Another Flood Bot Prevention Discussion

[Tuberload]

Perhaps you could implement a function that alerts Blizzard when people violate their agreements. You could log the incident, and send an e-mail letting them know what happened. It would not instantly stop a flood/spam attack but it could lead to cd-key bans and possibly help filter out the bad seeds over time.

Does this sound like a practical idea? I am not too familiar with Blizzards policy on the subject, but I would assume they are just as eager as us to get rid of the flood bots.

[Adron]

Perhaps you could implement a function that alerts Blizzard when people violate their agreements. You could log the incident, and send an e-mail letting them know what happened. It would not instantly stop a flood/spam attack but it could lead to cd-key bans and possibly help filter out the bad seeds over time.

Does this sound like a practical idea? I am not too familiar with Blizzards policy on the subject, but I would assume they are just as eager as us to get rid of the flood bots.

Nice idea, turn any flood bot into an e-mail spammer...

You'll find out whether they choose to ban the flood bot or the e-mail spammer first I suppose

[iago]

Perhaps you could implement a function that alerts Blizzard when people violate their agreements. You could log the incident, and send an e-mail letting them know what happened. It would not instantly stop a flood/spam attack but it could lead to cd-key bans and possibly help filter out the bad seeds over time.

Does this sound like a practical idea? I am not too familiar with Blizzards policy on the subject, but I would assume they are just as eager as us to get rid of the flood bots.

Nice idea, turn any flood bot into an e-mail spammer...

You'll find out whether they choose to ban the flood bot or the e-mail spammer first I suppose

I would assume it only sends a single email for a floodbot :/

I don't think Blizzard particularely cares, though.

[effect]

if they really cared in the slightest they would just completly change the game prot.ocol or make a minute (probally very hard to find) change

[Lenny]

IIRC, the actual bot that sends the email is also in violation of the EULA of B.net.

[iago]

if they really cared in the slightest they would just completly change the game prot.ocol or make a minute (probally very hard to find) change

They could limit bots in other ways, too, without having to update their game clients.  But most of all, they could automaticly detect them and ban their cdkeys (I don't see any other reason that FloodBot#23 would be online unless it was either a winbot or a floodbot, neither of which they should allow).  But they don't, so obviously they don't care.  Moo.

[Eternal]

I've often thought that too. Why would they not void cdkeys logging any account with a multiple number '#'? Like you say, they can't be that bothered about it.

[Lenny]

Well, just because you have a # in your name, you dont have to be a bot.  People do share accounts...But anything higher than #5 its reasonable to assume its a bot.

I also assume bnet allows 8 connections from 1 ip for people who have LANs.

[Newby]

I've often thought that too. Why would they not void cdkeys logging any account with a multiple number '#'? Like you say, they can't be that bothered about it.

What if you leave your war3 on and go to the LAN cafe or your friends house.

You have to log in on a #2.

[Spht]

They could easily gather up thousands of CD-keys which break the ToU and disable them. The problem is, most of the mass CD-keys people own are what they've stolen from someone else. So such a mass ban would result in massive complaints from the original owners of the CD-key.

Future restrictions to Battle.net will make attacks more weaker. Until then, your best option is to let Blizzard do their job while you not worry about it and think of other methods to block them out (e.g., an auto-ignore if short visit).

[Networks]

Spht are there any functions on these forums that show how to auto filter a floodbot or anything? like a 1 second join and leave. How could u implement that?

[iago]

Spht are there any functions on these forums that show how to auto filter a floodbot or anything? like a 1 second join and leave. How could u implement that?

By checking the amount of time since he joined when he leaves, and if it's small enough ignore him completely?  It isn't that difficult to do if you know anything about programming.

[Grok]

If Blizzard cared, they could do more to temporarily change the situation.  Flooders would adjust their methods.  The best Blizzard can hope to do is block methods which are beneficial to bots, but serve no useful function for regular gamers.

That said, it is not practical to write their servers to prevent floodbots, because the design specifications would change the moment they implemented the previous model.

For example, I could create 200 email accounts, 200 random-letter names, use 200 CD-keys, on 500 different internet addresses.  Generally, this is how average gamers appear to battle.net -- unique names from all over the world.

How do you combat it?  More importantly, is it worth it to spend shareholder dollars on combatting it?  Probably not.  Floodbotters are only annoying a few people out of millions, and not doing damage to battle.net.

[Adron]

How do you combat it?  More importantly, is it worth it to spend shareholder dollars on combatting it?  Probably not.  Floodbotters are only annoying a few people out of millions, and not doing damage to battle.net.

So, the solution to our problem is to ensure that floodbotters annoy a larger share out of the millions, and so become a problem worth spending shareholder dollars combatting?

[o.OV]

How do you combat it?  More importantly, is it worth it to spend shareholder dollars on combatting it?  Probably not.  Floodbotters are only annoying a few people out of millions, and not doing damage to battle.net.

So, the solution to our problem is to ensure that floodbotters annoy a larger share out of the millions, and so become a problem worth spending shareholder dollars combatting?

If that is what it may take.. perhaps turtle released his floodbot source thinking the exact same thing in hopes blizzard/bnet will do something about it.