home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- It has come to my attention (via a few friends on IRC, whose names I have
- forgotten), that during any failed Starcraft BATTLE.NET connection
- (i.e. you have an invalid CD-Key), some sensitive information is (illegally)
- retrieved from your registry and sent up to Blizzard. This only seems to
- occur the first time you connect using an invalid key, but not afterwards.
- I have personally confirmed this using socket traces.
-
- As of the writing of this document, 6 registry keys in particular are
- checked and sent back to Blizzard, who obviously hope to collect names and
- e-mail addresses of those who attempt "invalid" connections to BATTLE.NET.
- These 6 keys are:
-
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MS Setup (ACME)\User Info\DefName
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Mail and News\Mail\Sender Name
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netscape Navigator\User\User_Name
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Mail and News\Mail\Sender EMail
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netscape\Netscape Navigator\User\User_Addr
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kali\Kali95\User Info\email
-
- Blizzard has the ability to change which registry keys are checked at any
- time, but currently only these 6 are checked. I would advise doing a "Find"
- operation in REGEDIT and removing any traces of your real e-mail and name.
-
- To combat this outright "invasion" of your computer privacy, I have coded
- a small program that will make your computer "anonymous" by setting these
- 6 registry keys to anonymous values. (Setting the names to Ben Dover and
- downloading@this.info.is.illegal.com, in particular). Just run BNETANON.EXE
- to display your current settings and click YES to "anonymize" them. Any
- settings that show up as "<not defined>" have never been created, so you
- don't need to worry about them.
-
- Can't believe that Blizzard would do such a thing? Do the socket trace
- yourself: go to http://www.win-tech.com, download Socket Spy/32, and
- register it using the following codes:
-
- Name=Beowulf
- Company=RAZOR 1911
- Code=OHJGH3LNLKM3O372 (note that all the O's are the letter O, not zero)
-
- Fire up Socket Spy/32, do "File/Begin Trace" (you may want to also turn on
- Capture To Disk to save a .TXT copy of the trace) then launch Starcraft and
- attempt a BATTLE.NET connection. After you are denied, exit out of Starcraft
- and check out the trace results. If this is the first time you have attempted
- to connect to BATTLE.NET using a particular bogus CD-Key, you should see what
- I mean. Note that the registry keys are only polled the FIRST time you try
- an invalid key, but not afterwards (I THINK). I have included a trace I did
- myself as TRACE.TXT.
-
- What does all of this mean? Well, if you plan to do "war-dialing" with
- generated keys to find a valid one, you will definately want to make your
- information anonymous. If you don't ever use BATTLE.NET for Starcraft,
- then this doesn't affect you at all.
-
-
- - Beowulf [RAZOR 1911]
-