Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
However you can prove that every single day there are many accounts are getting hacked as the result of end user failures in security. That there are massive phishing email campaigns, trojans, email hacks and many other methods of gaining access to accounts directly through end users.
I'm not really sure what mystery people are trying to solve. End users are for the most part dumb.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that?
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
However you can prove that every single day there are many accounts are getting hacked as the result of end user failures in security. That there are massive phishing email campaigns, trojans, email hacks and many other methods of gaining access to accounts directly through end users.
I'm not really sure what mystery people are trying to solve. End users are for the most part dumb.
Aye, the end user is usually the one most likely at fault, but for people to say that there is no way that the issue could be an internal problem is just them being naive.
These companies have Internal Affairs departments for a reason, and the company will not proudly boast how many times they catch an employee in the act.
Thing is people prefer the Occam's Razor approach when it comes to this issue; It's just easier to put all the blame on the user.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
When you first accuse blizzard or someone abotu something, you need proof to back it up. If you want proof of the hundreds of thousands of players compromised because of their own lax security, a quick look on the CS forums, or even ask people who got hacked will reveal your answers. The ones who blame blizzard have no adequate security measures, such as an authenticator (which blizzard loses money on providing) or even a decent upto date spyware scanner.
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that?
Same source as above. By accusing someone over something you have no proof AT ALL, then shouting the same thing over and over; in your case shouting, " but im right. you dont have proof" is asinine .
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
With that last comment you just proved yourself to be nothing more than a troll and rumour starter. Continue if you wish, but no person on these forums will give you any credibility anymore.
I'm a victim of a hacking. Last year my 2 year inactive EU account was "hacked" into, had its subscription paid before signing it up to some one elses battle.net account and authenticator.
I've been playing MMOs for 10 years with out a single account hacked. I'm aware of many scams and dangers of the Internet over the past decade. I build my own computers. So I guess you can also consider me an IT specialist. Yet no matter how cautious you are, there's always that risk that you can slip up right?
But there was some thing bugging me. Know what it was? I played that same EU account on the same computer I play my current, active US account (started a year later after quitting EU WoW).
Guess what... my US account is fine.
Figure that one out for me please.
Uhm, putting together your own computer doesn't make you an IT specialist. I went a year in school for network technicians and wouldn't call me that. Anyone who can read an manual can build a computer.
I doubt Blizzard is involved in hacking, gold selling or similar, it would be risking everything they worked so hard to get,
I wouldn't put it past Activision to sell people mail to companies however but that's about it.
I can't explain exactly why your account was hacked, there are many ways to do that but I would do a free online scan (like trendmicros housecall) to check for malware and viruses, it is not impossible that you have something and that it disabled your antivirus.
Blizzard have a lot more to lose than to gain by doing illegal stuff. As for goldselling they could just cut out the middlehand and sell it legally in their cashshop instead, they have no reason whatsoever to hire some asians for that, they would lose money. Some people would of course protest if they sold it themselves but some people protested over the cash shop in itself and no one quit.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it.
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention.
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more?
And here is where you are wrong.
No where did I say 'It is Blizzards fault.'
What I said was that it is a possibility that it can happen. It's not a rumor and I need not provide proof because if you have ever read a newspaper or watched the news, you would see that companies such as Visa, Amex, MS etc have dealt with such issues in the past.
So again, just because you can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that?
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
The lack of proof of something happening can't be used as proof of it happening. Until there is proof that someone other than an end user was at fault for a compromised account there is no reason to believe it is something other than that. Considering that there are litterally thousands upon thousands of verifiable cases of end user failure and no other cases of someone else responsible, what more needs to be proven at this point?
To claim otherwise would require some sort of proof wouldn't it? Correct me if I am wrong, but without such proof it is indeed just a rumor and nothing more than factless speculation.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. Source? I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. I think you are mistaken. You can prove numerous ways people can get hacked. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. There are plenty of ways Blizzard can be compromised. Plenty. And that is fact. In general, defense and protection is REactive and not PROactive. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side. You debunked yourself man. All you had to do was ignore simple logic.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all Here is the issue. The sheer volume of complaints against the company raises the question of if the company is at fault in any way at all. You cannot discount that there is some possiblity of fault on Blizzard's end. Regardless of proof, there is reasonable doubt., apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that? And yet, there is still no proof that Blizzard is innocent. So shame on everyone.
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player. Your entire arguement is based on false pretense. If you can prove something to be true does not mean that the opposite is true or false. Is there not the possibility that is is not Blizzards fault in any way and also not the players fault? Is it possible that both are at fault?
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
Its the silliness of one-sided arguements that make my workday enjoyable.
Really people. Use logic. There is no need for a conspiracy. Because you cannot prove something is true doesn't mean that it is false or that its opposite is true. So far I have not seen anything convincing that proves Blizzards innocence in this. Because they are not proven innocent, there is some degree of fault that must be attributed to them if you are going to attibute fault to anyone, including the end-user. Likewise you cannot assume that every player is at fault or innocent as well.
bobbyjr, as much as you'd like to believe that Blizzard is holy and untainted, there is nothing to suggest that they didn't have some fault or a hand in this matter. You're entire arguement's basis can only survive if there is something to support Blizzard, which there is not. There is just a lack of evidence to suggest they are at fault.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that?
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
The lack of proof of something happening can't be used as proof of it happening. Until there is proof that someone other than an end user was at fault for a compromised account there is no reason to believe it is something other than that. Considering that there are litterally thousands upon thousands of verifiable cases of end user failure and no other cases of someone else responsible, what more needs to be proven at this point?
To claim otherwise would require some sort of proof wouldn't it? Correct me if I am wrong, but without such proof it is indeed just a rumor and nothing more than factless speculation.
There is no proof required to point a finger at Blizzard and say that they are not totally innocent. The only thing required is that there is no proof declaring them innocent. And currently there is none.
Sure, there is much evidence to support end-user error in causing the compromise in security. But that also doesn't exlcude Blizzard from having fault in anything really.
At the very least you can blame Blizzard for making accounts less secure by requiring the merge of WoW and BNet. As they did remove the account name as a layer of security.
There are also verifiable cases of people that were not compromised that had thier accounts compromised inexplicably. I, for one, had my account compromised shortly after I merged my account and ended a free 10-day trial. I did many scans and found nothing to suggest that I had a trojan or keylogger on my computer. I am not blaming Blizzard, but I will not take blame myself as there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that it was my error. I am not alone in this example as well. There are many others, some vastly more secure than I ever will be, that can prove it was not thier computer or behavior that casued the compromise. And all it takes is one person to not be at fault to be able to point to Blizzard and say that there is a possibility of them being at fault.
bobbyjr, as much as you'd like to believe that Blizzard is holy and untainted, there is nothing to suggest that they didn't have some fault or a hand in this matter. You're entire arguement's basis can only survive if there is something to support Blizzard, which there is not. There is just a lack of evidence to suggest they are at fault.
I dont believe blizzard is holy at all. I do believe that account compromises are soley a end user problem. You and many others STILL havent provided any proof at all that blizzard has allowed their security to be compromised to teh point even one account got hacked.
Your and other's logic is laughable. Until you can provide unrefutable proof that blizzard allowed their security to be compromised, any posts saying its blizzards fault are purely rumour and trolling.
Of course, as i said earlier there will undoubtably be people thinking they know so much about computers that their systems can never be compromised.
Before you reply, please note i said i believe blizzard arent holy and untainted. The RealID debacle proved that. However, until proof is provided that blizzard themselves got compromised, my oints stand, no matter how much you put your fingers in your ears and yell like a 2 year old.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
This sounds like to me that he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not cause the compromise. That is enough to say that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is involved in at least some of the compromises.
This is a long thread and surprisingly civil so far, hats off to you all. Instead of trying to answer one by one, I try a summary here. Not directed to anyone.
First, doomsday theory is always interest and catches fire fast, as if it is real. But the burden of proof is in the perpetuator. Do you have solid evidence beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that you cannot explain why your inactive or whatever account is hacked is not an evidence. You cannot explain may mean you simply do not know how you lose your secret password. One thing for sure though, there are very few reported case about hacking of accounts with authenticators (a service Blizzard provides and DEFINITELY NOT MAKING THEM MONEY). So blizzard among all the game providers have provided a solution that is by far the safest in the market. After providing such services, hacks are possibly client side issues. Those who care for their account but refused to buy an authenticator have to bear the risk and responsibility.
Second those who suggest Blizz is dabbing in gold sales is totally ridiculous. Can your provide a solid finance model showing how they can gain more from selling gold and hacking their own client base? How does the cost of running a huge team of specialists checking and restoring accounts be paid off by the few US$ per thousand gold sold? How does the risk of losing part of the million size client base and billion dollars a month be compensated by the little dollars they sell in gold. Lastly, if they need to sell gold, do they need to hack your account to get gold? Or farm mobs? If blizz gains from selling gold, why do they make it so easy to make gold in game, you can do up to 25 dailies day, 13g per completed and easily 100 gold of materials gain during each random dungeons. That is 1000+ gold a day easily. I play on and off and by now I think my semi idle accounts pool like 210k gold sitting there, and I am at a lost what to do with them. Blizz is obviously trying to make it unnecessary to buy gold. There is really very few things you can buy with gold. 2 pieces of craftable, a couple BoEs, like ring or amulet, or maybe a belt depending on your class. Adds up to 20k max if you buy at high prices, right now those BoE sells for 2k on my server. What do you need to buy gold for, why does Blizz make it so unnecessary to buy gold?
Third, for those who wonder why their accounts were stolen long after they quit, simple answer. The account was hacked long ago, but the gold seller do not want to touch your accounts till now, b/c they do not have enough business order to need find gold to sell. No point touching your account and taking your gold, b/c if you report it, the theft will be reverted, and unless immediately sold, stolen gold is too easy to track down and confiscate.
Lastly, this is my personal story. I use 2 special "dummy" email accounts to register 2 bnet. Never use elsewhere. Another dummy account for a couple other games. Never use for anything else, never send any mail to these 3 accounts myself. Over the course of so many years the accouns only have received like 20 mails, from blizzard announcing events such as new expansion or bnet. Or from the other game providers. Never, never, ever a single phish mail. If you never use your email, if you hide it, only blizz knows, and surprisingly the scammers does not know. As a result, I suspect the theory that bnet is totally hacked.
On the other hand, I use one email account to browse web, and to register handles for forums, like this forum. The very week after I register a few forums, I receive phish mail, mostly about Wow. Surprise, I do not use that account for Wow. My friend need 2 beta keys for aion, he used this account of mine to apply for a beta which he then use to register using his email account. Surprisingly, I am still receiving phish mail about my aion account being whatever, and, I never play aion,
Well, is this really a massive hecking on bnet? Does blizz sell our bnet information to gold sellers? Is blizz so stupid, that they have no precaution and any jack and joe inside can download our email and take it home for profit? I do not know. Make your own speculation.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
This sounds like to me that he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not cause the compromise. That is enough to say that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is involved in at least some of the compromises.
Except that ossibility is not based upon fact. Just false accusation with no proof.
let me put it in words you can understand.
If blizzard got compromised, or there was a suspicion or attempted hack of their databases, they are required by federal law to notify both their stockholders and their customers will full details. Failure to do this can lead to an unlimited fine, 10 years imprisonment for the CEO and their Cheif of IT operations, not to mention their company getting such bad press than the company would go under.
Beginning to understand now?
Oh, and before you reply, i agree that it is possible blizzard could be compromised. However the fact is, both from blizzards own audits and independant checks, they have never been compromised. You can debate that all you want. All evidence points to the FACT they havent.
Again, anything that says different is pure rumour.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
This sounds like to me that he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not cause the compromise. That is enough to say that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is involved in at least some of the compromises.
Oh really? That is proof beyond reasonable doubt, just with those words, without examining his PC, his daily browsing habits, the password he used and so on. And ok, everything is possible, including the possibility that president bush is behind all these. so what? Its a possibility, and without any information to assign likelihood, I would say we are all speculating.
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Then again you can't prove that it's not happening.
And just because you can't see it happening or read about it daily, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
When you accuse someone of doing something, the onus is on the accuser to prove it. you accused that ALL the account problems are "player side".. So you have proof of that?
I know, for some weird reason you want to be right and you want blizzard to have hacked accounts or w/e. But there is absolutely no proof at all, apart from random people with no sense of computer security, and people that just have no clue shouting random rumours in a pure attempt to gain attention. You have proof of that?
If you can PROVE that blizzard has hacked or lhad lax security which led to the compromise of just one single account, then your point is proven. I however think you cant, whilst i can find hundreds of thousands of cases of accounts being hacked purely due to a lapse in basic safe browsing habits by the player.
Care to continue to spread your false rumors more? or YOURS?
The lack of proof of something happening can't be used as proof of it happening. Until there is proof that someone other than an end user was at fault for a compromised account there is no reason to believe it is something other than that. Considering that there are litterally thousands upon thousands of verifiable cases of end user failure and no other cases of someone else responsible, what more needs to be proven at this point?
To claim otherwise would require some sort of proof wouldn't it? Correct me if I am wrong, but without such proof it is indeed just a rumor and nothing more than factless speculation.
There is no proof required to point a finger at Blizzard and say that they are not totally innocent. The only thing required is that there is no proof declaring them innocent. And currently there is none.
Sure, there is much evidence to support end-user error in causing the compromise in security. But that also doesn't exlcude Blizzard from having fault in anything really.
At the very least you can blame Blizzard for making accounts less secure by requiring the merge of WoW and BNet. As they did remove the account name as a layer of security.
There are also verifiable cases of people that were not compromised that had thier accounts compromised inexplicably. I, for one, had my account compromised shortly after I merged my account and ended a free 10-day trial. I did many scans and found nothing to suggest that I had a trojan or keylogger on my computer. I am not blaming Blizzard, but I will not take blame myself as there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that it was my error. I am not alone in this example as well. There are many others, some vastly more secure than I ever will be, that can prove it was not thier computer or behavior that casued the compromise. And all it takes is one person to not be at fault to be able to point to Blizzard and say that there is a possibility of them being at fault.
Your argument is totally flawed. there is no scientifically valid way to find evidence tp prove that someone is innocent. That is why the burden of proof is on the accuser. I accuse you of raping a dog 5 hours ago and killed it. Can you prove your innocence? However I can never provide evidence that you did, so my case ends here.
There is no proof required to point a finger at Blizzard and say that they are not totally innocent. The only thing required is that there is no proof declaring them innocent. And currently there is none.
Sure, there is much evidence to support end-user error in causing the compromise in security. But that also doesn't exlcude Blizzard from having fault in anything really.
At the very least you can blame Blizzard for making accounts less secure by requiring the merge of WoW and BNet. As they did remove the account name as a layer of security.
There are also verifiable cases of people that were not compromised that had thier accounts compromised inexplicably. I, for one, had my account compromised shortly after I merged my account and ended a free 10-day trial. I did many scans and found nothing to suggest that I had a trojan or keylogger on my computer. I am not blaming Blizzard, but I will not take blame myself as there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that it was my error. I am not alone in this example as well. There are many others, some vastly more secure than I ever will be, that can prove it was not thier computer or behavior that casued the compromise. And all it takes is one person to not be at fault to be able to point to Blizzard and say that there is a possibility of them being at fault.
We live in a world where anything is possible, but that cannot be used as an excuse for not having evidence to back up claims. Neither can that be used to explain away someones ignorance as to how their account got hacked. Not knowing what happened doesn't make someone imprervious to doing something wrong and translate into being the fault of someone else. No one is impervious (even blizzard).
You have said that there is no way it could be your fault, but at the same time say there are other people more secure than you are. That is sort of a confusing statement if you know what I mean.
Also you can say at the very most we can blame blizzard for the changes to battlenet making things less secure, but without any information beyond that we cannot make difinitive statements without at least something to back them up. Until there is something more to substantiate claims, that is the MOST we know.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but there are plenty of people who think they couldn't have done anything to compromise their accounts only to find out they did. Everyone who clicks on a phishing email does so thinking they are really dealing with blizzard. It always starts with someone doing something they think is safe. Deception is the big key in these attacks. A hacker can get your wow account just by gaining access to your email account. They no longer need to try to get your username and password. All they need is your email and you most likely will never know it happened.
People claiming they have no idea why they are getting spam for wow? Consider that hackers recently used dungeons and dragons online wall service to gather emails and spam those users. It worked too.
There has been a lot of speculation that blizzard might have been hacked, but even many of these speculations have been proven wrong and turned out to be more cases of end user error. To date all that is available is speculation and lacking any real evidence. That doesn't mean i. We might as well say the FBI is funding covert ops by selling wow account information, because it is possible. Sure there is nothing to support that, but hey who knows right?
Every single account compromoise has come from the players side. You can deny it all you want, but that is what has happened. I can prove numerous ways people get hacked client side. YOU cannot prove even one single way accoutns have been hacked through blizzards side. That is FACT. Not opinion.
Though i know the conspirarcy theorists will come in here to try and debunk it, as they seem to either get a kick from blaming others, or just flat out refuse to take the blame for something that happened on their side.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
This sounds like to me that he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not cause the compromise. That is enough to say that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is involved in at least some of the compromises.
Except that ossibility is not based upon fact. Just false accusation with no proof.
let me put it in words you can understand.
If blizzard got compromised, or there was a suspicion or attempted hack of their databases, they are required by federal law to notify both their stockholders and their customers will full details. Failure to do this can lead to an unlimited fine, 10 years imprisonment for the CEO and their Cheif of IT operations, not to mention their company getting such bad press than the company would go under.
Beginning to understand now?
Oh, and before you reply, i agree that it is possible blizzard could be compromised. However the fact is, both from blizzards own audits and independant checks, they have never been compromised. You can debate that all you want. All evidence points to the FACT they havent.
Again, anything that says different is pure rumour.
Possiblity =/= false accusation.
To say something is possible is to say that it could happen. You don't need to provide hard fact to confirm possibility.
Could Blizzard have some douchebag working as a CSR selling peoples info to a 3rd party without Blizzard knowing? It's possible.
Will a company (such as Blizzard) make mention of something like "We busted four employees this month for compromising and selling account info to 3rd party companies..."? In most cases no due to the fact that even mentioning one instance of such a thing can cause massive widespread investigations as well as customer trust issues.
IA departments are there to take care of the issue before it hits the public eye. In most cases people involved in such activities or terminated on suspicion of such activities will have signed a non disclosure agreement to prevent them from talking to the press. And a lot of times the people suspected or caught in the act will be stopped after a long investigation.
And then again, if you were the person terminated for such actions, would you talk about it with the press? Doubtful.
If the company were hacked from the outside, then yes, they would have to report it to the federal government as well as local authorities and stockholders/audits. Internal issues however won't always be made public. In most cases the only time you ever see an internal issue pop up in the press or in public is when you have a whistleblower.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
bobbyjr, as much as you'd like to believe that Blizzard is holy and untainted, there is nothing to suggest that they didn't have some fault or a hand in this matter. You're entire arguement's basis can only survive if there is something to support Blizzard, which there is not. There is just a lack of evidence to suggest they are at fault.
I dont believe blizzard is holy at all. I do believe that account compromises are soley a end user problem. You and many others STILL havent provided any proof at all that blizzard has allowed their security to be compromised to teh point even one account got hacked.
Your and other's logic is laughable. Until you can provide unrefutable proof that blizzard allowed their security to be compromised, any posts saying its blizzards fault are purely rumour and trolling. There is no rumor or trolling to suggest that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is at fault in some way. There is no need for unrefuteable proof. All that there is a need for is a lack of proof that they are NOT responsible for any compromise for there to be a valid and reasonable suspicion that they ARE at fault in some way.
Of course, as i said earlier there will undoubtably be people thinking they know so much about computers that their systems can never be compromised.
Before you reply, please note i said i believe blizzard arent holy and untainted. The RealID debacle proved that. However, until proof is provided that blizzard themselves got compromised, my oints stand, no matter how much you put your fingers in your ears and yell like a 2 year old.
How is this logic laughable?
All I say is that no, I have no evidence Blizzard HAS been compromised. But that does not prove that the possiblity isn't there. You do not need evidence to prove someone has done someone for you to have reason to think its possible they did. In fact, you need evidence to prove someone has NOT done something for you to not have reason to think that they did.
There are plenty of examples where people can provide reasonable doubt to the claim that they are at fault. Reasonable doubt suggest it is more likely that the compromise came from another source. Be it a man in the middle or Blizzard themselves.
And unless you can provide evidence that Blizzard is in no way compromised at all, it is on you to prove that everyone's compromise is on them. Else there is no logic to not include Blizzard in the possiblity of fault.
Then again, there is no logic in arguing a fools point. If you cannot grasp that you are attempting to exempt your defense of Blizzard from the same logic you are applying to your offense of the end-user, then there is no point to further discuss this.
The question is, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? You cannot prove that the adult did do it. But you cannot prove that they didnt do it. It is far more likely that the child did it, but there are some children that didn't do it and have a fairly good story to support it. So who did it? One of the children or the adult? You say it was always the children and never the adult. How can you say this without being able to prove it wasn't the adult?
bobbyjr, as much as you'd like to believe that Blizzard is holy and untainted, there is nothing to suggest that they didn't have some fault or a hand in this matter. You're entire arguement's basis can only survive if there is something to support Blizzard, which there is not. There is just a lack of evidence to suggest they are at fault.
I dont believe blizzard is holy at all. I do believe that account compromises are soley a end user problem. You and many others STILL havent provided any proof at all that blizzard has allowed their security to be compromised to teh point even one account got hacked.
Your and other's logic is laughable. Until you can provide unrefutable proof that blizzard allowed their security to be compromised, any posts saying its blizzards fault are purely rumour and trolling. There is no rumor or trolling to suggest that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is at fault in some way. There is no need for unrefuteable proof. All that there is a need for is a lack of proof that they are NOT responsible for any compromise for there to be a valid and reasonable suspicion that they ARE at fault in some way.
Of course, as i said earlier there will undoubtably be people thinking they know so much about computers that their systems can never be compromised.
Before you reply, please note i said i believe blizzard arent holy and untainted. The RealID debacle proved that. However, until proof is provided that blizzard themselves got compromised, my oints stand, no matter how much you put your fingers in your ears and yell like a 2 year old.
How is this logic laughable?
All I say is that no, I have no evidence Blizzard HAS been compromised. But that does not prove that the possiblity isn't there. You do not need evidence to prove someone has done someone for you to have reason to think its possible they did. In fact, you need evidence to prove someone has NOT done something for you to not have reason to think that they did.
There are plenty of examples where people can provide reasonable doubt to the claim that they are at fault. Reasonable doubt suggest it is more likely that the compromise came from another source. Be it a man in the middle or Blizzard themselves.
And unless you can provide evidence that Blizzard is in no way compromised at all, it is on you to prove that everyone's compromise is on them. Else there is no logic to not include Blizzard in the possiblity of fault.
Then again, there is no logic in arguing a fools point. If you cannot grasp that you are attempting to exempt your defense of Blizzard from the same logic you are applying to your offense of the end-user, then there is no point to further discuss this.
The question is, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? You cannot prove that the adult did do it. But you cannot prove that they didnt do it. It is far more likely that the child did it, but there are some children that didn't do it and have a fairly good story to support it. So who did it? One of the children or the adult? You say it was always the children and never the adult. How can you say this without being able to prove it wasn't the adult?
All wrong. The burden of proof rest in the accusing party. If you think blizz is guilty good. You think. Blizz does not care. For all that matter, everyone can think whatever, that is freedom. I can daydream about murdering my boss, that is totally legal.
Now if you put down in words, saying it is possible, without any measurement about how big the possibility is, it is just an empty statement, It is possible that blizz is run by martians to capture all our brainwaves. It is also possible that you are actually a dog randomly typing on the keyboard. Possible.
If you want to seriously present a plausible case for discussion, you need to show us why we should suspect blizz, how and why blizz did that. Until then, it is another fairy tale from someone we do not know. After all, you just might be another martian, or an orc. I do not think you are a tauren. You big toe will hit multiple keys at once, unless you type with a drinking straw in your mouth.
There is no proof required to point a finger at Blizzard and say that they are not totally innocent. The only thing required is that there is no proof declaring them innocent. And currently there is none.
*snip*
Your argument is totally flawed. there is no scientifically valid way to find evidence tp prove that someone is innocent. That is why the burden of proof is on the accuser. I accuse you of raping a dog 5 hours ago and killed it. Can you prove your innocence? However I can never provide evidence that you did, so my case ends here.
Ever hear of an alibi? Its very definition is defending yourself from the accuser.
I am not accusing Blizzard of anything. I only am stating that his bobbyjr's accusation that 100% of the hacked account claims are end-user fault is erroneously based on the lack of evidence saying Blizzard is not at fault.
I include Blizzard in the possiblity of accounts being compromised. I would say that there is a fair chance that in at least 1 case that they are at fault in some way.
My logic is in no way flawed. You need not evidence or proof to say someone may have done something if there is no proof or evidence to say that they didn't.
It is slander if I did say Blizzard did do something without any basis at all. However, there is reason to believe they have fault when there are quite a few unexplained compromises.
Burden of proof walks both ways. For Blizzard to say its not thier fault at all they need to prove it. For someone to say its Blizzards fault they need to prove it. For someone to say its 100% end user, they need to be able to prove it. Sure, they have a good track record. But so did Bernie Madoff until he was caught.
Again, its not about if they really did do anything. Its about how insane the claim is that because there is no proof that they did do it, then it must be always the end-user.
All I say is that no, I have no evidence Blizzard HAS been compromised. But that does not prove that the possiblity isn't there. You do not need evidence to prove someone has done someone for you to have reason to think its possible they did. In fact, you need evidence to prove someone has NOT done something for you to not have reason to think that they did.
There are plenty of examples where people can provide reasonable doubt to the claim that they are at fault. Reasonable doubt suggest it is more likely that the compromise came from another source. Be it a man in the middle or Blizzard themselves.
And unless you can provide evidence that Blizzard is in no way compromised at all, it is on you to prove that everyone's compromise is on them. Else there is no logic to not include Blizzard in the possiblity of fault.
Then again, there is no logic in arguing a fools point. If you cannot grasp that you are attempting to exempt your defense of Blizzard from the same logic you are applying to your offense of the end-user, then there is no point to further discuss this.
The question is, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? You cannot prove that the adult did do it. But you cannot prove that they didnt do it. It is far more likely that the child did it, but there are some children that didn't do it and have a fairly good story to support it. So who did it? One of the children or the adult? You say it was always the children and never the adult. How can you say this without being able to prove it wasn't the adult?
All wrong. The burden of proof rest in the accusing party. If you think blizz is guilty good. You think. Blizz does not care. For all that matter, everyone can think whatever, that is freedom. I can daydream about murdering my boss, that is totally legal.
Now if you put down in words, saying it is possible, without any measurement about how big the possibility is, it is just an empty statement, It is possible that blizz is run by martians to capture all our brainwaves. It is also possible that you are actually a dog randomly typing on the keyboard. Possible.
If you want to seriously present a plausible case for discussion, you need to show us why we should suspect blizz, how and why blizz did that. Until then, it is another fairy tale from someone we do not know. After all, you just might be another martian, or an orc. I do not think you are a tauren. You big toe will hit multiple keys at once, unless you type with a drinking straw in your mouth.
Its not really wrong as the basis for my arguement isn't to accuse Blizzard of anything. Nor do I need a plausible case for discussion.
All I needed to do, which I did do, was prove that the logic behind bobbyjr's arguement was invalid.
His accusation was based upon the lack of evidence to say Blizzard is included with guilty parties. That is flawed at the core. I need no evidence myself as you are attempting to dismantle my arguement in the same fashion I dismantled bobbyjr's.
I provided examples and possiblities because it only requires the most general of possiblity to show that his accusation was rooted in the same baseless manner that he was suggesting was silly to start with.
Wow, I had no idea this was happening so frequently. The same thing is happening to my old account (don't really care seeing as how I want nothing to do with it) but I get frequent emails, either spam or from "blizzard" telling me things.
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However you can prove that every single day there are many accounts are getting hacked as the result of end user failures in security. That there are massive phishing email campaigns, trojans, email hacks and many other methods of gaining access to accounts directly through end users.
I'm not really sure what mystery people are trying to solve. End users are for the most part dumb.
Aye, the end user is usually the one most likely at fault, but for people to say that there is no way that the issue could be an internal problem is just them being naive.
These companies have Internal Affairs departments for a reason, and the company will not proudly boast how many times they catch an employee in the act.
Thing is people prefer the Occam's Razor approach when it comes to this issue; It's just easier to put all the blame on the user.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Uhm, putting together your own computer doesn't make you an IT specialist. I went a year in school for network technicians and wouldn't call me that. Anyone who can read an manual can build a computer.
I doubt Blizzard is involved in hacking, gold selling or similar, it would be risking everything they worked so hard to get,
I wouldn't put it past Activision to sell people mail to companies however but that's about it.
I can't explain exactly why your account was hacked, there are many ways to do that but I would do a free online scan (like trendmicros housecall) to check for malware and viruses, it is not impossible that you have something and that it disabled your antivirus.
Blizzard have a lot more to lose than to gain by doing illegal stuff. As for goldselling they could just cut out the middlehand and sell it legally in their cashshop instead, they have no reason whatsoever to hire some asians for that, they would lose money. Some people would of course protest if they sold it themselves but some people protested over the cash shop in itself and no one quit.
And here is where you are wrong.
No where did I say 'It is Blizzards fault.'
What I said was that it is a possibility that it can happen. It's not a rumor and I need not provide proof because if you have ever read a newspaper or watched the news, you would see that companies such as Visa, Amex, MS etc have dealt with such issues in the past.
So again, just because you can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
The lack of proof of something happening can't be used as proof of it happening. Until there is proof that someone other than an end user was at fault for a compromised account there is no reason to believe it is something other than that. Considering that there are litterally thousands upon thousands of verifiable cases of end user failure and no other cases of someone else responsible, what more needs to be proven at this point?
To claim otherwise would require some sort of proof wouldn't it? Correct me if I am wrong, but without such proof it is indeed just a rumor and nothing more than factless speculation.
Your statement, that "Every single account compromoise has come from the players side", is even more ridiculous imo then some of the conspiracy theories just b/c it's making such a sweeping accusation. Just like the "conspiracy theorists" can't prove that there is such a conspiracy, you can't even begin to prove that "ever single account compromise has come from the player side". That is NOT fact, it IS opinion. Are many, if not most of the compromises user error or complacency? Yes, probably. I am more then willing to admit that.
But, and this is a huge but, I know from personal experience that all compromises are not the fault of the user. How do I know this?
Like I siad in my last post, I have had my account reactivated after almost a full year of dissuse where I didn't even so much as attempt to log into WoW, Bnet, or any Blizzard site. On top of that, I work in IT, and took acredited college courses in network administration and security, programming (BASIC, C, C+, C++, C#, HTML, XML, etc.), hardware, web site design and more. I'm not saying I know everything, or am some expert, and I am certainly not saying that b/c of my education I am immune to "hacking" or making mistakes that could compromise my private personal information. What I am saying though is that I know my way around computers, I know how to protect myself and my data, I know how to detect, and remove viruses/trojans/etc without the use of any "anti-virus" software, and all that good stuff.
Now, I became aware that my WoW account had been reactived, and used w/o my authorization within 24 hours of it being reactivated. The absolute first thing I did when I found this out, even before contacting Blizzard, was to thoroughly check my computer (which had not been reformatted since I cancelled my WoW sub), to ensure that I didn't have any keyloggers/trojans/what-have-you, and that nothing else was at risk. I didn't find anything. Nothing. No trace of a trojan, keylogger, or any such tool of malicousness. While I had removed WoW itself and all related files, I still had the add-ons I use archived in case I ever wanted to return, so I examined the code of all of them, and again, nothing. Now, I admit that it is a possibility that someone infiltrated my system without my knowledge, accessed my data, and bounced again without me ever knowing or leaving a trace. But that doesn't really make sense, it's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through to gain access to data and then proceed to use ONLY my WoW log-in info. Seriously. I mean, if that happened then that person would have had all my personal financial data including credit card #s, bank account #s, and all the personal info to make use of said info....but if someone did get all that info, why in gods name would that only act on the WoW log-in? Totally non-sensical.
I'm not saying that all this is definitely someone on this inside, or that there is a conspiracy. All I am saying is that I am 99% sure that my account being compromised was no fault of mine, and that I have yet to find exactly how it happened. To be honest, I almost wish that I had found something on my computer or that I had goofed and fallen for a phishing scam, b/c then I would know what happened and could take steps to prevent it from happening again. But as it is, I am still in the dark, wondering exactly how this happened.
There is no proof required to point a finger at Blizzard and say that they are not totally innocent. The only thing required is that there is no proof declaring them innocent. And currently there is none.
Sure, there is much evidence to support end-user error in causing the compromise in security. But that also doesn't exlcude Blizzard from having fault in anything really.
At the very least you can blame Blizzard for making accounts less secure by requiring the merge of WoW and BNet. As they did remove the account name as a layer of security.
There are also verifiable cases of people that were not compromised that had thier accounts compromised inexplicably. I, for one, had my account compromised shortly after I merged my account and ended a free 10-day trial. I did many scans and found nothing to suggest that I had a trojan or keylogger on my computer. I am not blaming Blizzard, but I will not take blame myself as there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that it was my error. I am not alone in this example as well. There are many others, some vastly more secure than I ever will be, that can prove it was not thier computer or behavior that casued the compromise. And all it takes is one person to not be at fault to be able to point to Blizzard and say that there is a possibility of them being at fault.
I dont believe blizzard is holy at all. I do believe that account compromises are soley a end user problem. You and many others STILL havent provided any proof at all that blizzard has allowed their security to be compromised to teh point even one account got hacked.
Your and other's logic is laughable. Until you can provide unrefutable proof that blizzard allowed their security to be compromised, any posts saying its blizzards fault are purely rumour and trolling.
Of course, as i said earlier there will undoubtably be people thinking they know so much about computers that their systems can never be compromised.
Before you reply, please note i said i believe blizzard arent holy and untainted. The RealID debacle proved that. However, until proof is provided that blizzard themselves got compromised, my oints stand, no matter how much you put your fingers in your ears and yell like a 2 year old.
This sounds like to me that he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not cause the compromise. That is enough to say that there is a possiblity that Blizzard is involved in at least some of the compromises.
This is a long thread and surprisingly civil so far, hats off to you all. Instead of trying to answer one by one, I try a summary here. Not directed to anyone.
First, doomsday theory is always interest and catches fire fast, as if it is real. But the burden of proof is in the perpetuator. Do you have solid evidence beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that you cannot explain why your inactive or whatever account is hacked is not an evidence. You cannot explain may mean you simply do not know how you lose your secret password. One thing for sure though, there are very few reported case about hacking of accounts with authenticators (a service Blizzard provides and DEFINITELY NOT MAKING THEM MONEY). So blizzard among all the game providers have provided a solution that is by far the safest in the market. After providing such services, hacks are possibly client side issues. Those who care for their account but refused to buy an authenticator have to bear the risk and responsibility.
Second those who suggest Blizz is dabbing in gold sales is totally ridiculous. Can your provide a solid finance model showing how they can gain more from selling gold and hacking their own client base? How does the cost of running a huge team of specialists checking and restoring accounts be paid off by the few US$ per thousand gold sold? How does the risk of losing part of the million size client base and billion dollars a month be compensated by the little dollars they sell in gold. Lastly, if they need to sell gold, do they need to hack your account to get gold? Or farm mobs? If blizz gains from selling gold, why do they make it so easy to make gold in game, you can do up to 25 dailies day, 13g per completed and easily 100 gold of materials gain during each random dungeons. That is 1000+ gold a day easily. I play on and off and by now I think my semi idle accounts pool like 210k gold sitting there, and I am at a lost what to do with them. Blizz is obviously trying to make it unnecessary to buy gold. There is really very few things you can buy with gold. 2 pieces of craftable, a couple BoEs, like ring or amulet, or maybe a belt depending on your class. Adds up to 20k max if you buy at high prices, right now those BoE sells for 2k on my server. What do you need to buy gold for, why does Blizz make it so unnecessary to buy gold?
Third, for those who wonder why their accounts were stolen long after they quit, simple answer. The account was hacked long ago, but the gold seller do not want to touch your accounts till now, b/c they do not have enough business order to need find gold to sell. No point touching your account and taking your gold, b/c if you report it, the theft will be reverted, and unless immediately sold, stolen gold is too easy to track down and confiscate.
Lastly, this is my personal story. I use 2 special "dummy" email accounts to register 2 bnet. Never use elsewhere. Another dummy account for a couple other games. Never use for anything else, never send any mail to these 3 accounts myself. Over the course of so many years the accouns only have received like 20 mails, from blizzard announcing events such as new expansion or bnet. Or from the other game providers. Never, never, ever a single phish mail. If you never use your email, if you hide it, only blizz knows, and surprisingly the scammers does not know. As a result, I suspect the theory that bnet is totally hacked.
On the other hand, I use one email account to browse web, and to register handles for forums, like this forum. The very week after I register a few forums, I receive phish mail, mostly about Wow. Surprise, I do not use that account for Wow. My friend need 2 beta keys for aion, he used this account of mine to apply for a beta which he then use to register using his email account. Surprisingly, I am still receiving phish mail about my aion account being whatever, and, I never play aion,
Well, is this really a massive hecking on bnet? Does blizz sell our bnet information to gold sellers? Is blizz so stupid, that they have no precaution and any jack and joe inside can download our email and take it home for profit? I do not know. Make your own speculation.
Except that ossibility is not based upon fact. Just false accusation with no proof.
let me put it in words you can understand.
If blizzard got compromised, or there was a suspicion or attempted hack of their databases, they are required by federal law to notify both their stockholders and their customers will full details. Failure to do this can lead to an unlimited fine, 10 years imprisonment for the CEO and their Cheif of IT operations, not to mention their company getting such bad press than the company would go under.
Beginning to understand now?
Oh, and before you reply, i agree that it is possible blizzard could be compromised. However the fact is, both from blizzards own audits and independant checks, they have never been compromised. You can debate that all you want. All evidence points to the FACT they havent.
Again, anything that says different is pure rumour.
Oh really? That is proof beyond reasonable doubt, just with those words, without examining his PC, his daily browsing habits, the password he used and so on. And ok, everything is possible, including the possibility that president bush is behind all these. so what? Its a possibility, and without any information to assign likelihood, I would say we are all speculating.
Your argument is totally flawed. there is no scientifically valid way to find evidence tp prove that someone is innocent. That is why the burden of proof is on the accuser. I accuse you of raping a dog 5 hours ago and killed it. Can you prove your innocence? However I can never provide evidence that you did, so my case ends here.
We live in a world where anything is possible, but that cannot be used as an excuse for not having evidence to back up claims. Neither can that be used to explain away someones ignorance as to how their account got hacked. Not knowing what happened doesn't make someone imprervious to doing something wrong and translate into being the fault of someone else. No one is impervious (even blizzard).
You have said that there is no way it could be your fault, but at the same time say there are other people more secure than you are. That is sort of a confusing statement if you know what I mean.
Also you can say at the very most we can blame blizzard for the changes to battlenet making things less secure, but without any information beyond that we cannot make difinitive statements without at least something to back them up. Until there is something more to substantiate claims, that is the MOST we know.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but there are plenty of people who think they couldn't have done anything to compromise their accounts only to find out they did. Everyone who clicks on a phishing email does so thinking they are really dealing with blizzard. It always starts with someone doing something they think is safe. Deception is the big key in these attacks. A hacker can get your wow account just by gaining access to your email account. They no longer need to try to get your username and password. All they need is your email and you most likely will never know it happened.
People claiming they have no idea why they are getting spam for wow? Consider that hackers recently used dungeons and dragons online wall service to gather emails and spam those users. It worked too.
There has been a lot of speculation that blizzard might have been hacked, but even many of these speculations have been proven wrong and turned out to be more cases of end user error. To date all that is available is speculation and lacking any real evidence. That doesn't mean i. We might as well say the FBI is funding covert ops by selling wow account information, because it is possible. Sure there is nothing to support that, but hey who knows right?
Possiblity =/= false accusation.
To say something is possible is to say that it could happen. You don't need to provide hard fact to confirm possibility.
Could Blizzard have some douchebag working as a CSR selling peoples info to a 3rd party without Blizzard knowing? It's possible.
Will a company (such as Blizzard) make mention of something like "We busted four employees this month for compromising and selling account info to 3rd party companies..."? In most cases no due to the fact that even mentioning one instance of such a thing can cause massive widespread investigations as well as customer trust issues.
IA departments are there to take care of the issue before it hits the public eye. In most cases people involved in such activities or terminated on suspicion of such activities will have signed a non disclosure agreement to prevent them from talking to the press. And a lot of times the people suspected or caught in the act will be stopped after a long investigation.
And then again, if you were the person terminated for such actions, would you talk about it with the press? Doubtful.
If the company were hacked from the outside, then yes, they would have to report it to the federal government as well as local authorities and stockholders/audits. Internal issues however won't always be made public. In most cases the only time you ever see an internal issue pop up in the press or in public is when you have a whistleblower.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
How is this logic laughable?
All I say is that no, I have no evidence Blizzard HAS been compromised. But that does not prove that the possiblity isn't there. You do not need evidence to prove someone has done someone for you to have reason to think its possible they did. In fact, you need evidence to prove someone has NOT done something for you to not have reason to think that they did.
There are plenty of examples where people can provide reasonable doubt to the claim that they are at fault. Reasonable doubt suggest it is more likely that the compromise came from another source. Be it a man in the middle or Blizzard themselves.
And unless you can provide evidence that Blizzard is in no way compromised at all, it is on you to prove that everyone's compromise is on them. Else there is no logic to not include Blizzard in the possiblity of fault.
Then again, there is no logic in arguing a fools point. If you cannot grasp that you are attempting to exempt your defense of Blizzard from the same logic you are applying to your offense of the end-user, then there is no point to further discuss this.
The question is, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? You cannot prove that the adult did do it. But you cannot prove that they didnt do it. It is far more likely that the child did it, but there are some children that didn't do it and have a fairly good story to support it. So who did it? One of the children or the adult? You say it was always the children and never the adult. How can you say this without being able to prove it wasn't the adult?
All wrong. The burden of proof rest in the accusing party. If you think blizz is guilty good. You think. Blizz does not care. For all that matter, everyone can think whatever, that is freedom. I can daydream about murdering my boss, that is totally legal.
Now if you put down in words, saying it is possible, without any measurement about how big the possibility is, it is just an empty statement, It is possible that blizz is run by martians to capture all our brainwaves. It is also possible that you are actually a dog randomly typing on the keyboard. Possible.
If you want to seriously present a plausible case for discussion, you need to show us why we should suspect blizz, how and why blizz did that. Until then, it is another fairy tale from someone we do not know. After all, you just might be another martian, or an orc. I do not think you are a tauren. You big toe will hit multiple keys at once, unless you type with a drinking straw in your mouth.
Ever hear of an alibi? Its very definition is defending yourself from the accuser.
I am not accusing Blizzard of anything. I only am stating that his bobbyjr's accusation that 100% of the hacked account claims are end-user fault is erroneously based on the lack of evidence saying Blizzard is not at fault.
I include Blizzard in the possiblity of accounts being compromised. I would say that there is a fair chance that in at least 1 case that they are at fault in some way.
My logic is in no way flawed. You need not evidence or proof to say someone may have done something if there is no proof or evidence to say that they didn't.
It is slander if I did say Blizzard did do something without any basis at all. However, there is reason to believe they have fault when there are quite a few unexplained compromises.
Burden of proof walks both ways. For Blizzard to say its not thier fault at all they need to prove it. For someone to say its Blizzards fault they need to prove it. For someone to say its 100% end user, they need to be able to prove it. Sure, they have a good track record. But so did Bernie Madoff until he was caught.
Again, its not about if they really did do anything. Its about how insane the claim is that because there is no proof that they did do it, then it must be always the end-user.
I've someone really believes they have a decent case against Blizzard then they should take Blizzard to court.
Until they do so, it's all just hot air.
And if they can't convince a judge and jury that they are right, then why the hell should I waste my time listening to them.
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They admit all along it is hot air. That said, there is no law against them so long as they blow it like hot air.
Its not really wrong as the basis for my arguement isn't to accuse Blizzard of anything. Nor do I need a plausible case for discussion.
All I needed to do, which I did do, was prove that the logic behind bobbyjr's arguement was invalid.
His accusation was based upon the lack of evidence to say Blizzard is included with guilty parties. That is flawed at the core. I need no evidence myself as you are attempting to dismantle my arguement in the same fashion I dismantled bobbyjr's.
I provided examples and possiblities because it only requires the most general of possiblity to show that his accusation was rooted in the same baseless manner that he was suggesting was silly to start with.
Wow, I had no idea this was happening so frequently. The same thing is happening to my old account (don't really care seeing as how I want nothing to do with it) but I get frequent emails, either spam or from "blizzard" telling me things.
Blizzard officially sucks now, plain and simple.