Me either but I heard about them from my parents.
Necroâd
Probably this was about a bug that wasnât allowing people to start groups and the theory was that it was due to accounts without the authenticator. But itâs been fixed.
FWIW
Again, nothing to do with custom text in GF.
Also also, landlines were getting far less spam calls than you do on your cell phones by a pretty large margin. Even cell phone spam calls were far far less back in college and well into the smart phone era. Either way, irrelevant.
Frankly, this is a lot less often than you think. Every single one of the WTS groups I see always seem to follow the same pattern. An account created just for spamming.
Just armory them. I have yet to see one that resembles a âreal playerâ (i.e. an ilvl above leveling greens, any achievement beyond the one to hit cap, etc.).
This notion that it is all just âcompromisedâ accounts is just false. In fact, the requirement to be level cap to post a group did far more to reduce the WTS spam than the authenticator did.
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Alas, it hasnât reduced said spam because Blizzard is unwilling to act on it themselves and ads I report in there will stay up for days at a time.
Iâd argue having SMS protection can in some cases invalidate the protection of an authenticator because SMS is quite exploitable. The other problem with this, is it doesnât work for quite a few phone carriers and prepaid stuff is very hit or miss even more so in countries from Europe.
At this point maybe an Authenticator should be required for accounts (since there are ways to get it even on your PC and avoid if you donât have a phone) but there should be no restrictions to make groups either way.
Would still have to have SMS Protect, which physical authenticators donât provide. Have to have a major carrier phone.
I donât use the group finder often, but this prevents me from making legion m+ keys which is really really annoying.
Ya, this isnât 2004. People arenât using the same password on every website and websites arenât storing the passwords in plain text files anymore.
These are real businesses and spam accounts are just an advertising cost and a rather small one at that. No need to break laws and risk losing your payment processing accounts for doing so.
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what about it is hard to understand?
they get more support calls for stolen accounts from people without authenticators than from people with them.
you can do the math. itâs pretty basic stuff.
imo they should remove the sms protect requirement and let people use a third party authenticator (google authenticator, for example). or sell the physical keys again.
that would appease the people who weirdly donât have phones in 2022.
While Iâm sure this is true, I think weâd need some numbers to know if itâs significant in any way. Back when account theft was more prevalent you would see post after post about account hacked, all items sold, etc etcâŚ
You donât see those posts much if at all anymore. Email verification is thing now. Finger printing machines and installs is a thing now. The tools to notice and verify suspicious behavior are much better now. Security is much better now.
Authenticator is a superfluous technology these days. Banks and securities trading services donât even require them.
youâre not wrong, hard data is always best when making assumptions, but those are numbers weâre simply never going to get.
Secondary authentication via hardware device, phone, or separate email is very very very common. I canât even get in my Gmail from a new device without it sending a code to my phone.
My doctor uses a physical authenticator to put in my prescription to the computer system. ONLY the person holding that device gets in. Which is why they are so very very useful and are common in higher security environments.
Also yes, most compromised accounts donât have secondary authentication set up on them. There are ways to get around it, but that requires sending a govt issued photo ID to Blizz to convince them the hacker is you and getting the Auth taken off.
Sort of like saying most cars that get stuff stolen from them are left unlocked⌠Donât make it easy for the bad guys.
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Again, this is not relevant. This is protecting real NPPI data. Not custom text within a video game. They also donât selectively apply when the requirement is needed (some customers yes vs. some customers no). Nor apply a sub-par experience to a sub-group of customers.
Again, most WTS groups in GF donât appear to come from compromised accounts. All of them Iâve seen are throw-away accounts created just for advertising.
Same pattern. Heroic edition/boosted 50 character. Leveled to cap in order to advertise. You can just look at their gear and achievements in armory and see that it isnât a ârealâ player.
Like a tax write off for those companies doing this.
Still though we are getting off-topic. This is ruining the experience for real players and still not actually solving the problem.
They need to either remove custom text for everyone, or add it back for everyone. At the same time, there are massive improvements that can be made to the LFG tool.
How much time and effort would it actually take to add a drop-down on the world boss option to include which world boss in the GF? Then no one would need custom text.
You guys keep hanging on to this âprotect the accountâ thing as a strawman to ignore the fact that GF is basically unusable for real players.
Account security is one issue. Gameplay is another. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Yeah, the agenda of keeping your account secure so they so they donât have to waste time recovering it when itâs inevitably hacked.
Itâs cut down a LOT on the advert spam in LFG, and the authenticate is free, so I donât see the problem. Unless you want to spam LFG with alt accounts for some reason.
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Find it hilarious that Blizzard added the LFG to TBC Classic and no one uses it. Nothing is ever spammed in the chat WTS. Barely anyone chats in Retail, beyond politics and trolling. The finder should be removed from Retail.
Bigger issue with requiring an authenticator to form groups is not being able to set it up because blizzard recognizes your phone number as a âprepaid phoneâ. Which is honestly the most ridiculous thing ever. And there seems to be no consistency to it. Explain why i have 2FA set up with my phone, but my bother who is on the same phone plan, literally he is just a second line on my phone plan, gets rejected when he tries. Which kinda kills the previous argument that âits a choice not to have itâ when its not an option for everyone.
Ehhh. Look, the Internet has changed over the years, and not to the positive. Thereâs far too many scams, bots, hacks, etc that will compromise your account. The original physical authenticators were not even Blizzardâs, they were the same third party tokens used for banks and other corporations.
2 tier authentication is simply a thing nowadays. Thereâs honestly no reason not to use it, and the entire responsibility and fault falls on you if your account gets hacked.
Exactly. The risk is on you if your account gets hacked. So why is blizzard restricting me from standard features for not having it? Its my risk isnât it? So let me take it and play my game in peace.
And again, not an issue having it, if it werenât for it just not being available to some phone numbers for reasons unknown.
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Because the spammers usually use throw away accounts or stolen accounts to spam LFG. Those accounts rarely have an Auth on them. Limiting custom group titles to those with security limits the throw away account and stolen account spam.
This is an issue and has been for a long time. The govt assigns some sort of tag to numbers when issued. Those numbers can get sold and re-used but the tags donât change. I donât know how to get them changed and if the phone service company can do it or not. Blizzardâs system simply detects the tag on the phone number - it canât change it or over ride it.
I have tried for years to figure out how it all works, but it is not quite that easy to track down. I do know it is not in Blizzardâs hands though. Other than them requiring SMS protect be set up when someone sets up an Authenticator now.
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So now you have to get not only the authenticator, but the SMS protect as well. In order to get SMS protect you have to have a specific type of prepaid phone which I do not own. My phone that I had to do a credit check and give a physical address for is somehow not good enough to qualify!! Its such a bummer to not be able to put titles in because Id have to buy a different type of phone, not doing that!
There is something bigger going on than protecting us from trade spammers. They are still doing it. The lfg tool yesterday was full of services. Hackers and cheaters will just create a phone number generator. Who knows. Dishonest people seem to find loopholes while the rest of us are stuck with more dumb rules to keep us safe and bog our time down. While dishonest people continue doing what they do. IP address bans sounds like a better solution. Perhaps not allowing VPNâs would better serve the cause.
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