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Grass4smoker
May Member 2023

Grass4smoker

Posts: 19 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Guys, this is not that hard. A little bit of network knowledge and some simple TCP code can ban these CIDR ranges for life. It is as simple as that. I'll lay it out for you all:

botABC123: join us at someDiscord.gg invite
bot123ABC: play our casino 50m gets you 300m

BOTH of these are logged in the server with their IP and timestamp. On top of this it is no more than a single step to get the MAC/IMEI as well; Seeing as most of these bots are probably being run via one user using multiple burner phones. Yet their network will largely have to remain the same. At the very least their ISP is the same - you can ban the CIDR super easy. Blacklist it. That's that - if that particular bot user wants to spin up again, guess what - he/she/they will have to explain to their ISP why they need an entire network overhaul for the same connection speeds and dollar amount - the ISP wont do that.

The answer is as stupidly simple as this though: RuneScape - especially OSRS - actually benefits from these bots; Sadly.

1. They inflate 1 major KPI (key performance indicator) - called DAU count - that is your daily active user count. To investors/acquisition firms/and appraisers - this is the only functioning metric that matters. It basically tells them what the game is worth, and how much they can make off the game/end users. It's what I'd call a rough statistic but it is good enough for them so, it matters.

2. They drive the cost in GE items down, keeping things like grimey herbs and other simple, mundane items down - no one cares about this

The fluff about "we're trying"/"we ban X number of bots per day/month/x timeframe" no-one is actually believing that. Even if the numbers and actions are real and happening behind the scenes - not a single end user will see the difference as they are playing the game in real time.
If Jagex were to do ban waves and broadcast the names/emails of the accounts as is in games like BattleBit - the impact would be greater

02-Jan-2024 22:42:00 - Last edited on 02-Jan-2024 22:42:43 by Grass4smoker

Haukur

Haukur

Posts: 1,428 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Here is one way to look at bots. Picture a hydra, you cut off one head and two more grow back. That is how it is with bots. You get rid of one, and five more replace it. Don't ever think the reason I am peaceful is because I do not know how to be violent.
Ekki hugsa alltaf að ég sé friðsælt vegna þess að ég veit ekki hvernig á að vera ofbeldi.

02-Jan-2024 23:33:00

Archaeox
Dec Member 2011

Archaeox

Posts: 53,469 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Grass4smoker said :
Guys, this is not that hard. A little bit of network knowledge and some simple TCP code can ban these CIDR ranges for life. It is as simple as that.

Wow.

You did it.

You solved a problem that plagues the entire gaming industry.

We abase ourselves before the altar of your awesomeness.






Just kidding. You have an oversimplistic view of the whole problem, and casually dismiss the hard work being put in by genuine experts both at Jagex and many other gaming companies.
~~~~ Just another victim of the ambient morality ~~~~

~~ Founder of the Caped Carousers quest cape clan ~~

!! Slava Ukraini - heroyam slava !!

03-Jan-2024 07:00:46

Tenebri
Jan Member 2015

Tenebri

Posts: 39,414 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Archaeox said :
Grass4smoker said :
Guys, this is not that hard. A little bit of network knowledge and some simple TCP code can ban these CIDR ranges for life. It is as simple as that.

Wow.

You did it.

You solved a problem that plagues the entire gaming industry.

We abase ourselves before the altar of your awesomeness.






Just kidding. You have an oversimplistic view of the whole problem, and casually dismiss the hard work being put in by genuine experts both at Jagex and many other gaming companies.

.
200m all RS3 on 7/3/19
1.2Billion overall Slayer xp / Ultimate slayer title

OSRS 2277/2277 Untrim slayer cape
Hail Satan, He loves for who you are.

03-Jan-2024 08:31:47

Kings Abbot

Kings Abbot

Posts: 10,794 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
senseiofstr said :

Woodcutting? All those bots take the same path? put a rock there and ban all who get stuck.

The bot makers will realize the rock's existence quite fast and update the script so the bots go around. Problem not solved at all. Kings Eastwood in
THE GLOOP , THE BWIAN , and THE WIKI
music by Trewavio Morricone
YOU-KNOW-WHO
,
GO
YOU-KNOW-WHAT
YOURSELF!

03-Jan-2024 17:07:58

Grass4smoker
May Member 2023

Grass4smoker

Posts: 19 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Actually, yes it is that simple. As hard as it might be to imagine, there are plenty of developers and services out there that provide entertainment that are 10x the size of Jagex and yet they dont have nearly the percentage of their player base/DAU counts being bots as Jagex does. It's almost as if they developed a programmatic way of shutting out the bots by making it exponentially less beneficial to create said accounts to run the botting programs.
How would I know this? Maybe because I'm a developer also and I can tell you - just posting this comment will log my device information and my IP with the server. I've witnessed this on WordPress pages (PHP) and plenty of other devs can tell you the same exists within the servers and applications that ISPs and cell phone carriers have. They don't have some magic wand for this either - meaning it's not hard to do, they literally have libraries for documenting device ID information and IP info too.

BLOCK the CIDR in which the IP resides and it's solved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing in case you need to read up on what I'm saying, there's the link for what a CIDR is.

Is it hard? Sure maybe if youre not that versed in the technology but seeing as Jagex runs the servers I'd wager to bet they have a lot of insight & capabilities on their player base, they can literally escalate your user privs and make any user a Jagex Mod at the flip of the switch and they dont know how to perma-ban players based on IP ranges?
That is hard to believe.

Besides, what are you offering aside from negging?
The fact of the matter is this: bots are bad & Jagex is doing a bad job at banning them.
If you have anything to contribute by way of solutions then feel free to reply, but you seem like a bot user yourself with your contributions thus far

03-Jan-2024 22:25:51

Grass4smoker
May Member 2023

Grass4smoker

Posts: 19 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Archaeox said :
Grass4smoker said :
Guys, this is not that hard. A little bit of network knowledge and some simple TCP code can ban these CIDR ranges for life. It is as simple as that.

Wow.

You did it.

You solved a problem that plagues the entire gaming industry.

We abase ourselves before the altar of your awesomeness.






Just kidding. You have an oversimplistic view of the whole problem, and casually dismiss the hard work being put in by genuine experts both at Jagex and many other gaming companies.

Ah yes, pray tell. Do you have a better technique for solving the problem? No? So very interesting & a great contribution to the post. You seem like you probably use bots too with this type of attitude.
What does your comment and others like it solve or even contribute to this conversation or the post or any of the questions OP made? None that's what.

Second, the hydra argument that you make is so bologna it isn't even funny, you may want to look up the logical fallacy of false cause and Texas sharpshooter. Yeah sure they may make another 2 accounts and get around the initial ban but they were going to be doing that anyway - it isn't the ban that caused the use of bots, they were going to do that and make those accounts 24hrs later anyway and you would have a person with 3 bots instead of just the new 2.
Jagex banning 300k bots out of 1.2million makes them seem like they have done a good job on the month but they don't tell you how many reports were made or how many accounts were under review, thereby making them seem like they're at 3/5 instead of 3/25.
So yeah, great logic there, SIKE

03-Jan-2024 22:33:39 - Last edited on 03-Jan-2024 22:34:32 by Grass4smoker

Tenebri
Jan Member 2015

Tenebri

Posts: 39,414 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Kings Abbot said :
senseiofstr said :

Woodcutting? All those bots take the same path? put a rock there and ban all who get stuck.

The bot makers will realize the rock's existence quite fast and update the script so the bots go around. Problem not solved at all.

this reminds of the frost dragon bots back in the day.
and the way jagex did something for them, was put a frost dragon bone in the wall. it was amusing for like a week, when all bots were in one spot trying to get that 1 bone.
but yeah it lasted a week
200m all RS3 on 7/3/19
1.2Billion overall Slayer xp / Ultimate slayer title

OSRS 2277/2277 Untrim slayer cape
Hail Satan, He loves for who you are.

03-Jan-2024 22:37:12

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