Incoming is a regular part of From the Abbey to Outlands where the author will rant at length about a topic that is frustrating or aggravating in the World of Warcraft. Keep reading for more, we have a Rant Incoming!
You can't win for losing. For months, since the big account hacking started in World of Warcraft, people have been complaining and whining and raising the ire of their fellow players that Blizzard couldn't, or wouldn't do more for their and their friend's accounts. They felt that Blizzard had to have something it could do in order to prevent people from losing all the stuff they spent ages working to get.
Earlier this week, Blizzard announced they are making available the Blizzard Authenticator. The device, available soon for a measly $7 USD from the Blizzard store, is connected to your account once you register the serial number. Once the device is connected to your account, you will need to use it on every login. To use it, you press the button on it, and then type the generated 6 digit code along with your username and password into the WoW client.
Called two-factor authentication and branded SecurID by RSA, this format is a truly innovative and extremely difficult to break method of authentication, only vulnerable to spoofed authentication attacks. As those are fairly complex and time based attacks, I doubt more than one or two attempts will be made to spoof these. I have to hope and assume Blizzard has had the forethought to program the authentication system around the hole.
As you might have guessed, I support this measure by Blizzard a great deal. While this is a long time in coming, I am sure that any decent techie will tell you that such systems take a lot of time to program just right. For a feature like this, I would happily give Blizzard as much time as they need to get it just right. I am really hoping that these key fobs will be a huge hit and bought by millions of people and take a major chunk out of the profitability of attempted account theft and the Trojan attacks that accompany them.
So the same day I post about my support of this move by Blizzard, you can imagine my surprise when I go to the General Forums and see a thread slamming Blizzard for charging people to secure their(Blizzard's) property, since our characters are Blizzard's property. Let me see if I get these arguments straight. Blizzard needs to do something to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in, but it's not worth $7 to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in?
Folks, I have some sad, disturbing, or possibly even shocking news for you. If you are going to play this game without the Authenticator device, unless of course you are a Canadian like me who cannot get it(*shakes fist angrily*), you deserve to be the new juicy target of the hackers eager to get as many of the last remaining insecure accounts out there. I am even considering finding a way to import these things to Canada if Blizzard gives us no way to get one delivered up here, or at least make them available from gamer stores in the country.
Blizzard has done their part to put the focus on account security, now will you? What is your /played and gear and efforts in World of Warcraft worth to you?
You can't win for losing. For months, since the big account hacking started in World of Warcraft, people have been complaining and whining and raising the ire of their fellow players that Blizzard couldn't, or wouldn't do more for their and their friend's accounts. They felt that Blizzard had to have something it could do in order to prevent people from losing all the stuff they spent ages working to get.
Earlier this week, Blizzard announced they are making available the Blizzard Authenticator. The device, available soon for a measly $7 USD from the Blizzard store, is connected to your account once you register the serial number. Once the device is connected to your account, you will need to use it on every login. To use it, you press the button on it, and then type the generated 6 digit code along with your username and password into the WoW client.
Called two-factor authentication and branded SecurID by RSA, this format is a truly innovative and extremely difficult to break method of authentication, only vulnerable to spoofed authentication attacks. As those are fairly complex and time based attacks, I doubt more than one or two attempts will be made to spoof these. I have to hope and assume Blizzard has had the forethought to program the authentication system around the hole.
As you might have guessed, I support this measure by Blizzard a great deal. While this is a long time in coming, I am sure that any decent techie will tell you that such systems take a lot of time to program just right. For a feature like this, I would happily give Blizzard as much time as they need to get it just right. I am really hoping that these key fobs will be a huge hit and bought by millions of people and take a major chunk out of the profitability of attempted account theft and the Trojan attacks that accompany them.
So the same day I post about my support of this move by Blizzard, you can imagine my surprise when I go to the General Forums and see a thread slamming Blizzard for charging people to secure their(Blizzard's) property, since our characters are Blizzard's property. Let me see if I get these arguments straight. Blizzard needs to do something to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in, but it's not worth $7 to protect the weeks/months/years of time players have put in?
Folks, I have some sad, disturbing, or possibly even shocking news for you. If you are going to play this game without the Authenticator device, unless of course you are a Canadian like me who cannot get it(*shakes fist angrily*), you deserve to be the new juicy target of the hackers eager to get as many of the last remaining insecure accounts out there. I am even considering finding a way to import these things to Canada if Blizzard gives us no way to get one delivered up here, or at least make them available from gamer stores in the country.
Blizzard has done their part to put the focus on account security, now will you? What is your /played and gear and efforts in World of Warcraft worth to you?
I'm still not sure about these things. Is the $7 a one time fee? Or, is that something that gets added on to your monthly WoW cost? Is it Mac Compatible? How does "pressing the button on it" actually work? Does it pick up through a wireless network? Or, does it directly connect to one's computer instead? If so, then I'm already wondering what I'm going to have to take out in order to plug this fob in.
Also, it sounds like, (unless I'm misunderstanding), that to use this security device, one must enter a six digit code before logging into WoW. Now, with my dyslexia, I have a hell of a time with codes of any kind. If the code is all numbers, then I'm just screwed. I will never, ever, ever get those numbers to sit still. If I have to do that, it's going to drive me crazy, and make me not want to go through the struggle just to log into WoW so I can play.
So, I guess, for me.... I'm not really looking at getting one of these security devices. Honestly, my characters are still low level, don't have much gold, and don't really have anything so cool that somebody would feel the need to steal it. What would really freak me out is if somehow, hackers were breaking into WoW servers, and getting my personal info, and credit card numbers, and real world stuff like that. I believe I can deal with whatever may happen to my characters.
Just my, personal, "two cents"