Before 60: World of Warcraft Tips

This is Part One of keeping your Online Gaming Accounts safe. This entry applies to everything online that requires a password to gain access - not just games. Email accounts, Online Gambling accounts, Online Banking accounts - anything you log into over the Internet can be subject to attack by hackers. The more you know about the scams in place, the safer you and your online accounts are.

Spyware, Keylogging “trojan” programs on your computer and even your own wish to ‘fast track’ your advancement are serious threats when it comes to the privacy of your personal information, and security of your online gaming characters.

The three major ways you’ll find your online accounts ‘hacked into’ include:

• Visiting a ‘rogue’ website that exploits flaws in Internet Explorer and plants a keylogger or password sniffer on your computer without your awareness (note, anyone who uses your computer could do this unknowingly).
• Having your trust abused by unscrupulous individuals who claim to work for the company providing the online service and then demand your username and password with a threat of banishment
• Purposely giving out your account information (username and password) with the hopes of being able to “hack” the system yourself, usually to gain virtual items, money or levels without following the “usual” route.

Avoid Known Browser Exploits - Use Firefox, Not Internet Explorer

Download Firefox by clicking the Firefox/Google graphic at the top right of this blog.

Internet Explorer is the world’s most popular browser for those who use Microsoft Windows as their operating system, specifically because Internet Explorer comes installed with Windows computers, and most users (especially novice ones) won’t think to replace or even upgrade it. Unfortunately, because IE is so popular, and because so few users keep their software up-to-date, many hackers have focused their time developing programs and websites to exploit Internet Explorer’s known flaws. There are a LOT of browser exploits out there.

While all Windows users should visit WindowsUpdate.com once a month to catch up on Microsoft’s various security updates for the entire Operating System, Internet Surfers who wish to protect their online information should strongly consider moving away from Internet Explorer.

Scan For Spyware And Keyloggers Regularly

While replacing a highly-targetted-for-hacking browser with one less focused on is an important first step, it’s also important to acknowledge that hackers are constantly releasing new software and websites and trying new tricks to steal your online accounts from you. For this reason, you should be scanning your computer on a regular basis (at least once a month) to detect and remove spyware, data harvesters and keyloggers from your Windows PC.

Download Lavasoft’s Ad Aware SE (for your home computer, there’s a free version). Then, make sure all aspects of it are updated (when you first download it, there may still be updates you need to download immediately after installation) and then let it scan your drives. This may take a while if you, like me, have large drives. It’s worth the wait but you might want to let it scan overnight if you’ve never scanned before. Remove *ALL* of the things that Ad Aware SE finds. You may have to right-click the list and choose “select all” before proceeding if you have a long list. I had a friend with over 700 items in this list the first time we cleaned his computer up, and once they were all removed, his browsing sped up tremendously again.

Download Spyware Search & Destroy (these can both be found in Tucows directory) and do the same things as were done for Ad Aware in the previous paragraph. I find that these two programs work nicely together to keep my drive clean, with my doing weekly scans.

Never PURPOSELY Share Your Account Information Or Password

Any web link you get from an email that brings you to a page where you’re supposed to enter sensitive information like your credit card, bank info or passwords, don’t do it! Banks and other service providers would NEVER contact you that way.

Any instructions you receive about sending an email with specific details enclosed (usually under the guise of “I can upgrade your stats/equipment/cash” if you just follow these instructions…), examine the information carefully - if you’re sending out your username and password, they’re stealing your account!

Even just giving out your username can encourage hacking of your account at times. If your username is not already visible to others, don’t give it to anyone, as they may try to crack your password with brute force (ie: a program that has a list of dictionary words it uses as passwords in login attempts).

Be Careful What Addons And Hacks You Download

While some online games allow for third-party software to be “added on” to improve your enjoyment of the game, some games do not. RuneScape, for example, has no legitimate addons which do not violate the Terms of Service you agreed upon when signing up, and very often any addons you’ll download are actually keyloggers that enable someone else to steal your account entirely.

Games like World of Warcraft, however, have a thriving “UI Mod/Addons” community and many advanced users download and install .LUA scripts which work with WoW to change launch bars, introduce in-game schedulers, track information while gaming, etc. In this case, the general rule is this:

If the Addon you’re downloading contains an executable file (in the form of a .bat file or a .exe or .com file), be very careful about running it. Executable files can easily contain keyloggers specifically added to steal your account information.

Keep Your Virus Checker Up To Date

And finally, as is standard these days, get a virus scanner that runs on your machine all the time it’s on, and make sure the virus scanner keeps up to date. I personally use Norton with its LiveUpdate feature, but you may prefer something else, or your computer may prefer something else ;) I’ve had virus programs severely slow down my machine’s performance and even crash it, while on other machines that virus program works just fine. Do what works, and what doesn’t cause you headaches, and then make sure it scans at least once a month.

Keep your computer clean. It’s an important step in protecting your personal, private information from those of unscrupulous internet users!

Karma is two things to me:

The thing that keeps me from getting mad at not getting a specific outcome from a specific person.

And

A third-party addon developed for World of Warcraft.

I’ll be talking about the second incantation of Karma here. You’d have to find me in a more philosophical blog to be talking about the first incantation of it.

Karma The Addon, What’s It Do?

Basically, it lets you award or remove “points” from other gamers, so as to remind you next time you interact with them how you already feel about them. The other gamer doesn’t get notified, and there’s no “Karma sharing” function as far as I know, so really, it’s just for you and your own memory.

Personally, I guess I’m a bit of a snob. Certain behaviors annoy me and since this game is about fun to me, part of why I’m using Karma is to help improve my own fun and lower my frustration. Namely, I am in a large guild with my 60 now and want to have SOME kind of understanding of who I’m going into instances with so I don’t go in repeatedly with people who annoy me. Mainly people who are selfish in a team situation, wanting to play like they solo instead of working with the team in a smooth way. I figure it’s not too much to expect at level 60 that ‘for the team’ etiquette would have developed.

Where To Find It, Basics Of Use

I found the Addon here and it installs like any other Addon. To get the command list once it’s installed and you’re re-logged into the game, do /karma.

Unless I’m actively partied with someone, I have to manually add them to my karma list before I can give or take karma points from them. There doesn’t seem to be a quick and easy way to do it from the Karma GUI (found by doing /karma window) but the command to add an online person to your Karma list is:

/karma addmember [player name]
ie:
/karma addmember Valdesta

Then from there, I tend to go into the GUI view (/karma window, find the person in question, and do the Karma rating changes manually with the slide bar. I also put in notes to remind myself why this person has been given or had karma removed. The interface is pretty self-explanatory once you get to it, I believe.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t cover the whole “same person, alt toon” thing but copying and pasting isn’t all that hard once you learn this is just another alt you’re dealing with…

Determining Points Given or Taken

Everyone on your Karma list starts out at 50, so those below 50 are effectively “below average” in your determination, and those above 50 are “above average”. I don’t think Karma can go outside of the 0-100 range, either.

So then, I’ll be giving points to some players and taking points away from others, and I have to figure out what my strategy is going to be for that so I get consistent, useful results over time. This is going to be the thing that takes the most mental time now that the Addon is installed. How much do I give to or take from people in terms of Karma for their actions which I personally deem to be ‘for the team’ vs ‘for myself, screw the team’? I don’t know the answer to that yet.

Right now, tho, I think I’ll award 1 point for everything that makes me think “Hmm, that rocked” and 5 points for everything that makes me think “holy shit, THAT ROCKED!”, and just reverse the sentiments for deductions. It’ll be interesting to see how all these complete strangers online start to stack up now that I don’t have to worry about ever sharing the information or doing anything about it other than avoiding instance parties with the ones who really really suck!

I’ll let you know how it goes :)