Concerning multi/script using accounts

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Maha Vishnu
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

So to just confirm, when you spy people do you see there personals and not their entire amount (generic + personals).

And when you farm you use your personals first and generics last. Is this correct?
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Juliette
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Harakash Maha Vishnu wrote:So to just confirm, when you spy people do you see there personals and not their entire amount (generic + personals).

And when you farm you use your personals first and generics last. Is this correct?
When you spy, you only see their Generic turns. When you attack, you use your Personals first, yes.
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Aizen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

I find this interesting and we need more people looking out for stuff like this. I have worked my account up through hard work and honesty over the past 6 years and it sucks to know that some people take 2 months and get better then I have from cheating :(
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Cwalen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Bot nets.

I am just assuming that the net is the net, gamers are what they are, and that j&J are as bright as they seem to be.


So we all accept that multi/script works, and happens?
<multi>
The developer will be tracking(everything hopefully) and obvious trades (turns being transfered to another account for example) and doing analysis on that dataset looking for the patterns of the already proven scam styles.

People will try it on. Daft buggers will log in multiple times from the same IP and give themselves stuff.
In the case of a daft bugger who persists in this over months, track them, try to reform them, or if that fails ban them.
(sadly persistent multis could just reapply if disposed of quickly, best to let them run for a while, so that they actually loose something)

It is impossible to blame everyone who hits a multi account, a good target is a good target. And no, we cannot stop them by simply hitting them, a bot-ed farm or a hundred or a million bot-ed farms is much the same from a programming perspective.

For black hats who cannot manage automating the login screen, it's simply a matter of looking at the side screen every time it pauses there and reading off three numbers, while putting the input through a annom-otising server.

Given the wealth of inactive players that have accumulated over the years?
Unless your drive was fundamentally changing the world, creating great expense in defending a basically free game from megalomanical hubris, multi'ed farms are not a real prospect, and multi's feeding one another is so easy to detect I am sure it has already been managed.

Scripting is the real challenge.
<automated login>
There are 1-9, one-nine guarding the gate. 18 states? 3 times a 0-17 case statement.
<automated targeting>
Beyond brute force, there are scripts which scan the entire target list.
Linking in depth to them all is obvious, scrolling through "naturally" and acquiring them is harder.
<automated banking>
Three hours per session? that's login on wakeup, another 4 before sleep. Only daft buggers would try to bank 24 hours of income. Bots don't sleep. Unless their maker is half smart.

<fuzzy systems>
Assuming you can create an account any time you like and login when you want, the real challenge is to nuzzle up against the developers defenses, acquiring knowledge of them, and no compromising core accounts in the process.

So develop 100 accounts, run high covert, get a map of the world. As long as they are life like in another respects and do not conform to a profile, they will be unnoticeable. Once you know where the best UU/NAQ farms are, it's simple enough to spread that information to enough other players that you will not be standing out like tits on a bull. (given the intelligence level of the players I have been encountering, there will be naturalistic systems that approach this point with or without tools. )

Sadly, (for the bot minded, and the developers return on investment) there are well less than 1000 daily players here. Any truly successful automation process will be exposed by results if not by evidence.

Gladly. (for the established players, if not for the community) You can bot your way up into the ranks, you still wont make into the top few hundred, without creating an abomination that stands out.

But more on that in my upcoming Illuminati rant.

<p.s. if botting still looks good? spend your time in a commercial space and see how much NAQ J&J give you when you buy them half a house?
Sphinx42
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Another ID added to the list (1989489 - bulldozer) - must be getting pretty desperate to start digging out more of his accounts. None of the IDs have been banned, and still no reply from an admin.

Got a few peace declarations, then a couple war declarations from the suspected accounts, two failed attacks, and finally the first (and only, so far) message:

bnovaki wrote:tnx...

Preem Palver wrote:You\'re welcome.


As far as actual damage done to the multi accounts - I haven't been online much in the last couple of weeks (first time checking the forums since my last post), but it was enough to deprive them of over 40 tril. naq, almost 24 mil. UU (kept sending everything to admin's account, of course), a bunch of their planets, a small pile of weapons sabbed or massed, and all the ascended ones descended.
On the down side, I couldn't stop at least two naq withdrawals (one of 24 tril., one of 36 tril.), presumably forwarded to the scripter's main account; and counting everything that may have been going on most of the time, while I was sleeping or away, I'm guessing he may have gotten twice or more than that.
But at least he's showing signs of noticing (and not liking) the attention, so I'm confident it's at least slowing down his activity somewhat. And seeing his script mass his strike away while I steal all the naq he farms is always funny to watch :D
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Sniperwax
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

I think there are studies that blindly guesstimate unorthodox gaming currency industry revenues to be in the high 9 figures perhaps even billions. There are literally companies in some parts of the world that have hundreds of people watching monitors and egg timers.

A+ for effort buddy but you are fighting an uphill battle here for sure.
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Sniperwax wrote:I think there are studies that blindly guesstimate unorthodox gaming currency industry revenues to be in the high 9 figures perhaps even billions. There are literally companies in some parts of the world that have hundreds of people watching monitors and egg timers.

A+ for effort buddy but you are fighting an uphill battle here for sure.

Sure, it means extra effort, and attack turns (and a few UU) I waste on this. But the way I see it, doing nothing and letting this flow of naq continue undisturbed would be even worse for me as a farmer, especially since new accounts keep popping up.

Besides, whoever is running the business doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of it, if I alone can cause them trouble in my spare time; so I figure if I can get even more annoying, it might just be enough to make a difference.

Things are already starting to change - they waste some of their profit (for now, only small amounts, but steadily increasing) on building and repairing defense and training covert, they log in more often to switch accounts (and even send in additional accounts) to try to shake me off, or to restart the farming (since the bot foolishly massed away its attack). And no matter what they come up with, I'll always have the upper hand while they use scripts, since I am (at least I think so) smarter than a bot :)
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Cwalen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Preem?

Care to have another person on your lynch mob?

Ive done a thorough enough analysis of the game so far to realise that all I have to look forward to the next few years is slowly farming main to obtain huge AP rewards and trying to get into the ascended game.

Becoming the pirate king is going to take a long time.

Vigilantism? That could be a fun diversion.

Sniperwax is right though. Even my pissy little account can produce 4,992 billion a week with login and a dozen or so mouse clicks. 40c isn't much, but with a 100 login bot farm running the same strategy, that's a free carton of beer each week. Creating logins and selling the turns without any other activity looks like the prime abuse path.

Still, serious players in the bot game wont be spending their time here, we might be able to do some good in holding back the tide. Heck if Juliette makes good on her scripting offer http://talk.gatewa.rs :-k we'ld only need a few new accounts to do it with.

Perhaps you could share some of the techniques and strategies you use to identify script/bot accounts from user space and we can launch a project to suppress their profits?
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Cwalen wrote:Becoming the pirate king is going to take a long time.
Ah, but it is, it is .. a glorious thing. ;)


*glare* My offer was in jest. I strive to break Dev so we can better Main's defences. :)

No.. we cannot share script detection mechanics because in doing so, we would be lending a hand to those trying to make their scripts/bots better. It is a double-edged knife, and the edge cutting us would be sharper than the one cutting the scripters. :)
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Cwalen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Well <reaches down and checks>

I have reason to still call myself a man.

No scripting here.

Personally I have a bit of an issue with anyone who pays $ for non SS rewards.
:smt078 I try not to spew in public.

Giving hard working developers a tiny percentage of their due reward is one thing.

Paying money to beat up on 14 year olds? :smt089

Devs cannot share detection patterns. (and now I'll privately share any I notice) A user based possy can get some pipe hitting niggaz to torment people who are waiting for justice to be served. Hopefully not too many innocents get harmed in the process.

I won't take a target list. I will stand as a second point of reference for heuristics.

(no disrespect for the testicularly challenged I just believe that scripters are something somewhat less than human)
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Cwalen wrote:Preem?

Care to have another person on your lynch mob?

...

Perhaps you could share some of the techniques and strategies you use to identify script/bot accounts from user space and we can launch a project to suppress their profits?

I don't mind - the more, the merrier; and it's not like I can be online all the time (I just missed another script farming run that happened about 2 hours after I went offline).
As for sharing my 'techniques' - they are nothing fancy, and I've already presented the basics in some previous posts, but I'd be happy to explain in greater detail, in private or in public.
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Cwalen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

I'ld prefer public and with unnecessary detail.
I could not, in good conscience, beat up on someone who I did not have reasonable grounds to beat upon.

Provide me with a system to acquire the evidence? I would rather spend my turns beating cheats than on farming.

<shrugs> might even be more profitable.

If we get to a point where your logins, and my logins, and every other person who rises to this cause's logins? No one thought Juliette was actually offering a script. No one who understands scripting thinks a small dev house can adequately defend against trivial applications of scripting.

Given the size of this world? You need a few good (wo)men. Give me something about how you acquire the targeting data, and I will do what I can to harass them, and turn other people on to doing the same.

Failing that, beat up on them on your own, once I know you, your word will be sufficient.
http://musicianstogether.com/video/71A6 ... n-Her-Mind
I'll a-hole tom and harry....

Till then, give me a way of knowing who is being a **Filtered**?
Sphinx42
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

Fair 'nough :)

First of all, if this needs stated again - only an admin can decide if the accounts mentioned are to be banned for cheating, or if there is insufficient proof for that. Until we hear from a game admin, there is only suspicion (suspicion based on previous experience with similar cases proven to be breaking the rules, but not immovable fact). As it turns out, admin Jason has actually read my e-mail (his reply, sent after I'd already created this topic, ended up in my Spam folder, as he used the support e-mail address for some reason, and I just found it today), so there might be some development to be expected in the future.

As for my reasons for suspecting script using and multi accounts, I'll present them at length below.

The history so far:

[spoiler]I first came across one such account while looking for farms. I found a low-ranked account with a decent amount of naq out, I spied it and, seeing it had 0 def, I attacked it. When I went back to the battlefield page a few moments later, I saw it had naq out again, so I figured it was farming.
Now, I don't usually attack active accounts, but since it had no defense, I knew someone else wouldn't hesitate to attack it, so I thought I'd be better off being the one to take the naq; that way, if he asked for me to return it, he could get it back and at the same time learn a lesson about having large amounts of naq out without any defense.
So I attacked a few more times, expecting him to stop farming (as any intelligent player would do when repeatedly losing all the naq he had farmed), and maybe try to attack me, set me to peace, or send me a message, like other newbies had done (some of which later became my officers or alliance mates, but that's another story). But no - without any reaction of the sort to show that he'd noticed, he kept farming blindly, so I stopped short of the auto war declaration and got back to my farming.
Around that time, that account and, one by one, others like it, started showing up in our as well as other alliances' attack logs - all of a sudden, almost every day, at least one of them would hit the lower ranked accounts, and quite a few of the attacks were unsuccessful (as they were hitting blindly, including members who had defenses). What's more, they all had Slovenian names and behaved just like the first account I had noticed.
By then, I'd realized this was no innocent coincidence, so I reported it on the forums (albeit without including the IDs, to avoid less scrupulous people making a boatload of naq off them before they were banned); my topic was largely ignored for a while, but then someone else also reported it, including names and IDs (some of which I didn't have on my list). There was no reply from an admin to the topic itself, and I pretty much forgot about it for a while (being busy IRL, if I'm not mistaken) until it was posted that the whole lot of them had been ostracized a little later. I believe I've included a link to this in my first post.
With that, things were quiet for a while. I became more active last summer, after my last ascension, as I had time and motivation to play more. I reported a couple of unrelated cases to admin Sue in Aug-Sep (getting fast replies in both cases), but I hadn't had anything to do with the Slovenian multi for a few months. Some time in the next two weeks, however, I noticed 4 new suspicious accounts in our logs doing the same suspicious stuff that the banned ones used to do. Of course, I sent another e-mail to her; as far as I know, she didn't reply, but 2 of the accounts were ostracized some time later - I can only assume, being found to be multi accounts.
I kept the two IDs that hadn't been banned, and added several more to the list; but again, being busy IRL, I didn't really do anything more until a week before I posted this topic. I went through my old list, updated it with a couple IDs that had popped up lately, thoroughly spied all the accounts and sent first one, then (half a week later) another e-mail with more info. Having received no reply, I posted this topic to at least try to do something about the whole business. As I mentioned above, admin Jason replied a while later, but as I've mostly been offline until this weekend, I didn't see it before. For the record, this was all he said so far:
thank you.
see this and a couple newer emails from you (same title) so...
will check them all out. and deal accordingly :)
nice work!
thanks.
jason
[/spoiler]

Aside from this background (which I included to prove that accounts I had previously suspected turned out to be banned), here's a list of things I looked for - and still look for, when new suspicious accounts show up -, and things that helped me find them:

1. first of all, aside from accidentally finding a suspicious account in a haystack of tens of thousands of low ranked ones, the most helpful thing turned out to be having one or more low ranked, low covert alliance members in Normal reality (one of the few good reasons for keeping inactives in an alliance or as officers); if said low ranked, low covert member also has a standing defense and a decent income, all the better; having such alliance members or officers, sooner or later, all of the names I included in the first post would eventually show up in their incoming attack logs, so I didn't really have to waste too much time searching for them

2. of course, you'll need to filter the attack logs - not everyone attacking your alliance member or officer is a script user or multi; unsuccessful attacks and repeated/frequent attacks (successful, but especially unsuccessful ones) have been one important factor in deciding who 'deserves' more attention

3. all suspects have relatively new IDs in two ID ranges, currently from 1986574 (meeting with the range of the older, Slovenian multi accounts) to 1987947, and from 1989254 to 1989489 (and up to 1989700, including the two accounts banned a few months ago)

4. so far, each account on the current list has been one without any alliance or CO (some have themselves as COs) - it would make sense not to allow anyone else to see your multies' attack logs

5. all the accounts so far are small, low ranked, unascended or Prior; they have/had small stats, and their Ascended accounts are inactive and pretty much untouched; they used to be undefended, but this has changed since I took an interest in them - now, they usually build a small defense before they start farming

6. all of them have good (level 32-33) covert - presumably, to benefit from the minimum bank size this grants

7. most importantly, when observed for a longer time (a few weeks or more), all of them present the same bot-like farming behavior: hit as many low ranked targets as available (possibly on one page of the rankings, or even less than one page) in a short time (1 or 2 seconds, at most) for amounts as low as 25 bil. naq (probably without setting war), repair attack weapons, bank the naq, repeat; while in farming mode, they don't repair their defense; if the naq they farm is taken, they don't take naq out of the bank to repair their attack, even if it means losing it

8. things that exceed the assumed script's current possibilities (such as rebuilding defense, replacing the missing attack, training UU, or, in exceptional cases, sending a message to a particularly annoying fellow trying to ruin your business) happen after one or more turns, but not much later - I'm guessing, about when the owner expects the bot to have finished farming

If all or almost all of the things from 3. to 8. match up, chances are it's another bot - but even if it all matches, it never hurts to ask for someone else's opinion, to avoid harassing clueless noobs.

Of course, if there is cheating going on and the cheater happens to read this, I expect he might change some things (maybe lay low for a while, maybe create new accounts or dig up older ones, build bigger stats, ascend them more than once or whatever he might think would trick me), but as long as he keeps using a script, odds are someone will figure it out; if I figure out anything new or remember something I may have forgotten/ignored, I'll be sure to add it here. And if he stops using the script - well, multi or not, he doesn't seem to be able to do much on his own, so at least real farmers will once again be able to farm normally.
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Sniperwax
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

If the situation was perceived as out of hand by admin. perhaps they would slowly shift main in a NG type direction. no more of this farming 100T naq on 5 different multi script accounts a day with 1 wep 0 def practically 0 UUs no planets no MS no techs just COV bank and 1 wep and unlimited IP magic.

A shift in that direction with the planet described above might net you 50m naq for a 15 AT strike or 12AT war strike ooooh 50m impressive. No amount of IP magic will save you now evil doers@!
Cwalen
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Re: Concerning multi/script using accounts

@ preem.

I am in love ;)

I will track and observe your suspect targets. If nothing else we might be able to save the DEV's valuable time.

I'ld even contemplate starting an alliance of fellow newbies just to leave attractive targets laying around to help in the detection process. <tries to ignore the itching scalp that indicates the desirability of botting some into existence to help> As you say, it is not for us mere guests to take things into our own hands, it is a DEV issue.


@ sniper.
Depending on your perspective, low def high covert farming is quite a decent strategy for new players.

I made the decision to go for high income, which is a mixed blessing. Depending on how often I log in I can get a small percentage of my own income just by banking/ investing in up. Given my unwillingness to pull out a credit card and invest more than I would in the next version of starcraft (wasn't the second one a bit of a disappointment?) I am perusing (theoretically at least, wasting time on the forums doesn't fit the strategy) a Low time/long term strategy.

Put simply, four days of PPT, invest in up, ascend with a huge wad each time, hope SOL comes through on his graduated approach, and in only a few years, I can play with the big boys.

I'ld rather 30b ish every turn I an online, rather than being forced to pay attention, rebuild my defense every time that I am not looking at the screen for a few days. <shrugs> I am a newbie, so I will try other things as well but my return on market bought turns is collapsing, which makes logging in three times a week and waiting till I have a stake look more real than trying to compete with people who have invested so much time and money.

Long way of saying, we cannot just hit low def high covert farming. For a start there is little to hit, for a second as a newby it is a good strategy.
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