Banned DAWG for bot use (in Public Record)

A grim day.

DAWG has been using a clickbot -- where the bot does the fighting, but doesn't answer bot checks -- for several months now. We're sorry to lose such a prominent member of the community, but the rules against such cheating are clear.

words cannot express the shock i'm feeling as i read this.......but at the same time the words that this has been going on for months i guess are the the most shocking

wow, I don't really understand why people who spend tons of real money in the game would cheat unless they have too much money. (if there's such a thing as too much money....)

holy crap. again.

o...m....g!

what happens to BR?

Wow, I knew it. But how did you find he was using a bot?

But it's a shme he did'nt have enough time to say goodbye.

i am amazed that someone had the balls to makea bot, im even more impressed that he was caught, he probalbly used it to burn his ba 24/7?

im glad jon that you guys actively watch for suh activity

so, was he not fighting when he got botchecks? Or was he having the bot click while he'd type them in manually? The second one seems rather pointless... Either way is actually pointless... If you can get 20 minutes, 6-8 times a day... the rewards for doing such a thing seem minimal if any. Meanwhile, now atomicboy and shadowsparkle get to fight over the newly opened spot in the top 10. Grats guys!

its called while you're asleep or at work.

they're called bot checks... According to the thread, he was doing the bot checks himself...

Is there a list of "big players" who've been banned? I think there was one player in CB1 or something that was banned, and Jonathan let him say goodbye since he was such a big contributor to the game. Maybe I'll find it in the wiki or something.

/me thinks he deserves a spot on the wall...

Good bye DAWG, sorry to see you leaving... :(

Wow, I'm still struggling to believe it is true.

"Is there a list of "big players" who've been banned? I think there was one player in CB1 or something that was banned, and Jonathan let him say goodbye since he was such a big contributor to the game. Maybe I'll find it in the wiki or something."


QBBadAsh. he's on the wall.


Hatchetman, he didn't say that DAWG stopped, to enter the botchecks.

I cant believe it - I really cant. Are we totally sure about this. I guess Jon wouldnt do this to such a prominent member unless he was sure.

What a big shame.

All signs point to the use of a (simple) clickbot. Jon, G Beee and I all did investigate this case, to reduce the chance of an error as much as possible.

Just whack me upside the head with a 2 by 4.

Stunned is the only word to describe it.

yup

its his own fault, he knew it wasn't allowed, still im shocked to see that someone made it that far up the list without drawing attention to himself in such a timespan.

To bad you see a good player like that leaving though

Wow.....
I don't see too much difference though between what Dawg did and people whom use grease monkey scripts to do the fighting for them. A bot is a bot and is supposed to be illegal. Dawg's was just a little bit more evolved I guess. I'm still in shock about it though.

Mikel

Easy to see the difference.

The greasemonkey script help you fight while YOU are fighiting.

Apparently DAWG's bot did the fighting for him while he was asleep or at work etc...

The grease monkey script still gives you an edge over non-grease monkey users, therefore it still falls under bot category.
After re-reading what Jon posted and not everyone else, it sounds more or less like Dawg used this script and just left it active all day.

The (condensed) policy on what's allowed:
1 click = 1 action.

So what the GreaseMonkey script does is allowed, 'submitting fights until a botcheck pops up' is not.

what exactly is a "simple click bot"?

Wiki knows everything

My stance on bots is black and white. Helpful scripts fall into the category of imitating human behavior so they are a bot. You either cheat or you don't.
I'm done jabbing about it, I'm going back into my little corner and activating my "Forum Hibernation" bot and I'm not sad to see someone get banned for using a bot, just shocked about who did it.

I will echo Jonathan's sentiments. "A grim day."
It is really too bad that DAWG chose to use such means for game play, I for one will miss him.

do you guys honestly think dawg would want to say goodbye after being caught as a cheater?

Personally imo its far too embarrasing to come back and say goodbye.

Just put him on the wall or something and let it be.

Yes, BadAsh got to say goodbye, but I believe that was just because he was still in chat at the time Jonathan asked him about the bot checker (and BadAsh confessed). That was to be BadAsh's last time in chat (and on CB), and I was, er, lucky? enough to be there and be able to say good-bye.

As for DAWG, I hate to sound contrary and beat a horse Mikel already laid out, but I am not understanding what is so bad about a clicker. No, DAWG could not have used the bot while asleep or when away from the PC for hours -- he still had to answer the bot checks. So folks who are saying he could have used this overnight, etc. are incorrect, from what I gather from this thread. All he did is automate "C-Enter" or "downclick-Enter" -- he still had to be at the machine, and had to get to the bot checks within 2 minutes or he would have gotten locked out. When I get clicking, I am sure I look like a machine too, so I am very curious as to how this was detected?

I am NOT trying to be contrary or start crap here. I am merely asking for clarification on what the difference is between these two scenarios and how the admins can tell the difference:

-- Me clicking "down-Enter" once per second, for 160 seconds, answering bot checks when they appear.
-- DAWG using a bot to click "down-Enter" once per second, for 160 seconds, answering bot checks when they appear.

My second question is the one I am more interested in -- how CB can tell the difference? Heck, when I get going, I even click a lot on asterisked opponents, waiting for them to become available again -- am I going to get banned for botting if my pattern looks "mechanical" enough? Yikes.

I agree with Suketh... I don't quite see using a clicker such as this as being a banning offense. I mean, how can an upstanding member of CB be banned for making his down-enter easier when a multi with 5 or so accounts was only reset? DAWG should be fined and brought back...

Sutekh, sorry about the spelling...

I guess I should clarify my worry (sorry for my above ramblings...):

Someone out there who has the sense to write a click-bot with randomized clickings could still be out there, not getting caught. And that's fine by me, since I see no discernible advantage gained by someone who has a computer click for them, but they are still in attendance to answer the bot checks (that is the very purpose of the checks, and they are doing their job adequately).

Silly scenario: I know how to multi-task, and I have been on CB close to 4 years now. So, guess what -- I can have a conversation with someone else in the room while arrowing and pressing Enter, until the corner of my eye catches a bot check screen. Am I a bot? Is that part of my brain that mindlessly presses buttons mechanical? Yeah, it sure is. And I wrote it (well, at least as much as I can write what is in my own head. *smile*) While other people are concentrating, clicking, entering, I am having a conversation while using BA! Burn the bot!

The "work" in this game isn't the clicking. It is the "being in attendance", whether that attendance be to a computer, phone, laptop, internet kiosk, etc. Assembling one's life around 160 BA chunks, and when turning it up a notch, setting the alarm for 2 or 3 AM (which DAWG still would have had to do, even with his bot), etc.

The word of the law is clear, and that policy dictates that DAWG be removed. But I feel the enforcement of the spirit of that law is flawed. The rule is there just to make sure we all have to devote the same "presence" to the game, and DAWG did devote that same presence (a veritable butt-load of it). In fact, even if he rigged up a sound to go throughout his house when a bot-check appeared (like Southwest Airlines "ding!"), that would have just made MORE work for him, forcing him to dart back to the PC every few minutes. Let's not forget that the bot checks are _not at all rare_.

In summary, I am no longer worried about being considered a bot, I just think DAWG got dinged for gaining some kind of "advantage" that wasn't really an advantage at all. At least no more of an advantage that someone who can't use their fingers might set up with handicap accessibility scripts, etc. What about those folks?

*Can't really say anything because the bottom half of my jaw is on the floor right now...

when i looked at the threads i thought it was a joke but it was not. i have read all the post(which i dont do very often) and i am still amazed. but DAWG was caught cheating in a game where cheating is not allowed. now i think this is an eye opener to see what will happen if you cheat. i also think even though DAWG was a outstanding member he should still be punished to the fullest extent and also allowed to defend his case. what if a new player was caught doing this same thing would you care.....

I may be a bit confused.

Was DAWG answering the botchecks correctly or letting the time expire?

Was he, if failing them, close to the right word? Or just random letters coming up?

If he was getting the botchecks right, how do we know he was not on a wifi connection in front of his TV, just clicking away C, enter etc.. until a botcheck came up that he answered?

These are just my questions I am confused about.

I am user likely the admins and Jon know what they are doing, but if he was just using a program to click the fight button while he was online, that is far less of an infraction, IMO, then someone who multis 5 accounts and is still able to play/use his initial account.

From Jonathan's OP, I have to assume he was answering the bot checks. If he was letting _every_ single one expire, he would be out of money in a matter of days, no matter how much cash he had. Bot checks are simply far too numerous. DAWG's bot was NOT a graphic reader, trying to discern the words, going by Jonathan's post. That is what BadAsh was doing -- actually trying to defeat the bot check pics and typing in guesses (I heard his attempt was rather good, too, just not good enough *smile*).

My definition of cheating is doing something lazy to gain an advantage over your previous self or over others. That's why I don't see this as "cheating" -- DAWG really gained nothing, at least nothing more than me being able to have a conversation at the same time I burn BA. It is, however, use of a bot, which is a bannable offense under current policy. I just don't understand why that policy exists for a simple click-bot. In my opinion, the policy should be addressed specifically at trying to defeat the human-defining items: the bot check graphics.

Another silly scenario: I write a little macro key that emulates "down-enter" and another that emulates "pageup-pageup-enter". Those two buttons can run a whole fightlist by manipulating the combo box and pressing enter for me. I have roughly eliminated 50% of required "actions" to work through my BA, though I would still be sitting there answering all bot-checks.

Is that a bannable offense? Am I "cheating" over others who use two keystrokes for each of my one macro stroke? I see this as very important for clarification.

in the position he was in the click bot was both abusive to the other players and unfair to the people trying to catch him...

It's a huge advantage if you don't have to pay attention except to look over every couple minute, it cuts play time by a huge amount, the greasemonkey script doesn't accomplish this . Simply PoisoN, Jayuu, Freed, G Beee and many others have been abused heavily by someone with the ability to almost endlessly farm them, and literally spend ALL day clicking, no waiting for people to heal, no pausing to answer the phone or get up. As long as you knew you'd be back in under two minute, why shut it off. Being able to make the number 2-3 player cringe at how many clan points he's lost is a huge advantage, and gives the best rewards possible. Bot clicking is wrong, and not just because I'm too lazy to set one up...(I'm also not using the GM script, since Firefox is so slow on *nix platforms with oldesque hardware)


He essentially said it himself in forums, I won't bother to find it, but he was clear that he "sat hitting c enter all day long while only occasionally looking over", I half assumed at that point he had the homer simpson style bird drinking water bot...


BTW I know that someone mentioned this a few months ago...(maybe closer) I think it was in chat...who was it...wasn't an admin, kind of a newish person maybe.

I tried to catch DAWG in chat for a couple days before dropping the ban, but wasn't able to do so.

As to the botchecks, I'll say that what first caught our attention was that he went from being an average bot check answerer for a vet (which is to say, pretty good) to overnight missing twice as many as the the previous worst. At the same time we saw another pattern in his missed checks begin, that I can't talk about because of our policy of not revealing things that help would-be cheaters be successful...

(BTW, I transferred ownership of the BR clan to Popsicle Man.)

Seems it would be easier, to me, to start a clickbot, sit back and watch TV/do whatever, and answer botchecks as I see them pop up on the monitor. I'd definitely clarify that as an enormous advantage.


And it doesn't *seem* like it would be hard to detect, considering clickbots are software and thus follow a pattern - he's clicking every 0.675 seconds exactly without fail, or something like that. =P I really don't know what I'm talking about, but in my mind that's how it seems. ~_^


Anywho, definitely a grim day. DAWG was a valued member of the community and it is sad to see that...well, that he'd done something like that.

Sutekh: We have botchecks to stop click bots. The fact that his click bot did nothing to aid him in answering the botchecks does not mean it's not a click bot.

In his case he was using the click bot to make a 2 character fight list possible. Ever tried to do that yourself? Ignoring farming opportunities, this means it takes 40 minutes to work through an entire set of 160 BA (assuming you submit 2 fights every 30 seconds). Working through the initial 160 BA, the 503 BA you can buy and the BA you get while burning BA would take about 3.5 hours, assuming you time your battles perfectly. I doubt most mortals can manage that, especially for a long time.
This means that, besides matching the definition of a click bot, he really was having an advantage from running the bot as it allowed him to have a 2 character fight list.

That is a good point, bartjan, I hadn't thought of that...

But as far as it "helping" DAWG, it is pretty clear that if he was missing more bot checks "overnight", that it wasn't helping him at all. It would have ended up costing him more money to buy through the fight ban, or more BA loss if he just waited for the hour.

Even with the two-person fight list, if it ends up costing more expired bot checks, I still fail to see the "advantage", and therefore fail to see the "cheat". In my estimation, it would still be harder to sit there and wait for bot checks to appear than to just click. A click-bot seems more of a stupidity tax than a cheat!

And yes, folks can stop explaining that he broke the rules. I get that. I am not questioning that he broke the rules laid out in the existing policy. I am questioning the policy itself, because I do not see distinct advantages to what DAWG did, and Jonathan's clarification even puts DAWG's click-bot use into a _disadvantageous_ light.

And bart, I never said it wasn't a click bot. I have been distinctly calling it a "click bot" in all of my posts. It was a click bot. DAWG was using a click bot. Policy says no click bot. DAWG got banned for breaking policy by using a click bot.

Click bot.

I get it. I have _always_ gotten it.

Sorry, but I don't like my point getting lost by people saying "he broke the rules!" and "but is WAS a click bot!" I know all that and am not arguing or questioning otherwise. My point is that I don't understand what is wrong with a click bot when the bot checks are so numerous and do their job so well. So well, in fact, that they were causing DAWG to miss more of them when using a click bot (thereby costing cash and/or BA loss) according to Jonathan's own words.

have you got me on ignore now Sut?

He couldn't have fought like he did without it...

If you are asleep, it doesn't matter if you miss a botcheck, if you(r bot) simply doesn't pay the fine, it's less worse than not running a bot at all during the night, isn't it?

If I look at his recent missed botchecks, I think he only failed 2-in-a-row about once or twice a day or so...

Novice, what? I don't use ignore...?

bart, running such a bot at night will gain you, what, 10-20 battles before failing? Again, let me point out how _often_ bot checks appear, and that DAWG was not even _trying_ to enter a word in the bot checks, so after four minutes (or do you only get one check when it times out?) he would be locked out. I suppose it could gain you 40-50 battles overnight if you let BA accrue between failures? Of course, you would wake up to an hour-long ban (or an hour of no BA accrual), and wouldn't have accrued much BA overnight... I would think you would end up in the hole as far as total BA accrued, far less than waking up to 160 (which is nearly four hours worth of BA at the 7/10 level)

As long as you have 0 BA when you go to bed and wake up with 160, I don't see a click bot gaining you any BA overnight. In fact, I don't see a click bot gaining you much of anything unless you are away for weeks and weeks (in which case you would be falling dreadfully behind anyway).

Am I crazy here? Am I not making any sense? Do people really see tangible benefits to a click bot, even after Jonathan says DAWG's bot check failures went UP when using one?

cheating or breaking rules is not defined by the advantage received it is defined by the rules and the rulemakers. we all love analogies, if you speed because you are late then that is breaking the rules. if you gain no advantage from speeding then it is okay?

we have one member saying all scripts are cheating and others saying that if it is not really helping someone or hurting others then what the hell. i say thank goodness we have jon and his strict and consistent rules against this kind of thing as leaving it up to people's judgement is an obviously flawed approach.

His bot wasn't answering the botchecks, but it was providing an answer for the botchecks. It was always the same 3 letter word, and if you realize that the bot was very simple, you should be able to figure out what the word was. I can't easily check it right now, but I doubt he had much time-outs.

OK, so he was trying a word, getting the two strikes then out...

dudemus, speeding is against the rules because it poses a danger to others, even when you do "get away with it". bartjan's answers are making more clear to me how a click bot can be used to gain an advantage, thereby making clear why use of such a bot constitutes cheating.

I am not saying "what the hell", I am simply asking questions about policy and about what happened. I thank goodness for Jonathan as well, and have no problem with his decision. Hell, I have _gained_ from this: one less person in the Top Ten, and one less person who can beat/farm me (he didn't actually fight me much anyway because my clan is quite worthless *smile*). So I definitely am not posting because I feel disadvantaged or at risk.

I have also been told by a reputable source that DAWG's clan fighting appeared to be very intense recently, leading me to believe the click bot really must have helped him with concentrated fighting, even with the increase in incorrect bot checks. I still can't get my head around how it helped (was DAWG just buying through the hour bans?) but the proof is in the pudding on that one... Just because I can't see how a click bot would help me doesn't mean it didn't work for someone else...

And just when DAWG and I were starting to have civil ChatMail discussions! Gah!

If I wrote a click bot, I would use it to maximize either clan points or xp-per-fight by having it fight only a small number of opponents, slowly enough that it never has to fight anyone else.

Sounds perfect, Jon. Could we have the 3 opponent farming bot in the next changemonth please? It would also be helpful if it could find new opponents once the current 3 drop below 100% Challenge Bonus.....

:)

Wow, This is pretty insane but just goes to prove justice is blind.

God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God?

I agree with Moosh, and taking on DAWG's side.

Personally I feel the punishment is little much.

Unlike Multi accounts, there are Multi FAQ and the agreement of only one account per player before you sign up for this game.

So I feel, since there isn't a clear guideline of what kind "Macro", that a player can use and what player cannot use. So instead completely delete his character, maybe CBD fine for the first time?

Also if possible I am hoping there can be a "Macro" usage guideline in the FAQ sections, so both old players and new players who wish to stay in this game would not repeat DAWG's mistake again.

Last request, I feel it is important and fair to follow CB players to let DAWG have at least forum access, so he can have a chance to explain himself or maybe a final goodbye.

I feel a "bot" is such hash word, so I would use word "Macro". Hope that does not cause any confusion ^^`.

I disagree entirely.

I also think that if you feel the word 'bot' is harsh, you should be lashed 17 times from each angle.

But, as Bast says, I have a small break with reality.

I don't see why people are questioning this particular judgment. DAWG using a macro is a clear violation of the rules and unlike some of the other cases involving punishment lately, this case doesn't really have room for interpretation.

So why isn't it a violation to use a set list of things that you just hit down and enter for when Forging. I don't know if people still use them but I remember in CB 1, their was a Script that ran were the new side bar is that had all the items for a forge cycle, and you just hit down enter, isn't that that same in a way? I mean why not just make the forging a number, 30, and you have to hit down and enter 30 times, instead of 10 heats at 10minutes, 10 squelchs, and 5 more heats and 5 more squelchs... I don't care that he was banned just curious. ??

you still had to hit enter...he wasn't doing anything but typing in botchecks

you still have to be AT the computer to use Verifex's script,

DAWGs case, he could be asleep and still be fighting.... Thats the difference...

Plus the fact that the general public has access to Verifex's script. What advantage does it give an individual when everyone else can have that same advantage?

Perfect execution with forging without a chance of slipups?

I have no sympathy for cheaters and botters. They just ruin the game.

BURN THEM ALL!

Theres a chance of slip ups! It happens, in fighting when you fight to fast you get warned.

When forging and you click to fast, You don't and because of this it can lead to you screwing up. You can click to fast and skip over a heat or quench which can in turn mess up that entire cycle.

It has happened to me countless times. Also, Verifex's wonderful script doesn't have the "best" formulas. If you want those you have to either change the script or do it manually. Which leads me to my next point:

When you guys fight all you have to do is simply hit C and Enter. When forgers forge we have to hit enter, click the drop box and select the next action and then hit enter etc. etc. Also, we forgers take a hit on income yet we do more work when it comes to spending ba.

So C'mon, Verifex's script only helps even the differences between how You Fighters spend your ba and how us forgers spend ours.

It is in no way related to what Dawg has done. Where are you guys trying to go with this? Why is it when anyone that has a reputation, whether it's big or small, Everyone has to bicker and complain about how the Jonathan and the Admins are unfair dictators?

Your job as a community is to support the police, not bash them for doing their job, no? They have only banned those that cheated the game, what do they benifit from banning people? Do you think they only do it to make you guys angry? I surely hope not.

Our Admins are great, they work full time and try there damnedest to keep YOUR community safe and all you guys ever seem to do is complain? Have a little dignity here folks.

C'mon lets grow up and stop arguing at every opportunity we have and play this spectacular game.

/me ends his little rant and goes back to forging.

I agree with the punishment but also think that multis should be banned.

I wasn't whining about the admins at all. Someone asked what advantages Verifex's script gives, it makes forging easier, thats all I said.

I understand exactly what DAWG did, why it was wrong, how it created an advantage for him, and why that warranted his banning.

Just saw this and must admit I'm sadly amazed. At the same time, cannot sympathise with DAWG since I had featured in his 2-char farm list for quite a while until my clan got disbanded, partly thanks to his farming of my char as well. It is virtually impossible to have such a short fight list without some form of bot. Ultimately, I fully agree with Mikel's view about bots - I never join chat and rarely post in forums because I already have problems finding time to burn my BA..

As to the botchecks, I'll say that what first caught our attention was that he went from being an average bot check answerer for a vet (which is to say, pretty good) to overnight missing twice as many as the the previous worst. At the same time we saw another pattern in his missed checks begin, that I can't talk about because of our policy of not revealing things that help would-be cheaters be successful...

(BTW, I transferred ownership of the BR clan to Popsicle Man.)

--Jonathan, January 5 2007 11:58 AM EST

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Based on this description, and Jon's original post I have to assume one of two things happened:

Either Dawg had been running this bot for a long time, and forgot to shut it off, hence the overnight spike in missed botchecks.

Or he tried to evolve the bot to answer checks, and his attempt failed.

Dawg was not stupid enough to run a Click bot that did not have a good chance of answering checks overnight.

It takes 4 hours to accrue 160 BA at his level. If you sleep an average 8 hours and burn your BA before going to bed, you could truly only miss 2 or maybe 3 botchecks with an hour suspension between and still wake up to 160 BA.

If you got in 30 fights between missed checks (a generous number I think) that would mean an additional 90 fights a day. Over the course of a month you are talking roughly 3000 extra fights, which I wouldn't think would be worth the certianty of being caught and good risk of being banned. Dawg would know that The ops would recognize this pattern rather quickly.

velvet: you're misunderstanding what his bot did...

what am i misunderstanding?

Hmm.


Bye DAWG.

That's it.

I was also Not complaining about him getting banned I could care less, Im trying to understand what exactly consitutes a bot, script, whatever, If I write a script that When I press Enter it waits and when the page loads it automatically presses down to go to the next person so All I have to do is press enter and answer bot checks is that a bot? if so would that be illegal if it was free to the public, Because it would really be not much different to verifex's script if you ask me, Verifex's script (regardless of the quality of the formulas) does change all the things for you, and all you have to do it press down enter, and answer the bot checks.

For Verifex's script you don't even have to push down. You just sit there pushing enter, and entering bot checks when applicable. It advances and everything.

However with fex's script you must press enter 160 times, as opposed to what dawg was using, where he only needed to enter bot checks and wait.

In other words my script would be legal, since you have to press enter 160 times for 160 ba, + do the bot checks?

Yes, but you can already do that with Verifex's script. You just need to put the 'tab focus' of your browser on 'Fight', then hit 'Enter' as you describe. No violation of the rules there.

I think the issue here is that people don't understand that with the script you're still fighting each battle on your own by hitting enter. With DAWG's bot (no, it's no a macro) he never had to hit enter. Also, with a 2 person fight list, I would think botchecks would appear a lot less considering how slow he was fighting. And whether he got 1 BA in while sleeping or 600 it's still more than 0 and more than anyone else. The rules are simple. He didn't follow them. He got punished.

Woops. This died over a week ago. I didn't think to check until I already posted.