The Warden is Watching YOU!!!

[Harsgalt]

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/24/world_of_warcraft_warden_is_it_spyware/index.html

Click the above link at your own risk-

Apparently this was a big debate before but what about now? I doubt Blizzard has changed the way the warden runs.

It has the ability to look at every single program you are running in windows. Or it used to anyway...

Is there any change to how the Warden runs? Or is it still going through all your files?

Anyone else know more about this?

[rgirty]

I've heard all about it. From what I understand..

1. Blizz forces you to install an anti-cheating program to play their game.
2. Said program looks at all the programs you are running.
3. Program finds a bot program, a cheat or a hack and you get banned.

I know I'm going to get flamed, but if you don't like this either

A. Don't install it.
B. Don't cheat.

Is it spyware, yeah I say it is and I say they are overstepping their rights to look at everything you have running.

However, all the problems, patch issues, downtime etc etc are also unacceptable as company performance IMO.

What if a major service provider treated its customers that way? Say for example, your cable provider? How about Direct tv or Dish Network?

What if Dish network announced that one day per week they were taking their signal off air for a large number of hours for "maintenance". Also from time to time this would get extended. You will not receive any type of credit for the downtime but we appreciate your patience.

I don't believe what they are doing is fair, that might get me flamed but that is what I believe.

By no means am I going to cancel, because it is the best game around.

If there was legit competition from another game, that would force blizz to perform better or be eliminated by the competition. With things as they are now, they really have no competition. They have more users than they can reliably support so you have the situation at hand.

I apologize for the length of my post.

[Kodonn]

It has the ability to look at every single program you are running in windows. Or it used to anyway...

Is there any change to how the Warden runs? Or is it still going through all your files?


I figured out a way to deal with that problem.
Here's what I do.....
1) Start Windows
2) Close all other programs
3) Launch WoW
4) Play WoW (and ONLY WoW) and leave my banking, taxes, gift shopping, etc. for later when the servers are down.


If you have to be working on other things while playing WoW, or if you are so bored while playing WoW that you desire to work on other things.....
Then maybe you shouldn't be playing WoW.

Not meant as a flame. I just wonder why so many people get so upset over this trade off. No one forces you to play WoW. There's even 2 sets of "rules" you have to ACCEPT everytime they do a new patch, before you can play. It's not like they are doing it malisciously or trying to hide it. It's their way (or one of their ways) of trying to improve and maintain the quality of the game.

:rolleyes:

[rgirty]

I figured out a way to deal with that problem.
Here's what I do.....
1) Start Windows
2) Close all other programs
3) Launch WoW
4) Play WoW (and ONLY WoW) and leave my banking, taxes, gift shopping, etc. for later when the servers are down.

:rolleyes:

I have a machine that is just for wow, thats all it does. No reason really, i just have a few computers and really don't need it for anything else.

[Stigg]

I use windowed mode so i can keep all the extra programs (internet, itunes, xfire, etc.) running with ease...and I can easily get to them. That being said....if Blizz DOES implement this....they better make sure it is ACCURATE. I don't want some randomn adware on my computer to pop up while Im playing WoW(as it does so often) and get me a permaban.

[Ju Smurph]

conspiracy theories... pffffft

[Seeo]

It's not a question of "if" it's a question of "how long they've been doing it".

Warden has been around since I started in Nov. 2005. And there are programs that can counter it... one I heard of is The Governor.

Don't ask me how to find it, I don't know. But lets just say some people think it's wrong that blizz can spy on people, because who knows WHAT they can see...

I'm at a neutral standpoint on this subject, I don't like it, but I can deal with it... it's not like I have anything to hide, but from a moral standpoint, is it right?

[Stigg]

Yep...its been around for quite some time. It runs in the background searchng for the well known 3rd party software programs running. Unfortunatly, it is incapable of doing anything intensive. SO if the 3rd party software's name isn't on the list....then it still gets by.

[Etrin]

Well I thought that they can only look at THEIR program....And the RAM on your computer..IF they try to look at hard drives and other running programs.....this is wrong.. Sure they should ban all botters but They dont need unlimited access to my computer and if I find out that they looked in drive D at my last years tax returns looking for a bot ...you can get your butt that there will be class actions on buzzard real quick...
on the direct TV post above...could not agree more...
how about flipping to your ppv movie and can not connect for first 20 damn minutes of the movie. THEY WOULD LOOSE a lot of customers REAL QUICK

I don't know about other countries but America has the most stupid consumers in the universe....SHEEP that don't ***** or complain just take what they are given and then run home and hide...30 yrs ago most companies would have been burnt to the ground for the crap they pull today.

And bush would not have been elected, if so he would be swinging in the breeze.

[Kodonn]

Well I thought that they can only look at THEIR program....And the RAM on your computer..IF they try to look at hard drives and other running programs.....this is wrong..
I don't know that much about bot programs, but I am assuming they are not encoded into WoW, so for them to ONLY look at their program would be kind of pointless. They already know what is in there. I think they look at other programs RUNNING on your PC while you are playing WoW. These are the ones they compare against a list of known bot programs.


Sure they should ban all botters but They dont need unlimited access to my computer and if I find out that they looked in drive D at my last years tax returns looking for a bot ...you can get your butt that there will be class actions on buzzard real quick...
I don't believe it looks at closed files or programs. So if you don't want them to see your tax return...don't do your taxes while playing WoW. Pick one.

And good luck with the class action lawsuit. When you accepted the terms (TOS, EULA) for connecting to Blizzards servers and playing their game, you gave them your permission to do this. Every patch when you have to re-accept, you give them permission AGAIN. So, now that you know about all this....you can always choose to NOT ACCEPT after the next patch and see what happens.


on the direct TV post above...could not agree more...
how about flipping to your ppv movie and can not connect for first 20 damn minutes of the movie. THEY WOULD LOOSE a lot of customers REAL QUICK


You pay by the month for WoW, not 2 hours on Wednesday between 7 and 9, and 4 hours on Saturday between 11 and 3. Your ppv movie is slotted to start at a specific time. I've never heard of anyone who DIDN'T get reimbursed or a rerun of the movie when the one they selected did not start on time. You really can't use this comparison for WoW anyway. As I said above, you accepted their terms for you to play on THEIR servers. If you read through what you agreed to, I believe it covers the issue of downtime for maintenance.



I don't know about other countries but America has the most stupid consumers in the universe....SHEEP that don't ***** or complain just take what they are given and then run home and hide...30 yrs ago most companies would have been burnt to the ground for the crap they pull today.

And bush would not have been elected, if so he would be swinging in the breeze.

I'm assuming then that you live in Europe maybe ? Yeah..thanks for the generalized insult. Let's not even get into that discussion. pot, kettle and all that. :shocked:

The simplest solution if you don't like Blizzards methods for trying to make the game world enjoyable for the majority of the players...is just not to log on.

If you don't connect...they can't run Warden or anything else on your PC.

[Jerkey]

I really don't see what would be so difficult about the program only searching or watching applications/programs/whatever that are affecting WoW. I'm no tech whizz but that doesn't seem like something that'd be overly difficult to do.

[Valas Azuviir]

I really don't see what would be so difficult about the program only searching or watching applications/programs/whatever that are affecting WoW. I'm no tech whizz but that doesn't seem like something that'd be overly difficult to do.

Unfortunately, things are sometimes not as simple as they might initially seem. I point to the rootkits installed by Sony, (at one point) through their music cd's, onto the pc's of users. Said rootkits subsequently made it possible for certain virusses to circumvent regular anti-virus programs. I hope you see what I'm driving at here.

As for Mr. Hoglund, a) he has a bit of a grudge against Blizzard, in addition b) he doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation. He's rather heavily involved with the WoW botting scene, so anything that cracks down on this, is the proverbial enemy for him.

[Kalos]

The Warden searches for alot of things, and gets false positives easily. For instance the Warden checks running processes in the background, if I renamed an executable, regardless of it's actual function, to "WoW-hack-1.21!" simply the fact it had that name would set the Warden off off. Sure nobody's going to do that. But that would be a perfectly legitimate program, having absolutely nothing to do with WoW, but getting the user in hot water due to it's name, rather than any brilliant detection system spotting tampering. Ironically, now no actual hacker is going to leave such an obvious name on a dodgy process as they know about this form of detection, it only hurts those who aren't savvy and have a slightly different set up to that expected by Blizzard. There were incidents of a wave of bannings, several people getting thier bans revoked, because the Warden went nuts on a perfectly legitimate but uncommon system process on a non-windows based OS. The Warden is watching you, but it isn't very bright.

[Amurko]

All I gotta say is don't run anything else when WoW is running..

And another question, does Warden start up automatically and run in the background even when WoW isn't active? Because I play WoW from Linux and in Linux, it's very obvious when a Windows EXE process is running (and I don't see any after a clean restart.)