I came across this and thought you WOW players would like to know, So dont be browsing those sites that your not supposed to while your playing

Warcraft game maker in spying row
By Mark Ward
Technology Correspondent, BBC News website



Warden watches as gamers explore Warcraft's world
Game maker Blizzard has been accused of spying on the four million players of World of Warcraft.

Net activists branded software used to spot cheats "spyware" because it gathers information about the other programs running on players' PCs.

In its defence Blizzard said nothing was done with the information gathered by the anti-cheat software.

And many players seem happy to have the software running if it cuts the amount of cheating in the game world.

Home invasion

The watchdog program, called The Warden by Blizzard, has been known about among players for some time.

It makes sure that players are not using cheat software which can, for example, automatically play the game and build up a character's qualities.

However, knowledge of it crossed to the mainstream thanks to software engineer Greg Hoglund who disassembled the code of The Warden and watched it in action to get a better idea of what it did.


Warcraft players back Blizzard's anti-cheat system
He found that it performed a quick analysis on other programs running on a PC to see if their characteristics match known cheating programs.

But Mr Hoglund found that The Warden also scans the text in the title bars of any Window for any other program.

Writing in his blog about what he found Mr Hoglund said: "I watched The Warden sniff down the e-mail addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs."

Mr Hoglund noted that the text strings in title bars could easily contain credit card details or social security numbers.

Digital rights group The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) branded The Warden "spyware" and said its use constituted "a massive invasion of privacy".

The EFF said that it was not acceptable simply to take Blizzard's word that it did nothing with the information it gathered. It added that the Blizzard could get away with using The Warden because information about it was buried in licence agreements that few people read.

Fair play

Blizzard took to the forums on the central community site for World of Warcraft to defend itself and correct what it saw as "misinformation" about its actions.

It said that The Warden did not gather any personally identifiable information about players only data about the account being used. It also re-iterated that the only thing done with data gathered was to look for evidence of hack or cheat programs.

For their part many gamers seem happy to tolerate The Warden even though they acknowledged that it eroded their privacy to an extent.

Jason Justice, speaking on behalf of members of the Low Red Moon guild, said many in its ranks supported the programs used by Blizzard if it kept the cheats out of the game.


Cheats spoiled the online version of Diablo II
"The concern most have is that the program has the capability to read text from open programs, potentially compromising the privacy of some sensitive programs."

"If someone is afraid of the program reading sensitive information from their programs, one possible solution is simply to not run any additional programs while playing World of Warcraft," he said, "which is certainly advisable from a performance standpoint to begin with."

He told the BBC News website: "It is entirely Blizzard's responsibility to protect their intellectual property and the fairness of the game experience, and if they have code sophisticated enough to detect when a cheater is running illegal programs on their computer, they're doing a right good job of it."

Paul Younger, one of the administrators on WoW community site worldofwar.net, said: "With cheating being a real concern to Blizzard I feel they have few options other than to check what people are running on their machines."

"Blizzard have learnt since Diablo II that cheating can seriously hamper the enjoyment of a game," he said.

Warcraft players debating the issue on the worldofwar.net forums seemed happy to have The Warden keeping an eye on what they are doing. Many said they trusted Blizzard not to exploit the information being gathered.

Some pointed out that it would be hard for Blizzard to gather more useful information than they already have given that most use a credit card to pay the monthly fee to keep playing the game.

For those worried by what The Warden does, Mr Hoglund has produced a program called The Governor that reports on what it is watching.

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Yeah~ it seems the most vocal complaints are coming from the group that already do the cheating, botting, hacking.

I actually read about "The Warden" a while ago, and most of the information that I looked up linked me to forums for cheating/botting websites. And there was a LOT of discussion around it...

To sum it up, basically "The Warden" has been around since Diablo 2 (Blizzard adapted it for WoW, so they are pretty diff. programs), and since Patch 1.70 there is no easy way to avoid "The Warden" other than creating your own hack/bot etc. and not letting it become public.

My opinion? I feel that its definitley worth the prevention of botting and cheating, especially in a much PvP oriented game. And like the article stated at the end, you shouldn't be doing stuff with WoW running anyway... (at least not stuff your concerned about your privacy).

Most of the "anti-privacy invasion" people need to get off their high horse anyway... I could care less if Joe Blow plays World of Warcraft while surfing http://www.Dogsonchicks.com.

Old news. That said, it's been backwards-engineered pretty easily. All it does it check for the names of all hack programs in the title of the window.

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Dark is banned from ever touching my computer again.

It scans the names of what processes you're running. It does not tell them what website you're at, what the programs are doing, or any info like that. It's like punkbuster or any other shit like that, except it scans windows, not just the addons folder... and I'm sure that GMs or anything don't even look at it unless a process is scanned that throws up the red flag or whatever (ei. WOWHAX.exe)

Also, Blizzard knows your name/address/credit card number anyway, so if you don't trust them then you better cancel your subscription.

And even if they could see that you're looking at gay porn while jacking off to your dwarf priest, you're just 1 person in over 4.5 million subsribers, so I don't think they'll be sending any letters to your mommy.

I'm not trying to justify cheating or anything like that, but someone installing this on your PC to snoop around is as bad as someone breaking into your house and looking through all you private stuff as far as im concerned. The point is, it is an invasion of privacy no matter what Blizzard says. And Since they are a US based company they are kinda leaving themselves wide open to a lawsuit.

Question, Can you remove the programme and still play WOW? has anyone tried?

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No, as far as I know you can't play without it, (If you could there would be tons of botters etc. )

And while it MAY be an invasion of privacy, its hardly "Breaking into your ohuse and looking through all your private stuff."

They aren't scanning your emails, they aren't scanning your harddrive, they aren't scanning you contacts, documents or any thing of that nature. And on top of that, they don't even send any information back to Blizzard.

All the program is doing is reading the titles of the windows open, and the names of the processes running, and the memory scans of the processes in memory.

All of which are pretty secure, Opening any document doesn't reveal much in the window title, and if it did, its not secure in the first place.

The only "invasions" that might be occuring, is the examples we stated.... they can find out if you are looking at a Porn site lets say (WHILE playing WoW) b/c the title will be in your browsers window. And if you use MSN messenger or AIM, they can get screenames of the people you are chatting with.

Now put yourself in blizzards position... do you honestly care about any of the 4 million+ users IMs?

As to stealing Identifying info? not possible, unless you have some application that posts your CC and social security info on the window title (I've yet to see one that does).

So, lawsuit material? in this country maybe..... but lawsuit winning? hardly so.... I'd rather spend my $15 a month on WoW than this lawsuit

Blizzard didn't install anything, you installed it remember? They don't upload patches onto your computer without your consent. Also you should take 2 hours to read the TOS/EULA every time you download a patch if you're concerned about this. They can/do update it, and that's why they have you agree to it every single time.

lol, im not concerned about it, i dont play WOW and never will, i just thought the people that do play who may not know about this would like to know about it.

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yeah, I'll admit i never read the EULA with each patch of WoW....

Good to have a heads up for the 99% of the population that never reads the EULA. heh.

True, if they install it, it would be in the EULA, but this may violate the Anti-spyware act. Regardless if it in the eula or not. That is part of the reason why so many programs are on the shitlist of the FBI, 'sides the fact of all the lawsuits by the MPAA/RIAA.

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If only you all had a large Proton-Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy machine like I do.

Hackers Always find a way.


http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/34

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

Just use this version and don't worry about that stuff.

fuck that man its way too many to try to heal all of them and getting remove thats even worse.

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PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!