Patch 7.2's Account ID protection measures have already been circumvented

[Exmo]

Means SE could easily set the visibility from a blacklisted player server side to 0 and suppress the chat messages.
Basically the same situation we have now (he can see you, you can't), just done server sided?

They could do that but it's a much more expensive approach, either in terms of how it slows the game's performance or in terms of reallocating infrastructure resources in all their data centers.

However, that still won't make it impossible for someone to create a database with every user and their alts. So long as the feature intends to hide all of a blocked player's characters, a malicious user can easily leverage that to discover alts.

[Souljacker]

SE has unfortunately not really ever taken player privacy seriously. This dates back to ffxi - taking a player off your friends list only takes them off YOUR list, not the other persons. I'm pretty sure it works that way here too, or did last I checked. So it's always been pretty easy to just stalk anyone you want even if they end the "friendship".

I think its a cultural thing - ending a friendship may be considered rude in Japan? But for Americans it's sometimes the only option to avoid toxicity.

I dont have high hopes for them taking meaningful action.

[notaspy]

At the launch of Dawntrail's Early Access, it was discovered that, to facilitate the new Blacklisting features, each service account's unique identifier is being broadcast to everyone within the zone you're in. This unique identifier is used to identify the player on a service account level, meaning every character on that service account shares the same unique identifier.

Some unhinged people created a tool that farms that data to create a database, allowing the users of said tool to track players on a per-user level. This also lets you know which retainer belongs to which player, which de-anonymizes the market board to a great extent and opens the door to harassment.

After the issue was ignored for a long while, originally a statement was made here, basically asking them to kindly stop.
This, of course, did nothing, and there was the outcry that the issue was at a system level. Because it is. So in a Live Letter leading up to 7.2, they announced that they would be implementing measures... for 7.2. Which was still like a month away. People weren't happy with it, but hey, atleast they were doing something, right?

Fast forward to 7.2's release. They delete everyone's blacklist to accomodate for the new system. In reality, all they ended up doing was adding an obfuscation layer to the unique identifier, which was broken within 24 hours. The problem is that this is being handled client side at all, which many users commented on at the time as being the worst possible implementation possible. So the obfuscation layer is fully cracked, the tool updated, and we're basically right back to where we started.

As for what this means; it means there's a database that keeps track of who you are across all your characters and retainers, which can be used very easily for cyberstalking

Day by day it appears that it's not incompetence. They did the minimum effort possible because they want to spend only 10 minutes on this to appease everyone and hope everyone forgets. Will the community let SE get away with this? Who knows.

[Gurgeh]

https://youtu.be/_2IY2In9VxQ

Have they said anything yet?
They gonna fix it?

[Daralii]

https://youtu.be/_2IY2In9VxQ

Have they said anything yet?
They gonna fix it?

They'd prefer to delete threads that point out how badly they failed.

[Gurgeh]

Hello?! I'm...

[Gurgeh]

...still waiting...

[Gurgeh]

...with the...

[Gurgeh]

...last dying...

[Gurgeh]

...breath of my sub.
I'm still here.
Anything?