Hello, sorry for the intrusion, but some news of this has appeared and I was wondering if the author is going to release this news himself? (to slashdot/reddit or what have you?)
Hello, sorry for the intrusion, but some news of this has appeared and I was wondering if the author is going to release this news himself? (to slashdot/reddit or what have you?)
Hello potemkin.
An article is being prepared
Edit#1: But posting it to slashdot for starters was a good idea, thank you! Let's see if they approve my post :P http://slashdot.org/submission/22529...warcraft-users
Edit#1.2: "Achievement unlocked! Submitted a Story That Was Posted" http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/0...warcraft-users Hello slashdotters!
Edit #2: Also posted this on reddit. Let's get the word out now that we know what's going on. Hello redditors!
WoW: http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments...n_through_wow/ (thanks stoneharry!)
Games: http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/commen...marking_world/
Gaming: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme...marking_world/
Thanks Erboo!
Last edited by Sendatsu; 09-11-2012 at 09:41 AM.
World of Warcraft and gaming.reddit: what's new in gaming are probably better subreddits to post this in.
What people might not understand is that, it doesn't matter to censor your character name when they can just decrypt it :P
What a useful coincidence! (World of Warcraft Developer Reddit AMA, Sept. 11 - World of Warcraft)
Everyone head to World of Warcraft today and let's ask them to hear their side of the story about the watermarks."Tuesday, September 11 beginning at 5:30 p.m. PDT, we’ll be conducting a live developer “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on /r/WoW. I’ll be on-hand to host the chat and will have Lead Systems Designer Greg Street, Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak, Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas, and Game Director Tom Chilton available to field your questions."
I have already prepared the ground here: kgkoutzis comments on Blizzard will be doing an IAMA in r/WoW tomorrow with the top MoP developers!
Sendatsu just a heads up-- the area you posted was just a notification of when the Q & A will take place. You will have to repost your question in the appropriate thread once they actually create the Q & A thread (which should be 5:30 PDT)
By law no company can harvest PII without telling their customers and giving them an opt out, I'm going to just say that this is nothing but fear mongering and paranoia.
Best Metal Fest in the World.
https://www.rockstarmayhemfest.com/mayhem/index.asp
Hey guys - I write for gaming news site Aussie-Gamer.com -- just letting you know that we've picked up this story, ran it and have contacted the PR guys at Blizzard to provide a comment.
Millions of World of Warcraft Players Accounts Compromised
Hopefully we can open some dialogue with them to see what they have to say on the matter. I mean, this is a website full of WoW exploits so who knows, but this is a pretty big issue...
Cheers!
Hello AussieGamer
Thanks for spreading the word. Regardless of where we figured this out, the fact still remains that Activision Blizzard has been secretly watermarking our screenshots without notifying us for many years now. I hope at some point we will receive an official response from a representative.
Millions of world of Warcraft player accounts compromised? um wow. Fear mongering much? Typical newsie. OMG OMG THE SKY IT IS FALLING! Considering this information has JUST been discovered, and you would STILL need to get the password for the account (not shared in the data) AND you would have to get past the Authenticator if the user has one (the only ones who don't are dumber than a box of retarded rocks, to be honest. they are basically free, if you pay the S&H... or completely free for the mobile phone) before any type of account compromise could occur.
but, to draw in viewers, you create a sensationalized title to your news article to draw in ad revenue right?
OP should request Aussie-Gamer remove that article until it can be written in a non-sensationalized manner.
(don't post things I post to Patreon.)
Hey - thanks for your concern. It's been noted. Trust me, ad revenue is not something we really give much attention to, it's a labor of love I assue you.
We of course want to get to the bottom of the story. Or we can just... not. Either way - just thought I'd give you guys the heads up since you did all the leg work discovering the exploit. Do headlines draw people in? Obviously. Is it any less true? Millions play WoW, taking screenshots is a standard, basic part of playing that game for most users. If personal data is being printed onto those screenshots, then yeah - that's a security breach that compromises those accounts.
Thus is the theory behind the headline.
The theory behind posting here is to give you guys a heads up. Delete, ban, remove - whatever. I clearly joined just to shoot a "thanks, we're on it" from a "media" point of view to you guys. If anyone wants to get in touch to divulge more info (or dumb it down for readers), please hit us up on the site.
Thanks.
It is essential to note that the only information we have found inside the watermark is: account id, timestamp and realm IP address.
No passwords have been disclosed, nor any user IP addresses.
The press is free to write what they like, but if it's not the truth then they lose all credibility.
Please update your article accordingly, in order to show that no account has been hacked because of this, but there is still the capability of linking alt. character names to a single account, thus creating targets for spam or scam artists.
Some impressive work you guys have done here with some very interesting finds. I'm fascinated to know what intended use Blizzard has for these watermarks. I mean the sheer amount of bans that could have been handed out based on screenshots posted on forums such as this is huge. Where people thought they were "safe" by blacking out their names.
I suspect Blizzard uses this information for market research more than anything else. Purely statistical information - although how much of a reliable representation it would have I don't know, considering it would only be from Screenshots actually posted.
Then again, these days companies collect statistics on the weirdest things.
Last edited by Unholyshaman; 09-11-2012 at 11:06 AM.