I don't get it. The Internet is not as scary a place as some make it out to be. It's the same as letting your children play outside, or on the playground. They meet people. You want to take some precautions for sure but do you instruct your children to give fake names at the playground?
Even the guy with the blog - he took their names and churned out as much information as possible. Basically what he got is who they were friends with, a few facebook pictures, and maybe the city they live in. In the rare case he got ahold of a phone number (that was probably listed in the phonebook anyway).
People I encounter every single day have access to this information. Not a single one has snuck up on me in a back alley (yet).
Unless you're trying to say that gamers are somehow more violent than regular people in which case I strongly disagree.
Last edited by Flames0910; 07-08-2010 at 09:53 PM.
I don't get it. The Internet is not as scary a place as some make it out to be. It's the same as letting your children play outside, or on the playground. They meet people.
And much like that, even if you're careful your child still gets hurt or worse abducted.
This will open people up to problems they never had to consider before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames0910
Even the guy with the blog - he took their names and churned out as much information as possible. Basically what he got is who they were friends with, a few facebook pictures, and maybe the city they live in. In the rare case he got ahold of a phone number (that was probably listed in the phonebook anyway).
People I encounter every single day have access to this information. Not a single one has snuck up on me in a back alley (yet).
It's not a worry about people sneaking up on you in a back alley. It's identity fraud, it's getting harassed on instant messaging services, facebooks, e-mail, on the phone at home if they do get a number or your cell phone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames0910
Unless you're trying to say that gamers are somehow more violent than regular people in which case I strongly disagree.
Not more violent, but definitely a lot stupider and socially awkward so they don't realize the damage that they can do to people's lives vis a vis the good folk at 4Chan.
And much like that, even if you're careful your child still gets hurt or worse abducted.
This will open people up to problems they never had to consider before.
It's not a worry about people sneaking up on you in a back alley. It's identity fraud, it's getting harassed on instant messaging services, facebooks, e-mail, on the phone at home if they do get a number or your cell phone.
Not more violent, but definitely a lot stupider and socially awkward so they don't realize the damage that they can do to people's lives vis a vis the good folk at 4Chan.
And out of hundreds of thousands of users on the Battle.net forums they're going to target you?
And out of hundreds of thousands of users on the Battle.net forums they're going to target you?
They could. I could say something to piss someone off and make them decide to come after me. Spammers could use the info to find my e-mail and harass me with even more fake Blizzard e-mails in an attempt to keylog me. They could never come for me, but they could go for someone else, or hundreds or thousands of someone elses.
It opens up things that I really shouldn't be worried about if I need to post something as simple as a tech support question. It's ridiculous.
And out of hundreds of thousands of users on the Battle.net forums they're going to target you?
Wow, what a massively ignorant thing to say. Take 5 minutes to do some simple Google searches and you will get an idea of how massive of a deal this is. Heck, I setup a simple guild website with Joomla and phpbb for about 30 people and it was hacked with a cross-site script just recently. These simple MMO players just want to see where the raid is this weekend, and next thing they know they have a key logger installed on their PC.
I don't think anyone believes putting your real name on a forum automatically means criminals have your credit card numbers, but why make things and easier for them?
I don't think anyone believes putting your real name on a forum automatically means criminals have your credit card numbers, but why make things and easier for them?
Well the bigger problem is that it doesn’t matter how careful you choose to be or not to be - if I can find one or two of your online acquaintances who are LESS paranoid than you, I will likely be able to get all the info about you that I need - in fact, I can probably do a better job of it since you will be even less likely to know I’m snooping around (because I’m operating at a greater distance with one additional layer of people between us).
Case in point with those Blizzard execs - a ton of that info was gleaned not from their own online profiles, but from info leaked and gleaned from those of others.
Seven degrees of separation and all that - I’m pretty much assured of being able to figure out who you are, if I can find someone, somewhere, you game with in WoW. If you belong to a 30 person guild, that’s a TON of leads for me to work with, and a single degree of separation like that adds a trivial amount of work given that I’m already motivated to take a run at you. I don’t even need their real names to get them to divulge something about you that will get me started down the right path to figuring out who you are; I just need to get them to admit they know who you are or how to contact you outside the game.
__________________
-Scott
The Following User Says Thank You to sclitheroe For This Useful Post:
Continuing on with the 7 degrees of separation and privacy disclosures coming from people that know you rather than from yourself, does anyone recall when Conan O’Brien friended that random person on Twitter? Imagine how easy it would have been for some random person to reach out to other people who moved in her Twitter circle to obtain the info they would need to wreak havoc with them...the mind boggles, and the scope of that exposure dwarfs a single MMO discussion board...again, you need never know the person’s real name directly, you could just start observing and interacting with those around her to piece it together..
Edit: I realize in that example she was already using her full name on Twitter, but it would hardly have made a difference, in my opinion - the exposure was so great that you’d have found someone, somewhere, who would have slipped up and given you the lead you would need.
__________________
-Scott
Last edited by sclitheroe; 07-08-2010 at 11:50 PM.
I like to keep my real life and gaming life separately since I know there are a lot of creepy people on the internet so I'm definitely against this Blizzard policy after being stalked myself.
Couple people I used to game with in a guild, (although it wasn't WoW) were able to find out my full name (and my name isn't unique so you won't be able to find the right person by googling my name) and then soon after, they were able to find my pictures on the web and were able to associate my name to the right pictures.
Although they weren't trying to harm me or anything, it's pretty damn creepy how some people can still find out information about me despite how careful I am handling my real life information in games. I usually don't tell anyone my real life information, including my full name. I've actually had to get my CP username changed because I didn't want them to find out more information about me (my game username and cp username was same at that time).
This still happened even though I was real careful about my real life info. I don't even want to know how bad it'll be once those creepers get access to names of everyone playing WoW or SC2.
Also, Blizzard's gone to sh#t ever since Activision started taking control.
The Following User Says Thank You to FlamesPuck12 For This Useful Post:
Wow, what a massively ignorant thing to say. Take 5 minutes to do some simple Google searches and you will get an idea of how massive of a deal this is. Heck, I setup a simple guild website with Joomla and phpbb for about 30 people and it was hacked with a cross-site script just recently. These simple MMO players just want to see where the raid is this weekend, and next thing they know they have a key logger installed on their PC.
I don't think anyone believes putting your real name on a forum automatically means criminals have your credit card numbers, but why make things and easier for them?
I'm not being ignorant. Most of the information is already out there (thats how the guy with the blog found it). Connecting your real name to your character does just that - it connects your real name to your character. Your name is already out there - linked in, facebook, twitter, high school pages, etc. Even if you're locked down, your friends aren't. You're only fooling yourself if you think you're information is completely private right now.
And if you are that worried about it - don't use the forums. There are other avenues for tech support. You can call toll free, you can go to the tech support channel in game, you can send an email. Nobody is forcing you to use the battle.net forums.
Employers will google potential employees - there is absolutely no reason they need to know that I played WoW at one point in my life. There is a still a massive stigma out there suggesting that anyone who plays video games(especially MMO's) is non-productive and lazy. Considering it's a false stigma, I don't want it interfering with my professional life.
You know this might be the catalyst that changes that. Gaming is a HUUUUUUGE industry. Bigger than the film industry. So yes, lots of people game...big deal.
Maybe if most of the people your future employee googles turns up as a gamer they'll realize that it doesn't really mean anything except that you like to be entertained.
Quote:
True, you can role play yourself if you so would chose, but last time I checked there were no Tauren Druids running around in Cheetah form outside the Seven Eleven. I got into RPG's to take on the role of the main character, in MMORPG"s I am that main character.. so the role is my choice.
If I chose to be a devious Dread Lord with a tower in the forest full of player skulls, destroying all who come near and scarring the land scape, that is my choice. That is my persona, that is my role. It is no ones business which RL name or persona is connected to it, it should not matter.
This is on the forums, not in the game. So you can still be a devious Dreadlord and nobody will be the wiser.
Safety concerns aside, I doubt that most hiring managers would want to hire someone that they know is spending countless hours online playing and discussing role playing games (or even discussing hockey). There isn't much of a stigma associated with those activities among the younger generation, but as long as those activities have negative connotations to bosses and clients, I think message boards are better off leaving the option for users to remain anonymous.
At my place of work, I know for a fact that HR knows about WoW and the time it eats up. I've listened to the HR person talk about it. I can guarantee you if they found you posting on the WoW forums doing a google search when looking at your job application, that would be a negative in their eyes.
If they find you posting on Calgarypuck, I'm pretty sure they're going to say "oh, he likes hockey" and move along. It's definitely a different thing.
You know this might be the catalyst that changes that. Gaming is a HUUUUUUGE industry. Bigger than the film industry. So yes, lots of people game...big deal.
Maybe if most of the people your future employee googles turns up as a gamer they'll realize that it doesn't really mean anything except that you like to be entertained.
This is on the forums, not in the game. So you can still be a devious Dreadlord and nobody will be the wiser.
It won't be a catalyst for anything. Gaming will continue to be reviled as a waste of time simply because it IS a waste of time. Our culture abhors sitting idle - we're supposed to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of a day or the day is wasted (Protestant work ethic). Therefore gaming will always equal laziness. HR people/policies are kinda dumb since they can't separate work life from home life most of the time.
Just because it's "only" on the forums doesn't mean they can't change it in the future.
I'm ignoring the entire Real I.D. crap since it fails to add an "invisible" mode and ultimately brings nothing new to the table. My real friends know what my character names are - if we need to talk across faction/realm/game we just use Skype or any other IM client. Blizzard/Activision is just trying to be the new social network for gamers and proving they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. It will fail just like in-game voice communication has.
Sure, it cuts down on trolling. But that does not outweigh the negatives in my book.
As much as I hate how people hide behind their anonymous ids on the internet I would not post under my real name. There are just too many crazy idiots out there who would take advantage of that.
As a private company, I'm sure Blizzard is well within their rights to require you to use what they believe to be your real name in conjunction with their services. If they wanted to go that route.
The public outcry may have been just enough to give them pause, however. I'm glad they backtracked. Not that it affects me any, but on principle, I'm glad they backtracked.
