Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Shuang
Pokemon Go, a hot game in the world, makes people play with trepidation.
This phenomenal game masterpiece was jointly developed by Nintendo of Japan and Niantic, an American software development company. With the help of "augmented reality" technology, the virtual game stack was added to the real scene, so that players would no longer "stay at home" in a certain place as before, but go outdoors with their mobile phones, and find, catch and train "monsters" in real places through functions such as mobile phone positioning system and camera.
However, while becoming a popular cultural phenomenon, this game also exposes global players to various security risks in terms of account rights, game downloading and privacy protection. Coupled with the server paralysis caused by hacker attacks and the recent security incidents related to games, some gamers simply call it "the brave game".
Niantic confirmed on the 16th that the game server failed on the same day, and a hacker organization subsequently claimed responsibility for the incident on the social platform Twitter, and hinted that it would also launch an attack on the game.
In fact, when Pokemon was officially launched on July 6, it was already worrying. When many players register their accounts, they find it really takes courage to confirm that they log in to the game, because they must agree to the "overlord clause" of the game to obtain full access to their Google accounts. Niantic was originally owned by Google and operated independently from Google in 2015. Players generally believe that even if it is related to Google, this practice should not be done.
Subsequently, Niantic Company issued an apology statement, saying that it was wrong for Pokemon to require full access to Google account. This game only needs to obtain basic Google account information, that is, user name and email address, and will not obtain or collect other information of Google account.
However, there are still many players who have reinstalled the game program for security reasons, reset their Google accounts, or apply for new accounts, only for logging in to the game. Some network experts in the United States commented that this is a hypothetical model of "trust me", just like someone said to you, "Give me what you have, and I promise not to abuse it", so in this case, it is best not to make such a request.
Another risk is in the download channel. At present, "Pokemon" has been released in many countries and regions, including the United States, Australia and Europe, but gamers in other countries and regions can’t download games from the official app store. Many "itchy" players have turned to other channels to download this game, but downloading from unofficial websites faces great security risks and requires extra vigilance. Some experts pointed out that games downloaded from unofficial websites may have been "maliciously adjusted", exposing users to various risks such as account security.
There are also malicious applications that deliberately adopt a name similar to the Pokemon game. After the user downloads, the mobile phone is locked and the screen jumps out of pornographic advertisements.
In terms of privacy, Pokemon is developed based on Google Maps, and the game will continuously update the user’s location, especially when players gather in the same place to train the "monster" in the game, which may lead to the risk of revealing privacy, especially for those players who use the same user name in other games and forums.
For these risks related to Pokemon games, experts remind that ordinary players need to improve their awareness of network security and take some measures to prevent risks, such as downloading applications from reliable sources and making necessary security settings for accounts.
Finally, when playing Pokemon, we should also pay attention to personal safety in the real world. A few days after the game was launched, there have been many cases in the United States where criminals used this game to attract gamers to rob in remote places, and some players were distracted from playing games while driving, which led to traffic accidents.