Yeap you heard me right:).
I work Help Desk for this company, and in my 'Spare Time', I'm building databases and writing code in Lotus Notes. Theres nothing that breaks your train of thought quite like "Yes, Hi, I forgot my password for the 3rd time today, Sorry!!" and "The power just went off and so did my computer, is that normal?".
I started doing a little software development for my company (when I was hired to do help desk), and I was once asked to write a procedure for that. How do you write code.
I replied -- Step 1) Go to college for 4 years and get a computer science degree.
Everyone complains about Warden, but noone knows really how it works. Heres the basic gist:
Warden uses something similiar to a HASH function to get information about the processes run on your computer. Warden sends the HASH home. The HASH is compared against a list of known hacking processes, like WoWGlider, and if theres a match, you're being very naughty!
Is that REALLY the end of the world? NO! Blizzard can NOT discern any information from a HASH.
Heres an MD5 HASH of a file on my desktop, what is it? Quick, get my personal informationz!
Not sure, I also thought that, but Hoglund wasn't able to find a way past it.
Theres probably something else happening, but whatever it is we don't really know about it. However, I doubt its malicious in any way. After all, its still hashing the data.
I created a copy/paste response for the Blizzard forums because of the morons over there propegating this, but I'll write it a little more politely for the people over at/.
The warden scans your active window titles. Thats it. I know Hoglund IMPLIED that it is scanning websites and email addresses, but if you read what he said carefully, its GETTING this information ONLY from reading window titles, it doesn't scan any files or look at anything else.
It then HASHES the text it scans. You guys mostly know what a Hash is, so I'll leave out the explanation that I gave to the WOW forums.
It then compares that HASH with the built-in list of hashes. If you are using a program that matches the name of one on the list, it sends an alert to Blizzard. If you are NOT, then no information is transmitted, no data is sent.
The other thing this article left out is who Greg Hoglund is. Hoglund is a developer for a piece of software called WoWSharp. Look it up. Its outdated now, so don't bother trying to use it, but its a program specifically designed to HACK World of Warcraft. Thats right, the guy who wrote the anti-warden propeganda was actually a programmer who USED to write software to hack the game Warden protects. Guess why he only USED to write the software?
Warden beat him. He COULD NOT stop it. He couldn't figure out how to stop warden from blocking him all the time. He gave up, and this "article" was actually part of his "goodbye" letter.
I've had several computers infected with this garbage. Its a MAJOR pain to get off of a machine, and using their "uninstall" button fails 9 times out of 10.
This company should be sued for wasting peoples time with thier "cease and desist" letters.
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Odd, thought I was logged in when I posted this. Woops!! :)
Yeap you heard me right :).
I work Help Desk for this company, and in my 'Spare Time', I'm building databases and writing code in Lotus Notes. Theres nothing that breaks your train of thought quite like "Yes, Hi, I forgot my password for the 3rd time today, Sorry!!" and "The power just went off and so did my computer, is that normal?".
I started doing a little software development for my company (when I was hired to do help desk), and I was once asked to write a procedure for that. How do you write code. I replied -- Step 1) Go to college for 4 years and get a computer science degree.
Just an example. I don't know what hash function they use exactly, might even be proprietary.
Everyone complains about Warden, but noone knows really how it works. Heres the basic gist:
Warden uses something similiar to a HASH function to get information about the processes run on your computer. Warden sends the HASH home. The HASH is compared against a list of known hacking processes, like WoWGlider, and if theres a match, you're being very naughty!
Is that REALLY the end of the world? NO! Blizzard can NOT discern any information from a HASH.
Heres an MD5 HASH of a file on my desktop, what is it? Quick, get my personal informationz!
070A3B2AF0070DE30B1931B9F2590510
Not sure, I also thought that, but Hoglund wasn't able to find a way past it. Theres probably something else happening, but whatever it is we don't really know about it. However, I doubt its malicious in any way. After all, its still hashing the data.
I created a copy/paste response for the Blizzard forums because of the morons over there propegating this, but I'll write it a little more politely for the people over at /.
The warden scans your active window titles. Thats it. I know Hoglund IMPLIED that it is scanning websites and email addresses, but if you read what he said carefully, its GETTING this information ONLY from reading window titles, it doesn't scan any files or look at anything else.
It then HASHES the text it scans. You guys mostly know what a Hash is, so I'll leave out the explanation that I gave to the WOW forums.
It then compares that HASH with the built-in list of hashes. If you are using a program that matches the name of one on the list, it sends an alert to Blizzard. If you are NOT, then no information is transmitted, no data is sent.
The other thing this article left out is who Greg Hoglund is. Hoglund is a developer for a piece of software called WoWSharp. Look it up. Its outdated now, so don't bother trying to use it, but its a program specifically designed to HACK World of Warcraft. Thats right, the guy who wrote the anti-warden propeganda was actually a programmer who USED to write software to hack the game Warden protects. Guess why he only USED to write the software?
Warden beat him. He COULD NOT stop it. He couldn't figure out how to stop warden from blocking him all the time. He gave up, and this "article" was actually part of his "goodbye" letter.
Alterior Motive? You betcha!
I've had several computers infected with this garbage. Its a MAJOR pain to get off of a machine, and using their "uninstall" button fails 9 times out of 10. This company should be sued for wasting peoples time with thier "cease and desist" letters.
This was posted months ago, although I haven't checked it out in a while, back then it was neat, but impractical.