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Scarlet Letters and Botters

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Terminal Insanity
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#101 - 2012-03-27 03:26:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Terminal Insanity
Revii Lagoon wrote:
Sisohiv wrote:

You will understand if people miss things on the tickertape forum.
If they are making Bot chars account locked, the motive for flagging them with stars is kind of not there.

Bot bann gets you -10.00 makes more sense.
I wouldn't even bann them. Just run Sec -10.00 and all 4 empires -10.00 on third offence.


Terrible idea, most bots operate in 0.0 anyways so it would do nothing.

1) Most botters are in highsec, as shown by CCP's own pie charts at fanfest.
2) Banishing highsec botters to low/null would only make them not want to play the game at all. (and even less of a chance to become a good guy, which is what CCP wants them to do...)

Even making the 'mark' available to see in the Recruit Application, i guarentee there will be sites that pop up that will allow CEO/Directors to report these player's names and keep the list public.

Marking them should ether be completely public, or not at all. There is little choice in the matter tbh.

It would not be immersion breaking since you could RP it offf, CONCORD caught them using illegal tech and is warning other players about interacting with them. You might be infected with rogue AI!

Perhaps allow CEO's to flag their corporation as bot-free and then deny botters the abitily to even apply to those corporations. This way his bot status is private but players still have some control. Similar Bot-Free flags could be applied elsewhere. To fleets for example.

"War declarations are never officially considered griefing and are not a bannable offense, and it has been repeatedly stated by the developers that the possibility for non-consensual PvP is an intended feature." - CCP
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#102 - 2012-03-27 03:32:04 UTC
Nemo deBlanc wrote:
Sisohiv wrote:
Revii Lagoon wrote:
Sisohiv wrote:

You will understand if people miss things on the tickertape forum.
If they are making Bot chars account locked, the motive for flagging them with stars is kind of not there.

Bot bann gets you -10.00 makes more sense.
I wouldn't even bann them. Just run Sec -10.00 and all 4 empires -10.00 on third offence.


Terrible idea, most bots operate in 0.0 anyways so it would do nothing.


Null bots are rare. I've done Null Mining Ops and 10/10 and there is no need to bot them. We could wipe a Plex belt in an hr or do a 10/10 in as much time. Everything is done in fleet out there. it's very efficient.


Funny, care to explain my recent trip through deep Russian space then? ~10 systems in a row, each with Raven and Exequeror. The second you enter system, Raven heads to POS, Exequeror cloaks. Only characters in system, each made on the exact same day, all members of two different corps. But oh, I suppose that's perfectly normal, and those were all legit players, right? Big smile

All of this stuff is ******* pointless if CCP is going to keep failing so hard they can't even break injection bots. ******* Runescape has got everyone forced to work in Color and OpenGL now, yet CCP flails along paddling the fail boat trying to do resource intensive manual investigations and bans. If they'd actually just break bots and obfuscate their code better, they could stop paying us lip service and show real results.


Hi I'm the guy who keeps showing you charts. I'll ask someone else to show more and we'll see if that cracks through.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#103 - 2012-03-27 03:34:02 UTC
Ai Shun wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
What would you, the player, stand to benefit from being able to identify which characters had ever been caught botting, whether or not they were still engaging in this activity?


It would allow me to block those players, ignore contracts from them and generally ensure I don't need to interact with people that try to ruin EVE for the rest of us that play the game legitimately. This is not the same as scamming, can-flipping or similar but a deliberate breach of the EULA. I'd rather not play with those kinds of ass-hats and if I can prevent myself from actively interacting with them or supporting them through such interaction that would be great.

It does not matter to me if this is the first time they have been caught or not; the anti-botting stance is fundamentally entrenched in almost every single MMO out there. They cannot claim ignorance and I don't care if they repent or not - they actively chose to break that contract with CCP and the other players of EVE Online.


No other MMO is naming and shamimg. I just want to point that out and if I'm wrong I'm happy to stand corrected.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Alpheias
Tactical Farmers.
Pandemic Horde
#104 - 2012-03-27 03:35:04 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Alpheias wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Pampers Toralen wrote:
This the distraction from the mittens thread? Any word from ccp about the issue



There's plenty of other threads to post in about this. Leave mine alone.


Fine, here is something for you. What about the authentication dongles you gave out at fanfest 2011, or if it was 2010?


A tentative date and explanation were given on Friday. We're looking at a release sometime in July and you can get the explanation for the delay from the stream as there's a lot of words involved. It'll be posted this week I imagine. Big smile


Ah. I missed that. But you got any information on authenticators being available to those that didn't go to fanfest or is that something that will be revealed in the devblog?

Agent of Chaos, Sower of Discord.

Don't talk to me unless you are IQ verified and certified with three references from non-family members. Please have your certificate of authenticity on hand.
Largo Usagi
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#105 - 2012-03-27 03:35:19 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Ai Shun wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
What would you, the player, stand to benefit from being able to identify which characters had ever been caught botting, whether or not they were still engaging in this activity?


It would allow me to block those players, ignore contracts from them and generally ensure I don't need to interact with people that try to ruin EVE for the rest of us that play the game legitimately. This is not the same as scamming, can-flipping or similar but a deliberate breach of the EULA. I'd rather not play with those kinds of ass-hats and if I can prevent myself from actively interacting with them or supporting them through such interaction that would be great.

It does not matter to me if this is the first time they have been caught or not; the anti-botting stance is fundamentally entrenched in almost every single MMO out there. They cannot claim ignorance and I don't care if they repent or not - they actively chose to break that contract with CCP and the other players of EVE Online.


No other MMO is naming and shamimg. I just want to point that out and if I'm wrong I'm happy to stand corrected.



If no other MMO is naming and shaming, Trend Set to me just naming and shaming them seems like a minimal change on your behalf and its more ammunition against the problem.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#106 - 2012-03-27 03:38:05 UTC
Gilbaron wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Gilbaron wrote:
name and shame wont help the problem

bots will move away from corporations and stay in npc corps

players behind the bots will get better at hiding their true identity, bot isk, sell for money, buy plex with money, sell plex for isk, really difficult for CCP to find their true identity if stuff like TOR and Virtual Machines is used to hide the true ID and details of the computer

an anonymous list (3 market bots in jita, 40 ratting bots in XXX, 50 mining bots in YYY were banned today, they lost a total of ZZZ isk and assets worth XXX isk since they were aquired via botting) of those in their first and second strike and a a public list of those characters permabanned might be a good idea to state clearly that CCP is actively fighting bots


While I love the mythology that people have that they can remain anonymous on the internet it's a falsehood over time. The idea that, especially given EVE and all of the numbers involved, we can actually focus on this and any other *example here norms* apply is pretty silly.

The margins on one hand are completely different and we allow PLEX. We've shown at least three times in the early days that we can focus and completely shut down a bot developer because the margins frankly aren't there.

If you think this is some world where someone doing a bad activity we care about can just magically vanish those dog days are pretty much over.


so you say that you can still identify me if im using TOR via 3g on my laptop for my bot and my normal Cable internet on my desktop for normal gaming, running two accounts who never ever have touched each other ingame and dont have anything in common on the account management site ? thats pretty interesting and i would like to hear more

concerning PLEX i think i have to agree with you, they are likely the single most powerfull weapon against professional RMTers but will do nothing about the guys who are simply to lazy to go and farm their ships via hard work like everybody else


I can tell you based on professional experience that the sense of anonymity you seem to be professing is really overblown and is the kind of thing that puts deliciously round "O" faces on people in handcuffs being escorted from their houses. I'm sure you're interested in more, but that's what the news is for.

PLEX just owns and it's a great tool against this problem :)

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Ai Shun
#107 - 2012-03-27 03:38:21 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
No other MMO is naming and shamimg. I just want to point that out and if I'm wrong I'm happy to stand corrected.


Ai Shun wrote:
[It does not matter to me if this is the first time they have been caught or not; the anti-botting stance is fundamentally entrenched in almost every single MMO out there. They cannot claim ignorance and I don't care if they repent or not - they actively chose to break that contract with CCP and the other players of EVE Online.


I wasn't saying they were. I was saying that a botter cannot claim they thought it was okay to bot - unless they have never played a MMO or read anything about MMO gaming in their entire lives.
Benilopax
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#108 - 2012-03-27 03:39:22 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Benilopax wrote:
As CCP were saying at fanfest, as people are saying about Mitts.

It's all about consequences.

You do something bad there are consequences, as long as it's made clear to people beforehand I say do it.


This is actually my biggest problem with the thing. We'd be putting ourselves in the position of making a solid statement that would incur player consequences and I prefer to stay out of the sandbox if that makes sense.


Botters are breaking the sandbox.

...
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#109 - 2012-03-27 03:41:58 UTC
Nemo deBlanc wrote:
Gilbaron wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Gilbaron wrote:
name and shame wont help the problem

bots will move away from corporations and stay in npc corps

players behind the bots will get better at hiding their true identity, bot isk, sell for money, buy plex with money, sell plex for isk, really difficult for CCP to find their true identity if stuff like TOR and Virtual Machines is used to hide the true ID and details of the computer

an anonymous list (3 market bots in jita, 40 ratting bots in XXX, 50 mining bots in YYY were banned today, they lost a total of ZZZ isk and assets worth XXX isk since they were aquired via botting) of those in their first and second strike and a a public list of those characters permabanned might be a good idea to state clearly that CCP is actively fighting bots


While I love the mythology that people have that they can remain anonymous on the internet it's a falsehood over time. The idea that, especially given EVE and all of the numbers involved, we can actually focus on this and any other *example here norms* apply is pretty silly.

The margins on one hand are completely different and we allow PLEX. We've shown at least three times in the early days that we can focus and completely shut down a bot developer because the margins frankly aren't there.

If you think this is some world where someone doing a bad activity we care about can just magically vanish those dog days are pretty much over.


so you say that you can still identify me if im using TOR via 3g on my laptop for my bot and my normal Cable internet on my desktop for normal gaming, running two accounts who never ever have touched each other ingame and dont have anything in common on the account management site ? thats pretty interesting and i would like to hear more

concerning PLEX i think i have to agree with you, they are likely the single most powerfull weapon against professional RMTers but will do nothing about the guys who are simply to lazy to go and farm their ships via hard work like everybody else


CCP uses hardware fingerprints as well as IP's. But it's still quite the fallacy on their part to try and pretend like people don't fake that as well. They've said bans are also on actual people, not just an account. But even if so, nothing stops Russians who bot EVE for a living from just using their grandmother for billing.


Firstly the statements about what we do or don't use to identify things aren't quite what people think. Secondly it'd be pretty cool if we could stop labeling ethnic groups.

The hyberbole regarding how to be anonymous on the internet has replaced the Internet Lawyer in the near future where the Internet Lawyer has ceased to exist. (this future will never happen)

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Miss President
SOLARIS ASTERIUS
#110 - 2012-03-27 03:42:31 UTC
All you need to do is put a large tag on their avatar such as:

FAIL
POO
BOT

Make them temporary:

First time for a week
Second time for two weeks

Allow players to right click such players and request for 4 hour kill rights with 5 minute warning

This will sure teach Botters a lesson, not to log in too much.

Oh, and another one, move botters automatically into a low sec system, and don't allow any access to empire for the duration of the tag.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#111 - 2012-03-27 03:43:20 UTC
Nemo deBlanc wrote:
Razin wrote:
Besides the fact that such a thing would be somewhat immersion breaking, I really couldn't care less about knowing if someone had been caught botting. All I want is Delayed Local so that the players have a chance to self-police in 0.0 at the very least. Why isn't this getting done??


This. But make it no local. There's absolutely no easier fix for CCP to address botting than simply not sending clients info on players in a system until the player is detected by scanning/entering grid. Unless I'm missing something, it's the blatantly obvious fix here, and it disappointing me that CCP won't actually make it happen. Sure, nullbears will cry. Who cares?


I'm pretty sure "protecting botters" isn't even on the list of reasons for local to exist. This is really a question better answered by someone in game design but I'll see if I can find an answer.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#112 - 2012-03-27 03:44:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Vincent Athena
CCP Sreegs wrote:
AkJon Ferguson wrote:
The primary advantage of the scarlet letter would undoubtedly be as a deterrent and I support the concept for that reason.

Maybe the scarlet letter could be removed after say 1 year of good behavior?


But I could argue that there are plenty of other deterrents in place. This one has the additional negative of also providing a disincentive for turning into a Good Guy, which is something we've been trying to prevent.

CCP Sreegs, there are actually very few deterrents in place, at least for a first time botter. Consider a player picking up the game a couple of months from now. What deterrents will that player see? This thread? Buried, dozens of pages down. Your blogs or Fanfest presentation? He might not even know there are blogs or a Fanfest. The EULA? Its there, but I bet most do not read it. With nothing obvious showing him its a bad move, and if he is so inclined, he may start botting, thinking CCP does not care. Sure, you can catch him, but better if he was deterred from even trying it, even once.

Also deterring a player from trying botting even once means he would not buy a bot program. That means less income for bot writers, deterring them from continuing to sell bots.

That said, I do not think a scarlet letter is needed for this (It would be better for deterring repeat offenders). Just do a weekly report of the number of first, second and third bans and isk removed. Have it posted in the news seen when you log in.

Continuous and persistent deterrence to first time botting.

Know a Frozen fan? Check this out

Frozen fanfiction
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#113 - 2012-03-27 03:46:04 UTC
Largo Usagi wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Ai Shun wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
What would you, the player, stand to benefit from being able to identify which characters had ever been caught botting, whether or not they were still engaging in this activity?


It would allow me to block those players, ignore contracts from them and generally ensure I don't need to interact with people that try to ruin EVE for the rest of us that play the game legitimately. This is not the same as scamming, can-flipping or similar but a deliberate breach of the EULA. I'd rather not play with those kinds of ass-hats and if I can prevent myself from actively interacting with them or supporting them through such interaction that would be great.

It does not matter to me if this is the first time they have been caught or not; the anti-botting stance is fundamentally entrenched in almost every single MMO out there. They cannot claim ignorance and I don't care if they repent or not - they actively chose to break that contract with CCP and the other players of EVE Online.


No other MMO is naming and shamimg. I just want to point that out and if I'm wrong I'm happy to stand corrected.



If no other MMO is naming and shaming, Trend Set to me just naming and shaming them seems like a minimal change on your behalf and its more ammunition against the problem.


I do not in any way disagree with trend setting. Based on the statement that was made I just wanted to be clear.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#114 - 2012-03-27 03:48:06 UTC
I'm going to bed now guys I'll be back in a few hours. NN!

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Zagdul
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#115 - 2012-03-27 03:54:28 UTC
If there was a 'Scarlet Letter' in EVE, I'd do my best to get one.

I'd wear it as a badge of honoure.

Dual Pane idea: Click!

CCP Please Implement
EI Digin
irc.zulusquad.org
#116 - 2012-03-27 03:54:44 UTC
A public shaming won't solve anything, and will just make sure that botters quit the game completely after they get caught because nobody wants to be around a player who does that kind of stuff. Botters are bad people and all, but give them a chance to come back as normal players after CCP punishes them.
Gilbaron
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#117 - 2012-03-27 03:55:53 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:


The hyberbole regarding how to be anonymous on the internet has replaced the Internet Lawyer in the near future where the Internet Lawyer has ceased to exist. (this future will never happen)


i have to note that thing down somewhere, pretty nice sentence to have as a sidearm in some internets discussions :D


well, back to topic:

first strike: no

second strike: maybe

third strike: hell yeah
Powers Sa
#118 - 2012-03-27 03:57:44 UTC
Zagdul wrote:
If there was a 'Scarlet Letter' in EVE, I'd do my best to get one.

I'd wear it as a badge of honoure.


If I was an alliance head / corp CEO, I would only recruit scarlet letters, so I would know who to hit like post for.

Do you like winning t2 frigs and dictors for Dirt Cheap?https://eveninggames.net/register/ref/dQddmNgyLhFBqNJk

Remeber: Gambling addiction is no laughing matter unless you've lost a vast space fortune on the internet.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#119 - 2012-03-27 03:57:48 UTC
Andski wrote:
Leaving it as it is (between the offender and CCP) makes sense. Naming and shaming accomplishes nothing.


I owe you one :)

Agreed.

Naming and shaming an anonymous internet character that can be deleted and a new acct opened in minutes is not only a waste of time but a waste of CCP manpower. It makes no sense.

I'd never bother looking at such a list. By the time it went live, the accts with high level characters that bot would have been safely tucked away and the only thing on it would be low level throw away alts on throw away accts. And they surely won't care if they are named or not.

Haven't read the thread so if already said many times, consider this just adding my voice to the choir.

Mr Epeen Cool
Tanya Powers
Doomheim
#120 - 2012-03-27 03:59:08 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Hello wonderful Internet Spaceship Pilots!!!!!

Though not all of you have seen my presentation last Friday at this point I have some time to kill so I'd like to get this conversation started that I not only promised, but that I'm really looking forward to.

In some of my past dev blogs and conversations with players it's been mentioned by a number of you that you'd like botters identified publicly. As you will eventually see from my presentation once it's posted, I'm not entirely convinced that this has any real tangible benefit to you as a player in any respect other than as a tool to implement the metagame.

I'm also not convinced that it's a worthless pursuit so what I'd like to see from you, the players, is a discussion regarding how you feel about this and I'm hoping to see some really cool ideas.

If I'm forced to frame it as a question I'd like answered I think I'd frame it as "What would you, the player, stand to benefit from being able to identify which characters had ever been caught botting, whether or not they were still engaging in this activity?"

Please try to stay on topic. If this thread gets garbaged (Sarah Palin License to invent words) then we'll clean it but I'd rather we just stick to the topic and provide some really good input personally.

DISCUSS!

:)


Something that you have to search to find the information. Has you said, if you can turn the bad guy in to a good guy then everyone wins, I'm ok with that but it takes some time, so for this period of time (probationary?) some info should be available by the right click menu.
This would aloud miners in the same system to have a better 'eye' on the guy but shouldn't be a tool to mock indefinitely. This is where I think that nothing like this should be implemented. you either kick the guy definitively and decisively or you forgive, and if you do you just don't put the guy in blood and throw it to sharks, because it's what the game is about right?