Knights of the network
by Amanda Rivera 
May 29th 2007 at 4:06PM
We talk so much about warfare these days, and rightly so. After all, this is World of Warcraft. In thinking of the battles we wage in game, the fight against the Burning Legion, the ongoing battle against the Scourge, I would like to take a moment and recognize those who are fighting on the front lines for the WoW players everywhere, regardless of locale: the network security team at Blizzard.
These are the people that have been tirelessly working to keep that spam off our screens, the keyloggers out of our accounts, who protect us day in and day out as we quest in Azeroth and Outland. Being that WoW is such a popular game, its players are constantly under attack from predators that would make the game unplayable, and possibly harm our computers and bank accounts.
When we do have problems, this is the task force that deploys so that your account will be retrieved and life can return to normal. I'm not saying we don't have problems; this is a war after all. I have known of several people who have had issues with account piracy, and each got their characters back within a week.
As we wage our own wars in game, we ought to pause and thank those that keep the battles raging outside the game on our behalf. So I pay tribute to those that work around the clock so that I don't have to worry about my account being hacked, so that I can play secure in the knowledge that my character will remain my own. /salute.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rainwizard May 29th 2007 4:28PM
Hear! Hear!
All hail the formidable security team!
Coherent May 29th 2007 4:48PM
It's a thankless job, because you're not known for your successes, only your failures.
But still, it took a looooong time for them to fix the goldspam problem. Aggravating, yes.
Asynchronous May 29th 2007 4:53PM
/salute
Big Dan May 29th 2007 5:41PM
ZugZug!
I salute you fine NetSec Team!
Let me know if there are any quests I can do to raise Rep with you.
/bow
Byron May 29th 2007 5:58PM
I hate to be a stick in the mud, but when 3rd party developers who make Spam Sentry, Spam Assassin, and other such mods can do a better job in a quarter of the time than Bliz's security team, it causes me to question just how much we should be lauding them.
Even with the new anti-spam stuff in patch 2.1, the goldspammers changed tactics immediately and started sending out random party invites from lvl 1 toons, and if you decline they spam it several more times. Spam Sentry blocks these, why doesn't Blizzard's anti-spam stuff? It seems the main thing Bliz did in patch 2.1 was make it easy to report spammers by right-clicking their name in chat. I wish they'd just hired the Spam Sentry/Assassin development teams and let them handle the anti-spam development strategy.
haust May 29th 2007 7:34PM
/salute
/clap
/thank
bwest0526 May 30th 2007 3:47AM
I agree with both #2 and #5, Yes it is a thankless job, and are only told when they screw things up not thanked when they get something fixed in a timely manner, and why can't they build something into the patches like the spam sentry or something like that? Not that spamming is the only thing they have to do, I realize they are security not programmers and are meant to keep people from hacking your account info and the sort, but part of that security is the spamming.
Good job to the Sec peeps and keep up the good work, just please for the love of pizza stop the spammers!
daniel May 30th 2007 4:10AM
sure, there's *a lot* going on behind the scenes that us users don't care about that deserves to be praised, but dealing with bots doesn't seem to be one of them. everyone can spot those wowglide hunters from miles away by now but they can keep up their botting for weeks, skewing the game economy and making it harder for actual players to farm. when i finally felt like farming air elementals in shadowmoon last night i had to compete with 3-4 bots for the mobs which completely killed my motivation.
Lunada May 30th 2007 9:45AM
I say hugs to ALL of Blizz ^-^
duanpablo May 30th 2007 1:09PM
Id like to thank them also for a little spam here and there to me isn't even a problem, and the downtime for something so massive is very little. But i wanted to say something off topic, why is it when people give thanks they use /clap and all that. Its not funny or clever anymore and to me it sound even more childish then calling something "gay". If you want to thank the network security team say thank you for keeping my account safe. all this lr2ply noob stuff and the lingo to me is really lame. I think it helps the outside world less understand why people like to play online games. I can understand using /clap in the game, it servers a purpose. I understand using things in game like wtb and such cause it saves time. I read this site alot, and i just have to skip over the nonsense of /bow and a whole post that says /this /that bla bla bla insert crapy game acronym.....maybe someone out there agrees..maybe people just like to say lewt and ghey and QQ crap.