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Blizzard Sued Over Battle.net Authentication
An anonymous reader writes "A man has initiated a class-action suit against Blizzard over a product used to shore up Battle.net security. Benjamin Bell alleges that Blizzard's sale of Authenticators — devices that enable basic two-tier authentication — represents deceptive and unfair additional costs to their basic games. (Blizzard sells the key fob versions for $6.50, and provides a free mobile app as an alternative. Neither are mandatory.) The complaint accuses Blizzard of making $26 million in Authenticator sales. In response, Blizzard made a statement refuting some of the complaint's claims and voicing their intention to 'vigorously defend' themselves."
They introduced a "restore" feature a while back that allows you to migrate devices without removing two-factor authentication. Basically, you enter the restoration code into the new phone/device and both devices will continue to generate the same seeded code. This can also be used to extend the authenticator to multiple devices like having a smartphone and a tablet both generate the same code. This is just an ease-of-use feature, especially when sometimes you can't find one of the devices you installed your authenticator on.
It is made by Vasco and is sold in large quantity orders for around 6.50$, which is the same as what Blizzard charges for it. The idiot in question is basicly claiming Blizzard sold 400,000 Authenticators at a 100% profit margin.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Shouldn't the $60 purchase price and (possible) $15 monthly fee "help cover postage and pay for the dongle"?
It's not "completely" optional, use of Diablo 3 RMAH requires it and/or the mobile app, and if you don't have a phone that can run the mobile app, then the authenticator is the only way to use an advertised feature of the game.
Blizzard does profit, however little, from the authenticators. Do you really think that they take a loss on them? Or that $6.50 is the magical round number that represents exactly their cost? No, of course not, Blizzard is rounding up to cover their cost (assuming there is no intentional profit margin built in) and they make money from it, period. The real issue though is the fact that they are forcing users to pay for the game's security, profit or no profit. It's a hidden cost of being able to enjoy the product you already paid for.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?complete=0&hl=en&source=hp&q=battle.net%20password%20case%20sensitive&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
It's pretty well-documented, including blue posts from Blizz staff.
No they aren't I just checked my copy of Diablo 3 (which was a total waste of money) and my password worked regardless of what I capitalized.
You know, there are plenty of WoW server emulators that had to reverse engineer the client authentication.
Both the username and the password are converted to uppercase before being SHA-160 hashed and fed into the SRP6 authentication algorithm.
If you really want to be correct, income can be either net or gross. Gross income is revenue. Net income is profit. Because he didn't state what kind of income, he's technically still correct. </pedantic>
there is a 4th way, its Called WinAuth. A problem you can run on your computer to generate the code. Its FREE as well. http://code.google.com/p/winauth/
Actually no, i'm wrong. What the hell?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...