I have said that, multiple times now.
And go ahead and prove to me that Blizz couldn't detect the bot 3 years ago. I'd absolutely LOVE for you to prove that.
Just because they didn't throw out banwaves every 6 months, it doesn't mean that they haven't always been able to detect the bot.
It's funny how people have such short memories on these forums. Most anyone that's been here for awhile will remember that the first of the recent banwaves went out shortly after Blizz lost it's first lawsuit to Bossland. Coincidence? Maybe, but seems like a pretty strange coincidence.
I firmly believe that Blizz has always been able to detect the bot. They simply didn't have enough reason to throw out bans in the past like they do now. Every day Blizz and Bossland spend fighting each other costs each company huge amounts of money. So what's the best way to hurt Bossland right now? Keep whittling away at his user-base until noone trusts his company. If they just banned every HB user right away, the court could look negatively on the action, so they choose to continue to hit Bossland over and over again with small'ish banwaves. And all the while, Bossland keeps losing money.
Of course that's just a theory and I could be completely wrong.
They have spent an insane amount of cash on the legal battle with Bossland. If they had the ability to detect the bot early on, before Bossland had the money to fight back, or before HB even gained enough popularity to be more of a threat to blizzard, then they would have. They have managed to kill other botting programs cold in their tracks. There is no logical reason why Blizzard would have waited nearly half a decade or so to start really *****ing down. They are doing it now because they can. Because its doable, and also its good at padding numbers. Any suspended account is still considered a subscriber, and if even 10% of the players banned buy new accounts then blizzard benefits. They could have done the same thing years ago, had they been able to detect Hb as easy.
Now on to the Topic of this post. No HB has never been safe. And there has always been a warning. But HB has used Tripwire as a selling point for a while. Claiming that although botting isn't safe that they could provide some protection against server side attempts. Although, Blizzard nor Bossland will disclose how Hb is begin caught. You can google and see a lot of information about plausible options. All that aside. Is HB as safe as it was Before May 2015? NO! its apparent it isn't. And you can argue blizzard "could always detect it" not really a valid argument because they never did. its a simple question. Before the past years mass waves. You were nearly 100% safe to attach HB if you did not hit start on the bot at all. Because most all bans were a product of interaction in the World of Warcraft, Now the program it self is being detected which means one who hasn't even used it but just had it attached, loaded, and running is at a fair risk of being banned. That simple fact makes it not as safe as always. Do I think that the risk of blizzard detecting HB has always been there? SURE! However, until it happens its a plausible risk and not an actual guaranteed event. Now if you bot even as safely as possible or only hang in your garrison, if you are on HB with any regularity that account will catch a ban.
Unless a whole new method of detection prevention is established then HB will continue to get banned a few times a year. Just accept it and move on. NEVER BOT ON YOUR MAIN, that's always been a rule. Yeah, the risk is higher now and I'll lose accounts a few times a year pretty much guaranteed, but they are cheap and its still worth it to me. At least at the moment.
The future is coming though. Blizzard detection is getting better everyday, and Blizzard can afford the best, I've said it before and ill say it again. Deep learning machines in time could easily identify real players from bots with little effort. Sure, there will be a few false positives here or there, at first. A human employee might have to look over flagged accounts. But, that's the thing about deep learning algorithms they only get better the more they run and learn from their mistakes. They can easily pick up on the behaviors, as well as maximum response times and reflexes of the a few million real players and then ban anyone that deviates beyond a range of that. We know Blizzard can Identify the bot, who's to say they didn't target a few 1000 known botters and have the computer watch them making note of key differences that it can identify between the known botters and the human players. Not saying they did but it is well within the realm of possibility and technology to do so.
Botting in wow as it is done now has always had a limited life span. Sure its a bit more risky now. But there may well come a day when every bots banned immediately, or where its detected even while trying to attach. GOOD news is that days not today. And probably not tomorrow either. So no question its not as safe as it was a few years ago, but also its never been totally safe anyways. Either accept the risk, or don't. The choice has always been yours. Sure Bossland shouldn't say its as safe as ever. But also YOU SHOULDN'T BOT ON ANYTHING YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO LOSE.