lalafell rats

[Amariel34]

hardware bans are very easy to navigate around.

The only way to stop these bots is to region lock the area in which they connect from, which in turn will just end up banning china from the game.

Ah, thank you. I had heard that with hardware bans, the person would need to get a whole new PC to be able to play. Didn't know it was easy to get around. But wouldn't they be able to use a VPN to get around a region ban?

[Zfz]

Hardware bans require hardware IDing, which means the client side software needs to access the hardware information unrelated to the game. The simple act of collecting information like that could be argued to constitute a violation of personal privacy. Japanese companies and its government is especially sensitive to that, so much so that the Japanese even question whether their ID number, called "My Number", is potentially a violation of privacy.

The only way to really get rid of bots is to have a constantly updating encryption protocol protecting your in-game communication. But at least at the moment, it poses a heavy burden to both the data center (which has to decrypt connection packets from potentially millions of players at a time) and the client software, plus add delay into an already extremely time-sensitive application, that online games generally don't use them.

I'm sure the technology is available, from a big data perspective, to retrospectively inspect the server log data and find groups of player characters that all perform very highly consistently, and thus ban them as bots. The question is whether Square Enix even thinks it is a problem (they're getting the subscription anyways) and whether they have the expertise in-house (otherwise it will be very costly and risky to source something like that externally).

[Amariel34]

Hardware bans require hardware IDing, which means the client side software needs to access the hardware information unrelated to the game. The simple act of collecting information like that could be argued to constitute a violation of personal privacy. Japanese companies and its government is especially sensitive to that, so much so that the Japanese even question whether their ID number, called "My Number", is potentially a violation of privacy.

The only way to really get rid of bots is to have a constantly updating encryption protocol protecting your in-game communication. But at least at the moment, it poses a heavy burden to both the data center (which has to decrypt connection packets from potentially millions of players at a time) and the client software, plus add delay into an already extremely time-sensitive application, that online games generally don't use them.

I'm sure the technology is available, from a big data perspective, to retrospectively inspect the server log data and find groups of player characters that all perform very highly consistently, and thus ban them as bots. The question is whether Square Enix even thinks it is a problem (they're getting the subscription anyways) and whether they have the expertise in-house (otherwise it will be very costly and risky to source something like that externally).

Thank you very much for the details. It makes a lot of sense.

[Espon]

Those bots under the Aetheryte are already being banned quickly, with over 10-thousand being banned each week. The problem is that it takes no effort effort for them to make a new account and deploy more bots.

It also doesn't help that many players foolishly fall for the giveaway phishing scams, supplying them with many paid accounts to run bots on after stealing all their gil.

Trying to prevent the bots from even working is a difficult process as they'll always find a way around, and SE doesn't want to force the game to scan your computer for 3rd party programs as that can cause all sorts of issues and concerns.

I'm sure the technology is available, from a big data perspective, to retrospectively inspect the server log data and find groups of player characters that all perform very highly consistently, and thus ban them as bots. The question is whether Square Enix even thinks it is a problem (they're getting the subscription anyways) and whether they have the expertise in-house (otherwise it will be very costly and risky to source something like that externally).

There's no money to be made from allowing bots stick around as they simply use fraudulent credit card information or stolen accounts.

[Lalahee]

Morning. I was just wondering how hard it would be for the devs to make a sweep and clean out all the lalafell rat like bots sitting under all the floors and in the roofs spamming gold selling.

Imagine the hundreds of these bots, hidden away and squeeking out their unwanted spam right under your feet, or in the walls or roofs hidden above you.

Watching dozens spawn at a time with teleport hacks in game does not say much for the games security, especially considering all of the other cheats that would be able to be used if that one is.

We will bury you.

[VictorTheed]

I'm just here to boost the number of lalas crowding in on this thread.

Continue on, posters.

[Curisu]

They need to go after gold buyer's.
Like, first offence should get them banned for a few weeks and striped out of all currencies. So the buyer's are aware of the risk and don't attempt it a second time but also are able to talk about the punishment.

The second offence is a perma bann.

[Bobby66]

Become friends with the bots, learn from them, let them offer you place within their legion.