Mnemoidian

24GB of RAM (all 6 slots filled, maximum amount supported by my Motherboard revision) in my primary computer. It's all about quality of life, it's changed the way I use that computer. Typically I close applications because they are misbehaving or because it's becoming a bother navigating to the application I want to use.

I can have Graphical Editors, Developer tools, Diablo 3 and Firefox/Chrome with hundreds of tabs running at the same time without really noticing anything.

I used 6GB previously, before I upgraded, and I was really struggling.

Anyway, system memory is dirt cheap. *shrug*

@fozzyozzy said:

What I'm saying is that the conversation here shouldn't be so much about what could have been done on the user side, but instead pushing Blizzard to think outside of the normal means box for methods to prevent these issues.

The commercial release is barely two weeks old and the developer is already underselling (perhaps not 100% truthfully) the number of cases here. I know there have been methods to hacking for a long time, is it "venting" to wonder if maybe there's something server side being exploited?

I think the appropriate analogy is identity theft. Now maybe the victim didn't shred every single piece of junkmail, but then there are people who casually leave their belongings out in the open. My point is, the only conversations should be between whoever the victim is and the people who can aid. No room for armchair defenders and security experts.

I'm not seeing Blizzard underselling how many have been compromised - looking at their forums, there are at least a dozen posts from Community Managers on the subject. They are just saying that no reported cases have shown that there has been an active authenticator (not dialin/SMS) on the account on the time of the account - even in the cases where people HAVE claimed there was an active authenticator.

Further, I'm not sure what you mean about how Blizzard should think outside the box? As far as I am aware, they provide the most security options for their users than any other game developer. Even Steam only has a few of the features (SteamGuard) that Blizzard use to keep your account safe. And you can't really put it on their side if your account is compromised because you fell for a phishing scam (hey, you're only human, mistakes happen) or used the same password as on a site that had their user databases stolen in the last few years. Or wound up with a keylogger because of some shady ad-banner, or some other crazy shit that's going around.

You seem to have some idea of what they should have done, as you are saying that they should've done more. What have they missed? What more can they do, except force everyone to use authenticators?

(And yes, I realize that there are ways to get around authenticators. It's significantly harder than just getting past a static password, though.)

@RedRavN: If you have an Android device or iPhone (or iPad, I suppose), you could just download the free mobile authenticator. It's as safe as your phone/device is.

Direct links:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blizzard.bma

http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/battle.net-mobile-authenticator/id306862897?mt=8

You then need to connect it to your battle.net account. And you should write down the recovery information, etc, in the app. Of course, if you don't have such a device, the keychain gadget is the only way to go.

edit: for good measure, here's Blizzard's "Help! I got hacked!" page to get you started recovering your account: http://us.battle.net/en/security/help

@fozzyozzy: Oh, you're going to have to say more than "kerfuffle approximately a year ago". I'm probably blanking temporarily, but I don't know what you are talking about.

And for what it's worth, I'm more willing to believe Blizzard's claims that everyone who has so far come forward claiming they have an authenticator attached to their account when they were compromised had their authenticator attached afterwards (or were using the dial-up authenticator).

I'm not apologizing for Blizzard. I'm saying that it's a terrible world where gold buyers have caused a climate where people aren't even able to be lax with security on their game accounts. At the same token, I don't see why anyone should blame Blizzard, when provided with the tools to keep your account (relatively) safe. If you want to blame someone, blame the jerks who are creating a market where the content of our accounts has a monetary value. Blame the jerks who are working hard to get into our accounts.

And if you (as in anyone reading this) is the unique(?) case where an authenticator has been breached, then you clearly need to contact Blizzard and let them know about it, rather than gnashing your teeth on a forum where they are extremely unlikely to see it.

Considering how willing Blizzard is to recover account contents for you (not needed myself, but from what I've seen of friends who have been compromised), I don't see why there's so many people spewing vitriol in their direction.

Could, they, technically, create a local server that just allows you to play "offline"? Yes, very likely. (though it'd very likely be a lot of work anyway)

Are they going to? No. Because all of this silly ruckus is going to pass, and in 5 years, every game will have an online-component, and no one will care because everyone is always connected. And a downed internet connection means a lot bigger infrastructural issues than just being unable to play games for a while.

@baldgye: I know this is won't make it easier - having your account compromised sucks. Depending on your relationship to the game, it can be extremely invasive, but:

This kind of thing has happened to people in my surroundings in the past - about 3 years ago, 8 of my guildmates in WoW were "hacked" in the span of a week (at the same time, a lot of other players also had their accounts compromised). All of them swore that they had done nothing that could've compromised their account details. I probably believe them (though I'm not sure how tech savy some of them are) - which means that their login information was probably obtained through means where they would not be aware of them (keyloggers? You should probably make sure your anti-virus software definitions are up to date, and do a full scan).

But then again, once stolen, that feeling of security is difficult to get back, regardless of how your account was compromised. Sorry for your loss (and I hope that you get your account rolled back), but I have to side with Blizzard on this matter until I see something to prove it.

@Cataphract1014 said:

Blizzard CMs have been calling people out on their claims of getting hacked with an authenticator. The story is always "my brother was hacked and he had an authenticator" then blizzard comes in and asks for their brothers battletag and they never reply. The ones that are saying that they themselves were hacked with an authenticator, Blizzard came in and said that they authenticator was added after the account was hacked.

This needs to be highlighted.

And here's a fansite that has gathered a bunch of comments from Blizzard about this issue: http://www.diablofans.com/news/1214-account-security-and-public-games-hardcore-hell-diablo-3-api-blue-posts/

Unfortunately, Battle.net accounts are popular targets for phishing and "hacks". I can only recommend you use an Authenticator and that you enable the SMS notification service Blizzard provides (you get notified whenever your account is modified).

Rockstar doesn't really use their protagonists in sequels anyway (other than as cameos?), and that seems to have been working for them since at least GTA3, so not sure if that's much of a risk?

Blizzard is saying that they haven't seen any signs of this being true so far - their findings have been that it's "traditional compromises".

http://www.diablofans.com/news/1214-account-security-and-public-games-hardcore-hell-diablo-3-api-blue-posts/

Interestingly, a friend's account (with an authenticator) says he was compromised just around the time these reports seems to have started popping up, but before he had installed Diablo 3. Coincidence? *shrug*.

I'll probably avoid public games for a few days myself either way.

Monk. Entered Hell difficulty with little over 9k HP, I expect I'm at around 11k HP as of beating the butcher.

Looking at other's hp pools here, and the DPS thread, I'm thinking my gear is pretty bad, I should probably put some time into the AH/Farming Act 1... :P

Maybe you should try playing the game? Just sayin'. Most of that is addressed.

Also, Diablo is kind of a big deal.