Diablo 3 - Auction House & Account Security

Couchpotato

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PCGamesN has a short article were Blizzard says the auction house is a way to secure your account from being compromised.

It seems safe to say the Blizzard view Diablo 3’s auction house as a necessary evil, at least to judge from our conversation with game director Josh Mosqueira earlier today at Gamescom. But for players concerned about account security, it may be a worthwhile exchange.

“The auction house is a really complicated issue,” he said. “Like it or not our players, or some of our players, attribute real world value to the items. So [if you don’t have an] item auction house, you’re going to see a lot of account compromises.”
More information.
 
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Total BS!! If there wasn't an auction and no need to be online all of the time then there probably would be no security issues.

EDIT: I just did a quick search and many people have had their accounts hacked on Diablo 3 so it is a big lie that your account is secured because of having the auction. That is likely the main reason why the accounts got hacked anyways since they can get real money from it.
 
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He's saying without the official auction house those who engage in trade for cash will have less account security by using third party means of buying and selling.
 
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Yep. That statement might lead to the wrong conclusions if you present it out of context.

@guenthar I have also heared that there were cars stolen which were locked. But that doesn't mean that keeping your car unlocked is an equally good choice.

Hackers always get real money out of it. Why? Because players want to spend real money for it. Hackers don't need to use the auction house to sell them stuff if people buy it through other "services" on websites.
 
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Sorry about what I said before but it irritates me when companies have lame excuses for compromising their games. I was actually looking for Diablo 2 accounts that have been hacked when I found a large amount of information on Diablo 3 accounts being hacked rather. How is some people being stupid a good reason to add a real money auction house and require a person to be online all of the time for a single player with a multiplayer mode game. This is just an excuse to try getting people to accept this crap and if this was done to a game I wanted to play I would go much further beyond posting in a forum about this.

PS. By Blizzard having a real money auction house hackers can make much more money by hacking peoples accounts then if Blizzard didn't have the auction house. They just need to hack accounts and sell their stuff rather then setting up webpages and spamming places to get people to go to their webpages.
 
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How do hackers spot the accounts to be hacked? Both for D3 and D2.

In all cases, this guy just spins.

Some players put real money value to items. He insisted on that. It means others dont.
The company chose to favour the offer they could monetize: providing security for those who put real money value. The decision compromized the satisfaction of other players.

Knowing how hackers select their target might also reveal that, by setting up the game the way they did, the security of every D3 player is compromized, included players who do not play MU games and do not want to sell. I have a hard time figuring out how hackers could hack accounts of those players in the past as they were not connected. Creating an account on Battlenet was only required to play MU games.

It could mean that in order to milk a segment of players by providing them with the illusion of security, they jeopardize the security of every player.
 
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How do hackers spot the accounts to be hacked? Both for D3 and D2.

Knowing how hackers select their target might also reveal that, by setting up the game the way they did, the security of every D3 player is compromized, included players who do not play MU games and do not want to sell.

Hackers don't "select" their targets so to speak.
Hackers take opportunities. I get mails about MMOs I had never registered on my account all the time. Same with viruses. They just speculate that there is some chance that 1. I am playing this game the mail/virus is about 2. I visit these sites/reply with my account details / enter my account details in the game which are then sent away by the trojan.
It doesn't matter if I actually have value on my account or not.
And it does not make a difference whether we are talking about a MMO or Diablo.

Visiting "gold seller" sites, which tend to get their money by botting or hacking increase your chance of getting a virus / get your account hacked.
 
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They also do brute force hacks using password generators like what happened a couple of times to me before I started using a more secure password.
 
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AH also reduces problems by reducing the need for a black market. If there isn't the demand, then criminals are less likely to feed it.

However I would still like a 'never online' type account as well, where all characters/items are flagged as never being useable apart from on your local computer.
 
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I got a few e-mails in the past few months, claiming I had to give in my Battle.Net passworm and everything … Oh, yeah. Right. Sure. Of course.
 
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Sorry but I bought D2 items for years with no problems. The Black Market isn't so black.
 
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Sorry but I bought D2 items for years with no problems. The Black Market isn't so black.

So you never bought of anyone who was breaking the law, or items that were obtained illegally? Most black market items/gold is obtained through account hacking, so if you increase the demand, you're increasing the pain for someone else who's account was hacked to fuel your demand.
 
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Most black market items/gold is obtained through account hacking, so if you increase the demand, you're increasing the pain for someone else who's account was hacked to fuel your demand.

Have you got any proof of that or are you saying it to make your argument sound more credible? Most black market items/gold is (AFAIK) obtained by good, old fashion grind by gold farmers.
 
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Have you got any proof of that or are you saying it to make your argument sound more credible? Most black market items/gold is (AFAIK) obtained by good, old fashion grind by gold farmers.

Sorry yes it also comes from gold farmers 'employed' in terrible conditions as well as hacking. The AH provides a means for wider sources of items such that gold farmers and hackers have to compete with the great masses and better item/gold audit trails.
 
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I got a few e-mails in the past few months, claiming I had to give in my Battle.Net passworm and everything … Oh, yeah. Right. Sure. Of course.

While you're at it, here's a bank account number you need to deposit 15,000 into so that I can send you 2 million... ;)
 
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Diablo 2 was selling 250k units a quarter and at anywhere from $20-$60 a unit that's a lot of bread. It goes to show that if you can compromise your product with creative marketing.

One of the smart business strategies I read came from all things was Charles M Schulz. He simply gave 50% of profits to anyone those who wanted to merchandise his products. This encouraged the merchants and in turn helped make him $2m a year in 1960's currency.

The point is, if they'd let them sell on eBay instead pulling a Zynga they could have brought in more revenues by word of mouth instead of compromising the experience to artificially control the money stream.

This disparaging the core product may help, but only a little. Because the Auction House is still there the developers words are complete glib and people will see that.
 
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Buying/selling items for Diablo2 was illegal?

Hackers don't "select" their targets so to speak.
Hackers take opportunities. I get mails about MMOs I had never registered on my account all the time. Same with viruses. They just speculate that there is some chance that 1. I am playing this game the mail/virus is about 2. I visit these sites/reply with my account details / enter my account details in the game which are then sent away by the trojan.
It doesn't matter if I actually have value on my account or not.
And it does not make a difference whether we are talking about a MMO or Diablo.

Visiting "gold seller" sites, which tend to get their money by botting or hacking increase your chance of getting a virus / get your account hacked.

By compelling every player to get an online account, Blizzard enlarged the fishing pool for hackers. They put everyone on the same foot and the casual player, uninterested in selling items or the player using the auction house because it is right here and convenient of use get their security jeopardized just as the player who is interested in trading items.
 
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