Comments on: Character Restoration: the pain is free!

By: gnomeaggedon

gnomeaggedon — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:47:07 +0000

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

By: Grimmtooth

Grimmtooth — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:42:14 +0000

@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.

By: gnomeaggedon

gnomeaggedon — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:35:38 +0000

Geez… The folk from Pants On Head (Bind on Equip podcast) better be careful. They have made a sport of teasing gold farmers

By: gnomeaggedon

gnomeaggedon — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:33:44 +0000

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.

By: gnomeaggedon

gnomeaggedon — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:32:03 +0000

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

By: Amoro/icecrown

Amoro/icecrown — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:55:01 +0000

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.

By: Grimmtooth

Grimmtooth — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:47:45 +0000

@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!

=====
(1) In the “security by obscurity” sense, not the “I just dissed your OS” sense, since it obviously matters in your case

By: slayerboy

slayerboy — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:57:20 +0000

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.

By: gnomeaggedon

gnomeaggedon — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:37:01 +0000

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.

By: Larisa

Larisa — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:31:40 +0000

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.