Debunking another hacked authenticator story

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-09-2010 @ 3:39AM

crunk said...

I'll put my story up here since it relates to it.

Last week, I got the bright idea of doing a full factory restore on my ipod touch. Not realizing later, that it would totally screw up my battlenet account, because it resets the authenticator app. I wasn't aware that doing that, would lock me out of my account.

It suddenly occurred to me, that I Would have a big problem getting this issue resolved. The account I've been playing WoW with, wasn't originally mine. It belonged to my brother. I took over the account when he went moved to Japan 2 and half years ago.
He decided to it give up, because he wouldn't have the time to dedicate to it anymore.

Fast forward, ipod touch fully restored, not being able to log into account, blah blah blah.
I called up Blizzard to see what could be done. The rep on the phone told me that I'd need the original Box CD key, or I would have to email in a photo id, and TOU Form.

Well there was a problem with that. My brother doesn't have the box cd key anymore. He threw that all out when he moved. On top of that, he refused to help me with the form info, including his photo id.

So now I have an account that I can't log into thanks to the Authenticator, which Blizzard WILL NOT remove at all, unless I come up with a cd key, or my brothers personal information.
Now granted, this is mostly my fault, for sticking with the account. I should have just said no, and stuck with my original (which thankfully I still have, just don't have Wrath on it at the moment).

They won't accept my personal information. Well they're fine with billing my credit card of course. But I guess it doesn't matter who's been paying the $14.95 a month for past 3 years.
*shrugs*

I'll tell you what though, I won't be using their Authenticator app anymore. I never had an issue with getting hacked. I avoid Gold sellers. I never bought gold in my life. Never had intentions of doing so. And I don't visit many WoW Related website, besides Wowhead and wow.com of course.

So that's my story. I'm still trying to deal with Blizzard regarding the account. but they're not budging an inch. And what really sucks ass, is the account also has my Starcraft, and Diablo II games registered to it. I really screwed myself.

2-09-2010 @ 7:02AM

Tzivya said...

See, the thing is, this is what we call 'working by design'. Yes, it sucks that you are in that position, but at the same time... If it worked otherwise, it would be ineffective.

I, myself, have had an authenticator since they were offered. I was a network engineer for many years (as long as there has been an Internet, really), and have a lot of experience with token-based authentication. It is /very/ secure. Not perfect, nothing is, but breaking it is nontrivial to a point that it would never be worth it for WoW accounts.

I also don't have my vanilla case anymore. I bought it in the US, and moved to Australia with it. But, the account has always been in my name, so I think I would be able to recover it.

The other thing is that, technically, you didn't aquire your account legitimately. I won't argue that inheriting it from a family member/friend is right or wrong, but it /is/ expressly against the TOS. So Blizzard has no reason or motivation to change this policy, because it's working. The same way that keeps you from 'recovering' an account that isn't in your name means that a gold farmer can't 'recover' my account.

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