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.
Yep, real names will appear there, too.
Which kind of sucks! Considering sending an email rarely leads to nothing more than a template letter, and their phone lines are always busy as fuck
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.
I'm pretty sure the CMs who quit recently quit because of this. And the CMs who are staying around are probably doing so since the job market's rough right now, especially for their type of work.
I got banned from the official forums for the first time since vanilla beta for chiming in on this garbage. I'm about ready to cancel because I'm not really keen on paying a company that disregards their customers to this extent. It's not even the fact that I'm scared about my info being let loose upon WoW's community (though I certainly don't want it to), just how they're handling this sucks. They've deleted so many posts and threads about this already...obviously many people have a problem with a no opt-out invasion of privacy, no matter how small or big.
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I got banned from the official forums for the first time since vanilla beta for chiming in on this garbage. I'm about ready to cancel because I'm not really keen on paying a company that disregards their customers to this extent. It's not even the fact that I'm scared about my info being let loose upon WoW's community (though I certainly don't want it to), just how they're handling this sucks. They've deleted so many posts and threads about this already...obviously many people have a problem with a no opt-out invasion of privacy, no matter how small or big.
It is opt-out, kinda. If you go through getting parental controls setup using a seperate email account. Then it's disabled by default. Seems like a lot of loops to jump through though, you'd think it could just be a checkbox in your account settings.
Why it's so hard to just let someone pick a permanent account nickname that would show up instead of a real name is just beyond me. You could still have facebook integration, all of that.
Shorn Scrotum Man on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
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.
Yes it will.
Micah's response in twitter was to use the in game petition system or phone lines to get support.
Which probably won't work at all because you couldn't get in game, and, probably would never get through on the phone. Plus, the amount of response from the community in fixing problem probably easily surpasses that of what Blizzard does. Since their usual response is "Delete your WTF/Config files" which never fixes the issue anyways. Yeah, sorry, DBM totally made me not able to unlearn leatherworking and learn the new specialization. Good job retards.
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
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
Really, his advice for seeking help about not being able to log on is to use the in-game petition system?
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
I will also point out that the name doesn't appear in a vacuum - pay attention to what people talk about when just shooting the breeze on a general forum will help narrow profession/region/ect... the odds of a crazy fixating on any random person is vanishingly small, but it WILL happen and this makes it a hell of a lot easier.
Really, his advice for seeking help about not being able to log on is to use the in-game petition system?
Well, he's certainly a Blizzard CM, alright.
He's real response was a link to the corresponding post that Blizzard doesn't want you to use tech support forums to solve issues, so, if you're concerned about using your name trying to get help, use the phone/email/in-game systems.
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
any of you can stalk me me anytime you want. For some of you I would encourage it.
I found a google map of my house with a few smart google searches of my first and last name. Scary.
I found a single site that let me search for my name and gave me:
My entire immediate family's name
Very close to my old (last year) address linked with Google streetview
The fact that we have a dog.
Among other things.
But some info there was wrong, since it listed my brother as being in his 50s and that he was the dad in the family.
The dog owner part was a little creepy, though. Apparently they get a lot of info from marketing surveys/warranty cards/etc.
Google maps still shows my house as a foundation in an unfinished neighborhood. We have to give people a wrong address if they need to find our house the first time and want to use GPS.
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
I will also point out that the name doesn't appear in a vacuum - pay attention to what people talk about when just shooting the breeze on a general forum will help narrow profession/region/ect... the odds of a crazy fixating on any random person is vanishingly small, but it WILL happen and this makes it a hell of a lot easier.
The joy of forums is that normally you have an instant database of everything a person has said on the forums just by clicking on their profile. Let the datamining begin!
I think alot of the people who don't have an issue with this, like Mutilate here, don't understand truly how easy this stuff is.
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
i didn't use any software to track ips, or try to, all i did was basic internet searches
if i did i probably would have found the right person but i am kind of working right now and internet stalking is more of a hobby then career :winky:
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
I will also point out that the name doesn't appear in a vacuum - pay attention to what people talk about when just shooting the breeze on a general forum will help narrow profession/region/ect... the odds of a crazy fixating on any random person is vanishingly small, but it WILL happen and this makes it a hell of a lot easier.
The joy of forums is that normally you have an instant database of everything a person has said on the forums just by clicking on their profile. Let the datamining begin!
I think alot of the people who don't have an issue with this, like Mutilate here, don't understand truly how easy this stuff is.
Actually I have a very good understanding. You can read through all 1k+ posts I have done to find bits of data to help your search. You can look at the IP's I post from determine my ISP, region, and city state. If anything this proves my point that a name, by itself, means nothing. Imagine if I posted here for the first time and was posting on a laptop connecting from a terminal in LAX? You would have no way to track me down or figure out who I was. Again my whole point this entire time is not that people can not be found on the internet. It's that a persons name by itself means nothing. You need that supplemental data to do anything.
oh yes a name alone won't get you shit, but generally information that is added here and there will give you more information then you need to track someone down.
hell in eve online a member of the community announced quitting because they received a telephone call from someone they had destroyed in game threatening to kill them.
all this person had was their ingame character name.
its scary shit to think about how vulnerable you can be on the internet
You could do the same thing with a WoW character name too. Somewhere out in the great expanse of the internet lives enough data that you could find my address because you know one of my characters name.
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
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
I will also point out that the name doesn't appear in a vacuum - pay attention to what people talk about when just shooting the breeze on a general forum will help narrow profession/region/ect... the odds of a crazy fixating on any random person is vanishingly small, but it WILL happen and this makes it a hell of a lot easier.
The joy of forums is that normally you have an instant database of everything a person has said on the forums just by clicking on their profile. Let the datamining begin!
I think alot of the people who don't have an issue with this, like Mutilate here, don't understand truly how easy this stuff is.
Actually I have a very good understanding. You can read through all 1k+ posts I have done to find bits of data to help your search. You can look at the IP's I post from determine my ISP, region, and city state. If anything this proves my point that a name, by itself, means nothing. Imagine if I posted here for the first time and was posting on a laptop connecting from a terminal in LAX? You would have no way to track me down or figure out who I was. Again my whole point this entire time is not that people can not be found on the internet. It's that a persons name by itself means nothing. You need that supplemental data to do anything.
But the name is the key, which is exactly why you are wrong. You can do alot of estalking but unless you are very good it can be hard to confirm with accuracy you have the right person without at least a partial name.
The insane people are few i number but very insane this is true.
and first name and last name can mean something kinda depending on your name and your social life
how you dictate yourself online has never really had true consequences. now blizzard is making it a place where consequences are more real and what you post is more tied to you although in a much less real way then facebook or myspace those wretched hives of scum and villainy.
only two possible courses of action
they make it based on your original wow account name or let you choose a permanent pseudonym that dosent change once its chosen or they just keep posting your real name.
ethier way is meh for me
i dont have info on the internet i dont want people getting ahold of that includes my real name
maybe if they know my pseudonyms but thats still meh for me
if you have crap on myspace or facebook you dont want people to see take it the %#@%#@ off
otherwise its really a shrug worthy change
So, if you don't post on the forums no one can see your name? it's not in game or anything?
Real ID is there regardless if you opt-in in game or not (your name is attached to your account even if you have no Real ID friends to see it). There are rumors of an add-on/scripts that let you see anyone's real name. I don't know if they're real or not, but even still it's pretty irritating.
So, if you don't post on the forums no one can see your name? it's not in game or anything?
Well, it's still used as part of the Real ID friends system.
But yeah, just on the forums. Hope you never need tech support on the forums or anything.
Their tech support is a fucking joke, I would be better of asking on other forums anyway. The official forums are terribad, but if people can get the info in game that does bother me a heap more.
So, if you don't post on the forums no one can see your name? it's not in game or anything?
Real ID is there regardless if you opt-in in game or not (your name is attached to your account even if you have no Real ID friends to see it). There are rumors of an add-on/scripts that let you see anyone's real name. I don't know if they're real or not, but even still it's pretty irritating.
So, if you don't post on the forums no one can see your name? it's not in game or anything?
Well, it's still used as part of the Real ID friends system.
But yeah, just on the forums. Hope you never need tech support on the forums or anything.
Their tech support is a fucking joke, I would be better of asking on other forums anyway. The official forums are terribad, but if people can get the info in game that does bother me a heap more.
As it stands right now, the Real ID friends of anybody you friend using Real ID can view your name.
And as mentioned above, there appears to be the ability for malicious addons to collect Real ID's.
jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
All it will take is one person contacting Blizzard after someone threatens their children by name because they were undercut in the AH or kicked from a group. 99.99% of people aren't crazy enough to do something like that, but in WoW .1% equals 1000 people.
The amount of fear mongering about this is staggering. By itself a name means nothing. It has no valuable information to it at all. The simple act of having your real name show up on the WoW forums does not make you a target. It does not put your job in jeopardy. It does not make you less hire-able to company X. It does not create a threat to your security and well being. It does not do anything. If another person sees your name and googles it with no other information it's a needle in a hay stack. What everyone is worried about is that someone people will see your name and then somehow back into where you are located or some other piece of information that will suddenly narrow down which Chris Morrison plays Terribaad on the Malorne server. That's when things can start to get interesting with searches. If using real names is such a threat why do so many people use their real name on facebook and myspace? Why does the management team at the company I work for post their name AND picture on our website for anyone to see? Why when I call UPS does the guy on the other line give me his first and last name before asking if he can help me? You know why? Because it doesn't matter, that's why. It's beyond me that so many people are so up in arms about this. It is one thing for Blizzard to announce they are opening up all of your bnet account information. As it stands it's just your first and last name. Contrary to what so many people want to believe, your first and last name is not some heavily guarded secret.
Wrong. For giggles, I just googled my roommate's name. The first 2 hits are his job description, where he works (along with address and phone number) and the third hit was his Facebook. Just from his name alone. Just because you're named John Johnson or something doesn't somehow lessen other people's very warranted anger over this. What happens if my roommate makes a post on the forum and a few days later pisses someone off in arena or a dungeon? Don't tell me that won't happen; I personally have had people roll endless level ones on my server to trash talk me several times over my WoW playing career. With a simple google search my friend is now getting prank calls and pizzas to his WORK. I don't even understand how this can be okay with people. Is it a matter of "WHELP DON'T BOTHER ME NONE SO NO ONE ELSE SHOULD CARE EITHER!"?
All it takes for gamers is to read "Megan Jones" and suddenly you have a bunch of social retards hitting on a 13 year old girl.
Neva on
SC2 Beta: Neva.ling
"Everyone who is capable of logical thought should be able to see why you shouldn't sell lifetime subscriptions to an MMO. Cell phone companies and drug dealers don't offer lifetime subscriptions either, guess why?" - Mugaaz
What I don't understand about the argument that "it is no big deal because your name isn't enough to identify you", is then why do this? The objective of the realID is to identify a poster in the real world, so from that point of view the system doesn't even accomplish what it sets out to do yet it is still a good idea?
The amount of fear mongering about this is staggering. By itself a name means nothing. It has no valuable information to it at all. The simple act of having your real name show up on the WoW forums does not make you a target. It does not put your job in jeopardy. It does not make you less hire-able to company X. It does not create a threat to your security and well being. It does not do anything. If another person sees your name and googles it with no other information it's a needle in a hay stack. What everyone is worried about is that someone people will see your name and then somehow back into where you are located or some other piece of information that will suddenly narrow down which Chris Morrison plays Terribaad on the Malorne server. That's when things can start to get interesting with searches. If using real names is such a threat why do so many people use their real name on facebook and myspace? Why does the management team at the company I work for post their name AND picture on our website for anyone to see? Why when I call UPS does the guy on the other line give me his first and last name before asking if he can help me? You know why? Because it doesn't matter, that's why. It's beyond me that so many people are so up in arms about this. It is one thing for Blizzard to announce they are opening up all of your bnet account information. As it stands it's just your first and last name. Contrary to what so many people want to believe, your first and last name is not some heavily guarded secret.
Wrong. For giggles, I just googled my roommate's name. The first 2 hits are his job description, where he works (along with address and phone number) and the third hit was his Facebook. Just from his name alone. Just because you're named John Johnson or something doesn't somehow lessen other people's very warranted anger over this. What happens if my roommate makes a post on the forum and a few days later pisses someone off in arena or a dungeon? Don't tell me that won't happen; I personally have had people roll endless level ones on my server to trash talk me several times over my WoW playing career. With a simple google search my friend is now getting prank calls and pizzas to his WORK. I don't even understand how this can be okay with people. Is it a matter of "WHELP DON'T BOTHER ME NONE SO NO ONE ELSE SHOULD CARE EITHER!"?
No not wrong. How did you know the first hits were your friend and not someone else? Because it's your friend you already knew where he worked and what his facebook is. How will someone who does not have that insider knowledge know the first two hits are your friend and the other 200 are someone else? They wont! I have said it before and I will say it again. Just knowing/googling the persons name means nothing. Why is it so hard to understand that this is purely contextual?! If people want to get up in arms about this then it's there right. I am not going to stop anyone. It's silly to continue to fear monger though. I abandon hope in this thread. Ciao!
Posts
Yep, real names will appear there, too.
Which kind of sucks! Considering sending an email rarely leads to nothing more than a template letter, and their phone lines are always busy as fuck
I'm pretty sure the CMs who quit recently quit because of this. And the CMs who are staying around are probably doing so since the job market's rough right now, especially for their type of work.
It was not me but he got close. A lot closer than I figured anyone would get. Although I am sure an IP trace helped for some of it. I am not going to change my stance that a name by itself is harmless I will conceede that there are plenty of crazies out there that you don't want to have your name. These people are everywhere though and not just playing WoW.
It is opt-out, kinda. If you go through getting parental controls setup using a seperate email account. Then it's disabled by default. Seems like a lot of loops to jump through though, you'd think it could just be a checkbox in your account settings.
Why it's so hard to just let someone pick a permanent account nickname that would show up instead of a real name is just beyond me. You could still have facebook integration, all of that.
I think he's talking about you, Eagle.
Yes it will.
Micah's response in twitter was to use the in game petition system or phone lines to get support.
Which probably won't work at all because you couldn't get in game, and, probably would never get through on the phone. Plus, the amount of response from the community in fixing problem probably easily surpasses that of what Blizzard does. Since their usual response is "Delete your WTF/Config files" which never fixes the issue anyways. Yeah, sorry, DBM totally made me not able to unlearn leatherworking and learn the new specialization. Good job retards.
Well, he's certainly a Blizzard CM, alright.
I will also point out that the name doesn't appear in a vacuum - pay attention to what people talk about when just shooting the breeze on a general forum will help narrow profession/region/ect... the odds of a crazy fixating on any random person is vanishingly small, but it WILL happen and this makes it a hell of a lot easier.
I am a freaking nerd.
He's real response was a link to the corresponding post that Blizzard doesn't want you to use tech support forums to solve issues, so, if you're concerned about using your name trying to get help, use the phone/email/in-game systems.
So, basically, yes, that's what he suggested.
http://twitter.com/micahwhipple
4th response down.
any of you can stalk me me anytime you want. For some of you I would encourage it.
You know who you are.
I found a single site that let me search for my name and gave me:
My entire immediate family's name
Very close to my old (last year) address linked with Google streetview
The fact that we have a dog.
Among other things.
But some info there was wrong, since it listed my brother as being in his 50s and that he was the dad in the family.
The dog owner part was a little creepy, though. Apparently they get a lot of info from marketing surveys/warranty cards/etc.
The joy of forums is that normally you have an instant database of everything a person has said on the forums just by clicking on their profile. Let the datamining begin!
I think alot of the people who don't have an issue with this, like Mutilate here, don't understand truly how easy this stuff is.
i didn't use any software to track ips, or try to, all i did was basic internet searches
if i did i probably would have found the right person but i am kind of working right now and internet stalking is more of a hobby then career :winky:
Actually I have a very good understanding. You can read through all 1k+ posts I have done to find bits of data to help your search. You can look at the IP's I post from determine my ISP, region, and city state. If anything this proves my point that a name, by itself, means nothing. Imagine if I posted here for the first time and was posting on a laptop connecting from a terminal in LAX? You would have no way to track me down or figure out who I was. Again my whole point this entire time is not that people can not be found on the internet. It's that a persons name by itself means nothing. You need that supplemental data to do anything.
hell in eve online a member of the community announced quitting because they received a telephone call from someone they had destroyed in game threatening to kill them.
all this person had was their ingame character name.
its scary shit to think about how vulnerable you can be on the internet
But the name is the key, which is exactly why you are wrong. You can do alot of estalking but unless you are very good it can be hard to confirm with accuracy you have the right person without at least a partial name.
and first name and last name can mean something kinda depending on your name and your social life
how you dictate yourself online has never really had true consequences. now blizzard is making it a place where consequences are more real and what you post is more tied to you although in a much less real way then facebook or myspace those wretched hives of scum and villainy.
only two possible courses of action
they make it based on your original wow account name or let you choose a permanent pseudonym that dosent change once its chosen or they just keep posting your real name.
ethier way is meh for me
i dont have info on the internet i dont want people getting ahold of that includes my real name
maybe if they know my pseudonyms but thats still meh for me
if you have crap on myspace or facebook you dont want people to see take it the %#@%#@ off
otherwise its really a shrug worthy change
Well, it's still used as part of the Real ID friends system.
But yeah, just on the forums. Hope you never need tech support on the forums or anything.
Real ID is there regardless if you opt-in in game or not (your name is attached to your account even if you have no Real ID friends to see it). There are rumors of an add-on/scripts that let you see anyone's real name. I don't know if they're real or not, but even still it's pretty irritating.
I am a freaking nerd.
Their tech support is a fucking joke, I would be better of asking on other forums anyway. The official forums are terribad, but if people can get the info in game that does bother me a heap more.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626350209&sid=1
Well look at that! Even if there's not something out there right now, it's not a large amount away.
none obvisously. Or anyone that have childern who play wow.
As it stands right now, the Real ID friends of anybody you friend using Real ID can view your name.
And as mentioned above, there appears to be the ability for malicious addons to collect Real ID's.
I'm sorry Tom, but your children's characters are already dead.
No, no! They just started playing!
The classy thing to do would be for everybody to wear those nametag stickers, but with everybody's name being John/Jane Smith.
Probably just have 50,000 screaming idiots foaming at the mouth though.
Wrong. For giggles, I just googled my roommate's name. The first 2 hits are his job description, where he works (along with address and phone number) and the third hit was his Facebook. Just from his name alone. Just because you're named John Johnson or something doesn't somehow lessen other people's very warranted anger over this. What happens if my roommate makes a post on the forum and a few days later pisses someone off in arena or a dungeon? Don't tell me that won't happen; I personally have had people roll endless level ones on my server to trash talk me several times over my WoW playing career. With a simple google search my friend is now getting prank calls and pizzas to his WORK. I don't even understand how this can be okay with people. Is it a matter of "WHELP DON'T BOTHER ME NONE SO NO ONE ELSE SHOULD CARE EITHER!"?
"Everyone who is capable of logical thought should be able to see why you shouldn't sell lifetime subscriptions to an MMO. Cell phone companies and drug dealers don't offer lifetime subscriptions either, guess why?" - Mugaaz
No not wrong. How did you know the first hits were your friend and not someone else? Because it's your friend you already knew where he worked and what his facebook is. How will someone who does not have that insider knowledge know the first two hits are your friend and the other 200 are someone else? They wont! I have said it before and I will say it again. Just knowing/googling the persons name means nothing. Why is it so hard to understand that this is purely contextual?! If people want to get up in arms about this then it's there right. I am not going to stop anyone. It's silly to continue to fear monger though. I abandon hope in this thread. Ciao!