Blizzard to remove the veil of anonymity

On the topic of unstable people being, you know, crazy, there's also the issue of character gender. I have characters of both genders, which means by definition I'm a digital crossdresser. Add the fact that some of them are cats or dragons or werewolves or whatever, and according to some people I'm a dangerous pervert. Frankly, I don't care how unlikely it is, I would really rather avoid the possibility of gaining a new poison pen pal because I have a given avatar in a game.

There are actually a few problems Blizzard will have with implementing this. First, there is their own privacy policy. Yes, of course they can change the privacy policy, but if they go this route, they have to do one of two things. They can allow existing customers to opt-out of the new features (in which case they would have some people posting under their "Real ID" and some people posting under character names like it is now). Alternatively, the can allow customers who do not wish to have their information put out there to cancel their account and remove information which is currently stored. This means no future "come back and see us" emails for these former customers. Hardly a good business move.

Second, whether you think the number is large or small, you have to agree that some portion of the WoW community is below the age of 18. Releasing information on minors (even if it is just a name) can get them into some seriously hot water.

Now, if you do not see either of the above as an issue, perhaps we should look at the more technical/logistical reasons this is simply not feasible.

Real names are not unique. My own real name, in fact, is quite common. So common, that in a small community, I grew up with someone who had the exact same first and last name as me who lived on the same street. In fact, we were born almost exactly one year apart.

If their intent is to use the "Real ID" as a cross-server communication tool (as indicated in the article), then it has to be unique. It not only has to be unique on the server, it needs to be unique among all of their 1,000,0000+ users.

The solution, of course, is to do what NC Soft did years ago and go with a Global Name which is not based on the person's real name. Doing this accomplishes the goal without creating any of the problems. Of course, as CoH/V players we already knew the guys at Paragon Studios are smarter than the guys at Blizzard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

The really sad part, Chase, is that I've heard stories of people being that vindictive here in this game. Luckily (and probably amazingly) I've never been the victim of such things, but they do occur.

Obviously, I'm not one to care. My face is on cohfaces, I've posted to the coh page on facebook using my real name. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to put the two together. I've even (you fool!) sent email from my home account to a handful of players. Course, those were all folks I had been talking to for years first, but still... bad form.

In the end, life is what it is. Live in fear or don't. I honestly don't care what blizzard does with their forums.

Hell, you guys know the general area in which I live. If you knew my real name, you could find me effortlessly (hell, I'm probably the only person in the southwest with this name). And plenty of you guys live in AZ, too, which would be pretty unsettling if I weren't so groin-grabbingly popular.

I don't even use my real name when it's supposedly confidential if I can help it. DriveThruRPG and Nexon both would have quite a snipe hunt on their hands if they tried to track me down.

I've been very careful about my identity online... using pipl.com, I was not able to come up with much about myself. A couple of mentions in my college newspaper, and a few previous addresses. Not my current one, though. Didn't see my current phone number, but I won't say for a fact that it isn't out there.

However, my name is unique. That's a function of my last name, which is held by fewer than twenty people within the United States. My first name, being a standard-type American name, means that it is not used in my country of origin. The only other person who occasionally uses the name is my grandfather, who uses my first name as a nickname on occasion.

I don't share my name online if I can help it, and so far it has worked.

Trying a search for Smersh won't get you all that far, either.

However, searching for my real name can find my wife's livejournal, which has pictures and email addresses and the date of our wedding, and all sorts of other info which might be used in a social engineering attempt.

Just some data points.

I think Blizzard is really making a mistake here, and should be held accountable if anything untoward happens to one of their users because of information garnered from their forums.

To those who are interested in WoW: All I can say is to use a false name, and game time cards. That won't help anyone who is already signed up with the service, though.

*shakes head* My data is mine to give out as I see fit, it is not for you to sell and make a profit from.

To shreds, you say?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

why don't the people advocating this go ahead and post their real life information for all to see right here?