Banning bots from the grid?

[xDancingStarx]

44 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

More serious question is: As Linden Labs has already experienced malicious behavior from such bots, why let it possible happen again?

In order to disallow bots you would have to

1) Disallow 3rd party viewers or make sure they are not containing any automated functionality that would be considered bot-like and also disallow the self compilation of viewers

2) Write software to recognize bots server-side

3) Write software to recognize bots client-side

4) Handle complaints about falsely flagged accounts

5) We'd lose useful functionality that will have further impacts whatever they may look like

Essential.. that's a HUGE pile of money (plus annoyed users and investors) right there.

Furthermore it would have a bad impact on the user stats. It would have a bad impact on users who don't want additional anti-bot-software running on their computers. It would have positive impact on those users who care about bots showing up on their radars since there'd be less. And again it would have negative impact on exactly the same users yelling "Linden doesn't do enough against bots" cause there still will be bots.

Edited January 23, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Dorientje Woller]

6 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

For the very reasons we're discussing in this thread; all the utilities they provide.

Question is, does it outweigh the harm they do?

That's beside the question I have asked. Linden Labs has already ran into troubles with these kind of bots, why running the risk of happening again and having to deal with the mess afterwards. Business 101, I would say: A donkey doesn't hit his head twice on the same stone.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Dorientje Woller said:

That's beside the question I have asked. Linden Labs has already ran into troubles with these kind of bots, why running the risk of happening again and having to deal with the mess afterwards. Business 101, I would say: A donkey doesn't hit his head twice on the same stone.

This is a very good point. It's not like SL's history isn't littered with absolute disasters that wouldn't have happened if people paid attention the first 3 times it happened.

[Paul Hexem]

3 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

That's beside the question I have asked.

No, it's not.

3 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Linden Labs has already ran into troubles with these kind of bots, why running the risk of happening again and having to deal with the mess afterwards.

Because there's no way to determine what "kind" of bot an avatar is, or if it's a bot at all. As someone already pointed out, it could be someone sitting idle somewhere.

Exactly what we're discussing here is if LL can do something to distinguish the difference between people and bots, if they should at all, and if so, what they should do.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Paul Hexem

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, SparkleSpice said:

I don't think it's irony, The rez-day board was actually recently added to the destinations guide! as a means to spread joy and "Be excellent to one another."

Thanks for letting us know. I'll be randomly logging my accounts in over the next few days and deleting every image I have put on my profiles. No one asked me if I wanted to appear on the rez day board. I do not. People celebrate rez days just like they do birthdays. No one has ever celebrated my rez day. Why start now? I won't be there. The time that I would have been happy to have people celebrate my rez day is long gone. All it does now is remind me no one cared/cares same as my birthday.

[Dorientje Woller]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

No, it's not.

Because there's no way to determine what "kind" of bot an avatar is, or if it's just someone sitting idle somewhere, as been pointed out.

Exactly what we're discussing here is if LL can do something to distinguish the difference between people and bots, if they should at all, and if so, what they should do.

There is a solution, one that some may find irritating, but I see some sim/landowners use it. The moment you as user land, you get a pop up to answer within a period of time. If you fail, bang, you're ejected.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[LittleMe Jewell]

One of the main points around trying to put restrictions on bots:  If they are not already self-flagged as a scripted agent, how do you determine if they really are or not?

I have a large inventory and even though it is well organized, it still cause my login time to be much higher than any of my alts.  Given that, I tend to log in either right after work on the weekdays or first thing in the morning on the weekends.  I then stay logged in until bedtime.  There are lots of days where I end up just sitting or standing in my skybox for hours on end not appearing to be doing anything.  

To many, I would be seen as a bot.

Edited January 22, 2023 by LittleMe Jewell

[Ezbeharra]

2 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

There is a solution, one that some may find irritating, but I see sim/landowners use it. The moment you as user land, you get a pop up to answer within a period of time. If you fail, bang, you're ejected.

Great I'm gonna have to identify traffic lights everywhere I go now

[Paul Hexem]

2 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

There is a solution, one that some may find irritating, but I see sim/landowners use it. The moment you as user land, you get a pop up to answer within a period of time. If you fail, bang, you're ejected.

That deals with bots on your property, sure. Not idle/traffic accounts, and not the various other business related bots out there. 

Plus I can see bot clients getting upgraded to click that stuff in no time.

[Rednight Hand]

14 minutes ago, Ezbeharra said:

Do you care if they provide updated in-world location data for your avatar to anyone who looks at their website? Oh wait, you're probably a man so you probably don't know why that might be a problem for some people.

Na, Neither man nor woman, I am just me. Do I care if they got data where I'm going who whom I'm hanging with? Nope Agreed to this the day I joined and agreed to the TOS. otherwise why would I be still be on SL all these years.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

That deals with bots on your property, sure. Not idle/traffic accounts, and not the various other business related bots out there. 

Plus I can see bot clients getting upgraded to click that stuff in no time.

LL are huge fans of "if there is no perfect solution, we choose inaction", this is why we only just got a quiet mumblings about the intent to move the render engine to vulkan.

I would argue that the bulk of the problems can be solved with policy. Force them to buy an expensive "bot membership" (as bots don't make LL money) and then enforce that and rules about bots when bots are reported by users.

[Ezbeharra]

3 minutes ago, Rednight Hand said:

Na, Neither man nor woman, I am just me. Do I care if they got data where I'm going who whom I'm hanging with? Nope Agreed to this the day I joined and agreed to the TOS. otherwise why would I be still be on SL all these years.

You agreed to Linden Lab having that data. You did not agree to your stalker who is using alts to harass you having that data. At least, I did not agree to it. And yes, this sort of thing happens in SL.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Ezbeharra

[Dorientje Woller]

4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

LL are huge fans of "if there is no perfect solution, we choose inaction", this is why we only just got a quiet mumblings about the intent to move the render engine to vulkan.

I would argue that the bulk of the problems can be solved with policy. Force them to buy an expensive "bot membership" (as bots don't make LL money) and then enforce that and rules about bots when bots are reported by users.

In here, Linden Lab, could have chosen the easy solution: Be open about them. Like explaining what they collected as data and yes, monitor the user of these bots if he/she keeps him/her to the rules. And the owner of that site should give us the ability to remove our profiles from his or her site.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Rednight Hand]

Just now, Ezbeharra said:

You agreed to Linden Lab having that data. You did not agree to your stalker who is using alts to harass you having that data. At least, I did not agree to it. And yes, this sort of things happens in SL.

And who's to say if the BB's are the only ones doing it, there's tons of bots out there, tons of listening scripts out there that can do more and yet no one complains about them or whatever places they're holding whatever data. I agreed to enjoy myself on SL without a care what comes with it, if people know whatever info from me then ask. if I decide to say it that's my own fault for exposing it.

[Ezbeharra]

1 minute ago, Rednight Hand said:

And who's to say if the BB's are the only ones doing it, there's tons of bots out there, tons of listening scripts out there that can do more and yet no one complains about them or whatever places they're holding whatever data. I agreed to enjoy myself on SL without a care what comes with it, if people know whatever info from me then ask. if I decide to say it that's my own fault for exposing it.

This is basically an argument against having any sort of rules about anything, anywhere, so uh good luck with that.

[Dorientje Woller]

7 minutes ago, Rednight Hand said:

And who's to say if the BB's are the only ones doing it, there's tons of bots out there, tons of listening scripts out there that can do more and yet no one complains about them or whatever places they're holding whatever data. I agreed to enjoy myself on SL without a care what comes with it, if people know whatever info from me then ask. if I decide to say it that's my own fault for exposing it.

Problem with this reasoning is, in this case, is that if you are not a user of SL and doesn't have an account, you can't see profiles, dashboards or any other related data. On the site of the BB's, it's all open up in the air for everyone to see, even for non users of SL.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Love Zhaoying]

Y'all - please stop discussing the BB's.  Unless you want to get the thread locked.

We already know that what they are doing is allowed.

Other threads have been closed due to discussing that specific topic.

Thank you in advance!

[EliseAnne85]

31 minutes ago, Ezbeharra said:

Do you care if they provide updated in-world location data for your avatar to anyone who looks at their website? Oh wait, you're probably a man so you probably don't know why that might be a problem for some people.

I don't like this either, but then again I doubt someone wants to date me, a tiny cat.  So, I'm okay.  But, I understand what she's saying here.  I find it not okay and not what SL is.  SL is chance encounters and should have some aspects of respect.  SL is not joining a dating service where people perv your profile on a website.  Plus, some people misunderstood the privacy setting on mysecondlife.com.

I'm getting a strange feeling of Deja Vu about this bbbot thing.  It was years ago and days of threads and it turned out to be a dating website or matching service similar to this one.  It faded within a week or so never to be heard of again because it's basically self promoting spam which is not allowed under the TOS.  One can mention their thing here and there, but these are bot armies for these kind of "matching" off SL websites, and I remember days and days of threads until it finally stopped.

Sorry for blabbing, this all just sounds eerily familiar.  

[Rednight Hand]

13 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Problem with this reasoning is, in this case, is that if you are not a user of SL and doesn't have an account, you can't see profiles, dashboards or any other related data. On the site of the BB's, it's all open up in the air for everyone to see, even for non users of SL.

16 years a user going on 17, there's more than likely other sites that do the same or just keep the data to themselves. At least this one is showing more of it and filling the gaps in that never were filled before. Did the interest thing ever work? No, so how would I find out people that have a similar liking to something I like other than looking at whoever's profile or joining a group that's probably dead cause no one ever responds in it. 

[xDancingStarx]

10 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

like a lot of other Bot fans

I share the same concerns regarding bots and I would be all in for banning them (edit: that's too definite, but I'd reconsider my position) if I thought that it would be technically possible in a *reasonable* way.

But when we look at games like World of Warcraft, there are "stop the bots" threads popping up even after so many years and so much money spent by Blizzard on this issue. WoW shows that there is no way to ban bots once and for all, or to stop threads like these.

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/stop-the-bots/233054

Edited January 23, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Dorientje Woller]

1 minute ago, Rednight Hand said:

16 years a user going on 17, there's more than likely other sites that do the same or just keep the data to themselves. At least this one is showing more of it and filling the gaps in that never were filled before. Did the interest thing ever work? No, so how would I find out people that have a similar liking to something I like other than looking at whoever's profile or joining a group that's probably dead cause no one ever responds in it. 

If you are not on my friendlist ... my likings and interests aren't your concern nor your business.

[Paul Hexem]

Expendable accounts being this obvious is straight up pathetic.

In my day, at least the trolls weren't cowards.

[Coffee Pancake]

7 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

I share the same concerns regarding bots and I would be all in for banning them if I thought that it would be technically possible in a *reasonable* way.

But when we look at games like World of Warcraft, there are "stop the bots" threads popping up even after so many years and so much money spent by Blizzard on this issue. WoW shows that there is no way to ban bots once and for all, or to stop threads like these.

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/stop-the-bots/233054

WoW bots are a little different, they typically perform tasks .. say collecting special rocks or plants. These materials are used in crafting and blizzard to balance the markets and recipes on the assumption that there will be automated farming.

It's also important to note that wow bots are buying the game and playing the monthly sub.

Bots that participate in other actives or are socially disruptive are banned, and big ban waves are common.

 

At the very least bot accounts in SL should be required to purchase a premium plus level of subscription and agree to terms and conditions for bot usage.

Things like forbidding bottling from VPN connections would also help keep those doing things with them honest.

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Coffee Pancake

[Ezbeharra]

Just now, xDancingStarx said:

I share the same concerns regarding bots and I would be all in for banning them if I thought that it would be technically possible in a *reasonable* way.

But when we look at games like World of Warcraft, there are "stop the bots" threads popping up even after so many years and so much money spent by Blizzard on this issue. WoW shows that there is no way to ban bots once and for all, or to stop threads like these.

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/stop-the-bots/233054

This is my position as well, and while I understand Paul's objection that it's off topic for the thread, I think it makes more sense to ban the bot behavior that we don't want to see, rather than banning bots entirely. I also want to be clear I'm not talking about any actual service or website or anything out there that exists, but hypothetical cases of data gathering that seem technically very feasible and concerning from a privacy and safety standpoint.

I've looked through the ToS and I will be the first to tell you I am terrible at reading legal documents and understanding them, but from what I can see there's nothing banning data export aside from cases where intellectual property and DMCA concerns crop up. If I am wrong, I will be very glad (sincerely) for someone to point out where it says in the ToS that you may not, for example, compile lists of all the avatars present in a region and put that in a searchable database on an external website.

But as for bot bans, I absolutely agree with you here, and I very briefly played MMOs (not much of a gamer, really) where botting was such a huge problem that companies had significant resources dedicated to the problem and the botters always seemed to be a step ahead.

[Ezbeharra]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

WoW bots are a little different, they typically perform tasks .. say collecting special rocks or plants. These materials are used in crafting and blizzard to balance the markets and recipes on the assumption that there will be automated farming.

It's also important to note that wow bots are buying the game and playing the monthly sub.

Bots that participate in other actives or are socially disruptive are banned, and big ban waves are common.

 

At the very least bot accounts in SL should be required to purchase a premium plus level of subscription and agree to terms and conditions for bot usage.

Things like forbidding bottling from VPN connections would also help keep those doing things with them honest.

All of these things require the ability to detect bots, which is extremely hard to do. MMO companies hate bots, even if they pay subscriptions, and they still have a hard time removing them, even when they have total control of the game client itself (not like SL where you can use Firestorm or some text viewer or anything at all). They cause a lot of income loss in other ways through supporting RMT (real money transactions) for in-world items that make the game less appealing to regular players. So they actively go after botters and it's very hard for them to find them all. LL would face the same thing, under worse circumstances. You cannot identify a bot that does not want to be identified unless you are willing to put a lot of effort into it, which, ehhh, we're talking about LL here.