Easy way to identify bots?

[MikeWills]

In one of our rooms we have started to have issues with additional bots. I am wondering if you guys have discovered a way to identify bore or a way that they can identify themselves as bots? I realize there could be two classifications. A fully scripted bot or a person using autobop and autodj.

I realize this is mostly TTs problem, but what if there was a user type like there is for super user?

[Izzmo]

Even Turntable.fm cannot really, truly, identify them as bots. They maybe can look at some data, see where they are connecting from, and possibly come to a conclusion, but they will never be 100% sure, with the current way there system is setup.

If someone wanted to actively participate and say they were a bot, I'm sure some guidelines could be put into place to allow them to identify themselves as such, but nothing really exists currently.

[alaingilbert]

I can't find any good way to identify bots. The best solution I came with was :

• Shoot a unique link (private message) to everyone in the room that lead to a page that ask the person to solve a captcha.
• Those who solve it, aren't bots.
• Those who don't, are bots !

It can work, but I guess it's gonna be anoying, even if you ask it every hour...

[technobly]

Here's my thoughts on this, since I've probably spent way too much time coding anti-idle auto response detection, and afk detection.

I used to do random addition questions. Nothing hard, but I never made it automated because people are clever with their answers and all I was trying to do is make sure they were there, not good at math.

With that in mind, and expanding on your idea, what if you sent out a random simple math question, once per day. You put a note with it that says you must answer this to stay in the room, and then we'll stop bugging you.

If they answer it once, they are likely human and you store their ID and don't bug them again.

If they don't respond, keep track of the number of times they don't. Give up after 3 days (3 tries) and auto add to your banlist. Or maybe just boot them and the next time they come back if they don't answer on the first try, ban them.

If someone codes a bot to defeat that, well then they could just log in and defeat it more easily. If that's the case, so what... You have one smartie pants in your room.

Most people are not bots though, so anything continuously asking is going to piss everyone off. Also, think about motives for bots... Users might bring extra bots for votes, but TT will find them. Even if they don't vote. And room owners have motive to increase their room listener count, so they are not going to care if users bring silent bots in their room. Maybe they are making their own bots too.

I've also seen accts that just don't log out, and the owner didn't log in for over a week and never knew their acct was logged in all that time.

Unless a bot is spamming, it really shouldn't cause a problem.

If you just want to lighten your bloated room, PM the longest AFKers in the room with the math question.

Have a drink, ease your paranoia and give a bot a /hug today. ChattyTT gives good hugs btw.

[alaingilbert]

Solving a math question is pretty easy (if I receive it as plain text). Nodejs is really good for doing math :P If I know you're going to ask me to solve it, I can easily create a little script that'll do it...

[technobly]

Yeah, you can... master of the TTAPI universe. But I think any kind of little test like this is going to keep most bot script kitties away.

Not that it matters much, as I've outlined above.

[Izzmo]

I think the better question to ask here is, is this really a problem? Coming from the Dubstep room, I don't really see this as an issue at all.

[gizmotronic]

Ever since TT added lights that come on when you reach a threshold of awesomeness, there's been pressure to remove bots. This pressure is probably higher in smaller, active rooms.

[technobly]

Btw, I hate those lights flickering on and off all the time. The threshold is also too high, but I kinda like not seeing them.

[Izzmo]

Totally agree, whoever made that thing up with the lights need to be slapped.

[ItsJakeo]

I also hate the lights and the math problem would be pretty cool but I also don't see a problem with bots as long as no spamming really or auto anything. I just like reading the genius idea's :+1:

[gizmotronic]

Back in my day we listened to Turntable by touching the end of a thinnet cable to our metal fillings and guessing the song by how it tingled. The only lights that came on were when mom or dad raided the fridge for a midnight snack. And guess what? We liked it that way.

Some people love bots and some people hate them. But, the only opinion that really matters for any given room is the opinion of that room's creator. Shame on us if we don't respect their wishes.

Having said that, I think it's pretty well established that this can't be resolved except by TT.

[technobly]

You can control the lights with my Auto Awexomer bookmarklet. Look for the knob. http://dubbytt.github.io/Auto-Awexomer/

Also coming to TTX soon.

[Izzmo]

@DubbyTT not really :P In small rooms, you basically need to have 100% participation in order to get the lights to come on (which is stupid). So, unless everyone had the auto-awesome, it wouldn't matter.

[MikeWills]

My concern has nothing to do with the lights. I could care less. My concern is making sure that if it is a bot, it is either not bopping or someone doesn't bring in 10 bots and lame every song. I am concerned about policing the room and knowing what is going on.

[Izzmo]

There is nothing you can really do.. people can be really clever if they care enough about it.

[MikeWills]

I realize that. Heck, I am tempted to try to make a me-bot so I can DJ late at night ;-)

[Izzmo]

=P What if I told you, this already existed?

[MikeWills]

/me isn't surprised and asks to see it. :-)

[Izzmo]

It shall forever remain a mystery.

[technobly]

@Izzmo no REALLY!! :P LOOK AT THIS PICTURE! http://i.imgur.com/8nONA0B.jpg

lol

[technobly]

And it's 80% participation, to bump the lights up one notch higher than the level the room is currently at based on number of users >0 >50 >200 >400

[technobly]

"It shall forever remain a mystery."

/me posts link...

[Izzmo]

Hmm.. interesting lol.