Eclectic Dreck said:
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Therumancer said:
Seems like Blizzard not wanting to take responsibility for their own security and other problems. I'm paticularly annoyed with them trying to say "oh well, the hacking isn't actually all that rampant, this is how it normally is". If this is how it normally is when a new game is released they bloody well should have been ready for it before now.
They certainly could have taken additional steps. They could require the use of an authenticator. They could require users have a verified and useful virus scanner on their machine before letting them launch the game. They could require that any log on be authenticated by forcing a response to an SMS message. You'll also note that these steps, while undeniably improving security to near perfection, are annoying to extent that it would adversely impact user experience and undermine sales.
Or you can just advise people that they should think about doing those things and hope for the best.
I think what people seem to largely forget is that security is never perfect. In a public facing system, there are always going to be breaches of security. Any door that is meant to be opened can be opened by someone who isn't supposed to if the conditions are right. I mean, if various portions of the federal government cannot ensure the security of their systems when they dedicate
billions of dollars to research and development coupled with
decades of experience wearing both hats, is it really so hard to believe that Blizzard cannot do better than they?
The problem is that there are a lot of things that companies like Blizzard could do to make the situation better, without negatively impacting the user base, with varying levels of "sanity" according to public perception. The bottom line is that Blizzard and it's corperate overlords don't want to spend the money, which would cut into profits. They would rather the hacking go on at this "acceptable" level than cut into it any more and having to pay for it.
To put things into perspective, a lot of the major hacking problems come from countries where the laws and ethnical standards are differant. China is one example of this. Blizzard continues to peddle the products and compadibility to those kinds of markets, relying at most on things like region locking to try and "police" it, which is easily bypassed by simply obtaining a NA copy of the software (if there is any differance at all). With some of their games like WoW they are selling basic copies of the software dirt cheap, making it so even if they ban someone it can be as little as $5 to re-register with a new ID/code more or less legitimatly. What's more I can't think of a single case where Blizzard has actually brought a case against a hacker or had them thrown in jail. You can talk about the practicality of that, but the bottom line it hasn't even been tried as a deterrant even once.
Doing things like simply not releasing games to Asia at all, and putting up blocks and so on, won't totally deal with the problem (even from this regions) but would reduce it. Of course Blizzard would also lose a ton of money that comes in from those markets. They would rather exploit Asian markets (which are not exclusively responsible, so don't misunderstand this, it's just a big part of it) and pocket that money, than reduce the hacking to other consumers. Likewise they would rather simply take a "ban" policy when they actually catch someone and force them to buy new software, than actually spending the money to have some of these guys put in jail, which is why it goes on with such imputiny. If some guy makes like $100 a day hacking accounts and selling the proceeds (even if it's $40 if he buys a new set of software every day) why should be bother to stop his sideline, especially if he's doing it primarily for the lulz (to annoy people, as much or more than to make money), as a lot of hackers will say with imputiny "what, are they going to throw me in jail for stealing some guy's stuff online?"
Your right, there is no such thing as perfect, but there is a LOT more that can be done, and really I don't think Blizard is even trying. To them the hacking probably doesn't really matter unless it costs them money.
Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that Blizzard is arguably encouraging hacking, this whole real money auction house idea pretty much makes it more profitable than ever before to be a game hacker. In most games you hack an account, sell all the items and then transfer the money to another character (or accross a few accounts) and then sell the money to other players for real $$$. With Diablo 3, you hack accounts and then take all the rare items then put them on the auction house to sell directly for real money.
The problems with the hacking in D3 are paticularly disturbing given the doors Blizzard opened, you'd expect this game to not be "normal" in terms of the amount of hacking (as they put it) but to have unprecedented security, more responsible marketing, and Blizzard chomping at the bit to have some people thrown in jail to make an example of as a deterrant at the very least. Instead we get what amounts to "oh well, yes there is hacking, but not any more than there usually is...".
IMO Blizzard needs to take more responsibility, I don't expect perfection, but I expect a better and less dismissive attitude. I also expect to see them taking more tangible action towards protection when they release things like a real money auction house.
