Blizzard embeds watermarks in all your WoW screenshots

[Correction]

http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/worl...reenshots.html

The secret watermark which is being intentionally embedded inside WoW generated screenshots below top quality, DOES NOT CONTAIN the account password, the IP address of the user or any personal information like name/surname etc. It does contain the account ID, a timestamp and the IP address of the current realm. It can be used by hackers to link alt. characters to accounts and target specific spam or scam attacks, and it can be used by Blizzard to track down private WoW servers.

No confirmation if the same is true of StarCraft 2 or Diablo III screenshots. It's a good argument against posting screenshots of you using 'sploits or a private server, if nothing else. At least not without using a 3rd party capture tool like FRAPS. Apparently setting your screenshot quality to 10

/console SET screenshotQuality "10"

will also rid you of the watermark.

[BadKarma]

It contains no information that even reveals who you are. The screenshot you are posting actually reveals more in terms of character

[Raldo]

Yeah, I've seen this posted in a couple places now, but I don't see what the big deal is. I think it's a pretty clever idea, actually.

[Correction]

but I don't see what the big deal is.

The biggest threat is online harassment. Even if you went out of your way to crop out things like the chat log or your character name/unit frames, any screenshot from 2008 and on can be used to track you down in game. How big a deal that is will vary from person to person.

[Raldo]

I don't recall seeing anyone actually post a way to parse the data; they merely say that it is there.

Edit: On second read, it looks like they are able to parse it (otherwise how would they know what data it contained).

I still think the minor benefits outweigh the miniscule drawbacks.

[Correction]

I still think the minor benefits outweigh the miniscule drawbacks.

This only benefits Activision/Blizzard. Unless you work there it's strange to say this.

[Raldo]

This only benefits Activision/Blizzard. Unless you work there it's strange to say this.

While I do not work for them, I am looking at it from the point of view of an employee working within a software company. Yes, it is only beneficial for them, and I realize that. Just because it doesn't benefit you, doesn't make it any less of a benefit. I find it particularly clever to embed debugging information in a place where users wouldn't notice it, but could help you track down potential issues.

If this ends up causing harassment, then Blizzard just needs to make sure they have the appropriate systems in place to deal with it, which they probably already do. That said, now that it's out in the open, they should probably remove it anyway, since people could easily figure out how to spoof the data, thus rendering it useless. Not to mention the shitstorm it seems to be generating.

[arus2001]

Shouldn't, in theory, editing a screenshot in Photoshop in some manner render such info useless, or at the very least, garbled?

[Deadgye]

Next thing you know blizzard will make cameras that embed data into pictures; like when it was taken and what camera was used.

[Tajin]

There are easier ways to obtain (customer info) and "harrass" users (lol at this) but feel free to blow shit out of proportion; that said, blizzard actually needs some slapping after the security clusterfuck that is D3

[Meresgi]

People are blowing shit shit waaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion. I mean shit why would anyone go through the hassle to decipher any encryption in the images and what not, when they could just try a shit load of easier ways. I'm sure the fake emails still work for a good amount of people, keyloggers still work for a lot of people, you really don't have to go through this hassle.