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[water_wendi]

I am simply going to never post on Blizzard forums. Problem solved. Also use fake names.

What would you do if your account is hacked?

 

[ChronicleX]

What would you do if your account is hacked?

Fake Name + Authenticator is the most secure way currently but there should be ways to prove the account is yours like with your payments (if you have a renewing WoW Subscription).

 

[Quasar]

As meaningless names with no context. Now they are responsible for posts that may result in some evil shit troll looking like a fool. How do you not get the difference?

You probably have enough context if the person uses social networks. Collating facebook data plus stuff from google would give you plenty.

 

[flyinpiranha]

And they are still not being forced to use the official forums.
Personal experience is anecdotal at best, but I have been playing WoW since 2006 jan, and not once was I needed to post on the official forums. To what end?

I do to ask questions, to answer questions. I've been gaming for decades and I not once have I needed to post on gaming forums. But I do. You do. Don't ostracize people because they choose to do exactly what you are doing but in a different place. We've enjoyed it for years and as much as a majority of the people are assholes, I've had some pretty good discussions ... and been an asshole too.

I completely agree with what these guys did. They just showed how idiotic this is. What do you do when you want something repealed? You show its weakness and negative effects. They showed this.

I'll say it time and time again ... this isn't about trolling, you could cut 90% of that down with account-wide character links made visible. This is ... well, I don't really know. That Facebook shit somebody mentioned maybe, but what the hell is the point of this? On EVERY forum you are link to your alias you have created, it's the point. I don't want everybody knowing everything I do. I'm on GAF to discuss games not have some douchenozzle say shit about something unrelated just because he's pissed at the conversation or something.

 

[Haunted]

Activision Blizzard according to a USA Today interview in May

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/05/blizzard-and-facebooks-friendly-social-networking-deal-launches-with-starcraft-ii-/1

:lol :lol

Biggest misjudgement in the gaming industry since Sony came up with the Go.

Spoiler

Who am I kidding, they knew the kind of backlash they'd receive, they just don't give a shit.

 

[Sqorgar]

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.

 

[Interfectum]

Also, during the course of these debates I've started leaning towards this being not only a bad idea, but one that will never go live.

For me? I think the change would be fine. Sure I'd be a little weary of being targeted by idiots but I'd take my chances.

The biggest problem are two things..... one being WoW has a lot of women and children playing their games and posting on their forums. The other being Blizzard has a lot more faith in their community than I do. If they think they can make some sort of mature social networking site out of bnet kiddies then they are truly delusional.

 

[Kusagari]

You probably have enough context if the person uses social networks. Collating facebook data plus stuff from google would give you plenty.

On facebook you're just interacting with people you know though. Again it gives no real reason for people to attack you. An internet forum gives reasons in spades.

 

[RiskyChris]

ActiBlizz is so fucking blinded by how much money RealID is going to make them that they are completely fucking botching the implementation.

 

[Haunted]

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.

That's an unacceptable trade-off.

Also related: oppressive dystopian societies have the lowest crime rates.

 

[botticus]

You probably have enough context if the person uses social networks. Collating facebook data plus stuff from google would give you plenty.

Context being "why do I care about this person's name".

Having your name found in the phone book or game manual is only a problem if someone who hates cans happens to run into it.

 

[Interfectum]

On facebook you're just interacting with people you know though. Again it gives no real reason for people to attack you. An internet forum gives reasons in spades.

If the new forums were members only and not viewable by the public, what would you think of it then?

 

[Dead Man]

You probably have enough context if the person uses social networks. Collating facebook data plus stuff from google would give you plenty.

Yeah, maybe, but you can take measures to make that more difficult. This is like opening the damn door for anyone that wants your info.

 

[ultron87]

Yeah, maybe, but you can take measures to make that more difficult. This is like opening the damn door for anyone that wants your info.

Well it's really more like having a big flashing light on your door that says "Look at me! I might be locked, but you never know!"

 

[water_wendi]

Fake Name + Authenticator is the most secure way currently but there should be ways to prove the account is yours like with your payments (if you have a renewing WoW Subscription).

Still doesnt answer the question.. what would you do if you were hacked?

 

[Hari Seldon]

I've posted there in my WoW-days, my real name was mandatory because of the Credit Card info.

Yeah I'm pissed now that I found out there is no way to change your name at all. I guess I will be forced to email them to delete my entire account.

 

[panda21]

surely you can't use a fake name because you need a credit card tied to your account? or is that not necessary?

 

[ChronicleX]

Still doesnt answer the question.. what would you do if you were hacked?

I answered that in the same post - L2Read.

 

[Interfectum]

surely you can't use a fake name because you need a credit card tied to your account? or is that not necessary?

Does the name have to match the CC info? What if a kid were using his/her parent's CC?

 

[Hari Seldon]

surely you can't use a fake name because you need a credit card tied to your account? or is that not necessary?

I guess only for WoW. I have SC2 on pre-order but I am willing to give up Acti-Blizz MMOs forever if it means that my name will not be google-able in this context.

Edit: Digging more on the blizz forums. It appears this RealID shit is totally optional and only required for posting on the forums. I just won't post on the forums, meh no big deal, I haven't done that in years anyway.

 

[water_wendi]

surely you can't use a fake name because you need a credit card tied to your account? or is that not necessary?

Afaik you dont need a credit card if you use a game card instead. There are still two problems with this.

1) A Blue post on the EU forums said that they would be banning any accounts that they found to be using fake names similar to what Facebook currently does.

2) If you ever lose control of your account there is no way to get control of it because you will have to prove to Blizzard via notarized documents that you are someone you are not.

 

[ChronicleX]

surely you can't use a fake name because you need a credit card tied to your account? or is that not necessary?

Your card details do not have to match the account holders name.

Also should your battlenet account get hacked, send them an email from the email the account is of telling them it got hacked. They can not deny that the account is not yours if you own the email.

Spoiler

Unless they hacked your email to tell blizzard your bnet account was hacked in order to hack your bnet account.... ooo errrr..... ummm..... yeah.....

 

[Interfectum]

What would you do if your account is hacked?

Before I got an authenticator my account was hacked twice. Never once did I have to provide my name. I emailed them both times from the email address I signed up to WoW with.

 

[Dynoro]

I answered that in the same post - L2Read.

Payments cannot be used for all accounts - those that use pre-paid cards need to send in official documentation to get their account back - and using a fake name stops this happening

 

[kodt]

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.

 

[Wolves Evolve]

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.

Sorry, but that doesn't scan. How would you know who's stalking you? We could be in Battle.net and then I just find out your name from there, log out, go to Google and begin my stalking behind seven proxies, etc. Then I'm uploading pictures of your sisters to all sorts of websites.

Bald fact:

Loss of privacy =/= gain of security.

Anonymity is not the problem at the root of online misbehaviour. You can fuss and tiff and huff all day and night, but it won't make it true. More people will be less secure than before as a result of this particular implementation.

Of course, unlike many here, I don't think it will cause any type of backlash. People just don't think about their privacy and lots of people have a 'I'm not doing anything illegal online so why do I care' attitude.

 

[Deadly]

[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.

Looks like we found out why Real ID has been implemented...

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Has this already been discussed?

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

if true...if this is why...we live in very interesting times.

 

[Sqorgar]

That's an unacceptable trade-off.

Also related: oppressive dystopian societies have the lowest crime rates.

But look at the issue here. People are afraid to post their real names because they thing they will be targeted because of it, but the people who would actually target you won't because they'd be afraid of the same thing. Think less oppressive police state and more mutual assured destruction.

If the only reason you want anonymity is so that you can act like an asshole without consequence, then you won't get any support from me. It's just not fair that some people who are identifiable (by choice or otherwise) are at the mercy of those who are not.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Sorry, but that doesn't scan. How would you know who's stalking you? We could be in Battle.net and then I just find out your name from there, log out, go to Google and begin my stalking behind seven proxies, etc. Then I'm uploading pictures of your sisters to all sorts of websites.

Bald fact:

Loss of privacy =/= gain of security.

Anonymity is not the problem at the root of online misbehaviour. You can fuss and tiff and huff all day and night, but it won't make it true. More people will be less secure than before as a result of this particular implementation.

Of course, unlike many here, I don't think it will cause any type of backlash. People just don't think about their privacy and lots of people have a 'I'm not doing anything illegal online so why do I care' attitude.

Now that I have determined that this is not going to affect me, I am still pissed at them. What about all the 15-16 year olds posting with their real name on the forums? Thank GOD I didn't have forums like that when I was that age, because now it would be part of the permanent google record that employers would see when they google my name. 16-year olds just don't think about shit like that.

 

[The Lamonster]

Has this already been discussed?

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

Yes it has. That's some fucked up shit right there.

 

[flyinpiranha]

Has this already been discussed?

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

Aaaaand BOOM goes the dynamite.

That's crazy. I had no idea SK did that type of implementation throughout the country for websites. SK is a huge area for Blizzard so it makes sense them "sort of" trying to get in line with them.

 

[domlolz]

I hate these people "trying to prove a point".
They have tried "to prove a point" time and time again, last time it was about hacking Ubisoft's servers for that DRM stuff. Now this.

All they have proven is that they are immature childs, and THAT is the only real drawback to this system.

hell yeah, don't agree with something? just shut the fuck up and take it you immature babbies

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Has this already been discussed?

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

SC is huge in South Korea. Now it makes sense. Go Youtube. Too bad Blizzard can't do the same.

 

[Calantus]

Those trying to equate this to the phone book are ridiculous, the name in the phone book doesn't have a personality attached to it, can't piss anyone off, among other things.

 

[Interfectum]

Those trying to equate this to the phone book are ridiculous, the name in the phone book doesn't have a personality attached to it, can't piss anyone off, among other things.

Tell that to Jack R. Cox.

 

[ultron87]

Anonymity is not the problem at the root of online misbehaviour.

It is only in the fact that it results in a lack of real consequences. If someone can make a new account every ten minutes on a forum or have the option of joining 200 other servers if they get banned from one for hacking in a game they aren't going to feel that compelled to follow the rules if breaking them is more fun.

Only by making a specific online identity have some inherent value can some sort of order be established. Someone with thousands of hours on their WoW account is way less likely to act in a manner that will get them permanently banned from using that character. They've invested too much in it.

Similarly, there is less misbehavior on GAF than a lot of other forums because we have to wait up to six months to get an account approved for posting and the moderators don't fuck around with disciplinary actions. So if you get banned you can't just make a new account and be posting again in ten minutes. Since a ban is actually a meaningful penalty, people (usually) behave.

If this decision was actually about making their forum community a more worthwhile place to visit they could accomplish the same thing by limiting everyone to one identity on the forums, requiring a Blizzard game on your account (so that new posting accounts can't be made in ten minutes or without some cost), and tightening down on moderation.

 

[Pandaman]

ActiBlizz is so fucking blinded by how much money RealID is going to make them that they are completely fucking botching the implementation.

halfway through the beta they disabled gameid friend invites specifically because no one was using realid by choice and they wanted to test the system. [evidently for this implementation] apparently they didn't take the hint.

it seems this is a 'we will make you like it, whether you like it or not' situation.

 

[Fularu]

As meaningless names with no context. Now they are responsible for posts that may result in some evil shit troll looking like a fool. How do you not get the difference?

No, their real names are under the CM section.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Well I think what I am going to do is not install SC2 or take it out of the shrink wrap until I see how this all shakes out. If they come out with some privacy settings that guarantee my privacy I will be cool with them. If not, then it is time to make a new battle.net account for every game I buy in the future under fake names. That seems to be the best option for protection.

 

[Interfectum]

Well I think what I am going to do is not install SC2 or take it out of the shrink wrap until I see how this all shakes out. If they come out with some privacy settings that guarantee my privacy I will be cool with them. If not, then it is time to make a new battle.net account for every game I buy in the future under fake names. That seems to be the best option for protection.

Unless you are worried about Battle.net being hacked or something your real name will only show up if you trade realIDs with someone and/or post on the official forums. If you do neither of those things your name should be safe.

 

[water_wendi]

Unless you are scared of Blizzard being hacked or something your real name will only show up if you trade realIDs with someone and/or post on the official forums. If you do neither of those things your name should be safe.

Friends of friends?

 

[Pandaman]

Well I think what I am going to do is not install SC2 or take it out of the shrink wrap until I see how this all shakes out. If they come out with some privacy settings that guarantee my privacy I will be cool with them. If not, then it is time to make a new battle.net account for every game I buy in the future under fake names. That seems to be the best option for protection.

better idea: don't buy it until new privacy settings come out or you decide to give it a seperate ID.

 

[Interfectum]

Friends of friends?

Don't participate in the realID friends system at all. No friends of friends to worry about. Personally I won't be participating in it because there is no "show as offline" feature which is annoying.

 

[Bisnic]

Saw this on the WoW forums :

Q u o t e:
So what are you telling your superiors? What kind of feedback are you giving them? Are you tellin them the truth or what?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We're reporting everything we're seeing. We send regular community reports out every week to nearly everyone in the company summarizing the tone on the forums, as well as what players are discussing. Whenever big announcements take place (like the one Tuesday morning), we're giving almost hourly reports on what we're seeing. These reports are actually extremely important to a lot of people, all the way up to Mike Morhaime.

A community manager is not only responsible for relaying information to the community, he or she has an equally (if not more) important role in relaying community feedback to the developers and executives at Blizzard. We are the best link between the playerbase and those making decisions for the future of our company and games

Hopefully these reports will actually mean something and not just end with a dealwithit.gif

 

[V_Arnold]

Friends of friends?

Still dont seem to get it? If you add ingame id friends, no one will get your real ID.

 

[ChronicleX]

halfway through the beta they disabled gameid friend invites specifically because no one was using realid by choice and they wanted to test the system. [evidently for this implementation] apparently they didn't take the hint.

it seems this is a 'we will make you like it, whether you like it or not' situation.

My respect for Blizz ever since the merger has hit the tubes, and this shitstorm has made it sink lower. They need to split for the good of all of us except the ones who are dead. WoW gives them enough Cake as it is, they do not need Activision - Activision needs them!

Why the fuck are they still merged!?!

 

[Haunted]

But look at the issue here. People are afraid to post their real names because they thing they will be targeted because of it, but the people who would actually target you won't because they'd be afraid of the same thing. Think less oppressive police state and more mutual assured destruction.

:lol nice.

But that's also terrible!

If the only reason you want anonymity is so that you can act like an asshole without consequence, then you won't get any support from me. It's just not fair that some people who are identifiable (by choice or otherwise) are at the mercy of those who are not.

My instinctive answer would be to protect those who are identifiable, not expose those who are not.


But this is not simply a question about equality in an online community. This is about transposing a whole slew of security risks of a (previously online only) persona into real life. Or, at the very least, it's facilitating this. It's a system that's just waiting to be abused. It's a nightmare.

Just read this series of articles.

http://antivirus.about.com/b/2010/06/22/wow-real-id-a-really-bad-idea.htm

http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailscams/tp/Wow-Real-Id-questions.htm

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.

 

[Interfectum]

My respect for Blizz ever since the merger has hit the tubes, and this shitstorm has made it sink lower. They need to split for the good of all of us except the ones who are dead. WoW gives them enough Cake as it is, they do not need Activision - Activision needs them!

Why the fuck are they still merged!?!

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.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Unless you are worried about Battle.net being hacked or something your real name will only show up if you trade realIDs with someone and/or post on the official forums. If you do neither of those things your name should be safe.

I just do not trust them anymore. I think the safest thing to do, going forward, is to make 1 battle.net account for every new game you register with blizzard. That way if you get hacked you will only lose, at most, 1 game. Also, if they implement more stupid realID shit the only account you have under your real name will be your MMO account. So you can just delete that account and not lose SC2 or Diablo3.