War Against the Bots
 

Even before the latest thread about bots on FT, it has been clear for a long time that the sites have a problem with bots, and as well that they are unwilling to expend much time with pro-active measures. Some of this is of course because it is often difficult to detect, especially with supervised botting where the botter takes over manually and even chats for periods of time. But it is still clear nonetheless, that they can and should do more. It is also clear that maybe it is time for players to take additional measures besides just complaining to the sites. So FWIW, here are the things I thought of, and maybe others can add to or revise same.


1) Complain and keep complaining to the sites to take the following *pro-active measures among others:

a) surreptitously (via VPN to hide IP) buy bot software and join bot forums and monitor the technology of botting and how it is applied to their site;
b) regularly test their hand history database for patterns indicative of botting, including which ones play from the same IP, and the clincher being which accounts which meet other criteria also never sitting with each other;
c) target potential bot accounts for frequent pop-ups;
d) randomly test users for bot apps running in background.

2) Guerilla warfare against bot sites [note: some of the things below may be illegal under the laws of various countries or states and I am not recommending those things if that's the case]:

a) complain to the web hosting providers for bot sites that those sites are engaged in the business of facilitating online gaming which might be illegal (use the IUGEA against them if US based e.g.);
b) DOS attacks on their domains & zero day trojans to all their email accounts;
c) sign their email accounts up at sites known to spam;
d) [insert other measures]

3) Take it to the media.

Obviously this is a two-edged sword and could scare the fish away. But if the fish are getting eaten up by botters, then less is lost to 2+2'ers. However the sites are the ones who will really feel the pain and maybe this is the only way to get *effective* action from them.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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c) [insert other measures]

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Driving to Pittsburgh and breaking some knee caps and thumbs?

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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c) [insert other measures]

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Driving to Pittsburgh and breaking some knee caps and thumbs?

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Hey, hey. He's all the way out in Cambria County. Leave Pittsburgh out of this.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

You should not publish the names of the bot sites so that they don't get any publicity out of this.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/im...ay-Posters.jpg

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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You should not publish the names of the bot sites so that they don't get any publicity out of this.

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Obviously many posters here already know. However it only takes a handful to cause those sites a lot of grief with my suggested "guerilla warfare" measures. I think the spam especially has a lot of promise, as even with spam filters they could easily get clogged with 1000 porn & "enhancement" emails every day.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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3) Take it to the media.

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Oh [censored] brilliant idea! I can just imagine the headlines now:

ILLEGAL ONLINE POKER SITES OVERRUN WITH "BOTS," CHEATING, MONEY LAUNDERING

That'll bring in the fish! And convince the politicians to legalize it too! [censored] brilliant!

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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Driving to Pittsburgh and breaking some knee caps and thumbs?

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Haha 'one for the thumb'

Re: War Against the Bots
 

And I hate to be a chicken little voice, but this is not a stagnant situation.

This will ONLY GET WORSE.

Technology, software, computing power, AI and opponent modeling techniques are only advancing forward.

Bots will get better and better at more and more forms of poker, especially considering they have access to vast amounts of data (hand history databases, etc.)

Sites must get serious about combating the problem.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Game Over.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

"sky is falling in" attitude not helpful IMO. Yes it's a problem, likely to worsten. But let's stay positive and pro-active please.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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Game Over.

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If gaboonviper could just drag himself away from NVG there is plenty of fodder here for perhaps his greatest doomsday post ever.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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And I hate to be a chicken little voice, but this is not a stagnant situation.

This will ONLY GET WORSE.

Technology, software, computing power, AI and opponent modeling techniques are only advancing forward.

Bots will get better and better at more and more forms of poker, especially considering they have access to vast amounts of data (hand history databases, etc.)

Sites must get serious about combating the problem.

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I agree. The sites need a full-time effort devoted to the problem. AND players might have to consider other tactics themselves in harming the sites that sell and promote botting software.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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[ QUOTE ]
And I hate to be a chicken little voice, but this is not a stagnant situation.

This will ONLY GET WORSE.

Technology, software, computing power, AI and opponent modeling techniques are only advancing forward.

Bots will get better and better at more and more forms of poker, especially considering they have access to vast amounts of data (hand history databases, etc.)

Sites must get serious about combating the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree. The sites need a full-time effort devoted to the problem. AND players might have to consider other tactics themselves in harming the sites that sell and promote botting software.

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Are you saying oil up the torches?

Re: War Against the Bots
 

LF,

Quit trolling this thread.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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LF,

Quit trolling this thread.

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Bluff, you might be going a bit off the rails here. I was trying to point that out in a somewhat joking manner.

Exhibit a

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3) Take it to the media.


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Re: War Against the Bots
 

I do not think that it is possible to eliminate bots through technical or software detection, as they use screen scrapers to get the game info. Once a program sends data to the screen, it is outside the realm of detection. The only way to eliminate bots is through criminal investigation techniques.

Not many of the bot users are sophisticated enough to create their own scraper programs that are essential for botting. If you can eliminate the sources of these programs, you will be able to take out most of the botters.

There are also other means of counterattack, which I will not disclose on a public forum, but I believe will effectively end botting on a large scale. Botters beware.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

LF,

I discussed the negatives of taking it to the media. But if you let the sites off the hook where they think the only negative repercussions can come from X% of 2+2'ers not playing there, then they won't have enough incentive to take effective measures. Going to the media is a last resort, and I'm actually more interested in getting some serious responses to screwing with the websites of the bot sellers/promoters.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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I do not think that it is possible to eliminate bots through technical or software detection, as they use screen scrapers to get the game info. Once a program sends data to the screen, it is outside the realm of detection. The only way to eliminate bots is through criminal investigation techniques.

Not many of the bot users are sophisticated enough to create their own scraper programs that are essential for botting. If you can eliminate the sources of these programs, you will be able to take out most of the botters.

There are also other means of counterattack, which I will not disclose on a public forum, but I believe will effectively end botting on a large scale. Botters beware.

[/ QUOTE ]

They have to be doing something to manipulate input. I've unsuccessfully tried to make bots for games like Battlefield 1942 and I had no clue how to invoke "user" input from a program.

Any technical minded people know how it's done?

Further more, how is it done in a way that cannot be easily detected?

Re: War Against the Bots
 

The problem is the best bots aren't going to be published as they are basically priceless. This is targeting bots, yes, but it's targeting the weakest breed -- the average idiot that just downloads winholdem and tries to throw it together as a winning bot.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Also, there should be other penalties assessed to the botters, such as permabanned from all of the sites and b&m tournies. Plus, they should be identified publicly and turned over to the feds. Those should be easy prosecutions.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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Further more, how is it done in a way that cannot be easily detected?

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Simply put without details... don't use memory access, send keyboard and mouse movements to obtained screen coordinates.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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The problem is the best bots aren't going to be published as they are basically priceless. This is targeting bots, yes, but it's targeting the weakest breed -- the average idiot that just downloads winholdem and tries to throw it together as a winning bot.

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That's probably the lion's share though. So targeting them is not only a good first step with the greatest impact, but also likely discourages others who would be commercial bot software providers.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Programmers aren't really known for rolling their own stuff from scratch. There has to be a screen scraper resource that these people are using.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Careful when going to these sites. I'm pretty sure last time there was a bot uproar in this forum (back in Aug/Sep last year), at least one person had their account locked, and it seemed to trace back to cookies from the bot site. Just an FYI that you might want to clear history/cookies/etc. after you check out any of these sites.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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LF,
I discussed the negatives of taking it to the media.

Going to the media is a last resort, ...


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I really can't think of much that would currently be more damaging to the playerbase/legislative issues then a lot of negative media attention regarding bots. I'm not sure 'double edged sword' is the most appropriate metaphor.

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...and I'm actually more interested in getting some serious responses to screwing with the websites of the bot sellers/promoters.

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I understand that and would like to see bots squashed, but I think you are overreacting here.

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b) DOS attacks on their domains & zero day trojans to all their email accounts;


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Both of these are 'shotgun' attacks that could end up causing potentially serious collateral damage. Cmon man I want to preserve and protect poker as my previous posts indicate but this is not the way.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

LF and others,

Forget the "media" thing then and focus on the things the sites can do to detect/prevent botting, or that the players can do to attack the bot sites.

And as to "shotgun" attacks, if they had the desired effect, they're better than the current situation. I am not advocating anyone doing anything that would get them in trouble with either the law or their IP provider. But if some more technically knowledgeable posters can come up with means that even only a hanful of players can use to be sucessful in such measures, then again that is better than nothing, and also better than trusting the sites as they have clearly shown they don't place a big enough priority on combatting botting.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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Programmers aren't really known for rolling their own stuff from scratch. There has to be a screen scraper resource that these people are using.

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This is very easy to do, and can be done in an afternoon.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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Further more, how is it done in a way that cannot be easily detected?

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Simply put without details... don't use memory access, send keyboard and mouse movements to obtained screen coordinates.

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[censored]one popular bot[/censored] is commonly run on a second computer so that when the poker computer is scanned by the site no "bot" processes or files are found.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

[ QUOTE ]
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Further more, how is it done in a way that cannot be easily detected?

[/ QUOTE ]

Simply put without details... don't use memory access, send keyboard and mouse movements to obtained screen coordinates.

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[censored]one popular bot[/censored] is commonly run on a second computer so that when the poker computer is scanned by the site no "bot" processes or files are found.

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What I was getting at was input specifically.

According to my research, the only way to "create input" (as in mouse clicks, typing in amounts, etc) would be to wrap DirectInput so that you could modify it with your own functions that yield desired results. You could possibly hijack the DLLs for some of the chat functions in FTP... but either way you can check for both very easily.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Indeed, if FTP, PS and others are either incapable of detecting and enforcing their own rules against bots, or they just choose not to detect and enforce for their own greedy reasons, then it really is incumbent upon other players to take action of their own.

Obviously, one action that has already been mentioned targets FTP: boycott the site. However, I believe this will only be marginally effective in the short-term, and totally ineffective in the long-run.

Instead, I would encourage players who find themselves at the same table(s) with any of these bots to simply not play with them, i.e., shun them and spread the word to others at the table(s) to shun them. This can effectively hurt the bot owners/operators where it hurts the most...in their wallets.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

boycotting is pointless because it'll just increase the bb/100 of the bots.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Why not send in the ninja bot killers? That was not a joke.

Actually, another strategy is to just sit at all of their tables and not play. That is more of a ghandi approach. Once the bot call is made, we all swing into action.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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And as to "shotgun" attacks, if they had the desired effect, they're better than the current situation.


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Even if say a DOS attack on a server running a bot website causes said server to 'crash' and negatively impacts the small business owner (and everyone else) who has his website hosted on it?

Re: War Against the Bots
 

I believe the best defense is to keep a comprehensive list along with their tendencies in order to exploit them hell out of them. Are we as a poker community really that afraid of mediocre players?

Re: War Against the Bots *DELETED*
 

Post deleted by Mike Haven by agreement with BluffTHIS.

Please don't give the bot sites any publicity, whatsoever.

Thanks.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

ZOMG.... I'm marking November 11th on my calendar. Domain Snatch ftw.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

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ZOMG.... I'm marking November 11th on my calendar. Domain Snatch ftw.

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This is amusing and reminds me of a Sarah Silverman bit.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

If you start throwing around DOS attacks, trojans, and virii you will go to jail.

Don't be stupid. There's nothing illegal about running a pokerbot, but these so called "guerilla tactics" are HIGHLY illegal.

I'm amazed at the reaction, really. If people would have paid any attention to the undercurrents of the bot world, they'd know that bots are going way above $200NL and $1/$2FL. They've been there for months at the very least.

What is it, exactly, that everyone believes to be so magical inside their heads that can't be duplicated by a computer that has access to more stats than any HUD?

Lemme guess, you can find the bot's patterns and exploit them, right? Get a clue, man. The good bots are profiling you at the same time. They are looking at your longterm stats over tens of thousands of hands...they are looking at your short term history to detect tilt or your general mood at the table...they are also profiling your actions against them only. For most 2+2 members, their bot competitors know them better than they know themselves. Don't think you are going to fool a decent bot in the way the OP did. You won't detect the professional bot farms like he did either.

If you believe that the knowledge gleaned from these forums can turn a fish into a winner at $X buy-in, you must accept the fact that a bot can (and is) doing the same. You must also accept the fact that they are not going away as long as online poker lives in the form we see today. There is simply too much money in the blackhat side of poker to stop them. What can you do? Turing tests a'la Party and Stars? Do you really think that will stop a bot that's pulling in $100k+ a year? There are already bot farms that hire employees to monitor the tables for Turings and chat. I've read of others that have rigged up VNC-esque interfaces between their bots and their PDA's. Bot detects a Turing or its name in chat and sends the screen grab to the PDA. Bot owner then enters the Turing answer into his PDA that simulates the key presses in the casino client. Turings might be interupting his dinner, but that's the extent of his worries.

You see, and fear, the newbs with too much money, a bad bot, and a script-kiddie mentality. You should really be fearing the bot farms that you'll never notice, but are running dozens and dozens of tables 24/7.

Re: War Against the Bots
 

Sweet Pea,

Are you a bot? You look like a bot.