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New dev blog: Team Security - Banning Bad Guys and also Bad Guys

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Zagdul
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#141 - 2012-03-01 22:55:46 UTC
Jackie Fisher wrote:
Anyone banned should have their character portraits hair shaved off and some sort of 'Botter' tattoo stamped on their forehead for eternity.



I'd pick up botting for one of these.

Dual Pane idea: Click!

CCP Please Implement
ps3ud0nym
Dixon Cox Butte Preservation Society
#142 - 2012-03-01 22:57:53 UTC  |  Edited by: ps3ud0nym
CCP Sreegs wrote:
ps3ud0nym wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Camios wrote:
First, most important: CCP Sreegs looks like a seal being really happy about the fish.

Second: can you trace the money-asset stream between characters? Hard core botters use account registered with fake names and use various means to hide their main non-botting accounts, but their main accounts must get the money from the botting ones in some way. If you can trace movements, the botters are forced to launder the money in some way. There are many ways to do this in a sandbox, but this increases the effort needed to keep the "good accounts" clean; and you can anyway act on the laundry.


There are lots of ways to trace lots of things. Giving specifics would be a bit silly this early in the game. There's also some newer tech coming into play I'll be talking about at fanfest that will make the ridiculous FAKE EVERYTHING EVER ON YOUR ACCOUNT anonymity vanish. I'm not saying what we're doing yet so don't ask, but merely pointing out that we know it's a problem and have for some time.


I know you keep telling us that you can't tell us anything... is this really the best course of action? Throw it open, let everyone see and figure out ways to make it better. Certainly would mollify some of these people's ideas that the bans and detection will be rather primitive and rely on anecdotal evidence.


Based on my experience yes it is the best course of action. Plenty disagree but today bots are getting banned so I get to be right and anyone saying I should tell them every detail of everything we do is wrong. Twisted

I don't want to be dismissive because you're probably sincere. Were I to be trolling this thread I'd come in with something cool like SECURITY BY OBSCURITY because that's a catchphrase that people misinterpret as meaning that all systems need to be open or they're inherently insecure and I could probably argue with me for quite a while about it by taking that bait.

In this case it's a videogame universe with a very specific set of capabilities and a very small team of people working on a rather large problem. We're not going to waste even an ounce of our time satisfying curiosity if there's even a glimmer of a chance it will make us have to do more work getting back to zero. I'm happy to see some examples of anyone else in this industry who handles the situation differently though.

Hopefully that makes sense.


Hey.. I am not THAT big of a troll XD.

that totally makes sense. To be honest, I am not sure exactly how you would be able to throw the system open in such a way that you would be able to gain the benefits of crowd sourcing without a great deal of work; however, I think it is an important question to ask in regards to resource management.

What I am concerned about is the number of man hours available to those who write and use bots (nearly infinite even with Sturgeon's Law), verses the number of man hours that you have available in a year in your team to combat it. How do you guys intend to address that gap in development capabilities (other than being "The smartest guys in the room")?

PS: In case it doesn't come across. I think you guys are fantastic and fully support what you are doing.
Frabba
Perkone
Caldari State
#143 - 2012-03-01 22:59:48 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Frabba wrote:
I probably missed this earlier in the thread, but what happens to the other characters on the accounts which were banned for botting? Are they also going to be locked down?


Yes. The account itself will be unable to transfer characters.


This owns and you own. I'd be curious to know statistics on how many of these now locked accounts have supercapital pilots on them.

its me im the best poster.
Drew Solaert
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#144 - 2012-03-01 23:03:52 UTC
Awesome, Just plain Awesome.

I lied :o
Ajita al Tchar
Doomheim
#145 - 2012-03-01 23:05:06 UTC
What's that? It must be the world's tiniest violin, playing the world's saddest song as botters poop their pants.

Thanks! Good devblog, and thanks for posting it.

Also, https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=75611

This is pretty sad, seeing people so happy that they can play the game the way it was intended, trading with real people instead of 0.01 ISK'ing bots that never sleep. Please keep up the good work, it's very much necessary.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#146 - 2012-03-01 23:05:13 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
Is it possible for you to tell us what the botters primary activity was? In a percentage like "67% were miners, 12% were market...". As an example.


Yeah that kind of thing I'll report but I'd prefer if possible to wait a couple of weeks to do it.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#147 - 2012-03-01 23:13:15 UTC
When sreegs snorts a line of hot sauce, it results in bots getting banned.

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#148 - 2012-03-01 23:14:18 UTC
AWESOME work. All questions I had were either already answered (also gj on that) or shouldn't be answered for good reasons, so I'll just post a graphical representation of what I was thinking when I read the blog: http://www.kryptonitekollectibles.com/images/prod/BurnsExcellentSticker.jpg

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Bloodpetal
Tir Capital Management Group
#149 - 2012-03-01 23:15:08 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:
naming and shaming introduces a whole DPA issue. I'd pretty much say 'They can't do it', from a legal perspective.


I was trying not to pretend to be a lawyer but the DPA and issues related to that are indeed discussion points. :)


Eh. Client pays for services, violates rules of service. You're not damaging his ability to do anything other than play the game as long as you don't release private information (persons real name, etc).

They're going to have a hard argument in a "court" saying...

CCP DESTROYED MY REPUTATION BY NOT LETTING ME PLAY THEIR GAME BECAUSE I WAS CHEATING AND THEN LET ALL THE OTHER NERDS KNOW THAT MY FAKE NAME WAS THE ONE DOING IT!!!!

Erm. ya.

Where I am.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#150 - 2012-03-01 23:28:27 UTC
ps3ud0nym wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
ps3ud0nym wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Camios wrote:
First, most important: CCP Sreegs looks like a seal being really happy about the fish.

Second: can you trace the money-asset stream between characters? Hard core botters use account registered with fake names and use various means to hide their main non-botting accounts, but their main accounts must get the money from the botting ones in some way. If you can trace movements, the botters are forced to launder the money in some way. There are many ways to do this in a sandbox, but this increases the effort needed to keep the "good accounts" clean; and you can anyway act on the laundry.


There are lots of ways to trace lots of things. Giving specifics would be a bit silly this early in the game. There's also some newer tech coming into play I'll be talking about at fanfest that will make the ridiculous FAKE EVERYTHING EVER ON YOUR ACCOUNT anonymity vanish. I'm not saying what we're doing yet so don't ask, but merely pointing out that we know it's a problem and have for some time.


I know you keep telling us that you can't tell us anything... is this really the best course of action? Throw it open, let everyone see and figure out ways to make it better. Certainly would mollify some of these people's ideas that the bans and detection will be rather primitive and rely on anecdotal evidence.


Based on my experience yes it is the best course of action. Plenty disagree but today bots are getting banned so I get to be right and anyone saying I should tell them every detail of everything we do is wrong. Twisted

I don't want to be dismissive because you're probably sincere. Were I to be trolling this thread I'd come in with something cool like SECURITY BY OBSCURITY because that's a catchphrase that people misinterpret as meaning that all systems need to be open or they're inherently insecure and I could probably argue with me for quite a while about it by taking that bait.

In this case it's a videogame universe with a very specific set of capabilities and a very small team of people working on a rather large problem. We're not going to waste even an ounce of our time satisfying curiosity if there's even a glimmer of a chance it will make us have to do more work getting back to zero. I'm happy to see some examples of anyone else in this industry who handles the situation differently though.

Hopefully that makes sense.


Hey.. I am not THAT big of a troll XD.

that totally makes sense. To be honest, I am not sure exactly how you would be able to throw the system open in such a way that you would be able to gain the benefits of crowd sourcing without a great deal of work; however, I think it is an important question to ask in regards to resource management.

What I am concerned about is the number of man hours available to those who write and use bots (nearly infinite even with Sturgeon's Law), verses the number of man hours that you have available in a year in your team to combat it. How do you guys intend to address that gap in development capabilities (other than being "The smartest guys in the room")?

PS: In case it doesn't come across. I think you guys are fantastic and fully support what you are doing.


We'll work on it until we run out of time v0v. I think the motivation of botmakers in our game is grossly overstated as opposed to some others where your potential customer base is immense. Even the dudes who do it as freebies tend to be more swagger than anything else.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#151 - 2012-03-01 23:31:36 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
KrakizBad wrote:
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
KrakizBad wrote:
Any comment on whether market bots were also hit? Inquiring trading minds want to know!


As a trader, I can say from how the market has changed in Jita, yes.

Plenty of incidental evidence, I agree. I just want to hear it officially. Cool It's also possible the last round of patching screwed up their performance, which has happened before.


I haven't run the stats yet as I was on vacation but we do look for market bots.


Still don't have exact stats but I did confirm we nuked some market bots.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Alx Warlord
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#152 - 2012-03-01 23:40:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Alx Warlord
Time to Add a Clock hunter ship, so we can hunt afk cloakers that ruins the game worse then bots does... btw... most of the rating bots could be hunted by a cloak hunter ship probably, since their main function is to warp to a safe-spot and cloack when someone gets in the system....

Man they ruin the game for small alliances...

Please read these!

New POS system New SOV system
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#153 - 2012-03-01 23:45:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha
Aquila Draco wrote:
Please shut up with stealth "my bot runs for 16 hours a day every day for months now - will it be banned"
No human will mine for 3 months every single day for 16 hours a day. LOL... you will oversleep some day in that 3 months or something i presume. And you will few msgs in local in that 3 months, or click wrong every now and then or something.



1) What I do is in my signature, it's not hard to read it.

2) What people do with their time is not your business to judge. It's not a per hour paid service so if someone wanted to play 23/7 he's fully entitled to do so (he will die in the process but it is his choice).

There's plenty of people who work at home or are at work in a position to run low involvement activities while they do other menial stuff (I.e. I know a guy who is paid to stay in a place and check that an alarm system won't ring and at end of day he has to start a server backup, period.).
Those guys will exactly play 8 hours a day, at very identical times and won't chat in local.

What will discern them vs a botting behavioral pattern? What tools are they given to objectively and undisputedly prove to CCP they were not botting?

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Tarryn Nightstorm
Hellstar Towing and Recovery
#154 - 2012-03-01 23:46:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Tarryn Nightstorm
Suggestion:

After first offense/14-day ban:

Reduce the character to -10.0 security status and -5.00 faction-standing with all four factions, to be improved using the standard methods.

I think this will make absolutely clear that they should never, ever do that again whilst giving them a legitimate chance to "rehabilitate" themselves.

After second offense:

Wallet reduced to zero, all assets removed, plus the standings penalty above, again able to "rehabilitate" using normal methods.

Third offense:

Permanent, account-level, not just that character--ban, all characters and assets on that account biomassed.

Because...because **** them, that's why.

E:

The second offense's penalties should apply to all characters on that account, not just the one botting, and any re-rolls in empty slots will be "born" with those standings as well.

Botting is bad, m'kay? It just needs to be shown very explicitly to anyone who does it that it will carry harsh, long-term consequences. the current first 2 strikes are a slap on the wrist, although the character transfer-lock is a big step in the right direction.

Star Wars: the Old Republic may not be EVE. But I'll take the sound of dual blaster-pistols over "NURVV CLAOKING NAOW!!!11oneone!!" any day of the week.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#155 - 2012-03-01 23:49:08 UTC
Vaerah Vahrokha wrote:
Aquila Draco wrote:
Please shut up with stealth "my bot runs for 16 hours a day every day for months now - will it be banned"
No human will mine for 3 months every single day for 16 hours a day. LOL... you will oversleep some day in that 3 months or something i presume. And you will few msgs in local in that 3 months, or click wrong every now and then or something.



1) What I do is in my signature, it's not hard to read it.

2) What people do with their time is not your business to judge. It's not a per hour paid service so if someone wanted to play 23/7 he's fully entitled to do so (he will die in the process but it is his choice).

There's plenty of people who work at home or are at work in a position to run low involvement activities while they do other menial stuff (I.e. I know a guy who is paid to stay in a place and check that an alarm system won't ring and at end of day he has to start an server backup, period.).
Those guys will exactly play 8 hours a day, at very identical times and won't chat in local.

What will discern them vs a botting behavioral pattern? What tools are they given to objectively and undisputedly prove to CCP they were not botting?


If you feel you're wrongfully banned you petition. I've yet to see any false positives in our work and were one to come up I'd be pretty interested in seeing what it was. On the flipside the first thing anyone does is claim innocence. I'd suggest that were this to occur you should petition and we'll see how it plays out as I'm not sure speculation is going to get us anything more than additional questions.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
zcar300
SERCO Group
#156 - 2012-03-01 23:49:15 UTC
Speaking of RMT. Are the big RMT web pages legal? I mean they must be right? Because they advertise everywhere and no one has taken them down. I haven't looked into it but they seems to sell in game items for real money. That's what RMT means right?
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#157 - 2012-03-01 23:52:28 UTC
zcar300 wrote:
Speaking of RMT. Are the big RMT web pages legal? I mean they must be right? Because they advertise everywhere and no one has taken them down. I haven't looked into it but they seems to sell in game items for real money. That's what RMT means right?


I won't really discuss that here for legal reasons but you can research the subject pretty easily on the internet.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#158 - 2012-03-01 23:52:52 UTC
And I'm off to bed EVE Dudes. I'll pop back by in the morning.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#159 - 2012-03-01 23:59:57 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
On the flipside the first thing anyone does is claim innocence.


You exactly hit the nail on the head.

There's something in the process that unnecessarily clogs down the process:

- Both innocents and guilty will always petition you to get their account back (huge wasted time and resources).

- Both innocents and guilty will always claim to be innocent (again, big expense in time and resources due to exchange of mails or whatever, escalations and so on).

- Both innocents and guilty in case of behavioral based ban they will exactly look like a bot.


At this point, the innocents would provide CCP with a CCP accepted proof of innocence, while the guilty ones could not.

What are the tools / procedures to produce such proof?

If the answer is "none" then you'll have a varying degree of collateral damage, which is very nice and dandy to downplay until YOU (player who sperges on the forums about pitchform and first strike torture) are that collateral damage.

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Marlona Sky
State War Academy
Caldari State
#160 - 2012-03-02 00:00:07 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
And I'm off to bed EVE Dudes. I'll pop back by in the morning.


I wonder what a person who commits genocide on bots dreams about...