New BOT detection programs??

[Pecomaus]

From For the Record

Bots Beware! New Anti-Bot System Coming
Posted on September 24, 2014 by Silentstalker — 26 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

an extremely interesting post by Tanitha appeared on ASIA forums about how the bots will be punished and detected… well, instead of talking about it, I’ll just repost it. Here it is.

Dear Players.

We currently have 3 systems for which bots are detected, Which currently generates ~15 bots a day being reliably detected. And about 25 a day which are probably bots but not sufficiently proven to be so..
With the bots being perma banned, and the probably bots given a warning.

We now have access to two additional systems which are more reliable than the above..

The two new systems are specifically targeted at smart bots, where our previous detection methods weren’t great on the reliability..

I’ve reviewed the two new systems now, which Ru are currently using.. And decided these will be switched on on Asia shortly..
I will not go into the mechanics of these systems.. suffice to say they will cover the gap in bot detection that was previously there.

Due to the accuracy and thoroughness of the new systems,, one would assume bans to be placed on mass, regularly..
Due to the likely high detection rate, we will be using the new detection system similar to Ru server, and using it as a prevention tool.
In other words, we will “likely” be reducing the sanctions down from permanent to 15 days for first offense, 45 for second, perma for 3rd.

In addition to the above. An update on the captcha system.
Its still in progress, however development had slowed on it.. its importance was escalated again today and is back in motion again.
Currently its scheduled for work shortly, for which I’ve been allocated to assist in its development personally. However its final completion ETA is still not in the short future.

In short, bots nuked on mass, soon, by two new detection systems, for 15 days initially,, sanctions to escalated sharply for repeat offenders.

+ continued detection with the 3 old systems, as per the past, also for 15 days initially, sanctions to escalated sharply for repeat offenders.

Bot detection will continue on the old systems, until the new systems are put in place shortly..

Regards
Tan

Is it true? Does it really work as well as Tanitha says?

Yes. Russian forums are full of whiny little bitches, who got banned for botting. Of course, everyone claims innocence, but then, there is an old saying: “prisons are full of ‘wrongly conficted’”. The captcha development is a nice touch.

And what about EU? Oh, that’s right, no plans to implement this system, as far as I know (and yes, I asked). We wouldn’t want them to start chasing bots now, would we. That would – heaven forbid – add some ACTUAL WORK to their schedule, which is unfortunately totally full.

It turns out that according to Ectar, the system is already running on EU. I apologize for the misinformation.

 

[Gigaflat]

In other words, we will “likely” be reducing the sanctions down from permanent to 15 days for first offense, 45 for second, perma for 3rd.

So you know, when you get your 45days "off", it is time to stop....

In retrospect we need to say, the famous detection systems are on the server side. So the server analyses behavior.
Still, the complaints of other players that play a major role.

The detection systems are very primitive:
The first detection system WOW implemented was checking a.) how many km the tank moved, b.) how much enemy damage it caused.
So, you can understand, at this rate, they will need to implement ten systems to identify bots accurately.

Nevertheless, it is not that difficult to identify a bot when you see it in game. Subsequently you can be sure that the days of "heavy botting" especially botting all the way up to tier 10, are a thing of the past.

Personally, I found that the extra bonus of lower tier premium tanks made using tier 3-4 premiums again attractive. And, I do not let my bot unattended any more. I let the bot do most of the job and I take manual control sometimes, then let the bot work on its own again.

This way I used the bot for one week (after my first 15days ban) and I was not detected.

 

[azprogamer]

So you know, when you get your 45days "off", it is time to stop....

In retrospect we need to say, the famous detection systems are on the server side. So the server analyses behavior.
Still, the complaints of other players that play a major role.

The detection systems are very primitive:
The first detection system WOW implemented was checking a.) how many km the tank moved, b.) how much enemy damage it caused.
So, you can understand, at this rate, they will need to implement ten systems to identify bots accurately.

Nevertheless, it is not that difficult to identify a bot when you see it in game. Subsequently you can be sure that the days of "heavy botting" especially botting all the way up to tier 10, are a thing of the past.

Personally, I found that the extra bonus of lower tier premium tanks made using tier 3-4 premiums again attractive. And, I do not let my bot unattended any more. I let the bot do most of the job and I take manual control sometimes, then let the bot work on its own again.

This way I used the bot for one week (after my first 15days ban) and I was not detected.

Hey gig, Do you happen to know if the bot is working like normal on the NA server with the 9.3 update ?

 

[Giwin]

They'd lose a hell of a lot of money if they went straight to perma ban, this was also a financial choice to make sure that people will stop botting but keep paying.

 

[Gigaflat]

They'd lose a hell of a lot of money if they went straight to perma ban, this was also a financial choice to make sure that people will stop botting but keep paying.

Exactly!
I have put over 400EUR on my account and I spend regularly 20EUR per month (gold + premium) so it would have been a serious loss of money for WOT.

Hey gig, Do you happen to know if the bot is working like normal on the NA server with the 9.3 update ?

Sorry, I am on the EU server still. It should work fine now.
There are no new maps as far as I have noticed.
The maps that underwent chances though, you need to make sure that you do not use custom profiles for these maps. If you do, you need to check them.
Aevitas mentioned somewhere that you can use training mode and test the custom profiles there (never tried it though).

 

[azprogamer]

Exactly!
I have put over 400EUR on my account and I spend regularly 20EUR per month (gold + premium) so it would have been a serious loss of money for WOT.




Sorry, I am on the EU server still. It should work fine now.
There are no new maps as far as I have noticed.
The maps that underwent chances though, you need to make sure that you do not use custom profiles for these maps. If you do, you need to check them.
Aevitas mentioned somewhere that you can use training mode and test the custom profiles there (never tried it though).

Thanks bud !

 

[Pecomaus]

From RU server: Play fair: the fight against botovodstvom

Tankers!

Fighting continues botovodstvom: to September 29 for the use of bot programs access to the game is blocked for more than three and a half thousands of players who have not heeded the warnings of the previous Administration.

Full list of accounts

We remind you that when re-identification of cases botovodstva account the offender may be permanently blocked . In fact, "repeaters" may permanently lose the account to "pumping" that has taken a lot of effort.

What is botovodstvo

Botovodstvo - one of the most serious violations in World of Tanks. According to the Laws of the Game, is strictly prohibited the use of bot programs, programs-clickers, macros, keyboard and mouse control, as well as other similar schemes accumulate credits and experience without the participation of the user.
Accordingly, the bot program - applications that allow unscrupulous players to earn credits and experience without their direct participation in combat. However, it is important to understand that players who use bots, harm not only to themselves (after all, in this situation, gaming skills do not grow), but also to other users who are with them in battle, since the efficiency of the bot will never be compared with the efficiency of the player.

Despite the apparent benefits, the use of bot programs entails far more serious consequences than in other violations of the Rules of the game. It is also important to remember that the ways of dealing with botovodstvom constantly improved.
More about botovodah and ways to combat them
In the fight against botovodami help developers and players. They send complaints about the actions teammate violators through the in-game notification system.

How does the system alerts Abuse
Play fair - respect each other!

 

[hycsos]

The one of the main new methods of determining the bot, is the discovery of the fact tank control without pressing buttons. Bots need now to emulated mouse movements and button pressed so that the program can not determine that the input is generated artificially, and not the result of a user action. Be careful now avoid using bots that does not use this mechanism

 

[Pecomaus]

FROM: Suffer, Botter, Cheater and Rigger, Your Suffering Makes Us Happy!

Hello everyone,

Russian Wargaming, having learned from its mistakes and started publishing the names of offenders and ban statistics. In the post above, we can read that in the first half of October alone:

- 8191 players were punished based on the reports from the ingame complaint system
- 2592 players were banned for games rigging (influencing the battle result by having an agreement with the opposing team) random and company games
- 1868 botters were banned in last two weeks only

Well, that’s all nice, but I have two things I would like to add to this.

First – remember how they told us that there are no bots or that the issue is marginal? Well, 2k banned players in two weeks alone doesn’t seem marginal to me – and that’s just the RU server. EU server decided not to publish any names and such (voluntary decision as Ectar confirmed, not one forced by law), so heaven knows how many botters they ban (if any).


Second – the number of punishments, based on complaint system is also important. Strictly speaking, within two weeks, there is NO way all 8k player cases would be checked manually. Looking for swearing is simple enough (open log, look for keywords, found/notfound, kkthxbie), but looking for unfair gameplay is much harder (in order to watch someone blocking someone else, you have to watch a replay, which you don’t have, remember that even in nasty cases like tournament rigging, Wargaming has to request replays from the players). What this means is, at least some players are banned automatically without doublechecking, simply because they recieved numerous reports. This is a very important thing to know (and soon, you will see why).

Wargaming claims to combat “false reports” by having an in-house internal “report reputation” system. As it go explained on RU server, basically what happens is that every player has “report reputation”, based on whether the players he reports are actually punished or not. If the “reputation” drops below certain degree, the reports of that players are ignored (or, as WG puts it, he can get punished).

Needless to say, this is an utter nonsense (if it’s even true). Consider this: the Unsportsmanlike Behavior (I’ll call it unfair gameplay) is practically impossible to doublecheck, because it includes things like “at 3:45 into battle, player X intentionally blocked me and I died” – is that unfair gameplay? Of course it is. But to prove it you’d have to watch the replay (IF you have it in the first place). So, a player reports the blocking asshole, using the Unsportsmanlike Behavior or whatever. But the asshole does this only once, in that battle. Not only does he get away with it (we all know that as long as we aren’t assholes constantly, we can get away with all sorts of stuff), but the player as a result reduces his report reputation, because the “asshole” was not banned and therefore, the report could have been false (which again cannot be proven).

Short version: even IF that report abuse punishment system actually exists (and I have NEVER heard of anyone punished for this), then unless you frivolously spam 10 reports every day on random players, you almost certainly have nothing to fear from it, even if you decide to report people for (for example) simply not liking them. This system would be effective in one specific case: massive clan reports (clan X and clan Y meet in CW/company/SH battle, clan X team reports one specific player of clan Y), but that’s pretty retarded and noone does that anyway (I hope). I can see that this would be noticed by looking into the report log quickly.