Quote Originally Posted by KageTokage View Post
There is definitely some kind of source code they need to function, though, because they disappear for a few days after every major update. If SE was serious about controlling they could isolate that data and encrypt it better or some such so they at least don't come back as quickly, because it's virtually impossible to eliminate bots entirely even if you try to take legal action against them (Blizzard won a lawsuit and forced some bot producers to shut down, but they simply resumed operations under a different name eventually),
This is because every non-minor patch update, they change the instruction id for all but the animation effects (stuff that generates flying text, opens doors, and such.) It's the same reason all third party tools are broken at patch day. Sometimes those changes are trivial, sometimes not.

The end result is the same though, those changes are a speed bump, not a jersey barrier.

SE can take legal action on copyright grounds because all these unauthorized tools contain portions of data reverse-engineered from the game client. Even if they trivially encrypt the spawn and movement codes, the game client has no protection against arbitrary memory writes, because Windows allows that to happen. As I said previously in the thread, software that "protects" the game client is often easy defeated by the very same "well meaning" people often in the pursuit of privately operated services in order to make money from gullible players.