The reason hacking will not stop until everyone purchases an authenticator

[Hodenkrieg]

Blizzard has no reason. All your unprotected accounts are being hacked, and soon when the RMAH goes live all those items and gold the scammers have collected is going to hit the RMAH, and you will turn around and buy your own stuff back from them.

Blizzard takes their cut.

Best case scenario, you will need to get an authenticator eventually, and unless you have a good phone, you will need to purchase one for 6.50.

Sure, its "manufactured cost". lolok...

Blizzard takes their cut.

Fixing the security issues is a HORRIBLE move on blizzards part money wise. It would directly impact RMAH profits to an extreme degree, and would negate any reason for you to buy an authenticator. fixing the problem at its source would be a lose-lose for them.

P.S. I love this game, am having a blast, and haven't been hacked due to having an authenticator. hue hue! only 3 options

1. give in and use an authenticator
2. Get used to being regularly character wiped by a guy overseas
3. quit playing.

pick your poison!


EDIT: forgot to mention my tin foil hat collection

[Sting]

>buying 60 euro game np
>6,50 authenticator: HUAHUAHUA THEY WANT MORE MONEY.

[icedwarrior]

You do realize that an authenticator doesn't mean you're invulnerable to losing your account, right? Sure, it improves your chances at not getting hacked, but people act all the time like they don't need to bother because they have one.

And on the subject of Blizzard "not caring" -- you do realize that they offer it for free for the phone, right? Kind of pokes a hole in your logic. You seem to mention it, but never give it credit. And even if Blizzard decided to give everyone a free authenticator, they can't stop the consumers from being stupid. They can only do so much, and they're good about restoring accounts, so they do more than the usual company. But I guess you must remember this is the evil corporation known as Blizzard. They can do no right.

[Kaleid]

The original post contains so much negativity. Think positive!

[Hodenkrieg]

You do realize that an authenticator doesn't mean you're invulnerable to losing your account, right? Sure, it improves your chances at not getting hacked, but people act all the time like they don't need to bother because they have one.

And on the subject of Blizzard "not caring" -- you do realize that they offer it for free for the phone, right? Kind of pokes a hole in your logic. You seem to mention it, but never give it credit. And even if Blizzard decided to give everyone a free authenticator, they can't stop the consumers from being stupid. They can only do so much, and they're good about restoring accounts, so they do more than the usual company. But I guess you must remember this is the evil corporation known as Blizzard. They can do no right.

Best case scenario, you will need to get an authenticator eventually, and unless you have a good phone, you will need to purchase one for 6.50.

P.S. I love this game, am having a blast, and haven't been hacked due to having an authenticator. hue hue! only 3 options

Bolded parts.

P.S. I'll give you one guess at what type of authenticator I use :P

[Joán]

Fixing the security issues is a HORRIBLE move on blizzards part money wise. It would directly impact RMAH profits to an extreme degree, and would negate any reason for you to buy an authenticator. fixing the problem at its source would be a lose-lose for them.

I'm curious, what are these "security issues" that people keep bringing up that people should fix? Every time I hear this it's the same thing - "blizzard should fix it so noone gets hacked". They've said repeatedly that every single account compromised has been logged in with the email and password of the account (and if you think they're lying to you... no comment). What can blizzard do to "fix it" except make you get an authenticator? Are there people out there that actually believe that blizzard servers are the ones getting compromised and that people's account details are just getting leaked out through no fault of their own?

(Not replying to the OP here, speaking in general terms:)
There are 2 ways to have a secure account and unless you are stupid, you do them both:

1. Keep your computer clean

and since noone can be 100% sure of that (no, not even you, mr 20 years without an antivirus program that's never been infected that's inevitably about to post):

2. Get an authenticator. If you believe the authenticator cannot protect you then you need to read up on these things (for a starting point, it's called a Vasco DigiPass GO). It's international banking-level security and if someone managed to systematically crack them they'd be going for more interesting things than your game accounts.

If your email and password gets out there and you don't have an authenticator, you don't have anyone to blame except yourself. You KNOW that blizzard game accounts are valuable targets for e-criminals, you KNOW there are malicious websites and software out there whose whole point in existence is taking it from you. Would you leave your door unlocked with a big sign saying "money inside!"?

Until the day blizzard's servers are actually compromised (and you WILL know about it if that happens), account security is only ever your own responsibility.

[Deadraline]

If $6.50 isn't worth it to protect your account then oh well for you. But realistically shipping costs would be roughly the $6.50...They might keep a little bit of the money...and if they do so what? People are willing to spend the money on the game, why not the tools used to protect the account? How many people went out and bought headsets when they got WoW? Is that some sort of scam too? Or perhaps spent money on improving their computers to run the game better? How dare blizzard not provide us with the proper graphics cards, RAM, and extra gigs to store their game...now we have to go out and buy all the accessories to go with it. What a scam!

Your logic makes little to no sense. They are doing what businesses do. At least they offer some sort of protection for the account. They could have just as easily decided to not provide their players with anything and just keep letting us get hacked without any way of fighting back. And the fact they provide free authenticators during blizzcon to those who can afford to go, as well as a free smart phone authenticator...something tells me they aren't really out to make that much money, but rather provide good customer service...at least in terms of account protection. If that's such a terrible thing then maybe you need to check your logic on the matter a little more closely.

If blizz really wanted to screw its players over they would charge $20 for an authenticator (since many feel account security is worth at least that much) not provide the in game pet that goes with it, as well as force you to purchase an authenticator after getting hacked in order to have your accounts restored. Now that's screwing you over.

On a side note I always thought collectors editions should have an authenticator in them...perhaps a special design or something. That would encourage many to set it up on their accounts since the real issue is most people are too lazy to spend the five minutes installing the authenticator app or ordering one online. But when it comes to forking out $100 for a collectors edition for mainly virtual items people have no problem with that. Irony.

[Hodenkrieg]

If you pay close attention, although my OP reeks of "blizzard is evil", its aimed at people who won't accept "get an authenticator" as a legitimate response to them being incapable of monitoring the viruses they get from porn and buying gold.

People probably aren't even reading past the bolded text, where the P.S. and following make it relatively obvious.

[Mister K]

If you pay close attention, although my OP reeks of "blizzard is evil", its aimed at people who won't accept "get an authenticator" as a legitimate response to them being incapable of monitoring the viruses they get from porn and buying gold.

How does buying gold get your account hacked? Do people just give away their private details?

People need to learn how to make strong passwords, not QWERTY or other bollony.

[Hodenkrieg]

How does buying gold get your account hacked? Do people just give away their private details?

People need to learn how to make strong passwords, not QWERTY or other bollony.

Generally yes. Its very common for people to use 1-2 passwords for all their passwords. if a gold buying website asks for you to establish an account with them, its highly likely the info they use (email and password), could very well be similar to their game account.

If not this, most are bullshit anyway and are riddled with keyloggers. so still, unknowingly giving their info away.

[Kavoo]

Best case scenario, you will need to get an authenticator eventually, and unless you have a good phone, you will need to purchase one for 6.50.

why I have a java authenticator in my shitty 5yo cellphone that cost me $.99 then. Please be informed before posting.

[icedwarrior]

Bolded parts.

And on the subject of Blizzard "not caring" -- you do realize that they offer it for free for the phone, right? Kind of pokes a hole in your logic. You seem to mention it, but never give it credit.

Doesn't appear that you read my entire post. Read the bold. If your premise is "Blizzard is a money-hungry company that wants all your monies!", then having the option of getting the service for free pokes a hole in your premise.

[Vook]

>buying 60 euro game np
>6,50 authenticator: HUAHUAHUA THEY WANT MORE MONEY.

/thread

Authenticators are not hard to get, the only reason for not having one is pure laziness or stupidity of "oh I will never get hacked". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and unless you have a good phone

Or an iPod Touch, which is very cheap nowadays for how useful/powerful it is.

[aeir]

...authen...ti...cator?

[ywtmakavelian]

An authenticator will not make you invincible. If I recall people were outraged when Blizzard implemented the whole "Oh you have an authenticator and logged in 5 times in the same computer? You don't need to put in your code anymore " because in a sense it took some of the security away from it and hackers could potentially get it. No matter how many protection programs (which they are in a sense) they give us you still have a risk to get hacked. In my opinion the ONLY way to make sure that people across WoW and other games will not have a risk of getting hacked is to stop the in game currency/account selling from Chinese farmers. The main reason why is that whenever you are hacked it is 9 times out of 10 from these guys because their market is thriving so much and they are making so much money that they want to expand their business without spending the money and how else but by hacking someone's account and they don't have to pay for it? Sure an authenticator can REDUCE your risk but even Blizzard themselves and many other people who have had these experiences will say that an authenticator will not make you immune to these hackers. The real way is by shutting these Chinese farmers down and not spending money on their business.

[DashR]

"Best case scenario, you will need to get an authenticator eventually, and unless you have a good phone, you will need to purchase one for 6.50."

I'm not necessarily a Blizzard fanboy, but you're being silly.

Blizzard has publicly stated many times that they make no money off Authenticators. If you want do some research on the production of the key FOB that many companies use thats just like the Blizzard Authenticator, the cost of making them factored in with the shipping and distribution costs roughly add up to the cost.

The other thing to keep in mind, if your account gets hacked, you contact Blizzard, someone handles that contact who makes a wage. That adds to cost. Enough contacts and they have made almost no money off your one time purchase of the game.

Blizzard selling them at cost, and even potentially being in the red for selling them at that makes sense.

Giving them away for free doesnt solve it either, as I read a long time ago after a Blizzcon that they gave a shit ton out for free, and out of that huge batch, something like less then 12% actually attached them.

And implications they they are involed in the compromising of accounts, or that its on their end is hilarious.

[savvasp]

/thread

Authenticators are not hard to get, the only reason for not having one is pure laziness or stupidity of "oh I will never get hacked". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or because I don't want to put a certain password each week I try to log in ?

[Deleted]

doubtful, the cost of dealing with customers who have been hacked out weighs the money gained from selling authenticators... or taking a cut from rmah, which is an odd theory because it isnt even out yet, but they have been pushing authenticators for years

[ASO]

What the hell? You seriously believe this? We don't need this insanity.

Blizzard takes a hit when someone purchases an Authenticator, and there is no reason NOT to get one, so you know, just get one.

Thread closed.