Though I emphatically agree with most of what you said, I just have to say...

"A password should not be all that stands between me and getting hacked. "

That's what authenticators are for.

@Gamer am I:

1.) Authenticators are currently not required to play the game. Blizzard should not count on them being used.

2.) I will never use Authenticators, barring their requirement, until I'm allowed to associate at least two with my account. I want to be able to attach one to my desk and the other to my keys. I don't trust that shit not to get lost or broken at the worst possible time.

@ Sleutal - As to your refusal to use an Authenticator because you loose stuff, that is not a valid reason by any stretch of the imagination. Get one, keep it safe, know where you keep it. You loose it, that is in no way the fault of Blizzard, which you are trying to imply.

Second, if you are not using an authenticator at this point in time you are on borrowed time. There are just too many 0-day exploits that can pop up that no virus/malware/trojan scanner in the world is going to be able to find on the day they come out.

As to the paranoia about being able to see the Friends of Friends, it is ONLY those that are your RealID friends and NOT your regular friends list.

It also boils down to, you are NOT FORCED TO USE REALID. It is an option. It is meant to be used with people you know and trust, not to that person you pugged at the last minute just to get a full raid.

I do agree that using your battlenet ID for RealID does seem like a security risk, but a) You don't have to use it and b) it is not giving out your password with RealID, and honestly c) you should have an authenticator by this point, there really is no reason not to.

@ Koskun

Sorry, but you are missing the point of what people are saying. You say it's paranoia about Friends of Friends, and yes, everyone knows it's just the Real ID aspect of it. But if a friend has someone on their friends list that isn't on mine, why would I want them to see my name? Read my post below of an incident that has already happened because a girl already had a friend of a friend look up her personal information and post it in trade chat and has been getting harrassing calls.

There is no good reason for the Friends of Friends feature. Blizz's own statement for Real ID is it's for people we trust, yet they make it that people we have no control over sees our names.

Yes, the system is optional. But as it stands very few are going to use it as is. Also, the simple changes we are asking for would in no way end your enjoyment of it unless for some reason you have some need to see the names of people on your friends friends list that you don't know personally, and that would just go to the point I'm making if you did enjoy that. So why won't Blizz just do the 2 little tweaks and make it so a lot more people will enjoy the feature as well?

@Koskun:

I look forward to the day when your Authenticator breaks and you're locked out of the game. I look forward to that day with glee.

You clearly haven't been reading anything people are saying. We KNOW that it only shows our names to RealID friends of RealID friends. That doesn't help. I have NO CONTROL over who my friends add. I can't guarantee that out of all my friends' friends, one of them won't be a jackass. Also, that doesn't address the biggest problem: the people that you'd currently be "safe" to add to your RealID friends... are the ones you LEAST NEED this new functionality for.

The problem also remains of handing out your Blizzard account email to people in order to add them--or the other way around. That is terrible, TERRIBLE account security. It doesn't matter if that information is saved anywhere after it's used; the information has been distributed.

@ Sleutel - So, when you go out in the world and introduce yourself to someone you believe they will never mention you to anyone else ever? When you go for a job interview you believe the person that interviewed you will never talk about you with someone else?

Why is it that someone knowing your real name in a virtual world is so much worse than someone in the real world?

@Koskun:

I'm a woman who plays WoW, the fact that I'm female is obvious from my first name, and I have a fairly unusual combination of given name and surname. I would be VERY easy to find me with only that information.

If you don't care about people knowing your personal information, I'm sure you'll happily post YOUR full name, address, and phone number here. If you don't have the balls to do that, I hope you'll have the good grace to admit that having personal information released to complete strangers is not an ideal situation.

If you think that meeting people in person in the real world is remotely comparable to handing out your personal identity to unfiltered friends-of-friends online, you are incredibly naive.

@ Koskun

"So, when you go out in the world and introduce yourself to someone you believe they will never mention you to anyone else ever? When you go for a job interview you believe the person that interviewed you will never talk about you with someone else?

Why is it that someone knowing your real name in a virtual world is so much worse than someone in the real world?"

Because if someone who interviews you were to do this, that would be an automatic lawsuit if it was discovered. There are legal and ethical ramifications to it.

If you don't know the difference between what goes on on the internet, the "virtual world" and the real world, well, you must be new to the internet. You also must of ignored my post further down about a girl who already has had her address and phone number posted in trade chat on her server because someone who was on her friends friends list, not on hers, saw her real name and did a search on it and got the information. That one incident at the very least should prompt Blizzard to scrap friends of friends. There is nothing that is useful for. Why are people opposed to something that would allow more people to enjoy this service and not ruin the enjoyment that those who don't care about privacy currently have.

"A password should not be all that stands between me and getting hacked"


Except you know.. for your e-mail account. Since that's all that is between EVERYONE and the access to your e-mail account. Which is access to a whole mess of things. Think before speaking in the future please

@SINisterWyvern:

With some things--like email accounts--it's unavoidable. For everything else, it can and should be avoided. The more pieces of information and items required to access your account you have control over, the more secure it is.

Let's say your front door has two locks: one in the knob and a deadbolt. Would you leave the key for the knob hanging next to the door just 'cause there's still the deadbolt to worry about?

Your nonchalance about account security makes me either suspect that you've never had access to anything particularly worthwhile or cringe on behalf of whoever else has an interest in whatever confidential information you've potentially made easier to get access to.