Solution to Real-ID mess and multiboxing

[Ishar]

Eh. I find real-id to be convenient. I of course don't have the whole spy mentality (secret characters / desire to be online but invisible) and pretty much gave up keeping my real identity and my online identity separate years ago. It saves me from having to explain to people I want to talk to that "this is Ishar" cause they can't keep track of all 40 or so toons I have. (I've also been informed that I am "weird" for having identical friends lists across all characters on a server, irregardless of account.) Also, anyone I know well enough to have on my friends list probably already knows my real name, so its not really a case of revealing 'new' information to people.

That said, I sort of wish blizzard would add 'per toon invisbility' so folks can hide their secret auction house guys or whatever other secret toons they have, and add a 'handle' feature that overrides the whole 'real name' deal, just so all the paranoid folks could use it.

Eh, to clarify, its not that I want to sound like I'm endorsing the 'real name' bit. (Its irrelevant to me, is all). I 'love' the Account to Account aspect though. Eg identifying all 5 of my WoW accounts as a single individual for chat purposes. I think that bits genius. (Cause I'm lazy, mostly. And I never saw the appeal of being online, but invisible). Oh, theres another aspect of it I like, the immutability. Anyone else got friends on their friends list that are hard to identify because they got name changes? I swear, I had a friend named "Bob"*, who changed their name, and Now another friend changed their name to "Bob"*, so i have Old-"Bob"* and New-"Bob"*...so confusing.

Probably not the place to get into this, but someone asked what the appeal was=p.

* Name changed to protect the guilty.

[alcattle]

it is/was only a little about my real name, and a lot about what people can do with it. All your info is out there with the correct "clues" I will not give out any of those things. Sorry, my friends can email me and get what they need, or use a phone.

[Ishar]

Eh. While I admit that in theory people could do some bad stuff with your real name, in reality none of us are particularly famous so it becomes an issue of risk. When I said "paranoid" folks I don't necessarily mean it as an insult or that they are wrong. (i.e. the fact that you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.) I choose to assume that the risk is small, and thus nothing to lose sleep over, you perhaps assess the risk to be much higher, making you relatively more paranoid (about personal security, or whatever) than me. (Not wrong, or right.)

When I say its irrelevant, I mean that the benefits of RealID as I see them, don't have to rely on the real name bit. And anyway, my post was 'these are the benefits of realid' not 'these are the security risks' I think the sky is falling types have enumerated those sufficiently. I think theres some fairly simple things that could ultimately solve those issues, obscuring your 'real name' via some immutable handle and providing per character invisibility would virtually erase them. I honestly have no idea why they provided the 'friend of friends' bit.

[Maxion]

Eh. While I admit that in theory people could do some bad stuff with your real name, in reality none of us are particularly famous so it becomes an issue of risk. When I said "paranoid" folks I don't necessarily mean it as an insult or that they are wrong. (i.e. the fact that you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.)

Actually there are some famous people here who multibox and do not wish their identities to be revealed as it would ruin their careers.
I do not know their identities, nor do I have any desire to find out.