Some people have less common names than you do mutilate. Like Micah Whipple. Mine's fairly unique, but you'll probably think I'm a physics professor in Nevada.
Yeah.
Facebook claims there are over 500 Chris Morrisons.
There's only eight of me (which you could find anyway because it's in my sig :rotate: Edit: Although I guess you can't really get much more than my name out of it anyway.).
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
Man, this is going to suck for anyone with a unique name, a female name, an ethnic sounding name, or a name that vaguely resembles that of a celebrity (or heck, actual celebrities since some are known to play the game).
Though I can see why someone with a common male name wouldn't see any problem with it.
Aside from the annoying privacy issues, it's also going to make their forums a nightmare to navigate.
Not only will they be in that annoying threaded style, but the posts will also now also look like this:
John Smith: Fuck rogues!
--Tom Harrison: What's wrong with rogues?
--Bob Roberts: Learn to play!
John Smith: I like rogues!
--John Smith: No, fuck rogues!
--Thomas Harrison: Yeah, fuck rogues!
----Tom Harrison: I still don't see what's wrong with rogues.
Bob Roberts: He's just whining.
John Smith: How do I get to Darnassus?
--Bob Roberts: Shut up, filthy rogue hater.
----John Smith: I don't hate rogues.
John Smith: Fuck rogues!
--Laura Watson: Take the boat from the Stormwind harbor.
----John Smith: Show me your boobs.
Bob Roberts: Fuck John Smith!
--John Smith: What'd I do?
--John Smith: Fuck you, too!
----Thomas Harrison: Yeah, fuck you Bob.
I haven't read the USA Today article, but surely there's an opt in button for connecting RealID/Battle.net with your Facebook?
Do you expect any push back from diehard Blizzard fans from the Facebook features?
We don't anticipate any. We are going to be very clear and upfront with the user. Once they log in and create a Battle.net account for the first time, if they choose to participate in Real ID, it is of course, an optional set of features that you don't have to participate in. Beyond that we are going to notify them upfront their names could be used to populate via Facebook and how their names could be used via this Facebook feature.
oh
botp'd
sooooo are we all butthurt over nothing?
My biggest issue is their wording of it in the ToS, updated in May.
16.2 Facebook. If you have a registered “Facebook Account” you may opt-in to the “Facebook Friends” feature which will allow you to see which of your Facebook friends are registered on the Service. The “Facebook Account” is subject to separate terms and conditions provided by Facebook Inc. Note that if you have a Facebook account, your Facebook friends will be able to associate your screen name with your real name on the Service when they use the Facebook Friends feature. Facebook disclaims all liability it may otherwise incur as a result of this Agreement and/or your use of the Service.
Does this mean:
A) You opt-in to Facebook Friends, and as long as your other friends are also opt-in, then you can see eachother.
2. You opt-in to Facebook Friends, and all friends on your Facebook will be automatically linked to your battle.net profile, without their accept.
Combine this with the ability to see friends of my RealID friend, and it feels like Blizzard is running around the internet social environment with a blindfold on. They're getting clumsy with social networking to a point nearing Nintendo.
The words "opt-in" are always a red flag for me where Blizzard is concerned, since to them, "opt-in" appears to mean "do it, or don't use the product"
Some people have less common names than you do mutilate. Like Micah Whipple. Mine's fairly unique, but you'll probably think I'm a physics professor in Nevada.
Yeah.
Facebook claims there are over 500 Chris Morrisons.
There's only eight of me (which you could find anyway because it's in my sig :rotate: Edit: Although I guess you can't really get much more than my name out of it anyway.).
I can one-up you. In all of the internet I have only been able to find one other person that shares my first and last name (and middle initial is different). And since the only place the other one shows up is name + city on "find people" sites they do not appear to have much of an internet presence. And I have a common first name.
That is the exact reason I refuse to give my last name to customers (I do phone support), because it makes me easily identifiable.
My name is common. Common enough that google doesnt do much. However, putting the military prefix for what i do in front of it brings up instant google hits that put my smiling face out there for all to see. It also narrows down exactly where im stationed at. Pretty easy to go from there.
Getting info on me being military would have been as easy as seeing that i responded to a random Wow thread about some guy getting deployed to the desert. Told him i been there as well, and best of luck.
Simple things. I wager that if mutilate expanded a bit on what "Brown" was as a place of employment to him, it may be easier to find info. Maybe not, but the point stands...
normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad.
take away the anonymity people might not act like total fuckwads, but if they do you better believe it will affect them getting hired by any job that pays over 30k a year.
not to mention gamers aren't seen in the best of light by most of the older crowd, and your name popping up on the wow forums might set off red lights for the hr rep
'Fighting forum trolling' is a smokescreen.
Tying all your WoW/SCII characters into a single account already solves the trolling problem - banned once, you are gone. No level 1 alts. This was all that was needed to bring the forum under control.
The real reason for this is the desire to integrate Blizzard games deeper into the social networking, as they are starting with Starcraft II. If they offer pseudonyms or invisible mode, many people will choose not to participate, and this will undermine a certain person's vision to drag people into this model.
This is only the beginning.
Asuma on
"Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." -- Clint Eastwood ***
Some people have less common names than you do mutilate. Like Micah Whipple. Mine's fairly unique, but you'll probably think I'm a physics professor in Nevada.
Yeah.
Facebook claims there are over 500 Chris Morrisons.
There's only eight of me (which you could find anyway because it's in my sig :rotate: Edit: Although I guess you can't really get much more than my name out of it anyway.).
I can one-up you. In all of the internet I have only been able to find one other person that shares my first and last name (and middle initial is different). And since the only place the other one shows up is name + city on "find people" sites they do not appear to have much of an internet presence. And I have a common first name.
That is the exact reason I refuse to give my last name to customers (I do phone support), because it makes me easily identifiable.
And I can one-up you.
You can google my name and you will find nothing about me. I have a unique name - no one else has it, and I've worked damn hard to make sure it doesn't show up online.
Now, my most commonly-used alias for my name does show up - mainly in reference to forum posts, too. Which is why this Real ID shit terrifies me.
The mere act of googling my name won't make it show up online. It's not there. :P
Caedere on
0
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
I just did a quick Google search of only my name to see what popped up. In the first three pages I got a PhD, an ophthalmologist, a lawyer, and a facebook page belonging to a guy that isn't me. None of these people are me. With only my name, there's very little you could do to me. Now if you got your hands on where I go to school, then you'd have a whole mess of information: my LinkedIn profile, my Google profile, so on and so forth.
I understand the concern. God knows I was pretty pissed over the similar Facebook fiasco a few months ago. But I'm not convinced that Blizzard using my name as a form of identification will ruin things for me. My name is already out there, and it's on me to tighten up that information as much as possible.
I'm just going to wait and see how this develops. At this point, if I said I'd never play another Blizzard game again, I'd be a goddamn liar. I'd need some pretty damning evidence to bring me to that--something a lot more than some dbag forum mod's Facebook profile and home address.
Some people have less common names than you do mutilate. Like Micah Whipple. Mine's fairly unique, but you'll probably think I'm a physics professor in Nevada.
Yeah.
Facebook claims there are over 500 Chris Morrisons.
There's only eight of me (which you could find anyway because it's in my sig :rotate: Edit: Although I guess you can't really get much more than my name out of it anyway.).
I can one-up you. In all of the internet I have only been able to find one other person that shares my first and last name (and middle initial is different). And since the only place the other one shows up is name + city on "find people" sites they do not appear to have much of an internet presence. And I have a common first name.
That is the exact reason I refuse to give my last name to customers (I do phone support), because it makes me easily identifiable.
And I can one-up you.
You can google my name and you will find nothing about me. I have a unique name - no one else has it, and I've worked damn hard to make sure it doesn't show up online.
Now, my most commonly-used alias for my name does show up - mainly in reference to forum posts, too. Which is why this Real ID shit terrifies me.
I have also been working hard to keep myself from showing up online. But I didn't when I was younger and dumber (and mailing lists were more common and archived). Mostly I try to keep my online name - which is also pretty unique - from being linked to my real name. Outside of one (recently corrected) mistake, I've been pretty good at it, too.
So, yes. Those of us with uncommon/unique names (and females, lawyers, judges, celebrities, etc) are going to be avoiding the official forums. That seems like an arbitrary way to limit discussion.
Knowing somebody's name doesn't really do much without a whole lot of other information. It's just stripping away anonymity. No more dangerous than if you get into a newspaper article; a lot of local papers print a list of honor roll students every semester.
Having a real name of somebody posting on a WoW forum gives no real security risk; it's just a preference of personal privacy. And in this case, you can keep your anonymity and privacy by just lurking a forum.
Although, it will be interesting to see if any racism or sexism arises; but the point of moving to real names is giving more accountability and hopefully weeding out trolls and jerks.
Don't forget though, if you're somewhere in the middle of the "Google-fu" name line, where 5 or so people come up, you just put them at risk too. Some people are claiming that the address and phone number of that Blizz employee aren't correct. Well, they're someones address and phone number. Now likely getting destroyed to hell by petty people phoning up to lodge their complaints about realID by farting into the phone, or ordering tons of pizzas.
Just because you're not unique is no guarantee that people sharing your name won't be affected by this.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
It should be terribly obvious realID and facebook are the reasons for no chat rooms at launch. If there were chat rooms, who would need to make friends via facebook?
True. I forgot about that. My whole point was that just knowing my name wont help you find me without additional details. It's all good and I don't want to stir the pot anymore. At the end of the day this change won't effect me and I think over time people will see it won't effect them either. It's the initial shock and awe of it and it will calm down I am sure.
If you have a common name, this is correct. They'd need one, maybe two pieces of additional info.
What about those with less common names or women who might've been stalked in the past or people googling your name for employment reasons (I work at a bank, we check on people now who apply), and your son made a dumbass post under your name on WoW, etc..?
Are they just out of luck?
This doesn't affect me, either. I hardly ever use the forums. The thing that absolutely boggles my mind is how Blizzard would want this.
While I don't want it to happen, I would be just waiting for someone to get beat up or stabbed due to some ingame offense they committed, the guy finding he lives in the same city, and it occurring.
The servers do somewhat geographically organize players..
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Knowing somebody's name doesn't really do much without a whole lot of other information. It's just stripping away anonymity. No more dangerous than if you get into a newspaper article; a lot of local papers print a list of honor roll students every semester.
Having a real name of somebody posting on a WoW forum gives no real security risk; it's just a preference of personal privacy. And in this case, you can keep your anonymity and privacy by just lurking a forum.
Although, it will be interesting to see if any racism or sexism arises; but the point of moving to real names is giving more accountability and hopefully weeding out trolls and jerks.
You can derive a lot more information from a wow forum post about a person than if they're mentioned in a newspaper article.
Like, their personality, what they do in their free time, how they act with other people, etc.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
He clearly has something to hide. Probably a communist, pedophile, or terrorist. Or all three.
Knowing somebody's name doesn't really do much without a whole lot of other information. It's just stripping away anonymity. No more dangerous than if you get into a newspaper article; a lot of local papers print a list of honor roll students every semester.
Having a real name of somebody posting on a WoW forum gives no real security risk; it's just a preference of personal privacy. And in this case, you can keep your anonymity and privacy by just lurking a forum.
Although, it will be interesting to see if any racism or sexism arises; but the point of moving to real names is giving more accountability and hopefully weeding out trolls and jerks.
You can derive a lot more information from a wow forum post about a person than if they're mentioned in a newspaper article.
Like, their personality, what they do in their free time, how they act with other people, etc.
I was put in my newspaper when I was in high school for being on my school's golf team. Just a brief mention, but that gives a hell of a lot more info than me talking about ret pally rotation.
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
It depends, what times did you post? Did you talk about raiding, Arena/PvP, or just soloing? Those two answers determine a lot about how you spend your time in wow. It also determines a lot of how you act at work too.
We had a guy who raided 6 days a week at my previous job. He always came in beat, exhasuted, and performed poorly. A quick google search also proved that he wasn't just a dick to customers, he was a dick all around because of the way he acted in the forums too.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
True. I forgot about that. My whole point was that just knowing my name wont help you find me without additional details. It's all good and I don't want to stir the pot anymore. At the end of the day this change won't effect me and I think over time people will see it won't effect them either. It's the initial shock and awe of it and it will calm down I am sure.
Except this has been disproven how many times now? Look at that Blizzard CM. Look at the time Anonymous tracked down that kid who was torturing his cat, or when they tracked down the lady who taped the Epic Beard Man incident.
All it takes is one asshole with some free time. And there are plenty of those on the internet.
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
This is why I'm so confused by it, they've made a decision that probably pisses off some of their employees and definitely pisses off their customers.
Knowing somebody's name doesn't really do much without a whole lot of other information. It's just stripping away anonymity. No more dangerous than if you get into a newspaper article; a lot of local papers print a list of honor roll students every semester.
Having a real name of somebody posting on a WoW forum gives no real security risk; it's just a preference of personal privacy. And in this case, you can keep your anonymity and privacy by just lurking a forum.
Although, it will be interesting to see if any racism or sexism arises; but the point of moving to real names is giving more accountability and hopefully weeding out trolls and jerks.
Which won't happen.
Practically any facebook group over 10,000 people has its share of trolls and jerks.
True. I forgot about that. My whole point was that just knowing my name wont help you find me without additional details. It's all good and I don't want to stir the pot anymore. At the end of the day this change won't effect me and I think over time people will see it won't effect them either. It's the initial shock and awe of it and it will calm down I am sure.
Except this has been disproven how many times now? Look at that Blizzard CM. Look at the time Anonymous tracked down that kid who was torturing his cat, or when they tracked down the lady who taped the Epic Beard Man incident.
All it takes is one asshole with some free time. And there are plenty of those on the internet.
This is so very true. I say this because I had the unfortunate experince of meeting someone like this that lasted over a 2 year period and started with WoW.
All it takes is one asshole with some free time. And there are plenty of those on the internet.
I do not have a facebook or myspace account. I have been stalked in real life by people from the internet (People, as in, more than one). One of them even physically assaulted me (If you can call it that, I'm in the military and kicked his silly goosing ass). I do use my real name for lots of stuff, but not everywhere and for the simple reason that I do not want some people to know my name.
In some places, Russia being one of the best known examples, real life internet violence happens pretty regularly. Clan members can and do track rivals down, get drunk, huff some glue and stab or beat each other, sometimes fatally.
So yes, someone having just your name and no other information on the internet can allow them to find you in real life. It has happened to me and it happens to other people. It is not hypothetical. This shit already happens and Blizzard is going to make it easier by painting targets on their paying customers.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go
i pm'd mutilate what i found out about him, kind of hoping i hit it, i didn't exactly spend a bunch of time on it since i'm at work but the worst that can happen is i didn't get the right guy
TheKoolEagle on
Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
0
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
Well, the actual worst thing that can happen is that he'll start smugly preening at all the people who are worried about the whole thing since obviously no one can find out anything about anything, as your failure will have "proven".
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
This is why I'm so confused by it, they've made a decision that probably pisses off some of their employees and definitely pisses off their customers.
Real ID is purely a business decision. Everyone wants to integrate real time social networking or whatever the fuck into EVERYTHING. CM's are probably pretty low on the totem pole in regards to shit like this, so I'm sure their opinion and concerns are worth only a pittance more than subscribers in this case
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
This is why I'm so confused by it, they've made a decision that probably pisses off some of their employees and definitely pisses off their customers.
Which is really funny. I know a few people who work for Blizzard, in various roles and departments.
Even they think this is a phenomenally bad idea.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I think the whole thing with the Blizz CM who gave his name away pulling the info from his facebook tells us that maybe they haven't thought this through. Why wouldn't he be cool with everyone having that information?
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
This is why I'm so confused by it, they've made a decision that probably pisses off some of their employees and definitely pisses off their customers.
Real ID is purely a business decision. Everyone wants to integrate real time social networking or whatever the fuck into EVERYTHING. CM's are probably pretty low on the totem pole in regards to shit like this, so I'm sure their opinion and concerns are worth only a pittance more than subscribers in this case
What really surprises me is that the guy removed his facebook after being "found out." Like... he was surprised or something. And then they act like this is no big deal and nothing stupid or bad will ever happen with it still.
I feel sorry for the poor people that have that phone number that's "not his." It probably rang off the hook and probably still is.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Just a random thought, will the Tech support forums have realID attached to them as well? I have seen GM's request copy/paste of system information, IP tracking info, etc. in order solve issues.
As an example: I was invovled in the tech support forum sometime ago, no one in my area could get online yet the servers was fine. Ended up being a communication issue between the area's service provider and blizzard servers which require blizzard to resolve. So in this case, I would had posted with my real name and area i live in order to get my connection issue resloved.
Posts
Yeah.
Facebook claims there are over 500 Chris Morrisons.
There's only eight of me (which you could find anyway because it's in my sig :rotate: Edit: Although I guess you can't really get much more than my name out of it anyway.).
Though I can see why someone with a common male name wouldn't see any problem with it.
Aside from the annoying privacy issues, it's also going to make their forums a nightmare to navigate.
Not only will they be in that annoying threaded style, but the posts will also now also look like this:
--Tom Harrison: What's wrong with rogues?
--Bob Roberts: Learn to play!
John Smith: I like rogues!
--John Smith: No, fuck rogues!
--Thomas Harrison: Yeah, fuck rogues!
----Tom Harrison: I still don't see what's wrong with rogues.
Bob Roberts: He's just whining.
John Smith: How do I get to Darnassus?
--Bob Roberts: Shut up, filthy rogue hater.
----John Smith: I don't hate rogues.
John Smith: Fuck rogues!
--Laura Watson: Take the boat from the Stormwind harbor.
----John Smith: Show me your boobs.
Bob Roberts: Fuck John Smith!
--John Smith: What'd I do?
--John Smith: Fuck you, too!
----Thomas Harrison: Yeah, fuck you Bob.
The words "opt-in" are always a red flag for me where Blizzard is concerned, since to them, "opt-in" appears to mean "do it, or don't use the product"
I can one-up you. In all of the internet I have only been able to find one other person that shares my first and last name (and middle initial is different). And since the only place the other one shows up is name + city on "find people" sites they do not appear to have much of an internet presence. And I have a common first name.
That is the exact reason I refuse to give my last name to customers (I do phone support), because it makes me easily identifiable.
Getting info on me being military would have been as easy as seeing that i responded to a random Wow thread about some guy getting deployed to the desert. Told him i been there as well, and best of luck.
Simple things. I wager that if mutilate expanded a bit on what "Brown" was as a place of employment to him, it may be easier to find info. Maybe not, but the point stands...
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
'Fighting forum trolling' is a smokescreen.
Tying all your WoW/SCII characters into a single account already solves the trolling problem - banned once, you are gone. No level 1 alts. This was all that was needed to bring the forum under control.
The real reason for this is the desire to integrate Blizzard games deeper into the social networking, as they are starting with Starcraft II. If they offer pseudonyms or invisible mode, many people will choose not to participate, and this will undermine a certain person's vision to drag people into this model.
This is only the beginning.
LoL: failboattootoot
I hope to god it doesn't come to pass.
And I can one-up you.
You can google my name and you will find nothing about me. I have a unique name - no one else has it, and I've worked damn hard to make sure it doesn't show up online.
Now, my most commonly-used alias for my name does show up - mainly in reference to forum posts, too. Which is why this Real ID shit terrifies me.
I understand the concern. God knows I was pretty pissed over the similar Facebook fiasco a few months ago. But I'm not convinced that Blizzard using my name as a form of identification will ruin things for me. My name is already out there, and it's on me to tighten up that information as much as possible.
I'm just going to wait and see how this develops. At this point, if I said I'd never play another Blizzard game again, I'd be a goddamn liar. I'd need some pretty damning evidence to bring me to that--something a lot more than some dbag forum mod's Facebook profile and home address.
I have also been working hard to keep myself from showing up online. But I didn't when I was younger and dumber (and mailing lists were more common and archived). Mostly I try to keep my online name - which is also pretty unique - from being linked to my real name. Outside of one (recently corrected) mistake, I've been pretty good at it, too.
So, yes. Those of us with uncommon/unique names (and females, lawyers, judges, celebrities, etc) are going to be avoiding the official forums. That seems like an arbitrary way to limit discussion.
Having a real name of somebody posting on a WoW forum gives no real security risk; it's just a preference of personal privacy. And in this case, you can keep your anonymity and privacy by just lurking a forum.
Although, it will be interesting to see if any racism or sexism arises; but the point of moving to real names is giving more accountability and hopefully weeding out trolls and jerks.
Just because you're not unique is no guarantee that people sharing your name won't be affected by this.
If you have a common name, this is correct. They'd need one, maybe two pieces of additional info.
What about those with less common names or women who might've been stalked in the past or people googling your name for employment reasons (I work at a bank, we check on people now who apply), and your son made a dumbass post under your name on WoW, etc..?
Are they just out of luck?
This doesn't affect me, either. I hardly ever use the forums. The thing that absolutely boggles my mind is how Blizzard would want this.
While I don't want it to happen, I would be just waiting for someone to get beat up or stabbed due to some ingame offense they committed, the guy finding he lives in the same city, and it occurring.
The servers do somewhat geographically organize players..
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
You can derive a lot more information from a wow forum post about a person than if they're mentioned in a newspaper article.
Like, their personality, what they do in their free time, how they act with other people, etc.
Doubtful on the first and third. The center one, however, is true: post on forums.
He clearly has something to hide. Probably a communist, pedophile, or terrorist. Or all three.
I was put in my newspaper when I was in high school for being on my school's golf team. Just a brief mention, but that gives a hell of a lot more info than me talking about ret pally rotation.
The people who actually made the decision have thought it through fine. I doubt the CM's had much clout in this particular move. I actually really doubt any of the Community Managers are at all enthused with the idea.
We had a guy who raided 6 days a week at my previous job. He always came in beat, exhasuted, and performed poorly. A quick google search also proved that he wasn't just a dick to customers, he was a dick all around because of the way he acted in the forums too.
Except this has been disproven how many times now? Look at that Blizzard CM. Look at the time Anonymous tracked down that kid who was torturing his cat, or when they tracked down the lady who taped the Epic Beard Man incident.
All it takes is one asshole with some free time. And there are plenty of those on the internet.
Which won't happen.
Practically any facebook group over 10,000 people has its share of trolls and jerks.
This is so very true. I say this because I had the unfortunate experince of meeting someone like this that lasted over a 2 year period and started with WoW.
I do not have a facebook or myspace account. I have been stalked in real life by people from the internet (People, as in, more than one). One of them even physically assaulted me (If you can call it that, I'm in the military and kicked his silly goosing ass). I do use my real name for lots of stuff, but not everywhere and for the simple reason that I do not want some people to know my name.
In some places, Russia being one of the best known examples, real life internet violence happens pretty regularly. Clan members can and do track rivals down, get drunk, huff some glue and stab or beat each other, sometimes fatally.
So yes, someone having just your name and no other information on the internet can allow them to find you in real life. It has happened to me and it happens to other people. It is not hypothetical. This shit already happens and Blizzard is going to make it easier by painting targets on their paying customers.
Steam - Partizanka | Live - Partizanka
That's not so bad really, since you can't find out anything about without friending my on Facebook.
Real ID is purely a business decision. Everyone wants to integrate real time social networking or whatever the fuck into EVERYTHING. CM's are probably pretty low on the totem pole in regards to shit like this, so I'm sure their opinion and concerns are worth only a pittance more than subscribers in this case
Which is really funny. I know a few people who work for Blizzard, in various roles and departments.
Even they think this is a phenomenally bad idea.
What really surprises me is that the guy removed his facebook after being "found out." Like... he was surprised or something. And then they act like this is no big deal and nothing stupid or bad will ever happen with it still.
I feel sorry for the poor people that have that phone number that's "not his." It probably rang off the hook and probably still is.
As an example: I was invovled in the tech support forum sometime ago, no one in my area could get online yet the servers was fine. Ended up being a communication issue between the area's service provider and blizzard servers which require blizzard to resolve. So in this case, I would had posted with my real name and area i live in order to get my connection issue resloved.
First gearscore bullshit and now this? It's pointless.