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I die a little inside every time I see something like that posted in /trade chat. I quickly put them (or maybe it’s me) out of their misery with a report spam.
I kinda hope that Blizzard responds to the spam alert and locks the account before any MORE damage is done.
Whatever happens, some damage is done.
It may only be to you, but most likely your guild will be effected as well.
You might miss out on a nights raiding, your guild might miss out on a raider (It could be that LK kill you have dreamed of).
If only for a short time it has enabled the gold spammers, thieves, to hock their wares, maybe convincing one more person that gold buying can’t be that bad – it’s always in trade chat.
Whatever the damage done, there is one thing you can be sure of. While the authenticator costs a few bucks, the postage a few more…
The pain is free!
I’ve been meaning to highlight this series of post from Three Druid Noob for a while, but haven’t put the words down.
They are still relevant, even with so many people having a sabbatical before Cataclysm.
In fact, they are probably more relevant.
I would suggest that if you are considering canceling your subscription for a few months, that you spend a portion of what would have been next months fee on an authenticator.
Let’s face it, when we are talking about pain, what is more painful:
- Losing a few days of quality active playtime restoring your account, or
- Buying the expansion, paying your subs, then discovering your account was hacked, authenticated and banned during your time away from WoW?
Anyway, have a read, realise that for every happy story of a 24 hour account restoration, there are other filled with pain.
Remember there are lots of ways to get your hands on authenticators.
- From the blizzard store.
- With a couple of mates from the blizzard store to share the postage
- For your portable phone device of your choosing.
- Most WoW podcasts give at least one away each week… You know, like for free!
I know it’s also possible to convince the phone apps to work on models they are officially designed for. One of my mates did this. Maybe if he’s reading he can drop a comments explaining what & how.
Ohh and Blizzard, if you are reading this, feel free to shoot me a box of twenty authenticators which I will give away to Aussies and Kiwis.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/06/17/character-restoration-the-pain-is-free/
Ironically your google Ads served up a WoW gold for cash site ad in reply to this post. The fact that those ads crop up is the primary reason I’m not a fan of google adwords/adsense/etc. on the blogs.
My Google Ads? I don’t have any advertising. All cash is outbound at the home of the Gnome, nothing inbound.
Where were the ads?
In the feedreader?
I’ll check my Feedburner settings, there shouldn’t be any there either but maybe now Feedburner is owned by Google it is automatic (though I don’t see any in the feeds I received)
There are ads here on your blog my friend. You seem to be unaware of it.
Currently I spot the following ads:
Get World Gold in 10 Mins
2,000,000Gold in Stock,Professional Powerlevel,fast & safe trade
[deleted address]
Best Leveling Guide
Learn To Level From 1-80 In 7 Days Download Free Trial Here.
[deleted address]
Free Guide
The Fastest Way To Power To 80 & To Make Masses Of Gold Guaranteed!
[deleted address]
I took away the addresses not to give them a permanent ad here on your blog. But they’re here as I’m writing this. They’re right below “Possibly related posts” if you’re reading your blog through IE.
I’m so sorry. I hope you can find some way to extermine those rats, infesting your home.
Ahhhhhh!
Now I understand.
That is WordPress.
Some time back they mentioned they were introducing ads to support the free platform.
I rarely look with IE and I think Firefox filters that stuff out.
Thus I don’t think I have ever seen an ad here… and for that matter haven’t seen ads on other free WP blogs.
Thanks for the info, I’ll raise it with WP.
OK, so I checked in with WordPress and this isn’t something they can control.
The only option is for me to pay to remove the ads.
While it’s not money I have right now, I’d rather spend that money that present the suggestion that I support the account stealing & gold selling industry.
Armaggedon’s Coming, soon to be truly add free
A note about the phone authenticator: it’s free. If you have a phone for which there is an authenticator app, there is no excuse – NONE – for not having an authenticator on your account. And your mates may have reason to thank you for getting it.
Also, for peeps that are dropping out for a while, I strongly recommend letting the GM know and getting them to demote you to the lowest level possible. That way, if you do get hacked, the perp won’t have much in the way of access. It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
Great point Grimm. Guild leaders should create a new “holiday” rank do there is no guild kick, but likewise no access to guild banks.
That way if a character who is “on holiday” comes online you know to be suspicious and take the time to verify their identity
@Gnome – well, as I understand it, creating new guild ranks is a problematic process, very ungainly and quite painful for the GM. But most guilds have an initiate or similar level, and that will work as well.
@Jong – I’ll work at keeping it Jong-friendly in Casa de Grimmtooth
“It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.”
See? Something like that, I like. It’s catchy and witty. At the same time, it’s straight forward and I don’t have to google it.
I can say from personal experience that the hackers are not just exploiting with links and malware. They are also using brute force.
Back in January I decided to leave the game for good (or so I thought). I had never had any issues in the 3 years of playing the game before. I had an authenticator on my phone and I figured I would remove the authenticator in case I had to wipe my phone (since the Android phone I had then had a habit of wiping everything when you updated). Before the phone I had the physical authenticator. I took the phone authenticator off my account and never put the physical one on because I figured I’d never be back and I didn’t think I’d have a problem.
About a month later a guild member I friended on facebook wondered if I had gone back to the game because I was always on but never responded to anyone.
yeah…..
Turns out they brute forced into my WoW account, because I only use Linux and play WoW through WINE on Linux. I know I had no malware or keyloggers on any of my systems.
My main had all emblem gear and wasn’t touched except for everything in my bank (half of the mats for the Chopper and a bunch of other stuff) along with all my gold. My Death Knight was naked, and my alt Rogue lost everything except for BoA shoulders and daggers.
I put the physical authenticator back on. Now that I have returned to the game, my main hunter is slowly rebuilding gold and Chopper mats. I deleted my DK and Rogue and am starting a new DK and a Mage.
I think the authenticator should be required to play. Especially with the merge to Battle.NET and the requirement of email address for the account. Stupidest move on Blizzard’s part.
The real solution to this is simple: Blizzard needs to start selling gold. It’s obviously something that some people want, and the steps Blizz has made to try to prevent this has just not been working clearly.
I agree completely, as some people dont like the thought of blizzard ” Selling out ” so to speak, I personally dont like getting hacked more. I had all three 80′s and all alts deleted cuz my wife threw a racial slur at the farmers stealing my gold. They Told her while she was on her account “give me 10k or i delete. 10K or I delete” She threw her own piece of fiesty woman mind at them and my toons where gone. Blizzard can make that stop as easy as selling gold themselves. they obviously cant stop the farmers.
Geez… The folk from Pants On Head (Bind on Equip podcast) better be careful. They have made a sport of teasing gold farmers
I have heard of similar stories where people have removed their physical authenticators through fear it would run out of batteries… Only to get hacked
@Gnome – the funny thing is this – if you leave the authenticator on, and your battery dies, then you still won’t get hacked. And the phone call to support goes a lot more smoothly than the ‘omg i’ve been haxxored’ call.
@Gnome – I also see gold ads in gmail when I get notifictions from your blog RE new comments on a conversation I am following. The funny thing is that I do not see any ads at all when looking at this post directly, or at the main page, so I’m puzzled.
@Slayer – using an obscure(1) OS is no guarantee against a multitude of security holes. Javascript doesn’t care about platform, nor do redirects, cross-site scripting attacks, and so forth. I’ve been working in a project that has interests in this area, and the last year has been enlightening. I’m considering giving up hyperlinks altogether!
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(1) In the “security by obscurity” sense, not the “I just dissed your OS” sense, since it obviously matters in your case
Ahh yeah. The standard follow comments is also provided by WP. Didn’t get a chance last night to send a query, will try today.