Tinfoil hats to enhance WoW privacy

Tinfoil hats to enhance WoW privacy Tinfoil hats to enhance WoW privacy

About a month ago, Blizzard announced the release of a vast online searchable database on World of Warcraft called the Armory. The Armory allows its visitors to search and find detailed information in real time about characters, arena teams and guilds in WOW.

A simple search in the Armory would reveal any character's name, server, and guild, as well as their equipped items and their talents build. Naturally, this raised a lot of privacy concerns.

Blizzard's response was a Tinfoil Hat which "besides keeping the wearer safe from mind spies and the thought police, it also removes the wearer's character profile from the World of Warcraft Armory to further guarantee that no one will be able to divine all of the wearer's tightly held secrets. Furthermore, wearers of the Tinfoil Hat will not show up in /who listings, and they will also be immune to inspection from other players."

The Tinfoil hat is a humorous reference to the paranoid and conspiracy theory culture, but it is not the long sought for "hide me from the Armory" button. To get the Tinfoil hat you have to finish a moderately hard quest. After completing the quest, the player needs Engineering (375) to be able to make a tinfoil hat.

The hat itself requires Tin Bar (99), Fused Wiring (4), Troll Tears (8), Heavy Leather (4), Star Ruby and it must be equipped to hide the wearer's profile from the Armory.