Paragon - Man Blocked; US Watch List Blamed

We don't cover MOBAs, but this seemed interesting. A man was mistakenly blocked from creating a Paragon Online account due to his name appearing on a US watch list.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has apologised to Muhammad Zakir Khan over Twitter after Khan was prevented from making an Epic account due to a hit against a US Treasury list of Specially Designated Nationals. The SDN list is a register of people and companies that US 'persons' (an exhausting legal umbrella term) are prohibited from dealing with, potentially due to involvement in terrorist financing, trafficking or money laundering, but also as part of US sanctions campaigns against specific countries. Or, in this case, people who want to play the Paragon beta.

"When I went to the website to register for an account, I hit submit and that's when I faced the red text. I was shocked," Khan told Gamasutra. "Initially, I thought I had been hacked. I literally stopped everything and told myself verbally out loud, 'What the heck?' I felt dehumanized and discriminated against. Frankly, it hurt."

@imraansiddiqi @Muzzakh Sorry, this isn't intended. We're working to fix ASAP. Cause: Overly broad filter related to US trade restrictions.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 10, 2016

What's surprising about this incident isn't the existence of the list—it's publicly available and circulated by the Treasury Department to companies trading internationally—but the extent to which it's wired into basic account creation and its reliance on name alone. According to Sweeney, that's an error caused by recycled code from the Unreal Engine licensing process.

"This is bad filtering code. It checks a Federal export restriction list based solely on name!" Sweeney Tweeted. "We're working to figure this out. Ideally, not at signup, but by matching name and billing address at purchase time."

More information.

More information.

I not infrequently deal with export control issues (camera gimbals used in Marine Corps UAVs and MilSpec 1553 signals). Before making snap Internet Judgments, please acquaint yourselves with the following first:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offi…Assets_Control

Commonly economic sometimes arms or even dual use tech, individuals can be blocked, especially if they're known to be soliciting for an embargoed or sanctioned state. Think international smuggling. It's not the same thing as the terrorism watch list.

Apparently Epic pulled an epic (ha) fail in not properly cross referencing personal information to weed out wrong people with the same name and mis-applying it to the wrong product.

Hahaha

Originally Posted by Bedwyr
Apparently Epic pulled an epic (ha) fail in not properly cross referencing personal information to weed out wrong people with the same name and mis-applying it to the wrong product.

That happens more often than you would think. There is even a 6 years old in Canada on the "No Fly List"…since he was a toddler.

It is closer than you think!

A relative of mine ran into a problem like that; his name matched one on list of people wanted in S. America, so he received special treatment when he traveled abroad. Not fun.

Now I'm curious : Am I on that list ?

Edit : I'm disappointed ! I'm not even on that list !

All of these secret lists are overly broadly defined and in the case of US citizens being on them, unconstitutional. As in denying people rights without due process.

Originally Posted by Hyperion
All of these secret lists are overly broadly defined and in the case of US citizens being on them, unconstitutional. As in denying people rights without due process.

Again, this isn't a secret list. It's public and is effectively a core diplomacy function of the State Department assisted by the Treasury Department. This is like having sanctions against Iran and some dude from Iran soliciting a General Dynamics engineer for F-16 parts. So they put him, his address, birthdate, and sometimes aliases on the list.

The one you're talking about is a different DHS list and yes. It is Kafkaesque.

The story here is probably the most retarded thing I've ever read about games generally.

Politics IMO should be banned from games completely. It's games, it's not real life so whoever initially caused this nonsense to a person in the first place, as I say usually on these matters - I'll spit on their grave.

So if some known terrorist wants to play Epic's videogames, all he needs to do is use a fake name.

Originally Posted by Dez
So if some known terrorist wants to play Epic's videogames, all he needs to do is use a fake name.

Al K. Da - Pyromaniac perk; special cave base

I. Sis - Ghoulish perk; antiquities collector

I feel safer knowing suspected terrorists, as defined arbitrarily by God knows who, are being kept out of computer-game betas. I look forward to the day when MMOs have a "report terrorist" button. Someone's camping your favorite spot in World of Warcraft? Good luck logging on in Guantanamo, pal.

It's a weird world in which everyone apologizes for people being worried about terrorism. No wonder they are having such an easy time attacking people…38 attacks in the world so far since new years.