Unashamedly Bots

[Prokofy Neva]

8 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

It doesn't mention the device because I think pretty much everyone knew about it since it was in a recent thread, and I assumed that everyone would be interested in the results. We had forum discussions on the topic very recently. It was discussed here in GD and in 

Incidentally, AGENT_AUTOMATED isn't flawed, as is seen later in the thread I linked to. It turned out that LL keeps their own internal flags for scripted agents, separate to the scripted agent status page, so AGENT_AUTOMATED can return positives when the scripted agent page has the account set as being operated by a human. It does make sense that they would do it.

Nope. I sell a few security devices now, that's all, and I don't plug them anywhere in the forum. I don't even have a signature line to promote them. It's merely a means of me keeping a tiny bit of interest in SL, and nothing more. LL introduced the LSL means of spotting scripted agents recently. You obviously missed it.

Right from the moment I started using traffic bot, I never made a secret of it in the forum (RA). They were perfectly legal. When LL nerfed them, I removed them, but I did keep demo models on some furniture in the store, as you stated, all of which were registered as scripted agents.

I won't be offering it for sale. Those who wanted it, got it, and that's it. I have no need whatsoever to take advantage of anything.

But you just *did* flog your commercial devices lol.

I'm sorry, I don't keep up with every twist and turn of LSL. I saw that the ability to detect bots on islands/homesteads was introduced, but AFAIK this doesn't work on the Mainland. If this "AGENT_AUTOMATED" works on Mainland, great!

I also don't keep up with the forums. I don't feel it's warranted. You've reinforced that sense, thanks.

[Phil Deakins]

14 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But you just *did* flog your commercial devices lol.

? I don't know what you mean. I used to sell stuff, as you well know, if that's what you mean. And I still sell stuff (security devices) as I said, if that's what you mean. But, if you mean that I sold the scripted agent detector, I didn't. I offered it free to anyone who wanted it, and I have no intention of selling it.

[Love Zhaoying]

23 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I think pretty much everyone knew about it since it was in a recent thread

Conclusion..You think "pretty much everyone" reads your threads?

..Chutzpah! I congratulate you!!

[Qie Niangao]

15 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I saw that the ability to detect bots on islands/homesteads was introduced, but AFAIK this doesn't work on the Mainland. If this "AGENT_AUTOMATED" works on Mainland, great!

It may have been answered already, but just in case: Yeah, the flag works on Mainland so the self-declared bots can be detected, but unless they happen to be on one's land they're imperviable, almost everything bots do can be done from anywhere in the region, and on Mainland there's usually some other spot on the region (Linden land is a favorite).

In contrast, the whole Bellisseria estate bans scripted agents altogether, so no point testing the flag there. There's definitely no such ban on the Mainland estate.

The amount of Mainland script processing caused by testing the flag shouldn't really be that much because it shouldn't be in great demand; bot-counting is mostly a distraction for the curious except on a few parcels where the bot-runners persist in trying to land their bots rather than moving them somewhere trouble-free. Once they've been chased to safer ground, all a script can do is count them as they pass through.

[Prokofy Neva]

16 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

It may have been answered already, but just in case: Yeah, the flag works on Mainland so the self-declared bots can be detected, but unless they happen to be on one's land they're imperviable, almost everything bots do can be done from anywhere in the region, and on Mainland there's usually some other spot on the region (Linden land is a favorite).

In contrast, the whole Bellisseria estate bans scripted agents altogether, so no point testing the flag there. There's definitely no such ban on the Mainland estate.

The amount of Mainland script processing caused by testing the flag shouldn't really be that much because it shouldn't be in great demand; bot-counting is mostly a distraction for the curious except on a few parcels where the bot-runners persist in trying to land their bots rather than moving them somewhere trouble-free. Once they've been chased to safer ground, all a script can do is count them as they pass through.

OK, I actually remember testing a script like this early in the summer -- I had forgotten somehow.  But the drawback to that script was that it kept spamming out the information. I even wrote to the Linden who did that script on Twitter to ratchet it down to demand-only, on click. Never heard back. I also thought it wasn't detecting all the bots I have on the Moth Temple hub in Iris.

So I never returned to it. If someone has made a version that doesn't spam, great, but I'm not likely to install it, as it is one more script taking up script time. I personally don't care about bots and what they get off me -- it's more the tenants' concern. I do notice that 50 bots a day can come through and that's annoying. They add to the lag of sims. 

[Phil Deakins]

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I also thought it wasn't detecting all the bots I have on the Moth Temple hub in Iris.

It doesn't detect bots. It detects accounts that are self-registered as scripted agents and accounts that are internally flagged as bots. Bots that are not self-registered and not internally flagged as bots are not detected. That's probably why the script you tried wasn't detecting all the bots.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[belindacarson]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

It doesn't detect bots. It detects accounts that are self-registered as scripted agents and accounts that are internally flagged as bots. Bots that are not self-registered and not internally flagged as bots are not detected. That's probably why the script you tried wasn't detecting all the bots.

Phil, please could you give a link as to where we could get a copy of this device? for those of us on the mainland, well, for me it'd be great to see bye bye bots.

[belindacarson]

7 hours ago, belindacarson said:

Phil, please could you give a link as to where we could get a copy of this device? for those of us on the mainland, well, for me it'd be great to see bye bye bots.

apart from the BB who I openly support

Edited October 2, 2023 by belindacarson

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, belindacarson said:

Phil, please could you give a link as to where we could get a copy of this device? for those of us on the mainland, well, for me it'd be great to see bye bye bots.

I've PMed you. It doesn't differentiate between bots, so, if you want to remove them, it's remove all or remove none.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

It doesn't detect bots. It detects accounts that are self-registered as scripted agents and accounts that are internally flagged as bots. Bots that are not self-registered and not internally flagged as bots are not detected. That's probably why the script you tried wasn't detecting all the bots.

Obviously, if the script detects self-registered scripted agents, the script detects bots in this category, and that's a start, and that covers a lot of them, especially some of the armies of notorious ones.

It just doesn't appear to detect unregistered bots. I have no idea what the numbers are of each group, but the Lindens must catch up with some of these unregistered bots because they are unregistered. As noted in this thread, the Lindens themselves internally flag some accounts as bots based on whatever they based it on, internally, server-side. So while they may not get to all of them, they get to some, and their whole point in doing this is likely to discipline those that violate the TOS. I don't know if they ban them merely for not registering, but again, we don't know how big a group this is.

So if I've understood the latest turns of this thread, you are saying you have in face scripted a device to detect any and all bots, which ejects even registered ones. So I'm glad this thread has helped your business and reputation and those that want to get relief from the legions of bots can contact you privately as this does not appear to be a public service.

 

[Phil Deakins]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So if I've understood the latest turns of this thread, you are saying you have in face scripted a device to detect any and all bots, which ejects even registered ones. So I'm glad this thread has helped your business and reputation and those that want to get relief from the legions of bots can contact you privately as this does not appear to be a public service.

I said before that this has nothing whatsoever to do with my small SL business, and it has nothing to do with any reputation that I may or may not have here. It has not enhanced my business in the slightest. If I wanted it to do that, I would put it in my little store so that those who want it would get it there and see the things I sell. But I don't do that. I drop it into the IM boxes of those who want it.  There is nothing in it that even suggests that I sell anything, so it hasn't "helped your [my] business" in the slightest. The words 'tree', 'barking', 'up' and 'wrong' spring readily to mind . I wrote it just for something to occupy me a little.

It's not a public service. I offered it for free to anyone who wants it, and I am still getting requests for it. Right now, I am improving it a bit, so there is a delay in sending it out, but that should be completed today. Later today, those who are waiting for it, and those who already have it (who I remember), should get the updated version.

It doesn't detect bots that are neither registered as scripted agents nor flagged internally. Nothing can detect those. It merely makes use of the new AGENT_AUTOMATED flag.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

[...] and their whole point in doing this is likely to discipline those that violate the TOS. I don't know if they ban them merely for not registering, but again, we don't know how big a group this is.

Accounts can be flagged internally without any form of discipline, and without any knowledge of it whatsoever.

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Accounts can be flagged internally without any form of discipline, and without any knowledge of it whatsoever.

I assume if this happens to someone, they should be unashamed.

[ArtCurator]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I assume if this happens to someone, they should be unashamed.

But the unfortunate thing is that legitimately human run accounts could (and are) falsely identified by LL as "scripted agents", thus they would be banned from any parcels that ban "scripted agents" without even knowing why they are banned (they would just get a message that they aren't allowed on a particular sim/parcel. Does that not concern anyone else?

[CarlaWetter]

24 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

Does that not concern anyone else?

Not really, but nevertheless my homegrown solution predating the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag by many years will tell the ejected avis the reason and that they can call me up to defend their case. So far no one ever did. They just try to come back another day with the same result. This has not changed since the introduction of AGENT_AUTOMATED and my scripting change to make use of it.

So in my observation it may perhaps not be such a widespread issue at all if of more than 400 ejected avatars in just the last couple of years not a single one claimed to be mistreated.

[ArtCurator]

12 minutes ago, CarlaWetter said:

Not really, but nevertheless my homegrown solution predating the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag by many years will tell the ejected avis the reason and that they can call me up to defend their case. So far no one ever did. They just try to come back another day with the same result. This has not changed since the introduction of AGENT_AUTOMATED and my scripting change to make use of it.

So in my observation it may perhaps not be such a widespread issue at all if of more than 400 ejected avatars in just the last couple of years not a single one claimed to be mistreated.

So you wouldn't be bothered if your main account was unfairly flagged as a "scripted agent" with no recourse to get it reversed because on your end, the "scripted agent status" in account settings is still set to "run by a human"?

Edited October 2, 2023 by ArtCurator

[Casidy Silvercloud]

43 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

Does that not concern anyone else?

No because fixing that issue is simple. Contact the landowner if you get banned. If they have no other reason than you've been flagged as a bot, then take it to LL. LL would be responsible for marking you as not one anyway. Besides I doubt very much that LL has flagged that many accounts as being bots all of their own accord without any rhyme or reason. I can't imagine doing this would get them much support and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of reason why they would do it regularly even if they can. 

People have had suspensions turned around, there's no reason why they couldn't with this too if necessary, with the same amount of ease.

[Casidy Silvercloud]

1 minute ago, ArtCurator said:

So you wouldn't be bothered if your main account was unfairly flagged as a "scripted agent" with no recourse to get it reversed because on your end, the "scripted agent status" in account settings is still set to "run by a human"?

Why do you assume you have no recource? Ll is still run by humans last I checked, pretty sure they make mistakes and faux pas now and then. I'm sure they'd remedy the issue if you actually went to them. 

[ArtCurator]

1 minute ago, Casidy Silvercloud said:

Why do you assume you have no recource? Ll is still run by humans last I checked, pretty sure they make mistakes and faux pas now and then. I'm sure they'd remedy the issue if you actually went to them. 

But you would have no idea the REASON for being banned is because you are flagged as a bot, because like i and Phil mentioned, in the Account Settings, it is possible to be set to "run by a human" but internally LL has a different "system" for flagging some accounts as "bots"

[Casidy Silvercloud]

4 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

But you would have no idea the REASON for being banned is because you are flagged as a bot

If the land owner has no personal reason to have banned you, but they do have bots banned, there, now you have  your possible answer. You don't know if it's the answer yet, so you do what you're supposed to do when you have a question, and you ask the people that make the rules.

Ll would know if they flagged you as a bot.

It's really not that complicated.

[Rowan Amore]

3 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

But you would have no idea the REASON for being banned is because you are flagged as a bot, because like i and Phil mentioned, in the Account Settings, it is possible to be set to "run by a human" but internally LL has a different "system" for flagging some accounts as "bots"

If I were banned somewhere for no apparent reason, I'd contact the owner and ask.  I did it once before when I was suddenly banned from a place.  The owner said it was because he'd heard I worked at another place which I did not.  Unbanned.  That was one time in 14 years.  If the owner had said it was because of some bots status, I'd contact LL to straighten it out.

People really are mostly willing to discuss things such as a ban if you go about it the right way.

[CarlaWetter]

6 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

So you wouldn't be bothered if your main account was unfairly flagged as a "scripted agent" with no recourse to get it reversed because on your end, the "scripted agent status" in account settings is still set to "run by a human"?

That's an unfounded assumption, isn't it? Why would there be no recourse? Phil could have his ancient and internally flagged accounts fixed through support.

So it's not the drama you make it out to be. What I see in my numbers is that of the 425 accounts that are showing up in my "seen and kicked" list as of today, no one argued they have been treated unfairly. That's all there is to it in my view. I'm not throwing out the only tool we have on mainland to manage the up to ~30 roaming bots per region and day because there've been some three or five accounts that may or may not have been flagged internally by LL as bots some decade ago and that now have been exposed through the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag. Which gives them a chance to have it fixed. But that's not my responsibility any more as it is for estate owners who use the estate tools to globally disallow scripted agents to cater for a bunch of accounts that may or may not have been flagged at some time as bots. We are given tools and we use them.

[ArtCurator]

1 minute ago, CarlaWetter said:

That's an unfounded assumption, isn't it? Why would there be no recourse? Phil could have his ancient and internally flagged accounts fixed through support.

So it's not the drama you make it out to be. What I see in my numbers is that of the 425 accounts that are showing up in my "seen and kicked" list as of today, no one argued they have been treated unfairly. That's all there is to it in my view. I'm not throwing out the only tool we have on mainland to manage the up to ~30 roaming bots per region and day because there've been some three or five accounts that may or may not have been flagged internally by LL as bots some decade ago and that now have been exposed through the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag. Which gives them a chance to have it fixed. But that's not my responsibility any more as it is for estate owners who use the estate tools to globally disallow scripted agents to cater for a bunch of accounts that may or may not have been flagged at some time as bots. We are given tools and we use them.

All I'm advocating for is some kind of transparency whereby LL would email/tell all avatars that are being flagged as bots that that is the case. Not just silently change their status "behind the scenes" where for all outward appearances in the Account Settings, it still says "run by human."

[CarlaWetter]

4 minutes ago, ArtCurator said:

All I'm advocating for is some kind of transparency whereby LL would email/tell all avatars that are being flagged as bots that that is the case.

Good news everybody! LL kinda sorta did do exactly that by introducing the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag.

if (llGetAgentInfo(llGetOwner()) & AGENT_AUTOMATED) llSay(0, "Eeeew, my owner is a scripted agent!");

[Phil Deakins]

8 minutes ago, CarlaWetter said:

Good news everybody! LL kinda sorta did do exactly that by introducing the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag.

if (llGetAgentInfo(llGetOwner()) & AGENT_AUTOMATED) llSay(0, "Eeeew, my owner is a scripted agent!");

Yes, that's a solution if the landowner wants to write/buy a script that will tell a removed avatars that it has been recognised as a scripted agent, but the likelihood of it happening much is extremely slim, imo.