Gaf puts our real names in our tags.

 

[Interfectum]

Bullshit. If Blizzard was the kind of company to pull this shit of, they would of done it years ago with their first WoW Expansion. Activision is a soulless pile of anal fungus, if they were not then Infinity Ward would still be the same company it was last year.

We have no way of knowing that... at all.

If we want to play "what ifs" I suppose Activision would be blamed for WoW if they merged back in the day.

"Look at Activision trying to squeeze monthly rapements charging for a freakin' Warcraft MMO game!"

 

[Shotgun Kiss]

Some people are calling the digging up of this guy's info immature, but how better to prove a point? People are opposed to this change because it can be abused, and I think showing people at Blizzard first-hand is justified.

That said, I don't think users should have posted all of the info they found without seriously editing it, so that everybody else who was just casually reading and not digging themselves wouldn't be privy. For example, post a picture of his house, but not the address (and black out any street signs).

They could have got the message across by simply making a post that showed just how much info they had gathered, but without revealing anything too personal, and e-mailing/PM'ing all the personal stuff to Blizzard (or posting it to the guy's house, so long as they used tact and remained polite), as that would prove it.

 

[water_wendi]

Like.... Amazon?

1) i dont know because i dont use Amazon
2) Does Amazon require you to give out your email that is also your login to add people to friends lists?

 

[flyinpiranha]

http://antivirus.about.com/b/2010/07/08/blizzard-real-names-real-risks.htm


The "trade-off" (I even hesitate to call it that since the positives of this announcement are so utterly miniscule in comparison to the humongous negatives that talking about a "trade-off" is a misrepresentation of this Real ID business) is unacceptable.

Hrm .. interesting stuff:

Blizzard's stance on privacy and security concerns is especially ironic given that at each game login they display the following warning:

"Scammers are trying harder than ever to phish for your account information! We care about player security..."

If Activision Blizzard is really that concerned about player security, why incorporate changes that put players directly in harm's way? Perhaps the real motive behind their Real ID program and real name forum posts is to further their marketing plans, which includes the roll out of in-game advertising to Battle.net players, including:

"...the display of other similar in-game objects, which are downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect some information about the game and the advertisements delivered to you."

Or maybe it's so Activision Blizzard can further their Facebook integration plans. Also from their July 3rd battle.net ToS:

"...if you have a Facebook account, your Facebook friends will be able to associate your screen name with your real name on the Service when they use the Facebook Friends feature.

Of course:

"Facebook disclaims all liability it may otherwise incur as a result of this Agreement and/or your use of the Service."

Not surprisingly, Activision Blizzard disclaims all liability as well. So what's next, Blizzard? Real Names on the Armory as well?

It is kind of ironic they have that warning message, they should change it:

Scammers are trying harder than ever to phish for accounts ... so we're going to give the world your real name. Anybody, you know those "Dear Cousin, your rich uncle has dead and want have 15 million" emails? Well now, with the help of Blizzard, they can phish REAL NAMES from our forums!

 

[Evlar]

1) i dont know because i dont use Amazon
2) Does Amazon require you to give out your email that is also your login to add people to friends lists?

1) Tens or hundreds of millions people do.
2) That's not what I responded to. I responded to the claim that using email addresses for login was some bizarre security flaw that any security analyst would identify.

 

[ChronicleX]

We have no way of knowing that... at all.

If we want to play "what ifs" I suppose Activision would be blamed for WoW if they merged back in the day.

"Look at Activision trying to squeeze monthly rapements charging for a freakin' Warcraft MMO game!"

Now I know your trolling. That is like saying "How do we know for certain that guy is a pedo?" after he was convicted of fingering a 6 year old.

 

[water_wendi]

1) Tens or hundreds of millions people do.
2) That's not what I responded to. I responded to the claim that using email addresses for login was some bizarre security flaw that any security analyst would identify.

Using your email as a login id is a security flaw.

 

[RavenFox]

to be fair, flach, I wasn't so much making an argument earlier in this thread as I was being condescending and deliberately brief and inflammatory as a way of contrasting my spiel in the other thread.

Of course you're worries aren't completely unfounded, but I see your worries in the same way as I see someone afraid of getting on plane because it might crash or because it might be over-run by terrorists. It exists in the same space of "yes, it could happen, sure" in my mind.

Worries concerning with racial or gender profiling are reasons why I believe this is a worthwhile experiment. I want to see how people react to this and how that particular online community evolves.

I guess, on the whole, threads like this just seem irrational and somewhat knee-jerk. This is a first try in the space, as far as I am aware, and I'm disappointed to see (almost) nothing but cynicism. This isn't going to make Team Liquid or GAF or WOWFANSITEX (sorry, I don't play) cease to exist. The way I see it, we have more to gain by watching how this plays out then we do by simply running to arms and storming down the front gates.

Oh my...your tag really contradicts your posting.

I long since gave up that anonymity when I joined Facebook or posted on Twitter or started my blog. Look at the GAF post pics thread. Look at Google Maps. As a society we have long since forfeited that level of privacy. Once again, I feel like it would be hypocritical of me to suddenly act like my a concerned grandmother in the late-90s in regards to internet privacy when most people in the Western World are happy to beam much more invasive content about their lives around the world on a daily basis. I'm happy to accept that you personally hate Facebook and want your privacy, but I refuse to believe the majority of the gaming community, of all places, is unwilling to conceive of a world where their name will be on the internet next to something they've typed.

Better

 

[Evlar]

Using your email as a login id is a security flaw.

According to who? About.com?

 

[Interfectum]

im sure the same can be said of the stuff that happened with Infinity Ward.

Uh no. Not at all.

Activision fired the two heads of IW. They didn't hide that fact, they came out and said it.
Blizzard is trying to merge their WoW fanbase into their other games via social networking tools.

How is that at all the same?

Sure we can speculate and say Blizzard is getting pressure to make even more money and to diversify their earnings, but they would be doing that anyway if they were their own company.

 

[dimb]

According to who? About.com?

According to me, because my real name is my email address/login.

 

[Mudkips]

If I get SC II, I'll just make a new BNET account solely for SC II.
My name will be "FUCK YOU", and Blizzard will display it on their forums.

According to who? About.com?

According to anyone with a brain.
Security has 3 components.
- Authorization
- Authentication
- Access Control

Authorization is who you are. (Your user name).
Authentication is you proving it. (Your secret - typically a password).
Access Control is whatever other controls may be in place, sch as forcing people to log in locally, only at certain times, etc.

Using your email address as your authorization piece is stupid because it is publicly known.
It provides an ample attack vector.

 

[Bisnic]

According to me, because my real name is my email address/login.

Then make some stupid hotmail address that doesn't have your real name on it to login. That's what i do for websites or Blizzard games that require me to login with an email address. My "real" email adress is only used for stuff related for my job. And its free of junk mails and all those weird ads i never want to see.

 

[Dr. Light]

Anybody seen my son, Chris Griffin? That's Chris Griffin, C-H-R-I-S G-R-I-F-F-I-N, here's a picture of him. You can keep that, he messed it up by writing his school schedule and a list of his fears all over the back of it.

 

[natethegreat409]

I use to troll people so much in WoW, I would be very afraid if they could get my information... Haha.

Glad I moved on.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

If I get SC II, I'll just make a new BNET account solely for SC II.
My name will be "FUCK YOU", and Blizzard will display it on their forums.

Wow. Sounds like you found a way to work around the system. Great idea.

:/

 

[dimb]

Then make some stupid hotmail address that doesn't have your real name on it to login. That's what i do for websites or Blizzard games that require me to login with an email address.

I'm not going to go out of my way messing around with tertiary e-mails to play World of Warcraft. I shouldn't have to.

 

[Vinci]

Okay, so we're having the same argument as before on this topic, only with some different folks added in. Awesome.

As before, I think this is a bad business decision.

 

[Interfectum]

Now I know your trolling. That is like saying "How do we know for certain that guy is a pedo?" after he was convicted of fingering a 6 year old.

I don't even know what you are getting at here.

If I'm reading it right, no way did I say Activision wasn't a greedy company. I'm saying it's quite plausible that Blizzard could be thinking of their own bottom line too. They need to diversify their earnings so it's not 99% WoW, 1% everything else. As a company they would be taking these measures with or without the influence of Activision (or a Satanic Pedo company according to you).

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

I don't even know what you are getting at here.

If I'm reading it right, no way did I say Activision wasn't a greedy company. I'm saying it's quite plausible that Blizzard could be thinking of their own bottom line too. They need to diversify their earnings so it's not 99% WoW, 1% everything else. As a company they would be taking these measures with or without the influence of Activision (or a Satanic Pedo company according to you).

As long as Kotick is driving the bus, Activision will be a satanic pedo company.

 

[Bisnic]

I'm not going to go out of my way messing around with tertiary e-mails to play World of Warcraft. I shouldn't have to.

Maybe.. but you're still able to play just like if you were using your main email address. And your real name is still unknown. It's not like making a second email address is really too much to ask these days. There is a lot of websites out there that ask your email address when creating an account. Some of them might be not trustworthy, you never really know. That's why i always use my 2nd email address for these websites. Like this, i won't see the emails from my boss surrounded by viagra ads or keyloggers trying to steal my WoW account.

 

[Haunted]

What I'd give to see the subscription-cancellation stats over the last few days.

I don't even know what you are getting at here.

If I'm reading it right, no way did I say Activision wasn't a greedy company. I'm saying it's quite plausible that Blizzard could be thinking of their own bottom line too. They need to diversify their earnings so it's not 99% WoW, 1% everything else. As a company they would be taking these measures with or without the influence of Activision (or a Satanic Pedo company according to you).

Activision-Blizzard is one company, I don't give a shit which part of the company the driving force behind this terrible anti-consumer idea is (although the respective company histories do point to one over the other), as it has no bearing on this discussion.

 

[ChronicleX]

I don't even know what you are getting at here.

If I'm reading it right, no way did I say Activision wasn't a greedy company. I'm saying it's quite plausible that Blizzard could be thinking of their own bottom line too. They need to diversify their earnings so it's not 99% WoW, 1% everything else. As a company they would be taking these measures with or without the influence of Activision (or a Satanic Pedo company according to you).

I'll dumb it down for you so you can attempt to understand the simplicity of the metaphor.

Activision = Arseholes, with tons of convictions of being Arseholes.
Blizzard = Respectful, hardly ever fucked up and next to Valve one of the best gaming companies to exist.
Acti-Blizz = Currently good people forced to be Arseholes due to being partnered with utter Arseholes.

Comprende?

As long as Kotick is driving the bus, Activision will be a satanic pedo company.

Exactly.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

The best way to have privacy is to just not be interesting. All the information in the world isn't going to make 4chan attack you if they don't give a shit who you are. Putting your real name in a game forum is less likely to result in stalking or retribution and more likely to connect you online behavior to your professional one. I, personally, think that this might ultimately be a good thing. That security that you feel from using a fake name isn't as real as you think it is.

I've always been upfront about my real name, and yes, I've been the victim of some serious cyber stalking. But there's always a line they won't cross - and that's when you can tie their actions back to them. They may have your home phone number, but they won't call it because of caller ID. The cool thing about Blizzard's approach is that it isn't just your name out there, it's also the names of all the potential stalkers too. Take away the anonymity for them, and you don't have to worry about anonymity yourself.

And why would the person doing the stalking make it known to everyone? They could just as easily get information about a certain player, post their private info on an anonymous blog or some other forum and no one would know who the stalker is in real life.

 

[The Lamonster]

As long as Kotick is driving the bus, Activision will be a satanic pedo company.

FOUR MORE YEARS!

 

[Interfectum]

I'll dumb it down for you so you can attempt to understand the simplicity of the metaphor.

Activision = Arseholes, with tons of convictions of being Arseholes.
Blizzard = Respectful, hardly ever fucked up and next to Valve one of the best gaming companies to exist.
Acti-Blizz = Currently good people forced to be Arseholes due to being partnered with utter Arseholes.

Comprende?

Oh I get it, you are the worst kind of fanboy. Nothing more to discuss here.

 

[Evlar]

What I'd give to see the subscription-cancellation stats over the last few days.



Activision-Blizzard is one company, I don't give a shit which part of the company the driving force behind this terrible anti-consumer idea is (although the respective company histories do point to one over the other), as it has no bearing on this discussion.

Has this already been discussed?

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/zeroday/2010/07/07/is-korean-law-driving-policy-at-blizzard/

Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?

US customers of game maker Blizzard are up in arms tonight as news of a new policy is set to require all posts on the Blizzard forum to use their Real ID system. That means that every post is accompanied by the real first and last name of the user. People are unsure what to make of this and I haven’t seen any communication from Blizzard stating why they are making this change.
I’m going to make the suggestion that South Korea’s Real Name System [is a driving force behind this decision]*. In 2009 South Korea’s government created a law that was meant to curb online defamation by insisting that all users who comment on sites with greater than 100,000 users per day must use their real name. The first US company to feel the effects of this law was Google. South Korea insisted the Youtube comments require all users to post with their real first and last name. Google got around this law by forbidding anyone with a South Korean IP address from posting to Youtube. Recently South Korea backed down and exempted Youtube from the Real Name system.
Given these facts it might not make sense why South Korea might enforce the Real Name system on Blizzard. My guess would be that the government is very aware of the immense popularity of Starcraft in South Korea. Some have joked it is their national sport. South Korea even has professional SC leagues with sponsors and packed arenas. I don’t think Blizzard can take the Google approach here and just ban South Korean users from posting to their forums. The South Korean market must make a ton of profits for Blizzard and unlike Google they don’t have revenue coming in from other sources

Hm?

 

[ChronicleX]

Oh I get it, you are the worst kind of fanboy. Nothing more to discuss here.

Your denial of Activision being utter cocksections is the only fanboyism to be found in this entire topic kiddo. It would not surprise me at this point if you are one of the blood sucking scum trying to convert people to support their voodoo.

 

[Mihos]

I vote Gaf puts our real names in our tags.

But then you will find out you really have just been talking to me and my 200 alternate account names.....

I can't wait to do a forum search for people I work with just to see what kind of shit they spout when they think no one is looking.

 

[whatsinaname]

I was wondering if a large part of the people who do not mind giving out their names are Caucasian (or have names that sound Caucasian), Male and old enough to take deal with anything that comes up by themselves. (older than 20 yrs or something like that).

I once tried using a headset while playing CS online on an international server (with my strong Indian accent in tow). :lol Yeah, that didn't go well.

 

[joelseph]

But then you will find out you really have just been talking to me and my 200 alternate account names.....

I would hunt you down in real life and become friends.

 

[FLEABttn]

2) Does Amazon require you to give out your email that is also your login to add people to friends lists?

The GameID friends list still functions.

 

[soldat7]

I vote Gaf puts our real names in our tags.

I'm Vladimir Putin.

 

[Gattsu25]

Has this already been discussed?

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/zeroday/2010/07/07/is-korean-law-driving-policy-at-blizzard/

Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?
US customers of game maker Blizzard are up in arms tonight as news of a new policy is set to require all posts on the Blizzard forum to use their Real ID system. That means that every post is accompanied by the real first and last name of the user. People are unsure what to make of this and I haven’t seen any communication from Blizzard stating why they are making this change. I’m going to make the suggestion that South Korea’s Real Name System [is a driving force behind this decision]*. In 2009 South Korea’s government created a law that was meant to curb online defamation by insisting that all users who comment on sites with greater than 100,000 users per day must use their real name. The first US company to feel the effects of this law was Google. South Korea insisted the Youtube comments require all users to post with their real first and last name. Google got around this law by forbidding anyone with a South Korean IP address from posting to Youtube. Recently South Korea backed down and exempted Youtube from the Real Name system. Given these facts it might not make sense why South Korea might enforce the Real Name system on Blizzard. My guess would be that the government is very aware of the immense popularity of Starcraft in South Korea. Some have joked it is their national sport. South Korea even has professional SC leagues with sponsors and packed arenas. I don’t think Blizzard can take the Google approach here and just ban South Korean users from posting to their forums. The South Korean market must make a ton of profits for Blizzard and unlike Google they don’t have revenue coming in from other sources.

Well damn...that sounds crazy enough to be plausible, but I still think Facebook $$$ is the greater incentive

 

[water_wendi]

The GameID friends list still functions.

The point was that using your email as a login is a security risk. i dont know if you have to give your email login to other people on amazon to make comments or whatever but i do know that in Wow to use Real ID you do need to give someone else your email/login info.

 

[FLEABttn]

The point was that using your email as a login is a security risk. i dont know if you have to give your email login to other people on amazon to make comments or whatever but i do know that in Wow to use Real ID you do need to give someone else your email/login info.

Which is only a risk if you're giving it to people you don't actually know.

Everyone friended with RealID on my account is someone I know physically in person. Everyone else is GameID'd.

 

[Starchasing]

:lol Quite possible the worst comeback I've ever read in any forum anywhere. That didn't even make any sense.

i know it doesnt make sense, i was trying to get an absurd respose from him since he would never answer to my logical replies.

 

[levious]

According to anyone with a brain.
Security has 3 components.
- Authorization
- Authentication
- Access Control

Authorization is who you are. (Your user name).
Authentication is you proving it. (Your secret - typically a password).
Access Control is whatever other controls may be in place, sch as forcing people to log in locally, only at certain times, etc.

Using your email address as your authorization piece is stupid because it is publicly known.
It provides an ample attack vector.

so are you saying it's a risk to log into amazon with your email?

 

[water_wendi]

Which is only a risk if you're giving it to people you don't actually know.

Or maybe its still a risk because the people you do know in real life have systems that are compromised with malware/keylogger?

 

[notworksafe]

The point was that using your email as a login is a security risk. i dont know if you have to give your email login to other people on amazon to make comments or whatever but i do know that in Wow to use Real ID you do need to give someone else your email/login info.

Not true. Just add them instead of having them add you. If you use their email to friend them, they never see yours.

 

[water_wendi]

Not true. Just add them instead of having them add you. If you use their email to friend them, they never see yours.

Or how about i just not play the game that makes me jump through hoops to attempt to keep my private life private? Thats the real option Blizzard is giving as far as i see it.

 

[notworksafe]

Good riddance. Maybe you'll stop bitching at that point too.

 

[water_wendi]

Good riddance. Maybe you'll stop bitching at that point too.

:lol

 

[FLEABttn]

Or maybe its still a risk because the people you do know in real life have systems that are compromised with malware/keylogger?

Sure I could see that. The authenticator mitigates that risk though.