Originally posted by JKDX Question: Is there any indication that Blizzard is recieving information about the files and processes it scans? For example, is there any reason to believe that Blizzard is recieving information about the contents of the index.dat file after it scans it? As far as I can tell, the only time any information is sent to them is when a hack or cheat program is detected, and even then I have seen nothing which indicates that any personal information is sent.
Originally posted by JKDX Question: Is there any indication that Blizzard is recieving information about the files and processes it scans? For example, is there any reason to believe that Blizzard is recieving information about the contents of the index.dat file after it scans it? As far as I can tell, the only time any information is sent to them is when a hack or cheat program is detected, and even then I have seen nothing which indicates that any personal information is sent.
Well if you're going to admit to hacking or cheating at WOW, might as well make a new avatar to post it.
My point is this: It is obviously happening on a large scale and becoming normal for people to try to hack online games. This doesn't make it right, but it is happening.
Because it is happening, I don't mind if Blizzard scans its own program and related files to determine whether or not it's being hacked. I do mind if it scans my Outlook inbox or something like that.
Originally posted by Wepps According to that statement, then, Blizzard is scanning your files and processes.But sending nothing back to them.Erm, why scan in the first place then? This makes no sense to me.
The WoW client searches for third-party programs that are used for cheating, much like PunkBuster (used in many multiplayer games). Then it sends a conclusion, "No hacks detected" or "Hack detected". The message sent is a conclusion based on the search, it contains none of your stored data or unconsented personal information. Therefore there is no breach of privacy.
The End User License Agreement is a form of contract. As stated before, contracts do not have higher authority than law, therefore any clause that violates the law (or asks for a party to disobey the law) is invalid. For example, according to greek law, I may decide to end my contract with my telephone company if they increase their prices, even if the stated minimum time period (usually 2 months) has not ended. If a term in the agreement says that I have to remain a subscriber for two months under any circumstances, then that term is invalid and can be insulted in a court of law.
However, in Blizzard's case, we have no term that violates a law. Mind that if a term violates a law, that term is just considered invalid, there is no legal consequence. The term can be disregarded and legal action can be taken to demand the removal of the term.
If a party violates a law, that's a separate issue. If Blizzard actually does receive stored data or other personal data without your consent, then (regardless of any terms in the license agreement) it is violating privacy laws and legal action can be taken against Blizzard.
Furthermore, Blizzard is just using its own PunkBuster more or less. It's been something that many gamers gladly use in other multiplayer games like Counter Strike. That's why I said you're making a big deal out of nothing.
Currently playing: * City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant. * City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
I have to admit, if this is actually the system they are using, the scan itself is not invasive at all. Not that it matters because you signed away the right to be protected from that anyway.
I'm getting some more information back on the contract itself.
Mostly, the statements from attorneys and wannabes include such lines as "you shouldn't have signed the contract." "Yes it's doing what you are saying, the player has no rights if they agree to this."
This seems to be standard procedure. The game companies are granting themselves the rights, by your agreement, to do whatever they damned well please. You are not protected at all as of today, and you SHOULD read VERY CAREFULLY the terms that you are about to accept just because the button is in the way of the game.
SOE's contract in Star Wars: Galaxies for example, states clearly that nothing in the contract can be enforcable if it is breaking the law in any way. However, they reserve the right to take your information, and sell it a third party if they so choose. Those that play Galaxies should read that carefully.
And yes, they have every right to do so. By California law the information gathered through the use of cookies can be sold to other parties especially if you agree to it.
The final word on it though is this...
A court may see it differently. They may even nullify the contract in its entirety. That victory can only be gained by a person with time and resources enough to pursue it in the courts.
The best that you can do, and SHOULD do, is to speak out about your individual case if an injustice has been committed, in the hope that others won't be taken in by a scam, or the company in question may choose to reword the contract to better represent the rights of the players.
Personally, I agree with the comments of many others. I don't like the wording of this particular contract and for this reason alone I would never want to touch WoW. I think it's just scandalous and unethical the way this contract is written.
For those playing, I hope you never have to experience an attempt to do what they have the right to do, take all your information from your computer. Just remember though, YOU signed it. It's your own fault.
A player who is underage, and accepted the agreement, has committed fraud. By law your parent or guardian is required to read and agree to these terms and physically be responsible for the button-click. If you choose to ignore this, you could be prosecuted under current statutes and the contract is breached on your end nullifying the other party's necessity to have their part of the bargain enforced.
And I...am outta here.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Originally posted by Wepps milhoan6, I just got this from one of my friends concerning what is being scanned on the players' computers.
QUOTE 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5index.dat SUCCESS Length: 13729792 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5index.dat SUCCESS Length: 13729792 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorCookiesindex.dat SUCCESS Length: 147456 10:28:14 PM WoW.exe:796 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5index.dat SUCCESS Length: 13729792
QUOTE Using File Monitor, here are some interesting things wow.exe is doing. Q u o t e: 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 OPEN C:PROGRAM FILESFRAPSFRAPS.DLL SUCCESS Options: Open Access: Execute 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:PROGRAM FILESFRAPSFRAPS.DLL SUCCESS 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 CLOSE C:PROGRAM FILESFRAPSFRAPS.DLL SUCCESS
Why should WOW be concerned at all about FRAPS?
Q u o t e: 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 OPEN C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Options: Open Access: All 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS 8:44:41 PM WoW.exe:3932 CLOSE C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS
Interested to see what wallpaper I'm using?
Q u o t e: 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 OPEN C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsTemporary Internet Files SUCCESS Options: Open Access: All 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsTemporary Internet Files SUCCESS 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 CLOSE C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsTemporary Internet Files SUCCESS
Interested in my temporary internet files? Why?
Q u o t e: 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Cookies SUCCESS
And Cookies?
Q u o t e: 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and Settings<edited out>Local SettingsHistory SUCCESS
And internet history? Making sure I'm not visiting any WOW Hack sites?
Q u o t e: 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 OPEN C:autoexec.bat SUCCESS Options: Open Access: All 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 QUERY INFORMATION C:autoexec.bat SUCCESS 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 READ C:autoexec.bat SUCCESS 8:44:47 PM WoW.exe:3932 CLOSE C:autoexec.bat SUCCESS
Why are you concerned with my autoexec.bat file? It's none of your business what programs I may or may not have loading at startup.
QUOTE 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Attributes: A 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Attributes: A 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 OPEN C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Options: Open Access: All 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 OPEN C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Options: Open Access: All 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS FileInternalInformation 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 CLOSE C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Length: 15116598 9:15:03 PM WoW.exe:3568 QUERY INFORMATION C:Documents and SettingsThe TruesdellsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp SUCCESS Length: 15116598
Using Filemon (finemonitor) http://pinback2.250free.com/filemon5tn.jpg Oh yea, they're not scanning us... i forgot. But my wallpaper?? NOT MY MIDGET TRANNY SEX WALLPAPER!! NOOOEESS!!
Yeah, I think that this is completely invasive to one's privacy, don't you?
I actually would never play this game if they gave me a free copy and subscription under these circumstances.
My goodness. What are they thinking? I'm glad I decided to not get WoW afterall. If I had WoW I would cancel my subscription to boycott this crap!
I stopped reading at page 5 but a couple of comments. Let me preface this by saying, I haven't read Blizzard's EULA, but just last night I read EQ2's and would bet the two are very similar (although there is nothing about scanning the hard drive in EQ2's)
1. In the United States a police officer can't just randomly stop at your house come in and look around. However, he can stop at your house randomly without any probable cause and ask you if he can look around. If you say that he can, and he finds drugs, dead bodies what-have-you, he can arrest you and make it stick because you gave him permission.
Another example is a background investigation. No one can arbitrarily do this, but if you sign the consent, they can do it.
I would believe the same thing would apply to Blizzard's EULA, by agreeing to it you are saying it's okay for them to scan your hard drive.
2. Changing the EULA mid-payment. In the EQ2 EULA it states that they can change it ANY TIME. It also says that SOE will make it known on the Launch Pad that they have changed it and draw attention to the changes. Again I haven't read Blizzard's but would imagine they've at least added the "can be changed at any time".
3. It only informs Blizzard if it finds a cheat. I don't believe it. It is scanning IE cache someone has to be reading that. There is no way they have a filter with all the hacker websites out there. I believe someone is reading that.
Seing the post of the filecheck somebody has run I wanted to try it myself. I downloaded filemon and ran it together with wow. What I found out is: Wow doesn't check other files than it's own files. Like Wow.exe and the mpq files.
But I managed to get Wow.exe to check my wallpaper file. This is how I did it: When I alt tabbed out of the game and to my desktop filemon registered that wow.exe checked my wallpaper. Try this yourself if you want, I'm pretty sure you will get the same result. I didn't manage to get it to check my internet log though. Even if I alt tabbed out of wow and wen't straight into ie.exe it didn't check the internet log. If you want I can post screenshots of the filemon window as a proof for my "research"
But I think it's time for me to leave this discussion. 14 pages is a pretty long thread and I'm pretty sure that people now can see views from both sides in the discussion. I have said what I think about this case.
Blizzard doesn't gather personal information. They just check if some program interfeer with the run process of Wow.exe. Tried Filemon and it didn't show that Blizzard gathers personal information. As they have said in their statement on this mather.
"We do ask, however, that players with opposing perspectives remain civil and adhere to the Forum Code of Conduct, as we will continue to moderate the forums in accordance with that."
LOL aaahahaha!
God, is it any better now than it was last year?
When I first played, the moderators in that forum would delete all the relevent and important issues that players had, yet let all the flaming and bullspit posts remain.
It was the worst forum I'd ever seen, and I used to post on VN!
Actually, after looking through this thread I noticed that it's not any better now than it was.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Ive been reading through a few posts on this large thread. Just like to add my thought to this.
I dont agree with any game company giving themselves the right to look at your hard drive. This would be considered to be a form of hacking which is a federal offense now. Sorry but the EULA doesnt grant any company the right to hack into someones hard drive and peak at whats on there. I know if anyone some how got on to Vivendi's hard drive and just "looked" at the content there, Vivendi themselves would consider this hacking. Yet Vivendi is doing the same thing it considers to be wrong.
Vivendi obiviously over stepped the line on what is right here. They cant look at someones hard drive to see if they have an cheat programs. Vivendi is not above the law, only the law with court permission, like a warrent, is able to look at your hard drive. Since this is only a game, I doubt they have any special rights to view your hard drive.
If anyone here was brave enough, i would call the FBI and ask them about this behavior vivendi is performing.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Originally posted by Jd1680a Ive been reading through a few posts on this large thread. Just like to add my thought to this. I dont agree with any game company giving themselves the right to look at your hard drive. This would be considered to be a form of hacking which is a federal offense now. Sorry but the EULA doesnt grant any company the right to hack into someones hard drive and peak at whats on there. I know if anyone some how got on to Vivendi's hard drive and just "looked" at the content there, Vivendi themselves would consider this hacking. Yet Vivendi is doing the same thing it considers to be wrong. Vivendi obiviously over stepped the line on what is right here. They cant look at someones hard drive to see if they have an cheat programs. Vivendi is not above the law, only the law with court permission, like a warrent, is able to look at your hard drive. Since this is only a game, I doubt they have any special rights to view your hard drive. If anyone here was brave enough, i would call the FBI and ask them about this behavior vivendi is performing.
I wonder if Blizzard reps are duty bound to report to the FBI, thier players, if any questionable content is found on your harddrive? Have illegal downloads of music and movies on your harddrive or visited those sites in the past? Visited any questionable or mistakening (by pressing a pop up ad by accident) to site with questionable content that might be considered illegal like terrorists or kiddy porn. Visited any bomb making sites? Visited a site that someone else might consider bad, but you may think its normal?
With the Patriot Act in action, big brother is just around the corner and I know some people will believ Blizzard is duty bound by law to report questionable content found in your harddrives.
Even if you are the perfect and never done a bad thing in life, just make sure anyone else who uses your computer are the same
Would be real funny seeing a working father come home one day to find the FBI in his house questioning him about all the illegal downloads he has on his computer, because his teen son gave Blizzard the right to spy on his daddy's computer to play an online game. Very scary stuff
Originally posted by BarryManilow I wonder if Blizzard reps are duty bound to report to the FBI, thier players, if any questionable content is found on your harddrive? Have illegal downloads of music and movies on your harddrive or visited those sites in the past? Visited any questionable or mistakening (by pressing a pop up ad by accident) to site with questionable content that might be considered illegal like terrorists or kiddy porn. Visited any bomb making sites? Visited a site that someone else might consider bad, but you may think its normal? With the Patriot Act in action, big brother is just around the corner and I know some people will believ Blizzard is duty bound by law to report questionable content found in your harddrives. Even if you are the perfect and never done a bad thing in life, just make sure anyone else who uses your computer are the same Would be real funny seeing a working father come home one day to find the FBI in his house questioning him about all the illegal downloads he has on his computer, because his teen son gave Blizzard the right to spy on his daddy's computer to play an online game. Very scary stuff
I used to have a part time job at Best Buy (yes I was part of the Geek Squad) and it was very clear what we HAD to report. All we HAD to report was child porn. Everything else had the POSSIBILITY of being obtained leagally. So even if they had 3,000 songs in their Kazaa Share folder, they COULD HAVE purchased those songs from Napster and we can't prove they didn't or prove they shared any of those songs.
Like I said before, if you agree to let them search your hard drive (which you do when you click I agree) I don't think you'll have much recourse.
To the person who ran Filemon: It was labeled as a random scan. Run Filemon EVERY TIME you play WoW and see if it ever scans the other things. I'm not saying it will, but it would be a better test than just running it once.
Personally, I don't think Blizzard would make the same mistake twice (Starcraft anyone?). I don't think they are actually doing it, but they wanted to leave the door open in case they felt the need to do it. I think if they have probable cause they would, and wanted to have that option open to them, but who knows.
Originally posted by Jd1680a Ive been reading through a few posts on this large thread. Just like to add my thought to this. I dont agree with any game company giving themselves the right to look at your hard drive. This would be considered to be a form of hacking which is a federal offense now. Sorry but the EULA doesnt grant any company the right to hack into someones hard drive and peak at whats on there. I know if anyone some how got on to Vivendi's hard drive and just "looked" at the content there, Vivendi themselves would consider this hacking. Yet Vivendi is doing the same thing it considers to be wrong. Vivendi obiviously over stepped the line on what is right here. They cant look at someones hard drive to see if they have an cheat programs. Vivendi is not above the law, only the law with court permission, like a warrent, is able to look at your hard drive. Since this is only a game, I doubt they have any special rights to view your hard drive. If anyone here was brave enough, i would call the FBI and ask them about this behavior vivendi is performing.
omg...the planet is doomed. What a bunch of retards, get a life u fags. If they are scanning then the only reason u have to be scared is that u are cheating - if u arent then u have nothing to worry about. Die all hippys.
omg...the planet is doomed. What a bunch of retards, get a life u fags. If they are scanning then the only reason u have to be scared is that u are cheating - if u arent then u have nothing to worry about. Die all hippys.
Originally posted by goofy3k omg...the planet is doomed. What a bunch of retards, get a life u fags. If they are scanning then the only reason u have to be scared is that u are cheating - if u arent then u have nothing to worry about. Die all hippys.
Oh no no no no no lol. Please dont insult me wow is a queer game. Although i did play it for my account has been long cancelled.
I just think if they are doing it to detect cheaters than what is the problem? Do u think they are going to read personal emails or somthing? Please give me a break, you plebs arent that special that people want to do that.
okay, so they are looking for cheater and hacks only?? i reckon they are looking for ppl who have copied blizzard games, or they wanna see what games you play, but ne way im not cancelling my subscription WoW roks, best game out there !
A couple of interesting things I read on the official WoW boards regarding the WoW scan, especial with regards to scanning the temp internet folder and indext.dat files.
...the first thing that WoW does when it starts is retrieve the realm status page from the Blizzard servers, it does this by utilizing a browser dll. Basicly this dll is Internet Explorer without a UI. When it retrieves the realm status page, it also reads the cookies because IE would do this too. It closes the files when you quit WoW because then the browser dll gets unloaded. Does info from this get send to Blizzard? I have not seen code to support this. There ya go. Thats why you see you index file being "accessed, it is NOT being scanned please understand that"
Also...
'm gonna put this in bold so maybe you can see it. It's been posted on these forums by other people numerous times: World of Warcraft is not scanning your temporary internet files, cookies, or anything else of that nature. When ANY PROGRAM uses an Internet Explorer-based control, Microsoft's software will automatically open up those files. There is nothing that Blizzard or any other programmer can do about having Filemon return these false indications, aside from not using Microsoft's DLLs at all. If you don't believe me, the author of one of the cheat programs says the same thing: http://www.wowsharp.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4168
Originally posted by JKDX A couple of interesting things I read on the official WoW boards regarding the WoW scan, especial with regards to scanning the temp internet folder and indext.dat files.
...the first thing that WoW does when it starts is retrieve the realm status page from the Blizzard servers, it does this by utilizing a browser dll. Basicly this dll is Internet Explorer without a UI. When it retrieves the realm status page, it also reads the cookies because IE would do this too. It closes the files when you quit WoW because then the browser dll gets unloaded. Does info from this get send to Blizzard? I have not seen code to support this. There ya go. Thats why you see you index file being "accessed, it is NOT being scanned please understand that"
Also...
'm gonna put this in bold so maybe you can see it. It's been posted on these forums by other people numerous times: World of Warcraft is not scanning your temporary internet files, cookies, or anything else of that nature. When ANY PROGRAM uses an Internet Explorer-based control, Microsoft's software will automatically open up those files. There is nothing that Blizzard or any other programmer can do about having Filemon return these false indications, aside from not using Microsoft's DLLs at all. If you don't believe me, the author of one of the cheat programs says the same thing: http://www.wowsharp.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4168
Very interesting. But it still comes down to whether or not you have a problem with files constantly being accessed or scanned by a game that is not part of the installation of that game. Trust in this process will always be questioned because of privacy concerns and I do not ever see that changing no matter what anyone says. That is why it has garnered so much attention whether it deserves it or not.
------------------------------------------- Control is an illusion!
Originally posted by JKDX A couple of interesting things I read on the official WoW boards regarding the WoW scan, especial with regards to scanning the temp internet folder and indext.dat files.
...the first thing that WoW does when it starts is retrieve the realm status page from the Blizzard servers, it does this by utilizing a browser dll. Basicly this dll is Internet Explorer without a UI. When it retrieves the realm status page, it also reads the cookies because IE would do this too. It closes the files when you quit WoW because then the browser dll gets unloaded. Does info from this get send to Blizzard? I have not seen code to support this. There ya go. Thats why you see you index file being "accessed, it is NOT being scanned please understand that"
Also...
'm gonna put this in bold so maybe you can see it. It's been posted on these forums by other people numerous times: World of Warcraft is not scanning your temporary internet files, cookies, or anything else of that nature. When ANY PROGRAM uses an Internet Explorer-based control, Microsoft's software will automatically open up those files. There is nothing that Blizzard or any other programmer can do about having Filemon return these false indications, aside from not using Microsoft's DLLs at all. If you don't believe me, the author of one of the cheat programs says the same thing: http://www.wowsharp.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4168
Very interesting. But it still comes down to whether or not you have a problem with files constantly being accessed or scanned by a game that is not part of the installation of that game. Trust in this process will always be questioned because of privacy concerns and I do not ever see that changing no matter what anyone says. That is why it has garnered so much attention whether it deserves it or not.
You are right, I can't stand these sheep that always want to believe for a fact whatever "the Man" says (the Man being Blizzard). Didn't our government tell us that there were WMDs in Iraq and we had to go to war over it, well you know the rest.
Originally posted by Jd1680a Ive been reading through a few posts on this large thread. Just like to add my thought to this. I dont agree with any game company giving themselves the right to look at your hard drive. This would be considered to be a form of hacking which is a federal offense now. Sorry but the EULA doesnt grant any company the right to hack into someones hard drive and peak at whats on there.
Hacking is an unauthorized entry. Since you are agreeing to it, by accepting the EULA, access to your data is not unauthorized, it's something you agreed to, it's authorized access. Therefore, it is not hacking or anything relative to hacking. Actually, since it doesn't even give entry to anyone other than myself to the system, it's nowhere near hacking. Blizzard does not gain entry and cannot manipulate my data. Futhermore, none of my data are sent back to Blizzard.
And, as I pointed to a similar thread in General Discussion, it is not Blizzard scanning your data. It's you who've selected to run a piece of software that, with your full understanding that it will do so, scans your system and sends a conclusive piece of information, whether a hack has been found or not.
Currently playing: * City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant. * City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Comments
1 simple answer No. There are no indications.
Well if you're going to admit to hacking or cheating at WOW, might as well make a new avatar to post it.
My point is this: It is obviously happening on a large scale and becoming normal for people to try to hack online games. This doesn't make it right, but it is happening.
Because it is happening, I don't mind if Blizzard scans its own program and related files to determine whether or not it's being hacked. I do mind if it scans my Outlook inbox or something like that.
My name is...
The WoW client searches for third-party programs that are used for cheating, much like PunkBuster (used in many multiplayer games). Then it sends a conclusion, "No hacks detected" or "Hack detected". The message sent is a conclusion based on the search, it contains none of your stored data or unconsented personal information. Therefore there is no breach of privacy.
The End User License Agreement is a form of contract. As stated before, contracts do not have higher authority than law, therefore any clause that violates the law (or asks for a party to disobey the law) is invalid. For example, according to greek law, I may decide to end my contract with my telephone company if they increase their prices, even if the stated minimum time period (usually 2 months) has not ended. If a term in the agreement says that I have to remain a subscriber for two months under any circumstances, then that term is invalid and can be insulted in a court of law.
However, in Blizzard's case, we have no term that violates a law. Mind that if a term violates a law, that term is just considered invalid, there is no legal consequence. The term can be disregarded and legal action can be taken to demand the removal of the term.
If a party violates a law, that's a separate issue. If Blizzard actually does receive stored data or other personal data without your consent, then (regardless of any terms in the license agreement) it is violating privacy laws and legal action can be taken against Blizzard.
Furthermore, Blizzard is just using its own PunkBuster more or less. It's been something that many gamers gladly use in other multiplayer games like Counter Strike. That's why I said you're making a big deal out of nothing.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
I have to admit, if this is actually the system they are using, the scan itself is not invasive at all. Not that it matters because you signed away the right to be protected from that anyway.
I'm getting some more information back on the contract itself.
Mostly, the statements from attorneys and wannabes include such lines as "you shouldn't have signed the contract." "Yes it's doing what you are saying, the player has no rights if they agree to this."
This seems to be standard procedure. The game companies are granting themselves the rights, by your agreement, to do whatever they damned well please. You are not protected at all as of today, and you SHOULD read VERY CAREFULLY the terms that you are about to accept just because the button is in the way of the game.
SOE's contract in Star Wars: Galaxies for example, states clearly that nothing in the contract can be enforcable if it is breaking the law in any way. However, they reserve the right to take your information, and sell it a third party if they so choose. Those that play Galaxies should read that carefully.
And yes, they have every right to do so. By California law the information gathered through the use of cookies can be sold to other parties especially if you agree to it.
The final word on it though is this...
A court may see it differently. They may even nullify the contract in its entirety. That victory can only be gained by a person with time and resources enough to pursue it in the courts.
The best that you can do, and SHOULD do, is to speak out about your individual case if an injustice has been committed, in the hope that others won't be taken in by a scam, or the company in question may choose to reword the contract to better represent the rights of the players.
Personally, I agree with the comments of many others. I don't like the wording of this particular contract and for this reason alone I would never want to touch WoW. I think it's just scandalous and unethical the way this contract is written.
For those playing, I hope you never have to experience an attempt to do what they have the right to do, take all your information from your computer. Just remember though, YOU signed it. It's your own fault.
A player who is underage, and accepted the agreement, has committed fraud. By law your parent or guardian is required to read and agree to these terms and physically be responsible for the button-click. If you choose to ignore this, you could be prosecuted under current statutes and the contract is breached on your end nullifying the other party's necessity to have their part of the bargain enforced.
And I...am outta here.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Yeah, I think that this is completely invasive to one's privacy, don't you?
I actually would never play this game if they gave me a free copy and subscription under these circumstances.
My goodness. What are they thinking? I'm glad I decided to not get WoW afterall. If I had WoW I would cancel my subscription to boycott this crap!
I stopped reading at page 5 but a couple of comments. Let me preface this by saying, I haven't read Blizzard's EULA, but just last night I read EQ2's and would bet the two are very similar (although there is nothing about scanning the hard drive in EQ2's)
1. In the United States a police officer can't just randomly stop at your house come in and look around. However, he can stop at your house randomly without any probable cause and ask you if he can look around. If you say that he can, and he finds drugs, dead bodies what-have-you, he can arrest you and make it stick because you gave him permission.
Another example is a background investigation. No one can arbitrarily do this, but if you sign the consent, they can do it.
I would believe the same thing would apply to Blizzard's EULA, by agreeing to it you are saying it's okay for them to scan your hard drive.
2. Changing the EULA mid-payment. In the EQ2 EULA it states that they can change it ANY TIME. It also says that SOE will make it known on the Launch Pad that they have changed it and draw attention to the changes. Again I haven't read Blizzard's but would imagine they've at least added the "can be changed at any time".
3. It only informs Blizzard if it finds a cheat. I don't believe it. It is scanning IE cache someone has to be reading that. There is no way they have a filter with all the hacker websites out there. I believe someone is reading that.
Seing the post of the filecheck somebody has run I wanted to try it myself. I downloaded filemon and ran it together with wow. What I found out is: Wow doesn't check other files than it's own files. Like Wow.exe and the mpq files.
But I managed to get Wow.exe to check my wallpaper file. This is how I did it: When I alt tabbed out of the game and to my desktop filemon registered that wow.exe checked my wallpaper. Try this yourself if you want, I'm pretty sure you will get the same result. I didn't manage to get it to check my internet log though. Even if I alt tabbed out of wow and wen't straight into ie.exe it didn't check the internet log. If you want I can post screenshots of the filemon window as a proof for my "research"
But I think it's time for me to leave this discussion. 14 pages is a pretty long thread and I'm pretty sure that people now can see views from both sides in the discussion. I have said what I think about this case.
Blizzard doesn't gather personal information. They just check if some program interfeer with the run process of Wow.exe. Tried Filemon and it didn't show that Blizzard gathers personal information. As they have said in their statement on this mather.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4439675&p=1&tmp=1#post4439675
"We do ask, however, that players with opposing perspectives remain civil and adhere to the Forum Code of Conduct, as we will continue to moderate the forums in accordance with that."
LOL aaahahaha!
God, is it any better now than it was last year?
When I first played, the moderators in that forum would delete all the relevent and important issues that players had, yet let all the flaming and bullspit posts remain.
It was the worst forum I'd ever seen, and I used to post on VN!
Actually, after looking through this thread I noticed that it's not any better now than it was.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Ive been reading through a few posts on this large thread. Just like to add my thought to this.
I dont agree with any game company giving themselves the right to look at your hard drive. This would be considered to be a form of hacking which is a federal offense now. Sorry but the EULA doesnt grant any company the right to hack into someones hard drive and peak at whats on there. I know if anyone some how got on to Vivendi's hard drive and just "looked" at the content there, Vivendi themselves would consider this hacking. Yet Vivendi is doing the same thing it considers to be wrong.
Vivendi obiviously over stepped the line on what is right here. They cant look at someones hard drive to see if they have an cheat programs. Vivendi is not above the law, only the law with court permission, like a warrent, is able to look at your hard drive. Since this is only a game, I doubt they have any special rights to view your hard drive.
If anyone here was brave enough, i would call the FBI and ask them about this behavior vivendi is performing.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
I wonder if Blizzard reps are duty bound to report to the FBI, thier players, if any questionable content is found on your harddrive? Have illegal downloads of music and movies on your harddrive or visited those sites in the past? Visited any questionable or mistakening (by pressing a pop up ad by accident) to site with questionable content that might be considered illegal like terrorists or kiddy porn. Visited any bomb making sites? Visited a site that someone else might consider bad, but you may think its normal?
With the Patriot Act in action, big brother is just around the corner and I know some people will believ Blizzard is duty bound by law to report questionable content found in your harddrives.
Even if you are the perfect and never done a bad thing in life, just make sure anyone else who uses your computer are the same
Would be real funny seeing a working father come home one day to find the FBI in his house questioning him about all the illegal downloads he has on his computer, because his teen son gave Blizzard the right to spy on his daddy's computer to play an online game. Very scary stuff
I used to have a part time job at Best Buy (yes I was part of the Geek Squad) and it was very clear what we HAD to report. All we HAD to report was child porn. Everything else had the POSSIBILITY of being obtained leagally. So even if they had 3,000 songs in their Kazaa Share folder, they COULD HAVE purchased those songs from Napster and we can't prove they didn't or prove they shared any of those songs.
Like I said before, if you agree to let them search your hard drive (which you do when you click I agree) I don't think you'll have much recourse.
To the person who ran Filemon: It was labeled as a random scan. Run Filemon EVERY TIME you play WoW and see if it ever scans the other things. I'm not saying it will, but it would be a better test than just running it once.
Personally, I don't think Blizzard would make the same mistake twice (Starcraft anyone?). I don't think they are actually doing it, but they wanted to leave the door open in case they felt the need to do it. I think if they have probable cause they would, and wanted to have that option open to them, but who knows.
omg...the planet is doomed. What a bunch of retards, get a life u fags. If they are scanning then the only reason u have to be scared is that u are cheating - if u arent then u have nothing to worry about. Die all hippys.
Out
omg...the planet is doomed. What a bunch of retards, get a life u fags. If they are scanning then the only reason u have to be scared is that u are cheating - if u arent then u have nothing to worry about. Die all hippys.
Out
I smell a WoW fanboi
Oh no no no no no lol. Please dont insult me wow is a queer game. Although i did play it for
my account has been long cancelled.
I just think if they are doing it to detect cheaters than what is the problem? Do u think they are going to read personal emails or somthing? Please give me a break, you plebs arent that special that people want to do that.
A couple of interesting things I read on the official WoW boards regarding the WoW scan, especial with regards to scanning the temp internet folder and indext.dat files.
Also...
Also...
Very interesting. But it still comes down to whether or not you have a problem with files constantly being accessed or scanned by a game that is not part of the installation of that game. Trust in this process will always be questioned because of privacy concerns and I do not ever see that changing no matter what anyone says. That is why it has garnered so much attention whether it deserves it or not.
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Control is an illusion!
Also...
Very interesting. But it still comes down to whether or not you have a problem with files constantly being accessed or scanned by a game that is not part of the installation of that game. Trust in this process will always be questioned because of privacy concerns and I do not ever see that changing no matter what anyone says. That is why it has garnered so much attention whether it deserves it or not.
You are right, I can't stand these sheep that always want to believe for a fact whatever "the Man" says (the Man being Blizzard). Didn't our government tell us that there were WMDs in Iraq and we had to go to war over it, well you know the rest.
NEVER TRUST THE MAN!
Hacking is an unauthorized entry. Since you are agreeing to it, by accepting the EULA, access to your data is not unauthorized, it's something you agreed to, it's authorized access. Therefore, it is not hacking or anything relative to hacking. Actually, since it doesn't even give entry to anyone other than myself to the system, it's nowhere near hacking. Blizzard does not gain entry and cannot manipulate my data. Futhermore, none of my data are sent back to Blizzard.
And, as I pointed to a similar thread in General Discussion, it is not Blizzard scanning your data. It's you who've selected to run a piece of software that, with your full understanding that it will do so, scans your system and sends a conclusive piece of information, whether a hack has been found or not.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.