This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
They work in a simple and hard to counter way. In your authenticator is a unique algorithm that your authenticator and Blizzard alone know, along with a clock. What the authenticator does, is create a number based on the seeded time at that moment (I believe the standard is every minute). You put this number in at the login, which is then verified (by serial number) on the server-side with the same algorithm.The genius behind all of this, is the algorithm is never transmitted, and the code associated with your account changes every minute. So unless someone has somehow created a duplicate of your authenticator, they cannot log into your account.That being said, I'm not paying to have one shipped to me, nor do I have a smartphone with which to use the mobile authenticator on.
@awaters2879Err... what? We buy the authenticators so that our accounts have an extra level of protection. It's not like we're waving it around or carrying it everywhere with us - it should stay next to the computer you use to play the game, not carried around with you.
And then there's the problem of if you lose the authenticator....
Man.. i live in Costa Rica, and i play in the US servers, but cmon!I wanted to buy the Vanilla, BC and WOTLK in their boxes, but Blizzard Store dosnt send to my countrySo i did the online upgradeif they make the Authenticator mandatory, what would i do?Shop it on Amazon, and wait 20 days untill i get the Authenticator ?I hope they dont make this mandatory, or they put Costa Rica in the Shipping Countries List :DNote: I got a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and its not listed in the supported ones for the mobile authenticator
Looked up the Authenticators on wow wiki today and learnt something new.You can apparently got the mobile authenticator for mobiles other then an iPhone.Here is the link :http://mobile.blizzard.com/shared/blizzard_download.php