Blizzard secretly watermarking WoW screenshots with user ID, time and server address since 2008

[ríomhaire]

A hacking/exploit forum (I don't really want to link to it) have apparently uncovered that every screenshot taken in World of Warcraft (at screenshot quality 9 only?) are very subtly watermarked hidden barcode-like mark that gives the user ID of the screenshot taker, when it was taken and the IP address of the server it was taken on. It looks like this:

The technology supposedly comes from Digimarc. Not sure what the purpose of it is. Some are saying it's to help Blizzard secretly keep track of hackers and pirate servers when their screenshots are publicly uploaded. The Digimarc technology allows you to crawl the web for images containing the watermark (the main goal of technology is to watermark pictures with copyright information and track it across the internet) so they could automatically search and find IP addresses from screenshots to find pirate servers. It could probably be used to stalk specific users and their playing habits, but then again if they're uploading tons of screenshots you can probably do that anyway and also who cares.

I'm not really feeling particularly outraged over this but I do find it interesting.

 

[Vegeta897]

What's to be outraged about? There isn't really a privacy issue, since it's such basic information. And can anyone but Blizzard even decode it? If not, then there really isn't anything to be upset about. I guess maybe people could get mad that Blizzard has been doing this without telling people? But that is only because it made it more effective to catch hackers.

 

[Krynn72]

And can anyone but Blizzard even decode it?

Considering people know what information it contains without Blizzard even acknowledging it's existence let alone telling us what information it contains, yeah, I'd say other people can decode it.

 

[Vegeta897]

Well still, I can't see anyone being reasonably upset about it. If it had their IP embedded, or something else more private, then sure.

 

[Edeslash]

Now they know all my secrets.

 

[ríomhaire]

But Vegeta they're messing up my perfect screenshots with watermarks so impossible to notice it took four years for people to realise it was there!

Yeah I'm not really sure what there is to be outraged about. I'm not really sure why Blizzard would even put the money and effort into this system. Finding the IP addresses of pirate servers? Surely there's a less complicated way of doing that. I think this is more interesting than outrageous.

 

[Lubci50cal]

good thing I dont play any of that blizzard shiet xD

 

[Eejit]

Nothing too outrageous, but shouldn't this be mentioned in their ToS?

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Damn, I was kinda hoping the code was some kind of ARG