Blizzard encodes your WoW screenshots

[ultragigatank]

Looking around, like I do I seriously was shocked when i read this. Being an ownedcore member and have been for years I checked around behind the scenes to make sure this wasn't bullshit.... and it's not.

OwnedCore - World of Warcraft Exploits, Hacks, Bots and Guides - Looking inside your screenshots


Quoted from ownedcore:

It looks like Activision Blizzard has teamed up with Digimarc (Digimarc (DMRC) - Discover Media the Digimarc Way) to provide us this wonderful service of secretly tagging our in-game screenshots with our account and realm information. Although it has not yet been verified, it is possible that Blizzard is using an automated monitoring service which downloads image files from various Internet sites and checks them for the presence of their embedded digital watermark data, kindly provided by Digimarc: Patent US7653210 - Method for monitoring internet dissemination of image, video, and/or audio files - Google Patents

_Mike has managed to disassemble the watermark data and help us verify which pieces of information are contained inside. Do note that this covert watermarking has been going on since, at least (!), 2010 (Patch 4+) so you may want to delete/remove from the public domain all your post-Cataclysm screenshots captured by WoW.

 

[ultragigatank]

Also this was posted here yesterday now on page 2

http://www.thebuddyforum.com/general-discussion-forum/68411-important-warning-screenshots.html

This is a real issue and is probably how blatant botters have been caught. Read the article from the 1st post it is very important.

 

[Rewards]

Simply post no screenshots, will be the safest.

 

[TheMaff]

Simply post no screenshots, will be the safest.

You can post screenshots just don't post those from the wow folder. I usually take a pic of my desktop or with fraps and edit it with PS/paint. I doubt they can decode those pics to get our info.

 

[Irnawtbottng]

this is interesting...

 

[nooblet]

Pretty full on isn't it. We can get in trouble for using game exploits, and yet Blizzard are using covert means to spy on us. If i was spying on my neighbor i guarantee if i was caught I'd do Jail time lol

 

[TheBreeze]

Dont use WoW ingame screenshot software , use any service like puu.sh