Funny that people think the use of VMWare is restricted to botters only.
"using VMWare is asking for trouble" .. Oh is it?
The use of any VM is absolutely legal and in its nature not at all related to any "suspicious behaviour".
My server-park is being maintained by means of virtualisation. In other words, every client, Windows, Unix/Linux, OSX, has its separate VM environment and because of that, maintenance and scaling is a breeze.
And since I'm using the same infrastructure for my family - the server park is situated in my own house - it's just one of the many ways to set up a safe and sound architecture, without (much) extra cost.
So there is no way Blizzard could possibly ban you for using a VM. There is no way for them to draw any conclusion on anything just because you are using a VM.
If you're sitting at hone with a laptop with several VMs and running wow-bots, there is nothing that would make you look different from my clients.
What they do not like - but it's not even written down in the terms of use because that would be rather silly - is that you are using a ***.
And how could they forbid that, even? All my communications to and from my property are protected by encryption and tunnelling (***). That's not a hack, those are safety measures.
Even the use of random MAC addresses and random IP numbers are not per-se "suspicious".
Not every provider gives their clients a fixed IP address. So it's different every time you switch on your PC. Totally legal.
The Battle.net servers are quasi-intelligent and recognise randomisation. It _mayl_ result in your account being locked. But a simple password change will unlock it again. After a few times, you won't be having this problem anymore.
Especially when you're using a token to log on, so I recommend everybody to do that.
So far, there is absolutely nothing that even remotely could make them think that you're botting.
Only your character's odd behaviour might cause an observant player to report you.
Only you character's way of flooding the AH or moving vast amounts of gold around may trigger Blizzard's "bells and whistles".
Only your own greedy behaviour may trigger a tap on your account.
Anything else is merely circumstantial and will never lead to a permanent ban.
Happy botting
