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Dapper Tactician

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To quote Lanzer's post in the announcement section:
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There seems to be confusion when users are banned for running scripts or macros. So here is a really simple explaination of what is not allowed on Gaia:

- Running a program that makes you "surf" Gaia without you being there
- Making something that keeps loading web pages over and over
- Allowing you to load pages without clicking the mouse

A common case is where a user setup a macro on Opera to keep loading certain pages on Gaia to continuously get gold. Over the course of the month the user rakes up gold, but also 10 gigabyte worth of bandwidth for our ISP to charge us, and put Gaia at risk for losing our banner link sponsor. Even putting aside the fact that running scripts and macros slows the site down for everybody else, one should simply consider is it fair for oneself to earn gold by not doing anything at all? It's common sense to know that this is cheating.

I'm sorry, but "I did not know that I was running a macro" is simply not an excuse. The final warning was sent on August 12. Anyone who was found "botting" in the activity log after that date will be banned.

PS - accounts used to store gold and item (otherwise known as mule accounts) will be banned along with the botter's account..

Dapper Tactician

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Quote:
Q: what is a script/macro?
A: Basically, they're pieces of software that give your computer instructions to do something more than once.
In the case of Gaia Online botters, this would be to refresh the site constantly.

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Q: Is it alright to have more than one window open at a time while surfing the site?
A: Yes. As long as they aren't refreshing automatically.

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Q: Will having more than one account get me banned?
A: No! Owning more than one account is not a bannable offence. After all, some computers have more than one user on them. Multiple accounts are only banned when they are involved in other bannable offences, such as scamming or botting.

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Q: What If Ieave my browser window open for a long time?
A: As long as it isn't refreshing. Though it's not reccomended that you do this.
For safety's sake, you shouldn't enable auto-login if multiple users have access to that computer.

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Q: Will I be banned for refreshing the page?
A; If you're doing it constantly/rapidly, yes. "Botting" is using software to make the page refresh constantly. If you're hitting refresh every once and a while, it's fine. It's unlikely that you will be banned for refreshing to keep up with a fast thread. You would have to be hammering the refresh button really fast to use up as much bandwidth as a piece of software that's designed to refresh automatically for prolonged periods of time.


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Q: Can I be running a script or Macro without knowing it?
A: If you are not the only person that uses the computer you use to surf Gaia, you may be, however, it is unlikely. You would have to either write your own, or use someone else's scripting to log onto Gaia, and it would most likely be visually obvious by a constantly refreshing page/pages
As a precaution, always log out when you are not at the computer for extended periods of time, and never give anyone else your password. That way no one else can access your account without your knowledge.


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Q: How do you know when someone is "botting," and how can you be sure?
A; Magic! For security reasons, we can't go into depth. But we do log ips. For further possible ways that we might catch botters, check out the rest of this thread 3nodding


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Q: Will you ban everyone that uses opera?
A:No. sweatdrop Only the users that are actively "botting" will be banned as botters. This does not exclude people from banning for any number of other reasons, obviously.


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Q: When a user gets banned, do they get banned by IP, or on an account to account basis?
A: It depends. If this is the user's first banning, only their account will be banned. If they are a serial ofender, their IP may be banned. We try to avoid this if at all possible, since more than one user can be on the same IP.


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Q: Do banned accounts get deleted?
A: No. Even though we try to be thorough when investigating accounts that may have comitted bannable offences, there is always the chance that the wrong accounts can get banned. If, after the account/accounts are banned we find that one of them should not have been, we can lift bans.

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- Gaia can detect bots/macros because if you are running them the site refreshes more frequently and for longer periods of time than a standard user would ever dream of...If i sat at my screen for 4 hours and hit f5 i would be botting without the script.
- they can also detect huge bandwidth uses. this means that if the site gets downloaded by the same person 5 times per second they will know something is up because you cant use the site that fast.

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so gaia keeps track of all the pages the person goes to? but what if the macro does some thing that anormal person might do, like brows the art arena, how would gaia know that it was a macro and not the person

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Kimashi
so gaia keeps track of all the pages the person goes to? but what if the macro does some thing that anormal person might do, like brows the art arena, how would gaia know that it was a macro and not the person

They have some way of detecting if the program, it's not about the pages visited, I have no idea how they do it. sweatdrop

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Here's a question.

Couldn't the script line,
OnClick="while(true){window.open('')}
,commonly spoken as the key line in a 'javabomb', and opens a window several times in sucession get somebody banned if they were fooled into clicking on it?


And wouldn't it be a better idea just to delete accounts over IP banning,to prevent proxying?(Correct me if i missinterpreted that and they DO delete accounts when they IP ban)

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Coelinigma
Here's a question.

Couldn't the script line,
OnClick="while(true){window.open('')}
,commonly spoken as the key line in a 'javabomb', and opens a window several times in sucession get somebody banned if they were fooled into clicking on it?


And wouldn't it be a better idea just to delete accounts over IP banning,to prevent proxying?(Correct me if i missinterpreted that and they DO delete accounts when they IP ban)

That might work... But I'm sure if you gave your story to the admin that they'd understand. I don't really know about those things. sweatdrop
I don't know why they don't delete accounts that have been banned... To keep a record maybe? sweatdrop

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What exactly is a mule account? I don't really get what they are.

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ok, so they have programs that check your logs of where you have been with a time next to them, gave the programs boolen tests to say if some one is botting or not, and if it comes back true (prolly so many times) they ban your IP, and all the chars that have posted on that IP. but what if the programs 'think' your doing something wrong and your not, but you get band... what would you do then. also when your char is baned do they delete it? or just denie you from logging in? (AND YOU DUMB ASSES THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO SAPM!!!!!!, sorry just hate it when people dont read!!!, new old i dont care)

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I have a question, how do we know who is using the system?? and who's not??

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Wolfina
I have a question, how do we know who is using the system?? and who's not??

The Admins have some way of detecting it. That's all I know.

ii kyuu nyuu kon
if you have about 5 windows open at a time, and you systemticaly refresh them, does that count?

If you're not using a program to do it, I'm pretty sure it's okay.

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i'm just curious, how would you find a person that uses one of those? i know this sounds kinda suspicious, but i don't use a macro or script, hell, i wouldn't know how to use one sweatdrop i was just wondering

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Baralai Lionheart
i'm just curious, how would you find a person that uses one of those? i know this sounds kinda suspicious, but i don't use a macro or script, hell, i wouldn't know how to use one sweatdrop i was just wondering


If you don't know how to use one then you are fine. I really don't know how they find out. They just...do. A Mod can answer that part of your question.

Generally if you don't know how to use one, then you are not using one, then you will not be banned.

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Para
Baralai Lionheart
i'm just curious, how would you find a person that uses one of those? i know this sounds kinda suspicious, but i don't use a macro or script, hell, i wouldn't know how to use one sweatdrop i was just wondering


If you don't know how to use one then you are fine. I really don't know how they find out. They just...do. A Mod can answer that part of your question.

Generally if you don't know how to use one, then you are not using one, then you will not be banned.


looking from a programers perspective they would prolly have some fuzzy logic (crappy AI) and say something like it a page is getting refreshed more then X amount of times in X amount of time for X amount of time user useing macro.. banning.. type of thing, thats really simple to what it is and they prolly have acouple 20 of them or so looking though all the logs of a person (yes i think they log every page you have been to on gaia for so long ago, includeing events ^^) my thinking on how they do it but i dont know sweatdrop

Dapper Tactician

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Since the same answers are asked multiple times, I will be locking this topic and looking into organizing the questions into a short FAQ.

If you have any qestions relating to the topic that you cannot find in this thread, feel free to PM an active General moderator.

The list of active moderators is available at the bottom of the Forum index
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