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Bell vs Blizzard, Disagree strongly. | 234 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Bell vs Blizzard, Disagree strongly.
Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, November 12 2012 @ 12:58 PM EST
If you are correct (and I don't play that kind of game so my knowledge is severely limited), it is probably a matter of criminal law in some countries, including most of the EU, and it is the authorities who should be bringing a criminal prosecution. Programs which breach the fundamental security of the system are basicaly malware and just not legal. In countries which criminalise computer misuse, private individuals, even in a class action, can't sue, because as far as I can see there is no counterpart in civil law to the criminal offence.

However, he seems to be making a fuss about the minimal fee for the authenticator, which has to be nonsense.

Of course, the OS should not allow the program to do what it seems to be doing, which says a lot about M$ and their fundamental insecurity and incompetence. Just try running something like that on any *nix variant since the 1970s!

He might be better suing the real culprits, who knowingly distribute insecure operating systems. They have deep pockets....

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Blizzard EULA reads:
Authored by: squib on Monday, November 12 2012 @ 01:06 PM EST
Consent to Monitor.
WHEN RUNNING, THE GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE PROHIBITED BY SECTION 2. IN THE EVENT THAT THE GAME DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, THE GAME MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.
Blizzard EULA

Its not the wording of the writ that is important and gives it validity but the underlying reasons which gives birth to it (IMHO).

P.S. I was the anon not-log-in that posted: Bell vs Blizzard, Disagree strongly.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

You have it wrong
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 12 2012 @ 10:54 PM EST
The authenticator in question is literally an RSA SecurID token for login - it
has nothing to do with warden. While blizzard have proven pretty incompetent
with their password security, this guy is just a straight up crackpot and his
complaint is provably wrong - it's not required and there's free options. Not
to mention it's hardly unreasonable to charge for a hardware token.

And yeah um when a company explicitly says "we only support X and Y
operating systems" but you go and try it on Z anyway, you really shouldn't
be surprised that it doesn't work or expect compensation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Bell vs Blizzard, Disagree strongly.
Authored by: jumpman on Tuesday, November 13 2012 @ 11:59 AM EST
I can personally attest that Linux users are not getting
banded from Blizzard games because of a false positive
from Warden.

I have been using WoW and Wine for over three years
without so much as a peep from the GM community.
And for a long time I had a GM assigned to deal with
hacking claims against me (long story).

I am almost positive that those who were banned were
doing something they shouldn't have.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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