NcSoft Security

Found this tidbit.

Boise, Idaho-based Kount, a provider of fraud prevention technology, said today that it has been selected by massively multi-player online game firm NCsoft, to help manage NCsoft's fraud prevention efforts. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Kount is a provider of fraud prevention technology, which uses device fingerprinting and other technology to find sources of fraudulent credit card transactions. NCsoft is the operator of such massively multi-player online games as Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Lineage, and Aion.

Sweet I'm from Boise. Never heard of them lol.

Sounds like a promising move to me.

A good move methinks, will be interesting to see if it is all transparent to us or not

Admitting you need help it the first step good move imo, if it means no more "incidents"...with websites ect..whether they officially happene or not..

peace of mind for customers is a big deal if you want them to stay or come back..

used to live in boise.....still have a bunch of friends out there. Dont think it will help much though.

For them doing anything would be a good change...

As long as their GM fruitcakes keep sending out random passwords and emails to random people, there's not much a security company is going to do about it.

So many mods who live/lived in Boise!!

I agree with JR - a good step forward. *Squeal*

Sounds like spyware. I don't like sound of being forced to allow NCSoft to see all the technical details and weaknesses of my computer, including hardware updates. Next step is them searching my hard drive for supposed 'hacks and bots'.

I'm not glad to hear this.

There is still an opportunity for Arenanet and NCSoft to increase the assurance for gamers that the moment after you logged out, you will still be able to enjoy the game the way you left it a moment later. i would love to see an authenticator introduced.

Device fingerprinting is not a solid protection though. It´s more and less related to credit card authentication and fraud recognition for transactions. Not the game itself i believe. The effectiveness of the assurance is dependent on the implementation choices they will make. On the other hand gathering specific information from you´re device asks for additional privacy assurance related meassures. The user has specifically to agree with the terms and conditions and NCsoft has to be completely transparant about what information is gathered from you´re device and stored on their systems and for how long. I.e. in the netherlands the combination of you´re IP-adres and you´re name is subject to privacy regulation and should according to the dutch legislation being safeguarded by appropriate technical and organisational security meassures.

But then, i could go on with non contributing technical bla bla. It´s a good initiative to give us more assurance when purchasing via de plaync webstore. I would like to hear what timelines we can expect for implementation and if GW and GW2 will benefit of it. Good job and thanx for taking a concerned online gamer seriously.

Boise is a great "city" Big enough to have stuff to do, not so big that its full of pollution or crime or any of that other crap - at least not nearly as much.

But bloody cold!

*waves from 90 degree Arizona*


Note Im resisting on commenting about NCSoft and security as these two words obviously dont exist within the same sentence in this reality....

I spent a year in Phoenix I'll take Boise's winters over Phoenix's summers any day. Besides my first two years of college were in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan want to talk about bloody cold.

OT: Yeah I remember there was a huge fiasco with Aion accounts getting hacked a couple months ago. NCSoft doing ANYTHING to try and improve it is a step up - as long as it doesn't turn out like Warhammer and Mythic

Cold makes these old broken bones hurt something wicked - I'll take using AC and the pool instead in the summer ^.^, When I first saw the Boise football field I thought it was real bluegrass from Kentucky for a few seconds anyway (forgive an englishman for his naivety! hehe).

Im glad it was anet that took charge of the security of GW rather than following the NCSoft line.

Id agree with a previous poster though, it sounds more like security and fraud prevention for online sales rather than game security - at least without knowing further details.

Yes, it does sound like spyware. (Insofar as it sounds like anything. Their website and the top dozen pages on google are all filled with nearly meaningless corporate buzzword gibberish.) And I would be remarkably pissed off if it were rolled out on GW. Bundling spyware with a new game is one thing -- I can always not buy your game if I don't want to put up with your spyware -- but adding it to a game I already paid for is another matter altogether.

Anyway, it's good that NCSoft has finally admitted to themselves that they have a huge security problem. I'm not so sure I like the solution they've chosen.

I'm all for any actions taken to prevent any form of fraud. I don't think NCSoft's foolish enough to breach player's privacy either, so I'm not worried about that. I just hope that whatever resources they decide to tap into is strong enough to reduce fraud to a negligible amount, if not to zero. Otherwise, who in their right mind would risk playing a game that has the potential to get you robbed of your own product, or even worse, your own real money?