- Joined
- Apr 30, 2008
- Messages
- 32
Title was meant to be a joke - mostly. To clarify, anyone who understands this issue would be fine by me. I specifically named Dr. SuperGood b/c afaik that was their B.net Account that responded to my thread on the Wc3 Reforged Forums.
Update 2-20-2019: Oh! Also, in retrospect, I must apologize for the dual threads. I was just trying to get an answer from *anyone* and at the time I didn't see any way to specifically contact DrSuperGood, so I opted to post a thread in Staff Contact as well as wherever I put the other one that someone deleted.
Sorry about that.
Ok. I'll try to keep this concise and provide hyperlinks for more reading.
I'm ok irl, but struggling a bit with my perception that Blizzard may have been fully aware of an issue with the security of their Wc3 Reforged Forums and, while working on it in SOME areas, opted to LEAVE them UP while some issues REMAINED.
What I need is someone who understands WTF all the data I collected from an end-user's perspective means, maybe gather more data thru venues unknown to me - whatever.
I just want to know if my account data on B.net could have been compromised by what I've been noticing there since yesterday.
Fairly long thread/Google Drive link contains everything I personally gathered on the topic including and all-in one Video in which I stitched all the stuff together.
I need help understanding something I collected data on that worries me greatly. - General Security
Edit 3-22-19 Google Drive Link Removed as I deleted that, amongst many other Google Accounts recently.
If you would like the video, just ask and I will provide a link for you privately AFTER I get permission from a few people.
End edit.
Help me understand - should I be scrambling to change my password/etc on Battle.net or am I just being paranoid?
I tend to trust Blizzard (save for some of their overpaid and underperforming "public face" figures and would be royally pissed if they left things happening when they knew about a problem UNLESS it was to gather further information to combat it better - like they do with banwaves.
Help me understand what I found - Was it something bad, was I being paranoid, or what?
I'm still ok but this has whipped me up into a frenzy of worry. I now need to calm jets, relax, then once I have more information on what happened, if anything, I will do what I need to do, if anything.
Update 2-20-19: I'm not worried about this anymore.
Between Ralle and KILLCIDE - both from The Hive Workshop here - I finally got an answer that was on target for what I needed to hear.
Please feel free to skip to the TL/DR near the bottom.
To preface, I want to provide a quote Ralle relayed to me.
Two, actually.
Ralle provided a source for one of them which I will honor here. The second may have been Ralle's own interpretation of the first?
Meh, the simpler/second one, regardless of where it originated, made more sense to me. While I can certainly respect the beauty of some older English ways of saying stuff - Shakespeare for example - it does not always compute as easily into something I can make us of. Beauty is great, but I'm more a function over fashion guy and if Ralle had not provided the second statement, I would have been left just scratching my head lol.
1. That one must, if in truth succeed one, lead a man to a particular place, first and foremost, be sure to find him where he is and begin there. This is the Secret in all Help art.
That is Søren Kierkegaard a danish writer
2. A cornerstone of communication is putting yourself in the place of the other person.
How does that apply to my situation?
Let me say it similar to how I said it to Ralle - I'll use an example paraphrased from The Good Doctor (a TV series that is rather intense but interesting and, from the whopping 3 episodes of season 1 I've personally watched, well-made).
Let's say you are a medical professional. A patient comes in with a worry. They provide some information. From where I sit, not personally being a medical professional, you would probably have kind of a checklist. Maybe something like this?
The overarching theme would be to try and fix the problem, if any, without causing alarm to the patient as making the patient afraid is not going to help in any way - they are clearly already worried, justified or not and came to you because you are trained in this area, and they respect your ability to help them.
1. Reassure them that you'll do everything you can to help them figure out the problem and get it taken care of so they feel that you are engaged and going to help them fix the problem they came to you about.
2. Determine based on your knowledge and what the patient has told you whether this could be something that you need to take action on to resolve.
If no, jump to step 5.
If yes proceed to step 3.
3. Determine if you need anything further from the patient to begin figuring out the best actions to take to resolve the problem.
If no, jump to step 5.
If yes, continue to step 4.
4. Calmly request that the patient provide what you need to start making a determination on what to do next.
5. Downplay the situation (if appropriate) - help calm the patient. Making them more worried/upset will not help in any way and may cause issues with communication due to them becoming heightened/adrenaline/whatever. Send them on their way.
If step 5 was reached directly from a "no" if/then/else result from 2. then log the information provided in case it is relevant at a later date from a "medical history" standpoint.
If step 5 was reached from any other route, use problem solving skills to address the situation.
Here is a 4-step process of Problem Solving which I originally gave little credence to. However, more recently, I recognized was a very valuable bit of knowledge:
1. Identify problem.
2. Brainstorm solutions.
3. Trial and error (my additional note - do not consider "errors" *bad* - just that you have found one more way that did not work and now need to move onto your next brainstormed solution)
4. Find the solution that solves the issue! Success!! Great VICTORY!
Ok that was somewhat tangential.... sorry about that....
Heh regarding the second quote, I would just like to add my additional thoughts - online text-only communication is not face to face. I cannot make use of any (in my case, rudimentary lol) skills I have in reading body language, tone of voice, eye contact, all that to get an idea of how you may be doing on your end. I also... flunked out of mind reading school, to quote the Pickles Comic strip heh.
Pickles
If you don't tell me how you're feeling in relation to what I am communicating or whatever, I cannot try to adjust how I proceed to accommodate for it! It's like - forgive me if this brings up bad feelings or whatever in anyone who can relate to this - it is just the first example that came to my mind. You're playing a computer game with someone. They are not doing that well. You could give them crap over it, make them feel bad, use the anonymity of the internet to be a jerk with most likely minimal consequences to yourself. But if they're being polite, not intentionally ruining the gaming experience, you could, alternatively, give them a break.
If their poor performance hurts you? SWEAR like a SAILOR about it IRL (under your breath as able to prevent causing distress to nearby people). Don't give them a hard time, assault them with words - you know the saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?" I feel it gives a framework for children to deal with insults/etc but could be refined to be more accurate from an adult's point of view. Perhaps sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can only hurt me if I LET them?
If it's some random, forgive me, idiot/jackass on the internet, you have AGENCY! You can know that you are fine, have the self-respect you deserve, and ignore that stupidhead - literally /ignore if you don't want to see the text - that is up to you. Or, for whatever reasons, you could let their words drive a stake through your heart and get upset. Choices. Options. Knowledge. Skills. Good people try to do the right thing - it doesn't mean they always do - but they try to do what they can under the circumstances with whatever they have available to them at the time.
Worry is rehearsing future problems. Regret is reliving past pain. Know who you are and don't let random goofs on the internet hurt you. After all, everyone is fighting an invisible struggle. Try to be kind.
TL/DR:
What I needed to hear was some variation of one of these answers.
Any one of these 3 options would have been fine.
1. Please provide more information. I don't understand the situation, but I have the knowledge to help you figure out what - if anything - YOU need to do IF this was something "bad" you stumbled on - to clarify, I initially got into this whole worry by contacting the Discord Devs via a private Support Request on their website on the 16th. They were the first to engage with me in any way on it. I e-mailed [email protected] as I provided anything to the Discord Devs, since I thought it could be relevant to both parties. Never a word - not one - from Blizzard. I mean, I don't know how they're structured and idk the right venue to contact for what. I tried to google search and find the specific contact information for the Forum Technical Support or whatever. However ,I really just play the games so I could only think of that e-mail. Discord Devs, after I provided the requested additional information, told me that it was an issue with those specific forums - what the issue was, I did not know - and to contact the owner of them. As I mentioned, I did try to do. Due to the fact that I was instructed to contact the forum owners - Blizzard, I guess - but I was being stonewalled by them, worried that my/others' data might be at risk, I started to pursue other venues - here and Bleeping Computer Forums. Anyway, it's all fine now from my end-user's perspective. I did my best to share what I noticed. Whether it was anything or not remains to be seen, but I do not care. I've done my part as a "responsible citizen of the internet" or whatever.
2. This is effectively Ancient Klingon to me..... but I know of a venue/person to contact who could help you figure this out. Then direct me there for further steps.
3. This is nothing to worry about! Good on you for being careful and trying to save information to forward to someone who could figure out what it means, but I get it and you were worrying over something that was not "bad".
Anyway, that was way longer than I had intended. A big thank you to Ralle and killcide for helping me out in the way I needed at the time!
Oh, yes, an additional thank you to Ralle for providing me additional framework in which to ask questions like this in the future as well as to be more careful in my phrasing. Apparently saying "data breach" is the equivalent to yelling "bomb" on an airplane. I didn't know that and it was not my intent to cry wolf/alarm people.
Update 2-20-2019: Oh! Also, in retrospect, I must apologize for the dual threads. I was just trying to get an answer from *anyone* and at the time I didn't see any way to specifically contact DrSuperGood, so I opted to post a thread in Staff Contact as well as wherever I put the other one that someone deleted.
Sorry about that.
Ok. I'll try to keep this concise and provide hyperlinks for more reading.
I'm ok irl, but struggling a bit with my perception that Blizzard may have been fully aware of an issue with the security of their Wc3 Reforged Forums and, while working on it in SOME areas, opted to LEAVE them UP while some issues REMAINED.
What I need is someone who understands WTF all the data I collected from an end-user's perspective means, maybe gather more data thru venues unknown to me - whatever.
I just want to know if my account data on B.net could have been compromised by what I've been noticing there since yesterday.
Fairly long thread/Google Drive link contains everything I personally gathered on the topic including and all-in one Video in which I stitched all the stuff together.
I need help understanding something I collected data on that worries me greatly. - General Security
Edit 3-22-19 Google Drive Link Removed as I deleted that, amongst many other Google Accounts recently.
If you would like the video, just ask and I will provide a link for you privately AFTER I get permission from a few people.
End edit.
Help me understand - should I be scrambling to change my password/etc on Battle.net or am I just being paranoid?
I tend to trust Blizzard (save for some of their overpaid and underperforming "public face" figures and would be royally pissed if they left things happening when they knew about a problem UNLESS it was to gather further information to combat it better - like they do with banwaves.
Help me understand what I found - Was it something bad, was I being paranoid, or what?
I'm still ok but this has whipped me up into a frenzy of worry. I now need to calm jets, relax, then once I have more information on what happened, if anything, I will do what I need to do, if anything.
Update 2-20-19: I'm not worried about this anymore.
Between Ralle and KILLCIDE - both from The Hive Workshop here - I finally got an answer that was on target for what I needed to hear.
Please feel free to skip to the TL/DR near the bottom.
To preface, I want to provide a quote Ralle relayed to me.
Two, actually.
Ralle provided a source for one of them which I will honor here. The second may have been Ralle's own interpretation of the first?
Meh, the simpler/second one, regardless of where it originated, made more sense to me. While I can certainly respect the beauty of some older English ways of saying stuff - Shakespeare for example - it does not always compute as easily into something I can make us of. Beauty is great, but I'm more a function over fashion guy and if Ralle had not provided the second statement, I would have been left just scratching my head lol.
1. That one must, if in truth succeed one, lead a man to a particular place, first and foremost, be sure to find him where he is and begin there. This is the Secret in all Help art.
That is Søren Kierkegaard a danish writer
2. A cornerstone of communication is putting yourself in the place of the other person.
How does that apply to my situation?
Let me say it similar to how I said it to Ralle - I'll use an example paraphrased from The Good Doctor (a TV series that is rather intense but interesting and, from the whopping 3 episodes of season 1 I've personally watched, well-made).
Let's say you are a medical professional. A patient comes in with a worry. They provide some information. From where I sit, not personally being a medical professional, you would probably have kind of a checklist. Maybe something like this?
The overarching theme would be to try and fix the problem, if any, without causing alarm to the patient as making the patient afraid is not going to help in any way - they are clearly already worried, justified or not and came to you because you are trained in this area, and they respect your ability to help them.
1. Reassure them that you'll do everything you can to help them figure out the problem and get it taken care of so they feel that you are engaged and going to help them fix the problem they came to you about.
2. Determine based on your knowledge and what the patient has told you whether this could be something that you need to take action on to resolve.
If no, jump to step 5.
If yes proceed to step 3.
3. Determine if you need anything further from the patient to begin figuring out the best actions to take to resolve the problem.
If no, jump to step 5.
If yes, continue to step 4.
4. Calmly request that the patient provide what you need to start making a determination on what to do next.
5. Downplay the situation (if appropriate) - help calm the patient. Making them more worried/upset will not help in any way and may cause issues with communication due to them becoming heightened/adrenaline/whatever. Send them on their way.
If step 5 was reached directly from a "no" if/then/else result from 2. then log the information provided in case it is relevant at a later date from a "medical history" standpoint.
If step 5 was reached from any other route, use problem solving skills to address the situation.
Here is a 4-step process of Problem Solving which I originally gave little credence to. However, more recently, I recognized was a very valuable bit of knowledge:
1. Identify problem.
2. Brainstorm solutions.
3. Trial and error (my additional note - do not consider "errors" *bad* - just that you have found one more way that did not work and now need to move onto your next brainstormed solution)
4. Find the solution that solves the issue! Success!! Great VICTORY!
Ok that was somewhat tangential.... sorry about that....
Heh regarding the second quote, I would just like to add my additional thoughts - online text-only communication is not face to face. I cannot make use of any (in my case, rudimentary lol) skills I have in reading body language, tone of voice, eye contact, all that to get an idea of how you may be doing on your end. I also... flunked out of mind reading school, to quote the Pickles Comic strip heh.
Pickles
If you don't tell me how you're feeling in relation to what I am communicating or whatever, I cannot try to adjust how I proceed to accommodate for it! It's like - forgive me if this brings up bad feelings or whatever in anyone who can relate to this - it is just the first example that came to my mind. You're playing a computer game with someone. They are not doing that well. You could give them crap over it, make them feel bad, use the anonymity of the internet to be a jerk with most likely minimal consequences to yourself. But if they're being polite, not intentionally ruining the gaming experience, you could, alternatively, give them a break.
If their poor performance hurts you? SWEAR like a SAILOR about it IRL (under your breath as able to prevent causing distress to nearby people). Don't give them a hard time, assault them with words - you know the saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?" I feel it gives a framework for children to deal with insults/etc but could be refined to be more accurate from an adult's point of view. Perhaps sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can only hurt me if I LET them?
If it's some random, forgive me, idiot/jackass on the internet, you have AGENCY! You can know that you are fine, have the self-respect you deserve, and ignore that stupidhead - literally /ignore if you don't want to see the text - that is up to you. Or, for whatever reasons, you could let their words drive a stake through your heart and get upset. Choices. Options. Knowledge. Skills. Good people try to do the right thing - it doesn't mean they always do - but they try to do what they can under the circumstances with whatever they have available to them at the time.
Worry is rehearsing future problems. Regret is reliving past pain. Know who you are and don't let random goofs on the internet hurt you. After all, everyone is fighting an invisible struggle. Try to be kind.
TL/DR:
What I needed to hear was some variation of one of these answers.
Any one of these 3 options would have been fine.
1. Please provide more information. I don't understand the situation, but I have the knowledge to help you figure out what - if anything - YOU need to do IF this was something "bad" you stumbled on - to clarify, I initially got into this whole worry by contacting the Discord Devs via a private Support Request on their website on the 16th. They were the first to engage with me in any way on it. I e-mailed [email protected] as I provided anything to the Discord Devs, since I thought it could be relevant to both parties. Never a word - not one - from Blizzard. I mean, I don't know how they're structured and idk the right venue to contact for what. I tried to google search and find the specific contact information for the Forum Technical Support or whatever. However ,I really just play the games so I could only think of that e-mail. Discord Devs, after I provided the requested additional information, told me that it was an issue with those specific forums - what the issue was, I did not know - and to contact the owner of them. As I mentioned, I did try to do. Due to the fact that I was instructed to contact the forum owners - Blizzard, I guess - but I was being stonewalled by them, worried that my/others' data might be at risk, I started to pursue other venues - here and Bleeping Computer Forums. Anyway, it's all fine now from my end-user's perspective. I did my best to share what I noticed. Whether it was anything or not remains to be seen, but I do not care. I've done my part as a "responsible citizen of the internet" or whatever.
2. This is effectively Ancient Klingon to me..... but I know of a venue/person to contact who could help you figure this out. Then direct me there for further steps.
3. This is nothing to worry about! Good on you for being careful and trying to save information to forward to someone who could figure out what it means, but I get it and you were worrying over something that was not "bad".
Anyway, that was way longer than I had intended. A big thank you to Ralle and killcide for helping me out in the way I needed at the time!
Oh, yes, an additional thank you to Ralle for providing me additional framework in which to ask questions like this in the future as well as to be more careful in my phrasing. Apparently saying "data breach" is the equivalent to yelling "bomb" on an airplane. I didn't know that and it was not my intent to cry wolf/alarm people.
Last edited:
