Spyware in WOW

[StarModder]

Ok heres the deal folks, i found this article when i was seaching the internet, and this could be serious.

here are the links to the two sites containing this information:
http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/22
http://www.rootkit.com/newsread.php?newsid=371




KEEPING BLIZZARD HONEST - Announcing the release of 'The Governor'
http://www.rootkit.com/uploads/00002020.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:otvor()
The Governor sniffs Warden activity
http://www.rootkit.com/country/us.gif By: hoglund (http://www.rootkit.com/user.php?name=hoglund)
Blizzard, a subsidary of Vivendi, builds and markets the popular computer game known as World of Warcraft, which claims more than 4.5 million players worldwide. Unknown to most players is the fact that World of Warcraft includes an embedded spyware(ref: is warden spyware? (https://www.rootkit.com/newsread.php?newsid=369)) program which indiscriminantly reads data from all open windows and processes on the users computer. The purpose of the warden is to verify compliance with the EULA and TOS. While many welcome the warden as a means to catch cheaters who use 3rd party 'botting' programs, many others may find this a violation of privacy.

The fact is that the warden client reads information from other processes on the computer. Regardless of the reasons, this technically counts as 'spying' on a user. So, reasons aside, the term 'spyware' is fitting.

Rather than debate the morality of this behavior, I would like to give the consumers the power to make this decision for themselves. I am releasing a program called 'The Governor'. The Governor is very simple - it watches the activities of World of Warcraft, and clearly reports which data is being read from other processes. The Governor makes no attempt to subvert or alter the behavior of the warden client, or World of Warcraft. The Governor will not assist you in cheating. The Governor exists for one reason, to tell you the truth.

Here is the governor, released with FULL SOURCE. There are no secrets or tricks. See the warden in action for yourself:

http://www.rootkit.com/vault/hoglund/Governor.rar (http://www.rootkit.com/redirect.php?http://www.rootkit.com/vault/hoglund/Governor.rar)

and, as a ZIP file,

http://www.rootkit.com/vault/hoglund/Governor.zip (http://www.rootkit.com/redirect.php?http://www.rootkit.com/vault/hoglund/Governor.zip)

In the screenshot, you can see World of Warcraft reading memory from the processes running on my computer.

Absolutely no reverse engineering is required to make the Governor work. The Governor monitors fully documented API calls which are offered by the Microsoft Windows operating system. To monitor these API calls, the Governor uses a documented library called 'Detours', which is available from Microsoft.

Will Blizzard ban me if I use The Governor?

I have personally been running The Governor on a test account and there have been no problems. The Governor does not modify the behavior of WoW.EXE or the warden. The Governor is not designed to assist cheaters, and offers no mechanism to help cheaters hide their programs.

But, that being said, Blizzard can choose to ban you for using a 3rd party program. The Governor is a 3rd party program. While the Governor poses absolutely no threat from a cheating aspect, it does expose the behavior of their warden client. In my opinion, banning people for seeking the truth about warden would sink Blizzard to a new all-time low. But, this isn't my decision. I cannot guarantee you won't be banned.

AN OPEN MESSAGE TO BLIZZARD
Blizzard, it is within your right to attempt to make your computer game that way you wish it to be, and to attempt to catch cheaters. But, reading the memory of other processes and windows that are not part of the World of Warcraft game client is a violation of privacy. Making a violation of privacy legal in your EULA and TOS does not make it also moral. It remains a violation of privacy. Please refactor your policy in regards to scanning memory, and limit the warden to integrity checking of the game client's memory space, and please stop opening other processes and reading windows that do not belong to you.

-Greg Hoglund

Im not sure if any of you regard this as a "problem" but i sure as hell do!!

[kongurous]

Old news. The Warden is there to stop illegal hacks from being used, it's purpose is benign, not malevolent. Nothing to worry about. I will consider using The Governer, however.

[StarModder]

hmm i wonder if its possible to block the procces useing something such as Microsoft Antispyware or something like that. but the problem i think may be that its built into WOW.

[Markpyro]

Dont care. I trust Blizzard, and if they want to do something to my computer, so be it.

[StarModder]

.... a true fan.

[wa123]

who cares....what can they do? harmless

[Toucan]

I actually support the use of the warden, I believe it should be a condition of WoW's use that it not be tampered with, if you are found to be tampering with it, you should be banned from the game.
What purpose do you have to want to tamper with it other than you wish to run hacks?
Star Craft online play was ruined because of hackers, it would suck if the same thing happened to WoW.

[Nuts]

I'm willing to bet that the use of this "spyware" is covered in your user agreement. You know, the one that nobody ever reads because they "trust" the software manufacturer.

StarModder, have you read your user agreement?

[Incantrix]

Even if I didn't trust Blizzard out of all the computer companies out there, if they made something that wasn't benign, people would be on them so fast that they wouldn't know what hit them. I'm not interested in downloading the governor. It's just another program that would be running and eating processing time. It's mostly a case of people overreacting to something in the theme of "Big Brother's Watching." It's Blizzard's game, and if they're monitoring a few outer processes, I'm willing to let them if it makes it that much harder for people to hack.

If people didn't try to hack in the first place, there would be no reason for it.

We could also take the paranoia to a new level, and say that this guy who made the governor is actually out to get Blizzard! Maybe his program doesn't actually monitor anything, and just makes up a bunch of crap to make it look like theres some crazy Blizzard-made super-program running in WoW that controls your computer! Ooo, but maybe in reality, it's the governor that's controling your computer! And this guy is nothing more than a sneaky hacker! How's that for paranoia?

[killer-penguin]

Blizzard uses a version of Warden in warcraft 3 and it has never gotten half the responses that it gets in WoW. Heck I bet they use a version of it in every game from now on. What's to stop them...some random dude who makes a program called the governer?

[StarModder]

Acctually i think i have noticed some of the effects of a warden that is in Warcraft III, every so often my virtual drive that warcraft is on malfunctions and says things like CD is not in drive and etc. however i just unload the drive restart the computer and reload it and its fine.

[King_Twinblade]

yea i have had some strange game crash's every time when i get it my best friend gets it to :S maby thats cuz i am hosting the game or maby cuz of the warden thingy but i know it izn't good to use hack's but what kinda hacks shud be thaken serious?? one's that give extra healt and extra power? or the one's like on thottbot that show you at wat point you are and with that help you know where you need to be for a quest?

i think the thottbot izn't making the game bad i think it make's it slightly easer and more fun.

but some kinda hack that give's you a boost in power,speed,healt,armor,money etc. is just plain lame.

[StarModder]

Blizzard Regards any and all hacks as bad (which they should), which is not always a good thing because they go out of their way to solve the problem of hacks, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad, however, i dont like the idea of the Warden, perhaps if they asked me to install it or told me it was nessasary i might have accepted the fact that its here to stay, but they simply install it without my permission.

[Seal]

warden is active only with the game it came with. if you dont like it, dont run the game. sorry, but its sometimes better to have such monitors to discourage cheating. cheats always happen, but with warden hopefully working, it might be easier for blizzard to track the bug and exploiters.