Morning Caffeinated! -- Guild Wars 2 hacks and Mists of Pandaria prep

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 10, 2012. Topics include: Guild Wars 2 is getting a large ammount of hacked accounts; I'm preparing for Mists of Pandaria; and what is it about Assassin's Creed 3 that appears so interesting? Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!

John Keefer

September 10, 2012 8:35 AM

It was a bad weekend, Shack. Not that I should have expected any different from my perennial losers of sports teams. As a long-suffering Cleveland fan, my Browns and Indians lost late, and I fully expect my Cavaliers will regret choosing Dion Waiters with their first overall draft pick this year. The good news is all my teams should have high first round picks in their respective drafts next year. Cleveland would probably have better luck in Madden NFL 13, NBA 2K13 or Major League Baseball 2K12. I'm just so disgusted. And now for some real gaming news. * * * * *

Protect your account from attacks

With success comes scrutiny, usually from the unsavory types. And Guild Wars 2 apparently is feeling the major impact of that from hackers trying to gain access to player accounts. Developer ArenaNet said that it has received more than 11,000 support requests from people who have had their accounts compromised. The developer is encouraging everyone to use different emails or passwords for their accounts and web sites they frequent. While that is great, in theory, I personally have more than 50 online accounts, between banking, game and social sites, etc. These same people that tell you to have different user names and passwords are also the same people who tell you not to write them down where other people can find them. While I try to follow that advice, it sure is getting harder and harder not to overlap because it is really difficult to remember all the complicated passwords I have. On numerous occasions, I have had to reset my password because I just flat out forgot it. There has got to be an easier way to streamline the process. * * * * * While I really do want to start playing Guild Wars 2, I am forcing myself to get back into World of Warcraft so I can be ready to review Mists of Pandaria when it comes out later this month. The new 5.0.4 patch offered a ton of changes to learn. I know WoW is a game that Shackers love to hate on, but I really want to see how the new monk class plays and what the starting area is like. Yeah, I could play the beta, but that would spoil the fun. A new TV commercial for the expansion launched over the weekend, but unfortunately, it just regurgitated much of the opening cinematic. After I play my panda monk through the starting areas, I just need to decide which of my 85s will get to progress to 90. Enhancement shaman, hunter, rogue, mage or shadow priest? There can be only one. I'll let you guys pick for me. * * * * * Speaking of TV commercials, a new one for Assassin's Creed 3 has also materialized. I never played the first two (except for an aborted attempt at the original), but this one has really piqued my interest for some reason. Not sure if it is the American Revolution setting, a milieu that has always intrigued me, or if it is just the gamer in me saying "What are you waiting for?" I guess I will be playing the PC version when it finally arrives in November. * * * * * Random bits & Quick hits: Man, Remember Me looks really interesting. Adding that to my "must try" list ... Adding Richard Garriott to my list of interviewees for Where are They Now. It should be fun to retrace his career ... I'll be glad when the summer lull is over for game releases. There hasn't been much coming out to get me off my nostalgia kick. Flashback: The was a good discussion in Chatty about games we thought were great back in the day. Lukiopimp mentioned Homeworld, and I had to admit that I really liked that game. Prompted a fun recollection of an interview I had with Relic's Alex Garden in late 1999. Fun times.

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John Keefer

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September 10, 2012 8:35 AM

John Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated! -- Guild Wars 2 hacks and Mists of Pandaria prep.

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 10, 2012. Topics include: Guild Wars 2 is getting a large ammount of hacked accounts; I'm preparing for Mists of Pandaria; and what is it about Assassin's Creed 3 that appears so interesting? Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
- Navy Spitfire
  
   reply
  September 10, 2012 8:47 AM
  
  Just watched the Remember Me trailer... looks pretty neat, great graphics and the fighting abilities looks sweet... though it seems like a game that will be holding your hand till the end telling you where to go and what to do with those yellow chevrons posted everywhere. Also, combat seems a little to stutter-y for me, like it would get annoying pretty quickly
- rosewood
  
   reply
  September 10, 2012 9:01 AM
  
  Keefs, you gotta get a password manager.
  
  First, this isn't an MMO/gamer thing. This is an everyone thing.
  Second, when it comes to things like forums that you don't give a shit about, feel free to reuse. Just don't be surprised if the acct gets compromised. But since you don't care if your kitten lovers.com forum pass gets exposed, whatever.
  
  Password hacking has really evolved in the last few years. Ars had a great article on it recently but basically newer hardware + better prediction code = easier to brute force passwords.
  
  Your don't keep them written down is no longer possible and that's why you keep them written down in a secure place. What you don't want is your passwords on post-it's or in passwords.xls on your desktop.
  
  A password manager is that secure place and the good ones generate your password for you. This means passwords like fhqwhgads but since you can copy and paste -- who cares ??
  
  I haven't jumped to a password manager because I login too many places remotely or places I can't paste in.
  
  So I use a system to create similar but different passwords based on the service I'm using. Now, if one of my passwords were exposed and specifically examined by a human they may be able to get into some other services with brute force attacks but it isn't likely. That is good enough for me because most exposed passwords are only looked at by a computer tying to brute force the combo on other services.
  
  Also, change your shack password from sexydude69
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    September 10, 2012 9:14 AM
    
    Any good suggestions on a quality password manager?
    - Johnny Law
      
       reply
      September 10, 2012 9:24 AM
      
      TLDR: 1Password, LastPass, or KeePass. When chatty search is working :-) you can find a lot of discussions about those.
      - Keefinator
        
         reply
        September 10, 2012 9:32 AM
        
        KeePass has a nice ring to it ;) Thanks. Will research ...
        
        rosewood
        
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        September 10, 2012 9:47 AM
        
        I like keepass + dropbox but again, I don't use that personally. I tried to do lastpass some time ago but I hated it.
        
        Rehevkor
        
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        September 10, 2012 10:00 AM
        
        KeePass + Dropbox is the goods.
        
        glio1337
        
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        September 10, 2012 11:37 AM
        
        LastPass is probably the most user friendly and easiest to get setup.
        
        glio1337
        
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        September 10, 2012 11:41 AM
        
        I use KeePass FWIW
        
        LoioshDwaggie
        
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        September 10, 2012 12:07 PM
        
        LastPass is dead simple and has great integration with FireFox, IE and Chrome. If you want it on your phone, you have to pay (like $12 a year) for it.
      - [deleted] 355768971
        
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        September 10, 2012 10:46 AM
        
        [deleted]
    - Haxim
      
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      September 10, 2012 10:23 AM
      
      Went with a keepass/dropbox setup after my battle.net acct got compromised. Really like it, especially if you setup the autofill options in keepass.
      - RTSNut
        
         reply
        September 10, 2012 1:11 PM
        
        What are the autofill options good for?
        
        glio1337
        
         reply
        September 10, 2012 1:15 PM
        
        When you visit a website, instead of having to click anything or type anything, KeePass (or LastPass) just fills in the information so all you have to do is click "Login".
    - OmegaRed59
      
       reply
      September 10, 2012 10:25 AM
      
      I've been using LastPass for years, it's great. Autofills the login info in your browser.
  - glio1337
    
     reply
    September 10, 2012 11:41 AM
    
    I've heard Excel 2010+ offers pretty good encryption when you add a password to lock it. Obviously it's not as good as a true password manager, but there ya go.
- [deleted] 355768971
  
   reply
  September 10, 2012 10:21 AM
  
  [deleted]
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    September 10, 2012 4:55 PM
    
    I have a lot to catch up on. I have 5 85s, but haven't played since the first content update after Cataclysm ...
- Grape Flavor
  
   reply
  September 10, 2012 11:32 AM
  
  So Keef, do you live in Cleveland? Moved there recently myself, and I'm not sure which Shackers reside in the area.
  
  I have to warn you, I'm still a die-hard Steeler fan though. However, if you're really nice maybe I'll let you touch my Terrible Towel, just so you can know what it feels like. I'll still wash it afterwards, of course.
  
  just kidding! well, sort of. ;)
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    September 10, 2012 12:10 PM
    
    No, but I was born there. I moved to Florida at a time when there were not sports teams here, so I continued to cheer for Cleveland teams. I have not been alive for a single championship in Cleveland of any kind.