RealID Changes; The Very Real Ease of Stalking In The Internet Age.
As every other gaming blog is reporting, yesterday Blizzard dropped a bomb on us, unveiling their new plans for the future of the RealID feature. Of the several changes planning to be implemented, the most… disturbing is the following:
The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players — however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.
Whoa, whoa, back up a second – so if we want to post on the public forums, be it to talk, recruit, learn, help, or ask for technical assistance, we need to do so using our real first and last names? Yes, that’s what they’re saying, exactly. The idea is that with that level of accountability, people will troll less. They’re right, of course, but only if by “troll” you mean “post”.
There have already tens of thousands of posts in the single thread (over 1100 pages at the time of this writing) explaining how the many, many reasons this is a terrible idea, from the ease of stalking and creepy pedobears, to the ethical violation of forced exposure (it’s not optional when the forums are necessary to resolve technical issues), to the very real fact that real names will be tied to a gaming site and googleable by potential employers, and more – check the thread.
My posting here isn’t to reiterate everything that’s been said before, but rather to tell a cautionary (and hopefully exemplary) tale of the very real dangers of this change. Buckle up, it’s quite a ride.
Early on in that thread, a toon by the name of Sikketh (from Thunderlord) posted the following:
I’m really not so sure about what’s so devastating about putting a name out. My real-life name is (removed). My cousins have problems finding me on facebook and social networks because when they try to search for me, there are hundreds of results. Your real-life name is very likely not going to be unique.
I don’t see how knowing someone’s name can turn into knowing everything about them. I welcome anyone to come to me where I work, then, if you can figure it out by my name, and ask me about my WoW characters.
Or call my cell phone, it will be on. Throwing myself out there.
I may be a decent human being, but it’s nigh-impossible for me to resist a dare like that. I set to work.
With just his first and last name and his wow toon’s name, I was able to find his twitter, facebook, home address, home phone number, work address, work phone number and parent’s names. The whole process took about 20 minutes. I immediately called the house, but no one was home. I sat on the idea of calling his work for a bit, and eventually decided to do so (he did ask for it).
The following is an ACTUAL PARAPHRASE of the phone conversation when I called his work (names and addresses have of course been removed):
Coworker: Hello?
Me: Hello, could I please speak with So-And-So?
CW: Um, sure, hold on.
Me: Thank you.
::hold music::
(a new person, female, answers)
Manager: Hello, this is Kimberly SomeLastName, can I help you?
Me: Yes, I was wondering if I could please speak with So-And-So?
Manager: ::pause:: Sure. Please hold.
Me: Thank you.
::hold music, five minute wait::
::(Male Voice)::
MV: Hello?
Me: Hello, is this So-And-So?
MV: Yes.
Me: First and foremost, I want to apologize for calling you at work, and I also apologize if this doesn’t make sense, but are you Sikketh, from Thunderlord?
MV: ::pause:: Yes.
Me: So yeah, that took me about 20 minutes and it was pretty easy.
MV: Wow. Ok.
Me: Also, just for shits and giggles, is your address ?
MV: yep.
Me: Phone number 555-555-5555?
MV: yep.
Me: I know your parents’ names are Name1 and Name2, I know your room is painted blue and I know you have a cute dog. I know where you were on the 4th of July and I know when you got back. Don’t worry, I’m not a crazy, I’m not going to do anything with it, and I’m not going to post your address or anything anywhere. I just wanted you to know that what I did was very easy and very free, from just your name and toon’s name. You have a good day, and thanks for being a good sport about it.
MV: Hey, I did basically ask for it – thank you. I was wrong about RealID.
My post on the public thread is as follows, in response to his above post:
I would just like to point out that I just spoke with the above poster at their place of work. It took about 20 minutes, and I found his home address, home telephone, and parent’s names; I found pictures from the past year, read his facebook wall, know how old he is, know what books he brought on his trip this past week, and I know that he has an adorable dog named Molly.I know the color of his walls and where he spent the 4th of July; I know he has a penchant for clever/ironic tshirts and wears corrective lenses. I know who his favorite band is at the moment and what his relationship status is.
In addition, I know many *very* personal details about his life that I will not post here out of respect for his privacy (it’s hard for me to turn down such a flagrant challenge as the above, but I’m not a jerk about it), but suffice to say that there is a LOT of information on the internet, and once it’s there, it’s very, very hard to make it go away.
Moral is – your name might be really, really common – you can still be found, easily.
This RealID change is a bad one.
He took the whole thing really well, and has since edited his name out of his original post (as well as put in a “Edit: I was found!”) and we’ve talked some on facebook. I explained in detail to him how I went about it so that he can do what he can to close up those gaps (he’s since locked his twitter and facebook pages better, though finding his address and phone number didn’t require either, just his name). He’s even since applied to my guild and his application is under review.
I mentioned that this wasn’t the first time I’ve done this. He asked if I could find anyone, and I was like “most people have an online presence these days – if you do, I can find you.” He asked me to find his boss, the aforementioned Kimberly SomeLastName (protip: SomeLastName is still a fake name) – I found her and her husband’s home address and phone number in about a minute.
The point of this tale, however, is not to demonstrate a fun and heartwarming tale about a well-meaning prankster who teaches someone else a lesson and possibly gains a friend out of it. No, the point of this tale is that it is shockingly easy to find people through the internet from very little information, and not everyone is nice. Let us not so quickly forget the sick and tragic case of Julien Barreaux, a counterstrike player who’s character was killed via knife fight and who became so enraged that he spent the next six months stalking down his opponent (known only as “Mikhael”), who turned out to live in a town only a few miles away. He then found him and stabbed him in the chest, missing his heart by an inch. The victim survived and the assailant is now behind bars, but c’mon, people. I found someone several states away from me in less than 20 minutes from their name. You really think it’s a good idea to force that into the open?
This change is a terrible one, and I hope the overwhelmingly negative reaction from Blizzard’s player base will cause a change. I am all for accountability – tie our RealID to a single, unchangable forum avatar/username. This eliminates level 1 alt posting and forces sustained accountability for all forum posts, while at the same time protecting our privacy.
This is Sikketh, and I approve this message. >.>
Just wanted to comment and say that your response to what happened was classy. Thumbs up. :)
Hey, I asked for it. Glad I was shown by this guy as opposed to some crazy guy in front of my house when I got home from work.
Hi, friend of mine linked me to this when I was discussing this with him (he’s a WoWer, I’m not). A good read, and it’s nice to see how it’s worked out between the both of you too.
This is win. Thank you for sharing, and thank you, Sikketh, for responding so maturely.
I need someone to try to find me next so I can close up my own gaps. lol. (I’m kidding, don’t ask for my real name…)
This blog post worrys me somewhat, you didn’t even need his twitter and Facebook to get his phone number and address? I can’t even think of what else I’ve put out there that could have such information. Do you have any advice on what we can do about these other sources of our information?
@thrianarn – there are a lot of sites out there that harvest census info and/or telephone books; if you’re listed in the phone book, you’re findable via your name.
If you participate in the census, you can be found on the internet for free or a small fee.(corrected for accuracy) If you’re a registered voter, you can be found on the internet.Since so much of this information is technically considered “public domain”, the best way to safeguard yourself is to not give out your first and last name to strangers. =)
Well, not only to strangers, but perhaps to anyone. Or at the very least don’t tie your internet presence to your physical presence, which is tough to say the least.
Actually, I was a census taker this year – all personal information (i.e. the forms themselves) is sealed for more than years.
Census information is not released to the public for more than 72 years. As a census worker, its information like this that makes my job more difficult.
The article was spot on though, it’s amazing how easy it is to find information about people on the internet. And I’m glad that Blizz decided against this change.
Aye, I was corrected earlier in the comment thread, and I’ve edited my comment for accuracy. =)
As I alluded in one of my other posts, there are private directory companies that take advantage of the pre-census reg-census time. While they would not pose as U.S. Census workers per say, they would say thing like “I am with City Directory and we are conducting a ‘City Census.’” So while your U.S. Census answers may be private for 72 years, you need to make sure it is a real U.S. Census worker that you are giving your information to.
Also while the information from the census may be 72 years old, it does help these search sites in narrowing down, areas where persons with that last name, maybe living
I’ll just point out that if you google my name – which is probably honestly listed on this account – you can get my mother’s property tax records from the county, and I believe those records include her address. Note that that isn’t even using her name. In my case, it’s got something to do with there only being five people in the world with my last name, but it’s shockingly easy to find people, even people who don’t deliberately lay a trail of information – I have public information that I don’t mind (or want to show off) employers to see, and I have private information that I would really prefer to keep private.
What worries me is that nobody will sign up under legitimate names any more. The current loyal customer base who financed their rise to the top will be the ones penalized. Either they will be silenced from the forum community, or they will be forced to spend additional money to start new accounts with fake names, and pay for character transfers at $25 a pop.
My other concern is the use of fake names. I could make up any name, a name of somebody I don’t like, and even if I don’t post hostile trolling comments, those comments will show up in an internet search for that person. It could be an ex boss or my ex husband’s new wife. I could do some serious damage, and even put their life in danger if I were a thoughtless butt head. And let’s face it, Wow is rife with them. Anyway, you didn’t want to rehash all the crazy scenarios, and I didn’t mean to, but I am still trying to understand why they have not thought of these very real possibilities that most assuredly will happen. No one is going to post in their forums under their real name, so how is that profitable (well, I guess I did demonstrate that it is =P), and how will it clean up the forums?
@kitkittles – First and foremost, no need to apologize for theorycrafting and hashing out the possibilities. I’m 100% for them being discussed in the comments; the only reason I didn’t talk about them at length in the OP was because the actually-performed stalking example was the main point I wanted to get across.
I hadn’t even considered making a new account with a rival’s name for the sole purpose of character assassination – wow, that’s dark and guaranteed to happen if they continue with this plan. I still don’t understand why they don’t just have single avatar names/handles for RealID posting, which would eliminate alt posting and give accountability to a single name when posting, but also protect the privacy of their client base. Unless, of course, all of this is about Korean Law, in which case it all comes down to money and not troll-clearing after all.
Very interesting — and thanks to Sikketh for the very civilised response to it all.
Another link for the growing list of links in my “zomg RealID shitstorm!” post. ;)
Thank you for the support and the pingback!
Very well demonstrated pal. Hope this shuts up the innocent gullible teens that feels that their name disclosure cannot put’em into some awkward (or worse) situations.
Privacy it isn’t a topic to joke about. It was always there since the dawn of internet and sadly, it’s being lightly overlooked nowadays with a fake facade of security (which the Big Brother nurtures with very little care *glares at the news*).
All lies. Learn your lessons and never ever share or disclose important identity data (that including real names) over online communities if you can’t have them private. Rise your fists against the new policy of Activision and be a proud member of those who deem their privacy more important than giving away measly amounts of cash to a game corporation (yes, actually your subscriptions are nothing, but if everyone falls back, that will butthurt Activision enough to go batshit insane and delete everything – just wait and watch). Let’s see how many of those quitters actually endures the withdrawal after all these years of playing and putting a coffee mug and a car to Activision’s employees (oh wait, actually Activision OWES a lot of money to plenty of parties and employees, shees).
Revolucion!
PS: I gotta quote this blog entry on my blog too. Let’s spread the example for everyone to see (of course, with the proper given credits to the original author of this fantastic blog entry).
You would think that it would, but I’m still running into a few people who think they’re invincible/unfindable. I’ve even traced a few of them and emailed them their own addresses/phone numbers, and that’s just from an email address (without even their name at first). It’s a scary world, and if someone wants to find you, they probably can – I don’t need to give them the one thing that makes it a lot easier – my real name.
As for the move itself, I am seriously leaning towards a cancellation of my since-day-one subscription if this goes live. I guarantee we’re going to see someone get hurt, stalked, raped, and/or harassed by this within the first six months, and I can’t passively support that by funding it; I’m ethically opposed to supporting a company that so blatantly disregards the safety, security and well being of their client base. So here’s hoping they realize the error of their ways.
What amazes me is that those that say they support this thing. They, one and all, claim that it’ll ‘force accountability’ and make posters ‘stand by their words’. The baffling thing is that they immediately turn around and claim that a person’s real name isn’t something you can use to find them in the real world.
Which leads me to a massive ‘Huh?’
How can you have accountability when the real name would be useless? If there is a level of accountability beyond what would be available with an alias/handle name, it can only be one that has effects in the real world, right? But if knowing someone’s real name is useless, then there CAN’T be real world consequences.
So, which is it? Knowing a person’s real name will have a bigger impact due to real world consequences, or know that name is useless, thus making the whole idea that this about trolling a flat out lie? I’m really curious what supporters of this think of that.
I find the whole idea frightning, not so much for myself, but for the female players I know and play with.
Their logic that trolls are afraid of their real identities being revealed is flawed. Hell, I got banned for a week for outing one that threatened to hack the realm Ventrillo server.
# http://i.imgur.com/kjvMg.jpg
# http://i.imgur.com/JC4dk.jpg
# http://i.imgur.com/I0iD8.jpg
# http://i.imgur.com/gKj8p.jpg
# http://i.imgur.com/oKENH.jpg
Seriously. The kid is such a bad troll that he didn’t recognize when he’d been beaten – all from even just his WoW user name and IP address. Adding the real life information available? That would have saved me maybe 5 minutes of work.
I Google my own name every once in a while just to see what is out there. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to figure out the top ten results are the same person. Not many sci-fi/fantasy con going gamers with my name. I’ve been featured in local and AP news articles, so I’m not totally anonymous, but I also don’t need some fellow WoW player that has an agenda knowing my real name.
Not that I’m a forum troll or well-known in game. It’s just the point that some idiot in a random battleground gets upset because my puny level 80 killed him before he got the flag, he (or she) can then search the forums for my real name, and as you so wonderfully showed us, find the real me.
I have a husband and a child, so it’s not just my safety that concerns me. as a woman, I’ve spent my life watching the shadows, carrying pepper spray, learning defense moves, and keeping my identity fairly low-key. I have a family, and if Blizzard thinks putting my family in danger is no big deal, they have another thought coming. I don’t do the Real-ID thing at all, and I do not want to be forced into it.
I’d also like to point out that I’ve been gaming for fourteen years. I started back in 1996 in a text-based game, and have played almost every graphic game released at least for the first 30 days. I have never, ever been hacked. My husband even played some of the same games as I and we didn’t even know each other’s log-in or password. I was hacked last Sunday in WoW at 10am. I believe it’s because Blizzard forces us to use their idea of a log-in name, and not one we can make up. Either someone without a life figured it out somehow, had been watching me on the server and waited for me to join a big guild (which I had just done), or there’s a security issue at Blizzard.
Point is that my characters were robbed of their in-game gold and items, what will stop the psycho I killed in Wintergrasp from hurting the real me if my real name is put out there? Will I come home one day and find my dachshund in a pot cooking on the stove? I’m truly horrified by this.
I’m trying to start a little backlash campaign against this stupidity. Change the forum avatar on every forum you post about wow to someone wearing a paper sack over their head as protest.
I really have to thank you a lot. Fu**in* huge lot.
I totally agree with you and what you did may be a little thing for you but it may even be some huge step.
I’m a German WoW Player and sadly we can’t post in the US Boards. We’d really like to but we can’t. As for now we have some threads going on in our boards with lots of complaints. The largest one has 373 pages so far which isn’t that much but still a lot. And it keeps on growing.
I just wanted to thank you for what you did. I do hope you pulled a lot of people out of their sleep and their dream worlds.
Thanks again. :)
And sorry if my English isn’t that good. I’m not a native. ^^
Thank you for your support, and don’t worry, your English is fantastic!
We are not all named Smith or Jones. If you go to howmanyofme.com you can find out exactly how (un)common your name is. That site uses a combination of Census records, Phone listings, commercial lists, and other public records.
According to that site. There are only 115 people in the U.S. with my last name. Of those 115 people there are only 2 with my First name, Myself and my son. Now when I Google the name it does show 2 ancestors from over 200 years ago and a distance cousin who died during World War II. But it only shows 2 of us living today, me and my son.
Finding me would be very easy.
While this may get rid of some forum trolls it will not get rid of the hard core ones. The hard core forum trolls already have opened multiple accounts: So that they can to keep posting after receiving forum bans, under their other account. All what they will do now is to open them under false names.
This action will end up back firing in Blizzard face, in more ways then one. Players who don’t want the whole world knowing their name, will no longer use the CSF and Tech Support forums. That will only leave them the option of Call or Emailing, billing and/or tech support. This will just add to the queues of both, and over work staff even more.
The other thing will happen the will lose a lot of the people who enjoy helping other players with their in game problems, in both of those forums. Some greens have been very un happy about this change. Blizzard will be losing a very valuable free resource in these people. It was these players that alerted both, the player base and Blizzard staff, about the recent flash exploit, and gave the fix for it. How many more days and hacked accounts would have happened if it weren’t for them.
To those who think I am being Paranoid:
I was a Social Worker almost 20 years. Early on I worked an impatient mental heath facility. We had a patient that suffered from Paranoia. He was always scared of a certain family member, saying that he was trying to kill him. We payed him no mind because after all he was Paranoid. One time during a holiday home visit he “fell’ down the stairs and died. It turned out That the family member he was so scared of, killed him for the trust fund money set aside for his care.
So ever since then if someone accuses me of being Paranoid When I may being overly cautious, I tell them…
“Just because I am Paranoid, doesn’t mean that people are not out to get me.”
Fascinating little website, that. Turns out I’m the only one of me on record.
That should keep things interesting.
Is it worth noting that I have absolutely no intention of posting on the Blizzard forums?
I agree, but also disagree with what you’ve said on your blog.
The Blizzard real name scenario really has bugger all to do with this.
Your post is more based on the fact that our personal information is spread all over the internet, mostly posted by ourselves for that matter.
If I wanted to know someone on Facebook, I don’t even need an account to get their name, and can flick through peoples friends lists without an account as well. What I don’t find on Facebook or Twitter, as people have said above, you can find from Census and other forms of legal information.
Blizzard making people use their real names is NO different than Facebook is. The only thing is does it give ‘gamers’ access to another ‘gamers’ real name & personal information if they really wanted it.
BUT, what I’m trying to get at is this is already the case, before Blizzard have even implemented their real name setup. If “MV” had of given you his name, you could probably find it whether he was a gamer or not.
That’s the joy & downside of the internet period I guess.
I don’t have Facebook or any other Social Network account nor do I want one. If this was something that was in place from the begriming I would never have started playing WoW in the first place. I feel like Blizzard has betrayed my trust in them.
I disagree about the facebook comparison. Reason is – I have, on this page’s sidebar, a link to my facebook profile. You can’t get any info from it if I don’t accept you, though. Oddly, facebook is now giving me MORE rights than the new battle.net 2.0 will. The “gamers” does make things a little different. For the most part, I’m not afraid of someone deciding, for no apparent reason, that my facebook page that they can’t see is offensive to them. I have, however, been personally threatened many, many times on some gaming forum or other, simply for playing a game (ganking, winning a duel, etc.) or disagreeing with someone on a forum. I think that makes it a vastly different animal.
I agree with what you said about not needing facebook to find someone; as I mention above, I found Sikketh’s home address before I found his facebook, and found it from a site that he had nothing to do with. Having a first name, however, makes it a LOT easier, and it is an unnecessary change if Blizzard’s goal is, indeed, to just create accountability on the forums. Accountability is having all of your posts originate from one name; making that name be your REAL name changes it from in-game accountability to the potential of real-life accountability, and changes the possible repercussions from a controlled region (such as forums) to the real world. That is a terrible choice for a company to overlook, and the lack of company/client ethics is appalling to me.
It depends on how you look at the situation. An example would be, you called someone a dickhead in game. Most people go “Oh, it’s only a game”. Well, it’s not, you’re communicating with someone in real life, through a game, and people don’t like to be called a dickhead.
So all I’m seeing from most of the conversations on the internet at the moment are people saying that in a game they should be free from their real life and not take any responsibility. That’s so incorrect it’s not funny, but that’s what we’ve all become accustomed to and we don’t like things to change.
Remember that Blizzard is giving people the ability to “NOT” link their in-game name with their real name, so in theory, this is no different than Facebook as I said above. It’s just a name.
(On this note, I grabbed a guy who I played games with full name. I used google, just google, to find out where he worked, his phone numbers, position, etc. Having his gaming ID made this no easier at all, because he doesn’t relate the two together at all)
So, I don’t see a problem with the real name part, but I do see how there can be problems if people are required to put in-game name & real name together… and that’s only because the word is full of nut-cases.
@thalantyrdsl, I very much disagree that Blizzard making real names public is no different than Facebook doing it. When you sign up at Facebook the expectation is that you will be providing your real name. The site’s primary concept revolves around searching on and identifying people based on their first and last names.
When you sign up to play an mmo, the expectation is that you will be using a handle for you forum ID and additional handles for your character names. There is never an expectation that you will be using your real name in your interactions with other players. Yet that is what Blizzard is going to force.
Yes you can choose to not participate in the forums to protect you privacy, but seeing as how gaming forums have long been the primary method of getting information about various mmos it seems counter-productive (and counter-intuitive) to discourage people from participating.
They could have prevented this mess by just perma forum-banning the people causing the problems.
This is all fine and good if we had a say in it. Not everyone joins Facebook, but anyone that wants to post on the WoW forums for any reason has to show their real name. There is no other option, it seems.
Very true that *if* I had a name I could Google it to my heart’s content. I don’t know your name unless it’s “thalantyrdsl”, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to click on your user name and see your profile (and that’s if you even bothered to put your real name). Post on the WoW forums once this is implemented, and I’ll be able to see if I can find you whether you’re a troll or asking why the game is crashing every two seconds and it’s not Tuesday.
Facebook is a choice to join, but unless I quit playing WoW and never, ever need tech support, I don’t have a choice.
:P Make that “more than *70* years”. I promise I was much more … careful … taking census information XD.
Props to Sikketh for being so cool about the whole thing, and you for proving what a fiasco this whole thing is going to be. I blogged about the situation from a female gamer’s point of view, (http://www.spiderfarmer.com/2010/07/07/blizzards-burqa/) and linked here as an example.
thalantyrdsl makes a good point about data saturation. I hope that massive over-reaching by corporations like activision/blizzard will make people realize how dangerous it is to just give all your data to any for-profit entity and trust them to “do the right thing”.
Oh, and I wanted to add that I already hated WoW armory because I find it really rather icky that some random person can “watch” my toon and figure out what I’ve been doing, what achievements I’ve completed, what loot I’ve gotten and worn, and without my permission strangely, this is how we figured out I’d been hacked…husband looked me up on the armory and saw half my armor gone. Naked toon!). It feels creepy, so imagine how I feel about the real name thing.
I work for the census 20 years ago as a part time job. There was a problem with the “City Directory Co.” who published nation wide reverse directories, making people think the canvassers were US Census workers. “They called them “City Directory Census” takers.
My apologies then; I entirely blame sites like whitepages.com and such. =)
This is embarrassing. I promise I’m computer literate. Feel free to delete the duplicate.
I’ve actually taken similar challenges, never fails to spook the challenge giver. Let’s just hope Blizzard gets their head straight on this.
Where I live, this shitstorm actually made the radio news, on one of our big stations.
This post speaks the truth, and I really hope that Blizzard realizes how horrible this decision will be.
So…
Does your service cater for international clients, and what is your pricing schedule for “Finding how easy it is to find me”?
:-)
If you feel the RealID on the forums is a step too far into your privacy, Please sign the petition! I know it might not help, but it also might.
Use your Character name – realm!
Thanks all!
http://www.gopetition.com/online/37593.html
Real ID is good things, trolls trolling around forums will be easy to find and will think twice before trolling around with their real id, FFS it might bring some humanity to forums damn it!
Did you even read the post?
Trolls will be easier to find but so will children, women, and anyone else a disturbed gamer chooses to stalk. If one’s idea of fixing forum trolls involves going after them in RL then yeah I guess one would love what Blizzard is doing.
Obvious troll is obvious?
Anyway, from my point of view, NO. Just NO.
I’m not going to quit WoW altogether because of this, but if Blizzard is going to take it even further then I’ll be forced to unfortunately. For now, I will refuse to post on the forums at least.
Heck, I have a WoW related blog and I even keep that a secret from most of my friends.
By the way I loved the article. Clear, concise, and thorough. Well done.
Thank you. =)
This Strangely:
hahahaha
once a few years ago, someone on my server actually e-stalked (and then irl stalked) a friend of mine. He bought her gifts, showed up at her house randomly (he lived several states away), and was really creepy. Eventually he caught wind that a few guildies had come to visit her – nothing unusual; she had many internet friends that she hung out with and visited on a regular basis. He made a level 1 alt and posted all kinds of smack on the pubbies, calling her a whore.
Fun fact, though, was that she had his login info, so she checked his account and sure enough, it was him. He was outed on the same thread, I made this ytmnd to make fun of him, and the next few dozen pages of the thread were just making fun of him. He eventually server transferred.
Sorry this is the one I ment to post, but the other one isn’t bad ether
Yeah, I saw that one making the reddit rounds earlier – totally awesome.
I’m fortunate in that I share my RL name with a female scientist and a little-known musician, so both of them fill up Google pages more than I do, even though I have been on the web for years. My facebook account is locked up but I’m still thinking of deleting it.
A friend of mine has an almost unique name — google her name and all the pages are only about her. (I say “almost” because I suppose it is conceivable that there are one or two others with her name, but not so’s you’d know on the Internet).\
Unfortunately I think that with the Facebook deal they made with Starcraft II in May, this is a done deal and isn’t going to change.
@zeralenn I’ve got a very common name, and it’s even shared by some famous people in the past, a simple google search with just my name brings up absolutely no relevant results pointing precisely to me.
RealID is going to have your real name with your character name, and guess what happens when you search with those together? You find my twitter account, escapist profile that links to my facebook and other accounts.
iscari0t didn’t even need to access any of my social networks to find me, he only went that far to let me know that he found me.
I am a regular poster in the Customer Service forum, and like helping people with their in game problems. At least once a week a female play will come and post in a panic about an in-game Harasser/stalker. They are at their wits end and don’t know what to do. Most of them have opened several in-game tickets, with no apparent effect, and turn to the CSF out of desperation. Sometime the Gms answer, but not always. A lot of the times this happens on weekend nights when there are no GMs on duty. The answer they do get from the GMs is limited due to Blizzard’s internal policies.
Most of the real help in being told what to do in cases of Harassment, comes from players such as myself. We are not limited on the advice we give as the GM are. For one thing we are able to advise them on what addons to use, that might help them, such as the “Give Me Peace” Add-on, on WoWinterface.com. We are also able to provide helpful link, such as Kim Komando’s “Tips of the day, ‘Cyberbullies are after your kids’,” April, 27, 2010. (http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=8670&page=1), which give good tips on how to deal with cyberbullying/harassment. Gms are not allowed suggest addons, or give links such as those.
Now what are those female players going to do, when they have to show their real names, to ask for help about a Harasser? Who are they going to get good complete advice from, when helpful players such as myself stop posting, due to real ID?
The only players helping players that will be lift are the ones that troll that forum, under the guise of helping other players. They appear to be the only ones happy about the real ID changes in that forum.
reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NgAkWxcPBE
As I play WoW only on private servers, Im not bothered at all with this change directly. Despite that, I have to disagree about that change. It is only the top of the iceberg of a series of mad decisions made in an Blizzard. It seems to me that the decision making ppl at Blizzard are running in their doom, which is obvious to everybody surrounding them, apart from themselves.
I was brought up (Im 18 years old) of NOT sharing ANY iRL infos about me on the Internets, and I always think Ive broken that rule several times (I made a good friend via the Internets, and already met him several times, and hes the only one [exept the ppl I already know iRL without the Internets] who knows my full name, and apart from that, maybe 5 other ppl know my given name).
It just makes me SICK when I have to post ANYTHING publcly with my full iRL name. Even many close friends I made in the Internets (as stated above) dont know my iRL name, and Im not at facebook, at least not under my iRL name.
I also fully understand ANY of the reservations shown by the previous posters, as I was (see above, lol) brought up by that way, that its dangerous to share iRL information with strangers.
Ah, and I want to thank you, both of you (sikketh, and the one who phoned with him, the owner of this blog, youknow, lol [clearly need some more nickname find-and-idenditify-skillz]) for showing us how EASY it was/is to find anyones iRL phone, adress et cetera just by the name.
And, sorry for all strange grammar constructions.
Greetings from Germany,
sofar,
forthelichking.
Nice job with the post. I cant believe a company like Blizzard is this stupid.
I’m not trying to rain on the parade here, but what you did isn’t exactly something that’s unique to RealID. Millions of people use their real name online, or have their name known already. Bloggers, celebs, anybody of any significance. For example, your name is Peter G. Nelson Jr., and I’m going to guess you’ve had your real name known on here for quite awhile.
You’re just illustrating a possibility that’s been around since the net’s become popular, but that’s not stopping people from trying to hide their names online if they want to be known. They aren’t also suffering from mass lapses of safety or harassment (have you been harasses in real life?). You could, in reality, just find a random name on Facebook or Yellowpages.com, research them, and probably do exactly what you just did to that person. There’s always some danger in being known, but that’s not stopping you from putting your name or any of us from going out our front door in real life.
The loophole Blizzard is using to allow RealID to prosper on the forums is that it’s *optional*. Just like you, Peter G. Nelson Jr., chose to make your name available, so to is what Blizzard wants of its forum posters. They’re basically setting it up so that you wave away privacy rights about your name if you chose to post.
So using the angle of consequence isn’t the right way to take RealID down. We have to argue that the forum, and the community, are part of the entire WoW game experience. If people can’t post out of fear for themselves, then it’s not really a community that they’re developing.
First and foremost, thank you for your comment.
The reason I did what I did was to prove a point to first Sikketh and second to those who, like him, believed that you could not find a person from their name alone. You are correct; I’ve been using my real name online for years, and as you can probably guess from my Social Networking sidebar, I’m none too secretive about who I am or what I do. One could even say that I’ve personally gone out of my way to ensure connectivity throughout my various online activities, and made it especially easy to find me. I agree, I have.
Have I been harassed in real life? You bet. Nothing too serious, I’m glad to say, but has it happened? Certainly. I’m also fortunate (and I feel awful for using that word here) for having been born a white male, which means that I *haven’t* had to put up with constant harassment, sexual and otherwise, from day 1 of online gaming until the present day and beyond.
The reason I mention the angle of consequence is because it directly ties into ActiBlizzard’s official statement as reason for putting this change through – reduction of trolling. From Nathaera, Blue Poster (in this thread:
“Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations…”
Gary’s Gripes has a fantastic wording of this (if you can get past the title of the entry, which I highly recommend doing), which I will quote:
“There’s only one question that needs to be asked here, and so far very few have asked it, and literally nobody has responded. That question is:
“How?”
Think about that question. One simple word, you’d think someone would have answered it by now! Such a simple question. How will removing anonymity contribute to a positive environment?
No matter how you dance around the issue, there is only one answer: fear.
Fear will keep the forum posters in line: fear of real-life retaliation from their fellow gamers. Why spend time and effort moderating a forum when the troglodytes already there will use other customers’ personal information to do it for you, off of the forums and out in the real world where you can shirk all responsibility?
Blizzard has decided that forum moderation is now in the hands of its players, and those players have now been empowered with all the information they need to be the real world, unbalanced vigilante lynch mobs they’ve always wanted to be. And if history has taught us one thing, it’s that lynch mobs are always right, and never make mistakes.”
I mention the consequence because I do, in fact, believe that ActiBlizzard is attempting to suggest that trolls will post less because of fear of real life names being exposed, while at the same time saying that there is no danger of having your real life name exposed. I see these two statements as mutually exclusive.
Now, one thing you mention is that it is optional. Certainly, forum posting is optional, and I know that a lot of people who are unhappy with the change will keep playing and simply cease to utilize the forums at all. They are entirely welcome to do that, and I don’t fault them for it. For me, though? As you’ve already pointed out, I have no problems with the world knowing who I am and what I do. I do, however, have a problem with a company issuing a change in their ToS that is, essentially, a Hobson’s Choice, in which doing nothing effectively silences them, and in doing another puts them at unnecessary risk. I won’t pay for that.
Ymmv.
Again, anything about *risk* is moot in the face of it being optional. Facebook is such a huge phenomenon, despite all the risks that can be attached to it. It’s growing despite of what can happen if you put your real name on there. Can you be harassed? Sure. Is it stopping millions of people using Facebook? Obviously not.
As far as diminishing trolling, obviously it will to some degree. There are people out there who will post less out of accountability or those multiple alt/Level 1 posters who use the veil to their advantage.
Will it COMPLETELY eliminate trolling? Of course not. There’s people out there who don’t care whether they’re known or not. I agree with you though that the ‘elimination of trolls’ is more or a less a farce of a reason, but to *some* degree it will. They obviously can probably do the same thing by just tying everyone to a single alias, like a normal forum, to eliminate alt-posting.
Remember, some sleazeball at Activision (I’m guessing them anyways) had all this figured out beforehand and knew the loopholes to go through and what not. The face of it being ‘optional’ is their entire base of operations so to speak. It stinks :(
Oh, I see how it’s legal – the “optional” thing, after all – but I still see it as a Hobson’s Choice – a choice that only offers one tangible option. It’s essentially “our way or the highway”, and while I recognize that “our way or the highway” is essentially what every EULA and ToS agreement is, this change in theirs is enough to make me not agree to click it.
I agree entirely where you say that the same thing could be achieved by eliminating alt-posting by tying all forum posts to a single username (hell, they could even allow the *option* of displaying your RealID next to it! it’d be the reverse of what they’re planning now!), and honestly, if they did that, I’d not only resub in a heartbeat, I’d sleep well doing so.
I don’t want to leave – I’m just not willing to agree to the system as they’re planning on implementing it.
I totally with you there. Legally it’s “ok”, but social/community- wise it’s essentially doing Hamstring on us :)
I mean, if they really want to create a better social network, why not just utilize the existing WoW Facebook page more (where we can already see everyone else’s name who ‘Likes’ Warcraft) and make it thrive? Or like you suggested, make it optional if people want to use their RealID
Is it just Activision screwing us all over so they can make some more cash? I want to blame them and not Blizzard, but I don’t know the reality behind it all :(
WE WON!!!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1
Nethaera
Blizzard Poster 0. Regarding real names in forums 07/09/2010 09:47:41 AM PDT
Hello everyone,
I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard’s success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
That we did – check my latest post. =)
Maybe I’m just not very good at this sort of thing, and while I think this is an egregious error and a terrible breach of privacy, but say you know my name and what game I play and what I’m called. How can you know that the person you find that has the name I have is actually me? Even if there are only two people with my name, how can you find the one person behind the account whose name you know, and know you have the right person? What am I missing?
I would posit that someone actually willing to harass someone in real life because of a video game probably isn’t going to care (case in point, the harassment that the Micah Whipple that ISN’T connected to Blizzard received before they found the correct one) if you’re the right one or not. Another often-repeated answer I’ve seen is remember how The Terminator went about trying to kill Sarah Conner? He just killed every Sarah Conner in the phone book. ;)
More realistically, though, I mean, the whole point of my experiment was to demonstrate that it’s really easy, rather than to write a how-to-stalk-someone guide. I mean, I could ask – do you like Guild Wars? Do you play wow on Shadow Council? The ultimate point I think is that while it is certainly possible to not be found, the average person is quite easily found. On top of that, the average person has a much larger and readily available web presence than they think.
Beyond that, though? In my experience, people who want to mess with strangers don’t often care very much if they get the right guy or not, sad to say. Even more reason to not give them the ammunition, I’d say.
I will admit I registered a WordPress account just to answer this statement here.
You can actually make one up. You don’t have to use the same old email address as your battle.net login forever. Just by changing the email address registered to your battle.net account.
This changes the login name for your world of warcraft account. This wasn’t possible with the old login system.
You log on your battle.net (either us.battle.net or eu.battle.net) and It’s the first blue link under “My Profile”.
It’s really easy and can be done in minutes. The hard part is choosing a new email address and registering it. As for checking the email on there – most email hosts support POP3 mail checking. IE You set up the extra email addresses under your main email. When you check your main email you check the extra email accounts as well at the same time.
You can change possibly it as often as you like only do it from the same computer and IP address to avoid raising red flags at Blizzard about it.
My apologies if I have read your words wrongly – it’s just this is a feature of battle.net that doesn’t get promoted often enough.