Automation and Scripting - An investigation into further abuses of BGS and Powerplay

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Deareim

Deareim
BarryCarlyon said:
Player in Open. We see them login to the game after a board flip.

AnonIDA and AnonIDB send a "location" to EDDN at about the same time.

Player in open flies out of the station and flies from, say Gateway to Chaxiraxi.

AnonIDA sends a "FSDJump" for Indaol
AnonIDB sends a "FSDJump" for Chaxiraxi

Us in open scans the highwake of the player leaving the station with a wake scanner.

The wake says it went to Chaxiraxi, good assumption taht the Wake For CMDR Bob to Chaxiraxi is AnonIDB.

For example.

("sends a" meaning "sends an event to EDDN", substitube player for bot/cmdr where relevant)
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Again, thanks. Are there other event than FSDJump to look it ?
i am asking as it could make my time better to try to find the one attacking us... but i assume it is working only for open ?

Lyrae Cursorius said:
You are correct.

Until recently you could send your CMDR name as identification for the EDDN network unless you specifically chose to remain anonymous, but as of a few months ago only the hashed names are allowed - to combat name-tracking. However, with a bit of cunning you could figure out who owned which hashname by sitting at a station and watching people come and go, checking for submitted data around that timeframe.

Twelve days ago another change was pushed by EDDN so that the hash IDs for each uploader would changed every 12 hour, to combat the hash-tracking and making sure that even if you knew the hashname for a specific pilot... it would change in 12 hours anyway.

Or to simplify: It is no longer possible to track by pilot name. Reversing the new IDs to get the pilot name is not practical. Getting the ID by following a pilot and checking EDDB timestamps is not practical, since IDs change every 12 hours. You would have to follow the pilot nonstop to each location.
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yhanks a lot!
 

BarryCarlyon

BarryCarlyon
Deareim said:
Again, thanks. Are there other event than FSDJump to look it ?
i am asking as it could make my time better to try to find the one attacking us... but i assume it is working only for open ?
Click to expand...

Open play means we can scan the wakes.

If an opponent is in solo or private, there is no in game data to correlate. Either way it's all guestimation
 

IamNickMan

IamNickMan
DNA-Decay said:
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION
The rise of SKYNET.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/860675164450705408/A35ypjZ5.jpg

Vectron said a while back that he wouldn't use a bot in 10,000 years.

I'd like to advocate the opposite.

When our enemies use chemical attacks, we should use chemical attacks.
When our enemies drop nukes, retalliation should be nuclear.
Their athletes use performance enhancing drugs? - Ours should too.

Power Play should no longer be the realm of who can command the most loyalty, put in the most hours, have the most vibrant community.
No.
It can now become who has the most talented programmers. Who can write the most inventive and invisible bots. Who can leverage the most value per alt account. Who can cover their purchasing tracks the best. Who can automate processes the most efficiently.

I know there are brilliant coders in The Alliance.

Coders who build robust infrastructure for tracking, command and control.
Coders with wit and talent.
When I walk the halls of Alliance Discord comms I see Chat Bots that engage with external databases.
They are funny and engaging as well as informative.

If the enemies of the Alliance use bots, the Alliance should develop better bots.

Gloves off.
War by all means necessary.

The ides of March will bring the Rise of SkyNet.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ry6NO2dcH.../s640/Linda_Hamilton_-_Nuke_Scene-444x300.jpg

My Voice Attack and my Alt Account stand ready.
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Hold my beer while I go make some memes out of this. What a constructive addition to the conversation.
 

sollisb

Banned
S
GG7 said:
GO AWAY!

The proof of how rampant this cheating is is everywhere if you know what you are looking for, and can pick bots out from human players. The group with Mahon did just that and spent months gathering data.

You just don't want to admit there is a problem, so you are throwing up all this nonsense in an attempt to deny/avoid an obvious problem.

If you are not willing to admit the obvious, you are part of the problem.

As I said...GO AWAY! Others who can grasp the ramifications of what is going on have already wasted way too much bandwidth in responding to your inane drivel.
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Oohh... You used Caps! Sorry son, you don't get to choose who uses the forums or not.

I see you attempted to neatly side step the issue of actually producing some... Proof !!
 

o2thaZ

o2thaZ
CMDR QUANTIS TRAP said:
I just have a hard time believing that someone automated the extremely variable process of flying from a station to another station. In this whole thread is there something I missed which proves that was done?
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Its true...it's damn true.
And its been a plague since the start. I hope for you guys FDev will do something about it.
Personally I am not affected, since I dont do PP.
Btw its not that variable as you might think. It's pretty straightforward.
 

Andovar

Andovar
Serious +rep to the OP (and people who helped him) for the thorough work and investigation here.

The one thing I'm not understanding is why would people repeatedly make bots for this purpose? In most games bots are made so that in-game money or the accounts themselves can be sold for real-world cash. Why would people continue to spend money on new accounts just so that they can artificially influence the BGS and powerplay?

Not at all doubting that they're doing it. I just don't get it.
 

BarryCarlyon

BarryCarlyon
Andovar said:
Serious +rep to the OP (and people who helped him) for the thorough work and investigation here.

The one thing I'm not understanding is why would people repeatedly make bots for this purpose? In most games bots are made so that in-game money or the accounts themselves can be sold for real-world cash. Why would people continue to spend money on new accounts just so that they can artificially influence the BGS and powerplay?

Not at all doubting that they're doing it. I just don't get it.
Click to expand...

Same reason as people like to grief and gank I suppose.
 

Andovar

Andovar
BarryCarlyon said:
Same reason as people like to grief and gank I suppose.
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Ok, but griefers and gankers aren't getting their accounts closed and repeatedly buying new accounts.
The motive here just seems strange to me. If they were able to do this without having to outlay more money all the time, I could buy the griefer or cheater argument.
But doing this is that important to pay cash for?? ...don't get it. :S
 

iFred

I
GG7 said:
The fact that the offending accounts identified by the Mahon group disappeared when FDEV took action, the focused attacks stopped, and remained out of the game for exactly 30 days doesn't raise any red flags with you?

WOW!

And I am now supposed to take anything you say seriously?

Sorry... I can't grant you credibility you don't have.
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No, you don´t need to take it seriously, because you are not resposible for the game, which is by the way a very good thing.

I just don´t want to have Frontier wasting time for a problem that seems to be ..lets say... low priority.
 

RexKraemer

RexKraemer
iFred said:
I just don´t want to have Frontier wasting time for a problem that seems to be ..lets say... low priority.
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This problem maybe of low impact currently, but it is a problem which one has to adress as early as possible and continiuously. If FDev doesn't do it, it is capable to completely ruin the whole game. Everything done too late will cause harm to the playerbase (numbers of players) and can't be repaired later.

For the solo only explorers the effort is probably wasted, but do we want E: D to be a solo only explorers game?
 

CMDR Tom D

CMDR Tom D
RexKraemer said:
I think these discussions with the whole spectrum to all sides of opinions is helping FDEV a lot to classify and prioritize their TODO lists.
Click to expand...

That's fine but its not helpful when someone in one breath dismisses someone elses opinion and in the next expects to be taken seriously.
 
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