Is Blizzard scanning RAM of my computer?

[Deleted]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13987330036

LOOKS LIKE BLIZZARD ARE TRACKING YOU, as like all big companys, so pay for a game and they track and monitor your pc
not my thread but intersting none the less

Ok so i did some test i started cheat engine and DID NOT attach it to wow it just ran doing nothing, wow was in non elevated account and cheat engine ran in elevated account with UAC on. Yet world of warcraft refused to start because i had it in ram somewhere.

This is unacceptable! Is Blizzard spying my computer? It's not safe to do internet banking with this kind of approach! What else are they spying in my computer?

I do have stuff to hide! My paypal/ internet banking/ NDA work stuff!

I'm pretty sure this is against the law in EU! It clearly scans ram outside of it's allocated memory occupied by Blizzard games/programs.

[Thelxi]

How dare they!

[Casagrande]

From personal experience, wow runs just fine with cheatengine open, and you don't get banned either. If you're that paranoid about programs snooping around your computer, you can run them in a virtual machine. VMware is nice if you can afford it (or are willing to get it elsewhere).

[Deleted]

How else are they going to make a profit with all those lost subs?

[Deleted]

Yes, and obama personally paid them to spy on all of us.

Are you for real, what would Blizzard gain by doing that? Seriously, it baffles me to what lengths some conspiracy theorists can go...

[Torgent]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13987330036

LOOKS LIKE BLIZZARD ARE TRACKING YOU, as like all big companys, so pay for a game and they track and monitor your pc
not my thread but intersting none the less

Ok so i did some test i started cheat engine and DID NOT attach it to wow it just ran doing nothing, wow was in non elevated account and cheat engine ran in elevated account with UAC on. Yet world of warcraft refused to start because i had it in ram somewhere.

This is unacceptable! Is Blizzard spying my computer? It's not safe to do internet banking with this kind of approach! What else are they spying in my computer?

I do have stuff to hide! My paypal/ internet banking/ NDA work stuff!

I'm pretty sure this is against the law in EU! It clearly scans ram outside of it's allocated memory occupied by Blizzard games/programs.

Scanning your RAM =/= keylogger. The cheat detector just looks for patterns which appear to be hacks. Nothing more. Stop being paranoid, if blizzard wanted to steal money from you, they already have your financial information, they don't need to take it from your paypal.

[Deleted]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13987330036

LOOKS LIKE BLIZZARD ARE TRACKING YOU, as like all big companys, so pay for a game and they track and monitor your pc
not my thread but intersting none the less

Ok so i did some test i started cheat engine and DID NOT attach it to wow it just ran doing nothing, wow was in non elevated account and cheat engine ran in elevated account with UAC on. Yet world of warcraft refused to start because i had it in ram somewhere.

This is unacceptable! Is Blizzard spying my computer? It's not safe to do internet banking with this kind of approach! What else are they spying in my computer?

I do have stuff to hide! My paypal/ internet banking/ NDA work stuff!

I'm pretty sure this is against the law in EU! It clearly scans ram outside of it's allocated memory occupied by Blizzard games/programs.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13987330036#1
Any reason you felt the need to copy/paste the original post?

[Wries]

Possibly not OK by pure principle.

[Terridon]

Scanning your RAM =/= keylogger. The cheat detector just looks for patterns which appear to be hacks. Nothing more. Stop being paranoid, if blizzard wanted to steal money from you, they already have your financial information, they don't need to take it from your paypal.

Just echoing a very valid point here XD

[Kaj392]

1. DURING YOUR REGISTRATION FOR THE BATTLE.NET SERVICE YOU GRANT YOUR CONSENT TO THE FOLLOWING: WHEN RUNNING, THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT CLIENT MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH WORLD OF WARCRAFT. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON" OR "MOD," THAT IN BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (1) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (2) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT; OR (3) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH WORLD OF WARCRAFT; (4) IN THE EVENT THAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER ANY BLIZZARD AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.


It is in the ToS though so people did agree to allowing them to do it.

[Illiterate]

Yes, and obama personally paid them to spy on all of us.

Are you for real, what would Blizzard gain by doing that? Seriously, it baffles me to what lengths some conspiracy theorists can go...

Yea...because it's not like blizzard has ever done it in the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_...ivacy_concerns

[reemi]

If you are so scared about your privacy, stop using a computer.

[Schmeebs]

Programs don't store sensitive data in raw text form when its in ram (at least they aren't supposed to and if they are, that is the fault of that particular program).

So even if Blizzard was actively looking for sensitive information, it would have to decrypt it as well, which is a helluva lot of effort to do something they would lose millions over if caught.

Every MMO and most FPS's do scans like this to help prevent botting/hacking. Ever heard of punkbuster? if you play Battlefield you are essentially required to use punkbuster which actively scans for hacks/bots. Most RTS/Mobas are probably using similar detection methods.

TLDR: Blizzard is completely within their rights of doing this. Their lawyers are much smarter than you. Nobody cares about your internet porn history.

[Deleted]

Old news is old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_%28software%29

[Nurasu]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13987330036#1
Any reason you felt the need to copy/paste the original post?

The better question is why he felt the need to open a new thread on it here at all after no one agreed with him and Bliz locked it already... @OP, Bliz has been sued over downtime for maintenance. I'm pretty sure if this were actually illegal (lol?) someone would be on it.

[Deleted]

Yea...because it's not like blizzard has ever done it in the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_...ivacy_concerns

That's not the same as them spying on us and gathering personal information like the OP is afraid of.

[Darsithis]

There is nowhere for a thread like this to go. This is nothing new - it's been there pretty much since the game launched (and Blizzard is hardly unique in this respect). If you feel that there is a cause for concern about privacy, I'd suggest talking to Blizzard about it instead of writing rabble-rousing threads.