A few questions about IP/Mac Address

[Demonspawnn]

I've had a lot of bad luck with bans lately, so I'm going to assume my IP and/or MAC addresses are flagged by Blizz. Over the years, I have had 20+ accounts banned. I'm sure they have some way of keeping track of this. I have a plan to hopefully get around this, and I'd like some opinions from people with more experience/technical knowledge than I have.

Here's my plan, which includes two virtual machines and two private virtual servers with proxies:
Step 1:
-Run virtual machine A through ***** A (located in Chicago)
-Use this set-up to level from 1-90 and gear up a little bit
-Log off for 2-3 days

Step 2:
-Run virtual machine B through ***** B (located in Denver)
-Use this set-up to power level professions, farm, sell gold, basically all non-leveling bot activities
-Use until banned

I'm hoping that this will do a few things for me, namely prevent my accounts from being linked to my home IP/Mac address in the case that they are flagged and providing me with the "I've been hacked" excuse in the case of bans.

Now for my questions:
-Is virtual machine A necessary, or would simple changing the MAC address of my PC be enough?
-Does a virtual machine automatically have a different MAC address, or does that need to be changed manually?
-My network is set up like this: Modem->Linksys E900 router->Bot PC. Do I need to change the MAC address of the modem and/or router?
-Does anyway have experience running a set-up like this, and if so, what are your results?

Thanks in advance for your answers. I have done some research online, but I'm hoping for some bot-specific advice here. If there is anything else that I need to do to make sure my accounts are not linked to my home IP/MAC address, please let me know.

 

[Darkiz0]

I cannot answer all of your questions but I can atleast answer on one of your questions. English is not my first language and I'm dyslexic so I hope you understand.

-Is virtual machine A necessary, or would simple changing the MAC address of my PC be enough?

You could change you're MAC address, however as far as I been reading on these forums then you'll have to remember that they will use your IP and hostname and I've would believe they would take into account if you're using the same creditcard or info like name/address/phone with 21+ accounts would ring a bell somewhere.

-Does a virtual machine automatically have a different MAC address, or does that need to be changed manually?

Short answer: Yes, they are all spoofed.

Long answer: They can indicate if they want that you're running in a VM (However I'm not sure how 'far' Blizzard Warden is checking these things). But the VM is generating a MAC for a virutal adapater so they cannot have the opportnity to be 'real' as your real MAC.

However. I'm pretty sure that not all of the generated MAC addresses for VM are unique unlike our computers, however it all depends on how the virtual machine manufacturer decides to generate their VM's MAC address.

However if you feel like, then you can manually change your VM's MAC address really easy or do so they'll be the same forever by a simple trick.

Thanks in advance for your answers. I have done some research online, but I'm hoping for some bot-specific advice here. If there is anything else that I need to do to make sure my accounts are not linked to my home IP/MAC address, please let me know.

Possible a wild guess and I will not say this in any way are what they do, but I would believe they have given their client (Launcher) a unique ID to show which and how many sessions are logged in within each client. Atleast the client must have a ID since it sends packets to the auth server each time the client creates a connection? (anyway a wild guess).

Possibly you should wait till an expert answer, however this was how far my knowledge is :b

 

[Demonspawnn]

Thanks for the response.

Possible a wild guess and I will not say this in any way are what they do, but I would believe they have given their client (Launcher) a unique ID to show which and how many sessions are logged in within each client. Atleast the client must have a ID since it sends packets to the auth server each time the client creates a connection? (anyway a wild guess).

Possibly you should wait till an expert answer, however this was how far my knowledge is :b

Do you think I should use a separate installation of wow for each bot I run then? I've always just used the same folder for all of my bots.

 

[chtpm]

I dont believe GMs or whoever bans you have access to IPs, MAC adresses or HDD IDs or w/e its called. Ive had my share of bans and bought more accounts over and over. Ive never messed with ***s or virtual machines. Still have old accounts 1year+ and have had fresh accounts banned in less than a couple of hours. Ill never know if you guys are more safe than myself but I like my method and plan to continue with it. Ive found that less stressed you are about it the more energy you got to keep going which is eventually my final goal. Hope you make your botting "safer" and good luck

 

[Darkiz0]

I dont believe GMs or whoever bans you have access to IPs, MAC adresses or HDD IDs or w/e its called. Ive had my share of bans and bought more accounts over and over. Ive never messed with ***s or virtual machines. Still have old accounts 1year+ and have had fresh accounts banned in less than a couple of hours. Ill never know if you guys are more safe than myself but I like my method and plan to continue with it. Ive found that less stressed you are about it the more energy you got to keep going which is eventually my final goal. Hope you make your botting "safer" and good luck

Yeah, however I still believe that they flag your IP if too many bans.

But to OP, read these - Hope they will help.

http://www.thebuddyforum.com/archiv...could-ban-you-eg-your-ip-mac-address-etc.html

Warden (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[HBfanboy1980]

I've advocated being extremely cautious in the past and think your on the right track, but having tried almost exactly what your going to do recently all I can say is in my mildly informed opinion. It isn't worth it. The sheer amount of time involved into upkeeping and maintaining VMs, HB installs, Wow installs, getting things up and running was prohibitive to me.

Now if you have a very large desk, with large monitors, extremely fast PCs, comfort, and constant access it may make the transition smoother. I didn't have that constant luxury in my current setup and it was just a constantly uncomfortable situation for me. Please try it with 1 before making any huge leaps into anything hardcore or you may regret all the money and subscriptions (*****, etc.. )you now have...

 

[Dark57]

If you think your IP is flagged, request a change of IP from your ISP.

If you think your MAC is flagged, buy a new network card.

Total price: <$40

 

[Demonspawnn]

If you think your IP is flagged, request a change of IP from your ISP.

If you think your MAC is flagged, buy a new network card.

Total price: <$40

If they they ask why I want my IP changed, what would be a good excuse to tell them? I just have a feeling that "well, I've been botting wow and Blizzard is onto me" won't cut it lol.

As far as buying a new network card, I've seen ways to change the MAC of my existing card but would a brand new card work better? Also, I know that my network card, router, and modem all have their own MAC addresses. Do I need to change everything out? I'm not exactly sure how this works as far as what info gets sent over a connecting to wow.

 

[Demonspawnn]

I've advocated being extremely cautious in the past and think your on the right track, but having tried almost exactly what your going to do recently all I can say is in my mildly informed opinion. It isn't worth it. The sheer amount of time involved into upkeeping and maintaining VMs, HB installs, Wow installs, getting things up and running was prohibitive to me.

Now if you have a very large desk, with large monitors, extremely fast PCs, comfort, and constant access it may make the transition smoother. I didn't have that constant luxury in my current setup and it was just a constantly uncomfortable situation for me. Please try it with 1 before making any huge leaps into anything hardcore or you may regret all the money and subscriptions (*****, etc.. )you now have...

I've used a VM/VPS ***** setup before, and it wasn't too hard for me to manage. I have a pretty good PC (going to need to buy some more ram for multiple VMs, but that isn't expensive) with two 32" monitors. I can easily run 8 bots at once while still being able to monitor all of them.

 

[botorific]

If you really want to change your identity completely and thoroughly - change ip, Mac addresses on your computer hardware, and Mac address on router or cable modem, the vm should have a different HDid/volume serial as well (if you clone vm's your hd serials are the same). If you are behind the same router/cable modem you potentially have still have the same net "fingerprint".

Seriously though this is all questionable and extremely paranoid. IP alone should do it - and if you still get banned ridiculously fast - they're probably watching something else...credit card you are using for example.

In most cases blizz wants to give you many chances to play legit so you buy their game and pay a sub.

 

[Demonspawnn]

If you really want to change your identity completely and thoroughly - change ip, Mac addresses on your computer hardware, and Mac address on router or cable modem, the vm should have a different HDid/volume serial as well (if you clone vm's your hd serials are the same). If you are behind the same router/cable modem you potentially have still have the same net "fingerprint".

Seriously though this is all questionable and extremely paranoid. IP alone should do it - and if you still get banned ridiculously fast - they're probably watching something else...credit card you are using for example.

So I'll need to change the mac address of my modem and router even if I'm running through a private *****? Yeah I know I'm probably being over-paranoid, but I guess I'd rather have all the bases covered here. I've been getting banned much faster lately, even though I've done a lot to bot smarter. When mop came out, I had 4 accounts running 20/7 doing nothing but botting and flooding the AH...those accounts lasted me 2 months before the first ban. Those bans got overturned and I got another month out of them. The last 4 accounts that got banned were much quicker (less than two weeks after hitting 90). I was only botting 6-7 hours a day with breaks in between, manually running heroics and bgs. I made sure my gear was fully gemmed and enchanted, talked in guild chat, didn't flood the AH, basically everything I could possibly think of to be safe, and I still barely broke even with those accounts. I'm hoping that these steps will help me keep my accounts up for longer. I'm also buying my keys from ebay/amazon/key sellers rather than buying them directly from blizzard.