Blizzard Facing Lawsuit Over Forceful Authenticator Purchases

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The issue here is not with the authenticator, the authenticator works and the iOS/Android versions of it is free. I think the point of the lawsuit is that this safe guard is worthless if Blizzard does not provide the correct security on its infrastructure. The hackers are access the customer data not by getting into individual user accounts but by breaking into the system and getting it at the system level.

So they are basically saying that if Blizzard cannot provide adequate system security they 1) should not require people to create accounts to play single player games (Diablo/Starcraft) which does not need personal info to play, should not charge $$$ for the authenticator (though I don't see the point of this one because the authenticator is not the issue, and that they should notify us if someone breaks through the security.
 
>> The hackers are access the customer data not by getting into individual user accounts but by breaking into the system and getting it at the system level.

That's just not true. As we will find out, when the lawsuit is dismissed.
 
About the free smartphone app. If your phone gets wiped, or you get a new one its a big hassle to get it removed from your account. You have to send them a photo copy of your picture ID, and you are left without being able to log in for days while you wait for your support ticket to be answered.

I did this when Starcraft II came out. I had stopped playing WOW for 2 years. My account was left unseecure for 2 days because i decided to order an authenticator FOB. While waiting for my authenticator to be delivered after that hassle I didnt want to repeat, and after not playing a blizzard game for 2 years somehow someone knew my WOW account was vulnerable. They activated a 10 day trial and cleaned out my characters.

Just be very careful with the smartphone apps.
 
Authenticator is a nice ADD ON, if you play on public places or tournaments. A commedator in Greece lost his account because someone took a sneak peak on his pass on a tournament and then run - on purprose - cheat software. It's not Blizzard's fault that offers an extra layer of security..
 
[citation][nom]boyabunda[/nom]You really believe Activision Blizzard loses money on each sale of authenticators? LOL[/citation]
probably make enough to break even, but its the fact that you need it at all id the problem, and the fact it costs money makes it worse.

 
[citation][nom]beayn[/nom]Huh? I didn't say Vasco was selling them without a profit. You said Blizzard is losing money by selling them at cost, then you proceed to tell me businesses don't do that sort of thing after quoting me saying that businesses don't do this sort of thing... There's no doubt in my mind that BOTH companies are making a profit, regardless of the "retail" pricing (which you listed at $12.99, then $16.50...)[/citation]
I listed it at €12.99, which is equivalent to $16.50USD, the currency that blizzard operates in, given the current exchange rate. I know you never said Vasco was selling without a profit, but I was just posing the question on just how much YOU think Vasco could possibly charge Blizzard that Blizzard could still be making a profit on them given the retail value (which we know) and shipping costs. Logically, it doesnt make sense that they would actually be able to make a profit off of that small of a margin. You could maybe argue some change, but certainly nowhere near the order of $26 million.
 
[citation][nom]therabiddeer[/nom]Easy, THEY HAVENT. The $26 million figure comes from the fact that 40% of users have one. Given the fact that there are roughly 10 million WoW players that is how you arrive at the $26 million figure. 4 million x 6.50 = 26 milhttp://www.geekosystem.com/blizzar [...] nticators/Unless they figured out a way to buy the devices for free from vasco (which as I stated, charges €12.99 for one) and ship them for free... they did not make $26 mil. Hell, even with a staggering $2 profit on each sale, they would have to sell 13 million of them (or every WoW player and a VAST majority of D3 players). Which is not likely given the fact that we are told only 40% of WoW players have them![/citation]
First The article doesn't state that Bizzard made a profit from the authenticators. It only states that they made $26mil, but doesn't says how much the authenticators cost to blizzard in the first place, nor does it take into account that Blizzard ships them for free.
 
[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]First The article doesn't state that Bizzard made a profit from the authenticators. It only states that they made $26mil, but doesn't says how much the authenticators cost to blizzard in the first place, nor does it take into account that Blizzard ships them for free.[/citation]
Exactly, now you too understand why the lawsuit is frivolous, in part due to the ridiculous claim that blizzard made 26 million off of them.
 
A lot of the arguments I see here are stupid. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to buy security, its optional. They do what they can within their power. Majority of these hacks are NOT blizzard servers. People get key logged, trojand and fall for phishing scams. Blizzard is offering you an extra layer of protection to make it easier on everyone but the criminals.

Think about this, you live in a high crime neighbor hood. You pay taxes, so you expect police protection right? Police obviously cannot stop and prevent all crime. So would you argue you shouldn't need to buy locks or security systems just because your paying your taxes and expect to be protected?
 
[citation][nom]narsos[/nom]About the free smartphone app. If your phone gets wiped, or you get a new one its a big hassle to get it removed from your account. You have to send them a photo copy of your picture ID, and you are left without being able to log in for days while you wait for your support ticket to be answered. I did this when Starcraft II came out. I had stopped playing WOW for 2 years. My account was left unseecure for 2 days because i decided to order an authenticator FOB. While waiting for my authenticator to be delivered after that hassle I didnt want to repeat, and after not playing a blizzard game for 2 years somehow someone knew my WOW account was vulnerable. They activated a 10 day trial and cleaned out my characters. Just be very careful with the smartphone apps.[/citation]

I wipe my phone all the time trying out different ROM images (or restoring my phone when I nearly brick it *cough*). I have the recovery information nearby and handy to reinstall the app authenticator. Takes me less than 5 minutes to resetup. If I lose my phone, I can set it up on a different phone. No problem.

People argue it should be included. Why? It just raises the cost. I have 6 Blizzard authenticators sitting in my desk because I chose the collectors edition and other freebies. I don't use any of them because I have my phone. Even if I didn't have my phone I still would only need one and only one. I don't need one with every blizzard title I buy, stop trying to force more junk on me.
 
My account was hacked even with mobile authenticator on it. They said it must have been my fault and closed my AH account with real money in it
 
The issue here is the conflict of interest in that a company is selling extra security for something it should itself be securing, not the money involved. Blizzard could quite easily let a few million accounts leak and use it to justify their authenticators. Authenticators should be completely handled by a third party and Blizzard should not make any profit from them.

With that being said, there sure are a lot of communists these days. You expect to get something with a physical substance like an authenticator for free? No matter what they pay for them, Blizzard isn't getting them for free. The company that produces them doesn't get it's raw materials for free. The people laboring to make them are not volunteers. The cost will have to be paid somewhere. If authenticators are free they'll just charge more for the game, whether or not you already have one. If they are included, expect to pay an extra $5+ at least for every Blizzard game. Even if you live in the 21st century and have some sort of app device to do it for free. Good plan guys, you should run for Congress.
 
[citation][nom]valkain[/nom]I wipe my phone all the time trying out different ROM images (or restoring my phone when I nearly brick it *cough*). I have the recovery information nearby and handy to reinstall the app authenticator. Takes me less than 5 minutes to resetup. If I lose my phone, I can set it up on a different phone. No problem.[/citation]

True you can do this, but I have never rooted my phones so never thought to prepare a full back up just in case. My contacts are backed up online thats all I thought I really needed. My phone locked up unexpectedly after years of running fine and I had to restore the factory settings. Most average consumers dont root their phones would never think to prepare a full phone backup. Your method is good advice, but I still stand by my words of caution for everyone else.
 
This is going to take a lot of lawyers a long time to sort out.

Data security is a major problem and it costs banks, users, and companies. All these parties want the convenience of retaining this information but no one wants the responsibility when it is compromised. I personally think they should just end recurring charges of all kinds on credit cards and make credit card data retention illegal. (or how about fixing the problem for real instead of pretending they can fix it.)
 
[citation][nom]narsos[/nom]Most average consumers dont root their phones would never think to prepare a full phone backup. Your method is good advice, but I still stand by my words of caution for everyone else.[/citation]


That's a fallacy in logic. It's not about backing up my phone. Do people not backup files to an external drive? To the cloud? Do people not store important documents in a safety deposit box? Just because you never had an emergency, do you not have a contingency plan? If you never did, that is your own fault.

Frankly, I think a lot of people are being idiotic about it. Crying how its all 110% Blizzards responsibility that you NEVER GET HACKED BECAUSE US USERS CAN NEVER DO WRONG.

Shut up people, seriously, shut up.


A lot of people are spouting crap without knowing what the hell can happen. Their Server getting hacked, that is absolutely their responsibility now shut up and think about OTHER scenarios. The other week, ad servers had their security compromised, causing malicious code to get interjected into ads displayed on popular wow sites (mmo champ and curse). People who never updated their windows, anti-virus or took any security measures likely got hacked.

Blizzard CANNOT prevent someone from getting hacked outside of their control. They cannot make you update windows. They cannot make you purchase anti virus. Frankly, most pc users can't tell one end of the power cord from the other (believe me, I work IT, I have seen it). There are numerous technical steps someone can take to protect their system IF they know how to do that. They already provided what support they can, but if someone cannot figure out how to use a run box, what options does blizzard have?

An OPTIONAL authenticatior. A simple device, obtain it, register it, and you have a no-brainer security setup that can help prevent MOST hacking incidents on the USER end. Notice I said MOST, it is not a guarantee. The physical authentication they provide is essentially at cost. Vasco charges them bulk rate and blizzard sells it at cost. Blizzard then opens the doors to alternatives if someone prefers alternative options. You are not required to buy a smartphone. You are not required to buy the authenticator. You are not required to use it PERIOD. This is an option to the users to help protect their account on the USER end.

Yes you can get hacked still. Any security system can get hacked with enough incentive and effort. I find it sad society cannot accept responsibility for themselves. This farce of a lawsuit was brought up by some neanderthal crackhead that got keylogged. Given they were to stupid to get a job, update their security and clicked an e-mail wanting to get their share of the pie by helping someone transfer funds out of nigeria, it clearly must be blizzards fault. So they whine to some lawyer who has no idea how network security works, they think its easy money to go for a class actiion lawsuite and cry out that Blizzard is not doing their job, letting people get hacked then further, blame blizzard for not being the global leader in network security...
 
They are forceing authenticators on customers becouse they are cheaper then maintaining a massive staff that has to deal with peoples stupidity, YES ITS 99% PEOPLES STUPIDITY THAT GETS THEN HACKED. Argue all you want, i have had a WOW account for more then 6 years most of it without an authenticator NEVER got hacked if you just use a bit of common sense. There's a saying in Romanian that goes something like : Being stupid and lazy cost's money.
 
No system is 100% safe, Blizzard can only protect their end of the network as best they can,
The other end of the network is over 10 million PC's in peoples homes, most of which could be hacked in 2 minutes if someone had good reason to bother.

The Authenticator is to help people on the consumer end protect themselves easier, you can pay $6 and take it, or pay a professional to come around and setup protection for you for about $150.

Blizzard cant force you to do anything at your end of the network, they can only give you options.

And if they wanted to use the Authenticators to make a profit, i dare say they would have brought them out a lot sooner, its not like its a new idea using these devices.

If i had to guess, the majority of "Hacks" are just fkn morons that use the same password everywhere online and never scan their machines for Keyloggers.
 
If your computer has given away your login details and then a hacker uses them, how would blizzards servers know it was not you trying to log in??? They would allow it cause they think its you. The consumer is responsible for securing there own information on there computer, It is not Blizzards responsiblity to protect your computer.
The grey area of all of this is the failure of the software authenticators on the phones that allowed peoples accounts to still be hacked if that actually happened or blizzard haters just jumped on the bandwagon and said it happened to them on the social networks, and theres alot of blizz haters on toms 🙁 All of that info will come out in the case. Im siding with blizz on this one. Please keep using wow in your hardware reviews toms - Its the first thing i click on when reading cpu reviews cause its such a good overall benchmark.
 
BANKS: We keep your account safe -- NO AUTHENTICATORS REQUIRED::: Tight security.

BLIZZ: We cannot keep your account safe -- AUTHENTICATOR REQUIRED::: Laughable pseudo-security
 
So Blizzard should be giving the extra security away and make a loss? Just like a car the wow account come with basic security (login + password vs mechanical key). Why should blizzard be sued for the OPTIONAL extra security (authenticator vs electronic key/alarm) while the car manufacturers do not and they charge way more premium for the feature or have it as a sales point.

Computer nerdrage logic indeed!
 
Its because they intentionally making it possible to earn real life cash from their games. If you do that there will always be people who try to mess with the system for some form of benefit. So I think its debatable whether they have poor security or whether the games are just juicy targets for hackers. The ethics of what they are doing is the main point for me. I don't think they are a gaming company anymore.
 
[citation][nom]bllue[/nom]It truly is pathetic. A customer should not be expected to pay extra to attempt to fix a company's utter FAILURE of safeguarding serious information. Buying or using an authenticator doesn't even protect you from being hacked (as was the case in the early Diablo 3). It is nothing but greed coming from Activi$ionBli$$ard[/citation]

It's free if you have a smart phone/ipod. That sure doesn't sound like greed and the authenticators are really cheap. Not to mention blizzard can't fix stupid. Err I mean people who don't browse safely or open malicious emails.
 
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