WoW bans/closes 76,000 accounts

[Born]

This is definatley an interesting topic. I am fully against cheats as they ruin the game for everyone. At the same time the vunerability of IP to warden like software is kind of scary.

Everything that happens in a MPORG passes through the game server. Surely it would be better if they monitored the actions on the server rather than on individual PC's. It would also make the code of 'Server bassed spyware' more difficult to access for those would be cheats.

I guess they are just trying to use our procesing power rather than solving the problem properly and protecting the privacy of their clientel.

Born

[Jalil]

I have to wonder how many of those accounts were really cheaters. A friend of mine, who hasn't played WoW since around March, received an e-mail from Blizzard a week or so ago, telling him that his account was banned for cheating. Since his account has been closed for months, and there has been no activity on his credit card from Blizzard, how could he be flagged as cheating? He has never given his account info to anyone. Unless someone hacked into the Blizzard account servers, stole his user name and password, then put the account on a different credit card, there is no way the account was being used. But that's not even the worst part...

After being accused of being a cheater in the e-mail, he sent a response, and only received a form letter back. Another response... another form letter... repeat again, he's on his 5th or 6th response. It's been over a week now, and Blizzard hasn't even bothered to look into it

[DENIRO]

When Is The Open Beta Coming Out For Vanguard I Have The Beta Disc........ All Rdy From My Preorder Today And It Says, This Is A Closed Beta And It Will Be Opening Soon To The Public? But It Wont Let Me On When Does It Open?

[Aredhel]

Well, believe it or not, the companies (some, anyway) do monitor the servers for just what Piro is saying. And the tools are just getting better and better, and the ones trying to get away with things think they're getting smarter and smarter.

maybe...

Point is, technology changes and people start outsmarting each other. When activity shows up that is "unusual," many times the players are the first ones to see it, but it is also observed in server logs. And no, it's not spyware!

Good customer support teams can be one of the first lines of defense, as well, when players see something "out of the ordinary" and CS has the ability to check into it right then! Hopefully, this is what Sigil is trying to do with their CF program and hiring more GMs to help out!

[Melchizedek]

To quote Michelle Butler

Originally Posted by Michelle Butler

Vanguard will have the tools necessary to track and detect. Our GMs will then investigate...

and my notes turn to rubbish. Basically, SGO CS will be looking for botters and hackers. I only hope they smite them with authoritay. <=-=- Cartman taught me that word.

[Irvyn]

The guy who wrote the article about reverse engineering 'Warden', failed to mention that he works for a company (I think he owns it) that makes WoW bots and cheats. He wrote a program called 'Govenor', that attempts to hide processes from Warden. His name is Greg Hogland or somethingorother, I forget his last name.

I find it troubling that he cites privacy as the reason for his anti-warden posts. I would feel less insulted if he simply stated he wanted to hide his bots so he could continue to sell them.

Considering that there are simpler and more productive ways for Blizzard to get 'sensitive info' from your computer than scanning and hashing process lists ... why would they waste time with Warden if that's what they were after ?

[talz]

Originally Posted by Jalil

I have to wonder how many of those accounts were really cheaters. A friend of mine, who hasn't played WoW since around March, received an e-mail from Blizzard a week or so ago, telling him that his account was banned for cheating. Since his account has been closed for months, and there has been no activity on his credit card from Blizzard, how could he be flagged as cheating? He has never given his account info to anyone. Unless someone hacked into the Blizzard account servers, stole his user name and password, then put the account on a different credit card, there is no way the account was being used. But that's not even the worst part...

After being accused of being a cheater in the e-mail, he sent a response, and only received a form letter back. Another response... another form letter... repeat again, he's on his 5th or 6th response. It's been over a week now, and Blizzard hasn't even bothered to look into it

I had a friend with something similiar happen. After talking to them their password was not very secure and if someone was able to get part of their account info they may have been able to puzzle it out. When they called blizzard they found out their account had been opened with a pre-payed gamecard, and played for a fairly long period of time with no stops before being banned for gold farming activities. I don't know if they ever got it straightened out, they are rather peeved though.

The moral of this story is make sure you have hard to break passwords so you know you don't share any of the blame if your account is hijacked. (this goes for more than mmog logins) Use letters and numbers, don't use the same passwords on forums or other online services like this (Nothing against VGS or any other forum, it's just a bad security practice!) as you do on your game account, don't put your name into it, don't repeat your account name with a number, don't use your email address as your password, etc.

[talz]

Originally Posted by Irvyn

The guy who wrote the article about reverse engineering 'Warden', failed to mention that he works for a company (I think he owns it) that makes WoW bots and cheats. He wrote a program called 'Govenor', that attempts to hide processes from Warden. His name is Greg Hogland or somethingorother, I forget his last name.

I find it troubling that he cites privacy as the reason for his anti-warden posts. I would feel less insulted if he simply stated he wanted to hide his bots so he could continue to sell them.

Considering that there are simpler and more productive ways for Blizzard to get 'sensitive info' from your computer than scanning and hashing process lists ... why would they waste time with Warden if that's what they were after ?

His bots are obviously his personal motivations for posting. Few people would care about that though so he chooses to focuse his arguements on an aspect more important to the general public. This is pretty basic debate/politics 101 and expecting anything else is naive. It's definately worth paying attention to his motivations though.

And I don't think many people really think Blizzard is after their 'sensitive info'. People are uneasy with anything scanning their computer and sending information from that scan out to another party. Personally I don't care for it but there is so much potential money in mmog's these days it may be the best solution.

[TheKnight]

One of my friends got his account banned though he was as against cheating as I am, and I HATE cheating.

[tehgeek]

Originally Posted by TheKnight

One of my friends got his account banned though he was as against cheating as I am, and I HATE cheating.

Yeah the real problem with "anti-cheat" software is that there will always be false positives.