Your privacy may be at risk!

Blizzard has been secretly watermarking your screensots!

 

These watermarks contain your personal information.

Information such as:

*Account ID

*Realm Name

*Realm IP

 

Download the watermark disabler here: Download

 

At the moment, this isn't a big deal, but once more hackers/scammers find out about this information, they can use it to link-alt characters to specific accounts and target specific spam or scam attacks, this is also being used by Blizzard to track down Private Servers.

 

 

If you're at all familar with QR codes, the watermarking services acts almost exactly like it, but with a different format. See the picture below:

 

The picture above is a screenshot from WoW.

 

Once scammers and hackers get ahold of decoding software, this can be a HUGE problem.

 

This has been Blizzard's secret for years, and nowhere in the ToS / ELuA does it say they are allowed to do this, and are doing it.

 

I opened a ticket about this concern and questioned Blizzard about it, their only response is:

 

"  Thank you very much for bringing this to attention! Unfortunately, we are not able to comment on this issue at this time. But we do definitely appreciate your report and feedback! "

 

Here's a picture of the ticket:

http://www.echonetworks.net/img/Hidden Watermarks.png

 

The secret watermark which is being intentionally embeded inside WoW generated screenshows below top quality, DOES NOT CONTAIN the account password, the IP address of the user or any personal information like name/surname. It DOES contain the account ID, a timestamp, and the IP address of the current realm.

 

Just keep this in mind the next time you take a screenshot... Blizzard is watching you..

 

 

Q: How do I see my watermark?

A: Follow these steps:

 

1) Go somewhere where there isn't any (or a lot) of textures. You want to find a solid color.

2) Type: /console SET screenshotQuality "9"

3) Take a few screenshots of the area. Make sure you do ALT+Z to remove your interface.

4) Open your screenshot in a picture editing program.

5) In the picture editing program, turn your "Sharpen" fiter to as HIGH as possible.

6) You should now see the hidden WoW watermark.

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