Slashdot Mirror
Man Tracked Down and Arrested Via WoW
kabome writes with this excerpt from a story about an alleged drug dealer who was located by law enforcement thanks to World of Warcraft:
"Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson. ... Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location."
We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if you are violating the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for a Blizzard site or product, or may be causing injury to or interference (intentionally or unintentionally) with Blizzard's rights or property, other users of a Blizzard site or product, or anyone else who could be harmed by your activities.
They basically say if the police come, they'll have no problem giving up your information. I guess that is a problem for some people, but so far it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing.
Qxe4
One has to wonder, if Blizzard goes that far above and beyond requests of law enforcement and gives mountains of data in response to polite requests-- not even subpoenas-- how seriously do they take the privacy of *your* personal information?
Well, though people do tend to gloss over the fine details in things like EULAs and Terms of Service, it's not as if Blizzard is hiding anything from its users. From the WoW Terms of Use:
C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.
Blizzard gets a request from law enforcement, Blizzard hands over the info, simple as that. (And actually, if it were my company I'd probably have a similar policy. A "polite request" is just about the only contact I'd ever want to have with law enforcement, and the sooner they disappear from my life the better.)
Breakfast served all day!
RTFA, he did get a subpoena. Due the jurisdiction and ambiguity of the online world they didn't have to respond to the subpoena, the subpoena was more of a polite request because they didn't have to co-operate with it.
Did you understand the article? The subpoena had no force of law, as it was being served out of their jurisdiction. Done correctly, it would have had to have been served via the court in the jurisdiction the entity providing the information resided in - a California court, not an Indiana one. Because of time/funding/whatever issues, the sheriff didn't bother going that route, but instead sent what was in essence a request, not a subpoena.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Did YOU read the summary?
How about this part:
"Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson.
If you bothered to read the article, it's repeated there, as well. If it's just a "politely worded request" then use of the word subpoena was in error.
Definition of subpoena:
A subpoena (pronounced /sbpin/ or pronounced /spin/) is a writ issued by a court that commands the presence of a witness to testify, under a penalty for failure.
If they were able to legally enforce this, I doubt they would have bothered with said "politely worded request" - look at the TSA's use of subpoenas, for example.
Blizzard was subpoenaed:
“None of that information was sound enough to pursue on its own, but putting everything we had together gave me enough evidence to send a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment. I knew exactly what he was playing — World of Warcraft. I used to play it. It’s one of the largest online games in the world.”
Due to the guy being in a different country, there was not a need to respond to it, but I guess that there would have been nothing to have stopped one being sought in Canada....
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
Since when is killing oneself illegal?
Surely you are joking? Almost every country in the world has laws against suicide. In the US it was only a decade or so ago that the last states took felony suicide and attempted suicide laws off the books.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You really are clueless aren't you?
People who oppose Tasers do so not because of the safety risk (which they bring up only because Taser International, which claims Tasers are 100% safe, invented their own disease to explain it--"excited delirium"). They do so because of the civil rights issues and the fact that police use them when force isn't needed. Children, individuals sleeping on park benches, and individuals not resisting have been Tasered. And sometimes the police Taser individuals repeatedly when that is not needed. The civil rights violations with this device are well known, and your strawman argument doesn't fly.
from wow EULA
C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.
D. BLIZZARD MAY MONITOR, RECORD, REVIEW, MODIFY AND/OR DISCLOSE YOUR CHAT SESSIONS, WHETHER VOICE OR TEXT, WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, AND YOU HEREBY CONSENT TO SUCH MONITORING, RECORDING, REVIEW, MODIFICATION AND/OR DISCLOSURE. Additionally, you acknowledge that Blizzard is under no obligation to monitor Chat, and you engage in Chat at your own risk.
The game is set up so that you can get to level 80 fairly quickly... the amount of experience required to go from level 1-70 has been reduced significantly since the game came online, and the 70-80 grind can be done in a weekend if you're serious about it (and have no life). Most people who play the game fairly regularly have at least one level 80 character, many have multiple level 80 characters.
The reason he's saying that this appears to be a pretty bad player is because his equipment is sub-par in some cases, and because the way he's spent his skill points is a bit questionable... while it'd be perfectly effective for casual play, for the more hardcore raiding type players, the ones who get together in groups of 25 people to go kill gods and such, he would not be effective enough to be desireable.
Also, he lacks some things that you would expect on a better player... players who have more experience and better equipment usually make money faster in game, and he lacks some of the achievements and talents you would expect of somebody who has money in game. (notice that there's an option for him to have two different talent specializations, but one of them is greyed out.) By contrast, look at this one.... that's my death knight, who I've been really really half-assed about playing. I took 4 months off WoW in the fall (as in, didn't log in at all), and my hunter is actually my main character and the one that I go more "hardcore" with... though even that character is being supplanted by a priest that I've been playing, as I'm finding that I enjoy healing much more... but if you compare his against the gear on my death knight, you'll notice that some items have significantly higher "item level", and that everywhere I can put a gem I have... likewise, everything that can be enchanted is enchanted (those green things like "Rune of the Fallen Crusader" on the axe). And my gear on that DK is less than standard... item level 232 is the highest I have, and there's stuff with level 264 available now. The tradeskills are all maxed out, I have dual talent specialization, and I have epic flying. All on a character that I really don't care about playing that much. (and who hasn't actually gone into a dungeon or raid in almost 5 months)
There's an element of elitism among people who look at his gear and his talent spec and say that he's obviously a bad player... it's entirely possible that he makes it work and is a really good player. But it's more likely that he doesn't really understand his class or how to maximize his equipment and talent spec for the role he wants to play in the game.