Some people go on trade chat and say they “data mined” info on the next patch and even expansions. Is data mining a sugar coated way of saying hacked? Are these people hacking the dark web to steal secrets about the next expansion?
Okay. So.
Blizzard, as an MMO, gives us these things called downloaded files.
Normally, these files have some form of encryption / security. Some do not.
People have programs to look at these files and that can read them (such as model viewers) and files that can make certain files look like others (some guy named Rufeus 34us).
They only have what Blizzard puts in their own file system for PTR.
But if people are looking at the encrypted ones, doesn’t that involve hacking?
Depends on the program. Some things can read encryption.
If you send an encrypted e-mail, the person receiving it doesn’t read encrypted gibberish. The other end has a way to translate it.
Generally dataminers, or at least the big ones like MMOC and WoWhead, tend not to touch them.
But most stuff isn’t encrypted because Blizzard doesn’t care that much about keeping it a secret.
The files in question are generally cinematics or the details of coming pets/mounts Blizzard wants kept secret until a certain time.
Blizzard push encryption keys out to the cache files and that’s what the data miners use to de-code the encryption. It’s not really worth breaking the encryption when Blizzard will eventually just give you a key for it.
For the rest it’s just monitoring the patch servers , downloading the CASC files then decoding what they can decode from them. The major sites have custom tools they drop a new patch into to figure out what’s in the new patch.
Basically Minecraft, but instead of dirt blocks, it’s data.
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Data mining is peeking at your Christmas presents in November.