Worrying post from official forums

Gribley

Gribley

Member
Same thing happened to me, one of my addons had an error, and within the error message was my full name.

I hope they fix it soon.
 
Windzarko

Windzarko

Well-Known Member
I know that the whole Real ID thing was meant to be a step-by-step inclusion thing where they'd put in the basic framework and add to it later, but this is plain stupid... you don't add the system in THEN think about security/privacy measures afterwards.
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
That thread has gone from a 2 page thread to a 7 page thread in the 4 hours since I last looked - I'm also surprised that there has been no blue response yet
 
Razaak

Razaak

Well-Known Member
Just to confirm, the note at the end is correct, I enable parental controls and disabled RealID for my account, and the command function then returns nothing. With RealID on, you get

To [Joe Bloggs]: RealID whisper from yourself
From [Joe Bloggs]: RealID whisper from yourself

Note, you see your real NAME, not your battle.net email addy.

Disturbing indeed.
 
Windzarko

Windzarko

Well-Known Member
I've been trying to enable the parental controls since I read the post, and annoyingly the system for enabling it doesn't seem to be working... it's supposed to nigh-instantly send an email, and it's been two hours now... *sigh*
 
SwampFae

SwampFae

Super Moderator
Staff member
[Response] Worrying post from official forums

In response to:
Razaak said:
Just to confirm, the note at the end is correct, I enable parental controls and disabled RealID for my account, and the command function then returns nothing. With RealID on, you get

To [Joe Bloggs]: RealID whisper from yourself
From [Joe Bloggs]: RealID whisper from yourself

Note, you see your real NAME, not your battle.net email addy.

Disturbing indeed.
Click to expand...

Posted by Blizzard Entertainment Europe via e-mail
  • Real Names for Friends: Your Real ID friends will appear under their real-life names on your friends list, when chatting, communicating in-game, or viewing a character's profile. Real ID friends can also see whos on each others Real ID friends list, making it easy for players to connect with other people they know.
Click to expand...


So apparently this was on purpose, apart the one little thing they forgot. To actually think about the security.
The best thing would be for the:
/run for i=1,100 do if BNIsSelf(i)then BNSendWhisper(i,"RealID whisper from yourself..");break end end
Click to expand...
to use a chosen handle as ID instead of your real name, to be honest.

It isn't hard to implement and it is a LOT safer than the current solution.
Blizzard accounts are already at high risk and they figured they had to -sell- us security. We don't need them to pile up on more cannon fodder for those that would want to cause more trouble.

So the safest thing for now would indeed be to disable this function via the Battle.net parental control. (It may be off by default. But enver hurts to check just to be sure)
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Why does it matter? You know the response is going to be "don't use addons you don't trust" anyway... :p
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
well the issue here is that there is very likely going to be some malicious addons out there that will collect people's real names and associate them with their characters somehow.

I suspect there may well be a higher than usual rate of account hackings coming rather soon
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, I understand why that part matters. :p I just don't expect you'll get a response you're happy with...
 
Ki!ler-Mk1

Ki!ler-Mk1

Active Member
Heh, i had my parental controls on already, because of when i was trying to stop myelf playing at night 3 years ago, and it took forever to find out why real id was off by default. Considering what i just found on wow.com, it may be that the information leak above was realised and ignored. http://www.wow.com/2010/07/06/official-forum-changes-real-life-names-to-be-displayed/#continued

I do wonder though, how long it will be before realname+email becomes able to compromised a person. The age of anonimity online seems to be fading.
 
Tetsuo_Shima

Tetsuo_Shima

In Cryo Sleep
On an unrelated related note, how come multiplay.co.uk don't get harassed for advertising real names on the seat picker/sign-up list?
 
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