How you are getting caught - Detection

I have an idea. Someone can make a new account for battle net, and make up some reason to talk to the guys who deal with cheaters in game. Say something like your a student of internet security and am curious about the methods they find cheaters. Or just anything you think will get them to spill the beans. Any information a GM could give you is useful.

 

I think without speculating too much their method of detection for gathering is pretty simple. If you trigger a path that is a known profile and continue to trigger that same path, system will flag you, GM will come check up and BAM!

People tend to forget that most profiles are available to the public, including Blizzard.

 

a profile that can generate patch automatically around pandaria zone may fix this. Lets say it paths a random circle. When the path is completed, another random one to be generated. A bot that writes profile. Sound weird, but i'm not a programmer, i don't know how profile works )

 

This is exactly my thoughts, I to am not a programmer an have no idea if its even possible, but I do know that a human cannot click an X'Y'Z spot 1000 times to the exact location.

 

Read again this thread mate - its been already mentioned, that Blizz do not know server side how you move to any coord, but just sync your client with the server on what coords you are and at what time, but not how you gone there, eyther by CTM or WASD, its some kind of information, which is keeping client side.

 

LCP detection is probably what they are using, atleast that's what I think.
The solution is not hard to make, I am sure if I had more programing skills it wouldn't take more then half a week or so to make those changes.

As many ppl already stated it simply need to change either the CTM mechanism or make a posibility of complete randomization of hotspots either in complete zone or atleast a profile.
If this continues like this, it will become unprofitable to bot, even now when I got only 1 botting acc and my main acc it is hard even to make enough gold for prepaid cards...

 

sir, good post
you made it out very well

 

I myself am very much in doubt about the CTM, and if it has something to do with the bans. Because I have now leveled 15+ 90s since their "new" "ban wave" in April, and I have had no problems during leveling in both classic, Outland, Northrend, Cata and MoP zones this far! The same with leveling herbalism and mining, here I have had no problems either.

Another thing is these LCP, how can it be that, when I am not getting banned for leveling mining and herbalism from 1-500? I have used public profiles and have met many other chars on all 15 bots, using the same routes?
However, I totally agree that it is LCP that is the problem with these bans in MoP farming, but why not everywhere else?


I hope that the developers will look at this and soon develop GB3, if they are not already doing that. Could be great with a response from the developers what they have of thoughts.

 

Well the CTM detection theory has so far been debunked by the HB Devs and gurus of such things as being currently undetectable. So that is a good thing. The reasons behind this are fairly sound. So tend to agree that CTM is less of an issue.

The reason more people are getting banned for PandaLand GB2 botting could be a variety of things. Perhaps they look harder there, maybe they only bother focusing on people who bot there, but there are reports on here of people being nailed botting other older zones. Likely more people bot and gather in those zones, so a lot more reports of bannings as well, there are likely more legitimate gatherers and idiot botters who report other bots using those zones. And the route in those zones, if you were to work an optimal route are actually quite obvious. So in Pandaland, higher chance of reporting by someone.

It also could be along the lines of: GetPlayerReportedBotting -> BeginLCPDetection

Even Blizz would likely go for a resource saving measure if they wanted and simply use it to check anyone who gets reported automatically within their system and then if something is detected, escalate it to a GM to investigate.

Just couple things I though about off the top of my head that might explain it.

Also to clear something up, LCP is not remembering where you "clicked" or even the exact X,Y,Z positions you pass through, it is far more advanced theorem to generate its threshold. The nuts of it says: Could a human run this "route" multiple times, at anytime and have hit "sequence" success beyond human limits. Then that threshold builds and builds as you continue to defy logics of human generated movement patterned routings.

 

I think you need to pass way more thresholds before you get either auto-ban or investigated by GM (I am telling about clean non-flagged accounts from clear IP).

I am botting on a very small scale. But here is an example of ban I had: boting on 2 accounts at the same time from the same PC and IP, the same zone (valley of the 4 winds), same profile(private with aproximately 200NPH) both druids gathering herbs only (one tauren the other one NElf with gloves), diferent realms. Gathering 5 days a week.

The two free days are used to mill>inks>shoulder enchants which takes 2x8hours. The account with NElf druid farmer got banned after like 2 weeks like a week ago and it was my main account (been playing for like 6 years or so). The reason was most likely that I was also playing on that account thus getting a lot of /played time per day.

The account with tauren druid farmer is runing for like 5th week of farming (leveled by kicks ofc) still runing the exactly same profile and earning me about 30e/week.

I?ve got NO PROOF or EVIDENCE but my ASSUMPTION is that you can still bot without triggering LCP auto-ban (if there is any) if you aint got flagged account/IP/hardware ID.

 

doesn't make any sense why they would need to "learn" your pattern and match it with other players.. blizzard is way too lazy and cheap to code something like that and it doesn't even seem necessary, if they are really checking your waypoints then.. lap 2 same pattern = busted.
this thread is just trying to sell profiles.. I wouldn't have anything to do with Chinese people in wow, they are nothing but scammers and leeches
as for questing, the profiles are not perfect.. there are MANY places where the bot fails to do something and ends up running back and forth waiting for player reports

 

Just to be clear, I am not Chinese. I am a Canadian Ex-pat living in China. As far as LCP detection existing in WoW, yes, there is no definitive proof. However, the math and the ability to implement LCP detection code (and its easy code and not resource heavy etc - please read the white paper on its development from 2009 for more info) does exist. Using a bot style that would fool LCP detection is just another added level of security - they do not even ban bots in China unless numerous player reports, and I still use it, for two reasons, one I believe LCP detection is used on EU/USA servers. Two, I am worried China WoW could start using it and if I did not already prevent detection against it, I would get caught in the first China ban wave.

I have been writing scripts, bots and such since Ultima Online in 2000. Most of my work was done in Asheron's Call. I always theorized ways we could be detected in all games as bannings for bots has been around for a long time in all games. Prevention of detection before detection has always been my ideal to avoid getting caught in the latest tech game companies use. If we can think of a way to get caught, so can Blizz or any game company.

Most people using my Profiles and systems have one thing to say, not only is it randomized and anti-lcp but "the bot functions more player-like, behaves more like a regular player would".

Lastly, if Blizzard was "lazy" and did not like things that "cost too much" then why would they even employ GMs to handle bots and bannings at all? The most costly thing is humans. Every GM is paid a Salary, no matter how little. Can you imagine how many GMs are being employed and how much of their time is spent dealing with Botters and bannings and players reporting Bots? That is expensive and time exhausting. Anything they can code to reduce human time spent in this endeavor saves them a lot of money. Far better for "the system" to check into a player reported as a Bot initially rather than having a GM respond to the report, spend 5 minutes investigating, make choice etc...

 

well its taken this long to develop decent bot detection? that's what gives me the impression. anyways if you actually found the solution to botting you wouldn't be trying to sell it.. youd make 1-2k at the very most off selling profiles when you could make that in a few days botting yourself and not creating tons of competition for yourself for a little bit of chump change.. doesn't add up does it?

 

I could never make that kind of cash from China on China servers. Gold is incredibly cheap here. $15 for 50K or more. I get far too much lag connecting to Europe or USA servers, it is why I quit playing. PVPing with 750ms ping sucks. Also, I have no idea how to get around being banned for selling gold, seems that is an even larger issue for people. Botting for $$$ is something I am not familiar with or plan to get into. I did it a lot during the Asheron's Call days, but that was 2002-2006 and while, ya, I made a lot of money doing it, it was still a lot of work and managing all the accounts and so on...not planning to do it again.

 

thanks for your posts, you are one of the most articulate posters on the topic to date, and there is a huge amount of intelligent information and speculation in your posts.

 

So, do you have any EU (since the GB2 bans seem to be most concentrated on the EU servers) data for your profile randomization approach? Has the ban rate among your customers gone down since you implemented it and, if so, by how much?

 

advertising thread. lots of bs.
question op asks is just silly. no srs profile dev will ever ask this. whole china talk is irrelevant, wer not hackerdupers here. you can develop stuff you want live without risk being banned.

now small tip: highvoltz's stuff can do wonders, check pb documentation or just tak a look at some advanced pb profiles like multi that still ships with pb by default i believe.
you can auto-change waypoints in notepad++ in one sec. you can make 10 profiles out of one and rotate'n'mix them while boting.
you can make profile 10 hour length. you can do anything really. will it prevent you from being banned? no.
its not about how bot works, its about how people work with bot. gb2 is fine.

 

Although the guy seems very knowledgeable I do agree that this seems more like advertising to his "App" than anything else. It's all just thrown in a good disguised post that shows the downsides and then presents the miracle as an option. A paid option. The information you provide is cool. But I guess, like everyone else, you also planned this to be used for your business. (Referring to the OP, not the guy I quoted BTW)

 

Yes, it's trying to sell something, duh.

LCP might be the bogeyman, it's certainly going to be for most bots.

And if we're talking about superstitions, I'll introduce you to a new one, efficiency.

The concept of LCP is to look at frequency over a spread of data, to create a sort of Bayesian spam filter of data, that would flag your account. It's not easy to counter or design either, since its not CTM alone, it's the navigation system. Essentially, LCP's job, is picking up efficient routes and flagging them as suspect. It could just be LCP tied to a "known" player, a bot user, which plays and is used as a stalking horse to feed data into the aggregate. But it doesn't have to be. Certainly, like the Bayesian system, flagging words as spam, trains the system faster, but it still has to find those aggregates using math, and not dictionaries.

If that's the case, profiles are useless unless they add distractions, delays and wandering/detours, etc. and the more "random" the paths created, it can pick up trends with navigation markers and blacklisted areas as a sort of fingerprint around an area. So a profile, is only as good as the navigation used.

If LCP is that efficient, which i seriously question, there may need to be a series of chaotic error values added to navigation nodes, to create broken paths for breaking this efficiency detection.

LCP works by aggregating statistics not for each node, but by movement in a sample area, the paths taken and detours used, etc. 90% of most player navigation is landmark reference, with plenty of erroneous deviation from the waypoint. Players don't even notice that its inaccurate, because they use the terrain as a visual referee as to positioning, not the straight linear point to point route created for efficiency. A bot uses a entry and exit point that usually walks over the same areas in the mesh, it wears a groove, if you will.

If so, the less obvious approach to LCP-busting is navigation by elliptical paths to destination nodes, to break the linearity of navigating from node to node, which is just adding in false mid-route data so it detours around a false point.

Another similar idea is path smoothing, where a flight or mount path adds additional routing points to create smoother routes at the cost of efficiency and possibly creating bad paths too near blacklisted nodes/walls/stuck points.

another approach is "bad" routing, using nav jaunts, heading towards a higher or lower point and correcting towards the last 20% to 10% of a path. Using elliptical paths to route near a destination, using expanding error between nodes to create a zig zag effect in longer path routes, etc. Basically looking like players, involves doing things players do. Like turn to look, routing to landmarks, slow turns, etc. things that would make the bot look senile or blind, when viewed by players and users.

To be ruthlessly fair, damaging the navigation system to avoid detection, may also be the thing that flags HB faster too. There is no universal solution, except a series of unique and random ones.

 

Everyone who purchases my profiles and App are on my Skype. I ask everyone who uses it to give me feedback on problems (which I fix for free of course) etc. So far, no one who uses my profiles has reported being banned. However, even if someone does get banned using my profiles, how would I truly know the reason behind their banning? They could be doing other things, running other profiles, already be flagged from past botting, could be selling gold etc...numerous things that could get them banned that has nothing to do with how they are botting with my profiles.

I do not guarantee that my profiles will prevent you from being banned. What I do guarantee is that when you use my profiles correctly that you will not get caught by LCP detection. I have tested this repeatedly and the profile method consistently keeps your LCP rating below 2, in fact it is below 1 constantly. That is what I guarantee.

Yes I design and sell custom profiles. So do others on these boards. Not everyone has the knowledge, skill or time or even motivation to make their own unique profiles. I am not charging a crazy fee for developing the profiles I sell. As one guy pointed out, "why don't I just bot like crazy instead of selling profiles for chump change". Well I enjoy making them and selling them.

When using my profile, your gatherbot will function in a search and destroy method, sweeping a prescribed zone or area (I have written framework for multi zones, even one for all of Pandaria). So the frameworks I first developed have Blackspots zone wide for problem areas I feel needed to be addressed. Then anchors are created for each profile set. Now when I design a unique and custom profile for someone, I spend about 20 minutes designing the rest of their hotspots so they are unique. For a single zone, this would be over 100 Hotspots. After this, I process their unique Hotspots and use my app to produce a randomized profile that works off the anchors and their unique hotspots. The anchors built in, along with the unique hotspots optimizes the produced randomized profile. Then I test for 30 minutes for single zone, 1 hour for multi zone. This all takes my time per order.

My search and destroy sweep method also has another aspect, it brings your NPH down to a realistic level. I aim for 100+ NPH on any profile I design using this method. Another reply in this thread, a highly intelligent one, talks about efficiency. I have similar beliefs. Efficiency over time = bot. Now someone would say, "no it does not!" but it is not about what you believe in this respect, but what the game developers, Blizzard might believe. Countermeasures are proactive systems to stop possible threats. Efficiency over time is a threat whether by NPH or by zone optimized routing. Either of these level of efficiencies could be a problem. My method counters both.

Lastly, the entire method keeps your Bot off the beaten track, the highway "optimal" routes and has behavior that is less bot like simply in the style of gathering it does. Whether or not this will keep player reports down, I do not know. But in theory, your bots routine is acting more like a new player who has not seriously gathered manually before, does not have Gathermate installed to see those optimal routes and hot zones. Most players, if they followed you or watched your bot and where it goes...well they would likely, "lol, noob" because to them, you are simply flying all over a zone looking for whatever you come across. Despite this, the performance and NPH still remains over 100+ NPH. It keeps you from travelling the hot zones and for those who are using multi zone profiles, it further spreads you around as you are working a larger and larger area, being seen less and less by the same players. The less you bump into the same players or other bots, the less chance of getting a report from them.