The Launcher "and its related tools" have gotten another upgrade today, even though the realms haven't come up yet, which tells us that the Background Downloader probably has more work to do, which itself means that we probably won't see 3.0.2 today. Not really a surprise -- it's early by anyone's predictions for sure -- but the Downloader has had a full patch out for a while, so the update is primed and almost ready.

Today's downtime is all about hardware upgrades, apparently, so Blizzard is definitely gearing up for Wrath. We saw lots of hardware upgrades in the months before the Burning Crusade launch (people who were playing back then will remember all of the horrible queues and population issues before servers got expanded), and while Wrath probably won't be as big a jump, Blizzard is still getting ready.

Which just leaves the question of when we'll see patch 3.0.2. Considering the BC content patch came just about a month before release, we're still looking for it in mid-October (likely after all the ruckus of BlizzCon has died down).

Every week, computer security expert Jon Eldridge is your Azeroth Security Advisor. He will delve into the darkest reaches of computer security rumor and bring the facts back home even if they're wriggling at the end of a pike. His goal is to provide useful information to gamers who don't think about security much and flame fodder for those self appointed experts who need to rationalize the cost of their expensive certifications. Like any good security force he's a mercenary at heart and is happy to take subject requests from the user community that he serves. So feel free to leave a comment below or just sit back and enjoy the show.

If you play World of Warcraft you agreed to the Terms of Use Agreement and End User License Agreement even if you don't know it. If you're like most gamers you "agreed" with all the forethought and consideration of a lab rat agreeing to run a maze in exchange for a yummy pellet of rat chow. Scurry, scurry, click, click... yum! Let's face it, when you're just two clicks away from playing the hottest MMORPG on the planet those screens usually go by just as fast as they appear. But what else besides deep fat fried MMO goodness is contained within the WoW client you're running?

One of things you agreed to while merrily clearing those pesky EULA and Terms of Use screens after every patch is that Blizzard "MAY" monitor your PC's RAM and CPU processes for "unauthorized" 3rd party programs that by Blizzard's "sole determination" may or may not be deemed naughty. Naughty in this case includes but is not limited to teleporting, data mining, exploiting bugs, facilitating bots and generally doing an end run around the game mechanics for fun and profit. In reality the WoW.exe DOES monitor your system, silently, thoroughly, and every 15 seconds.

I saw this screen shot last night on the WoW LJ community, and I have to admit, it took me by surprise. This is the first time I've ever actually seen the World of Warcraft launcher/load screen come out and point-blank warn people about the presence of Trojans on their machines. As there are a lot of variants of this particular Trojan out in the wild, that specific name doesn't surprise me.

Considering the fact that two Blue accounts were recently compromised, it looks like it's a good time to once again make sure your systems are patched, your virus scanners are up to date, and that you've got some good lines of defense against these Trojans. (Personally, I'm a huge fan of FireFox and some of the browser extensions that have come out for it.) Or, as some of my friends have told me, I could just get a Mac, and not have to worry so much about these kinds of things either. I keep telling them I'll happily switch when they buy me one.