Implement bot detection and spam restrictions

[steamroller-airmash]

Given the current state of bots + spam on the official servers, detection and restriction of bots online is necessary before implementing votemute abilities. However, this doesn't mean that bots should be blocked completely. Instead measures should be taken to determine whether a player is a bot and restrict whisper and votemutes based on that.

Some ideas for detecting bots:

• Missing/Non-browser user agent
• Missing origin
• Source IP comes from a cloud provider or tor exit node
• Attempt to whisper within first 5 seconds
• Attempt to votemute within first 2-5 minutes
• Check cookies sent from browser

Restriction ideas:

• Only allow whispers to players that initiate it
• Silently deny votemutes if suspected bot

None of these should unduly inconvenience players if they are mistakenly detected as a bot, but they should make it much harder to use them for abuse.

[ghost]

There may be room for a stronger heuristic that covers more than just bots: plane must actively be in play in the past N frames somehow, e.g. X keystate changes received, X pixels distance travelled, X projectiles fired, or similar

A variant of that may be tracking 'play reputation' by /24 or similar, e.g. allow people to spam after connect so long as their subnet has made at least X kills in the past 24 hours, but kills is too simplistic a metric.

[ghost]

Oh, the complaint being, there has been a huge influx in people using airmash like a chat service, or crap-talking, while sitting for days or weeks at a time with a zero score

[steamroller-airmash]

I like the idea of having a stronger heuristic, but I'm not sure blocking people who are just chatting at this level is a good idea for a couple of reasons:

1. It's a bad UX, this would prevent them from even connecting to the server and/or disconnect+ban them randomly if they triggered the heuristics
2. I really think the problem should be solved through a combination of game design/moderation

Specifically, having moderators/votemutes helps with the crap talking in the chat when it becomes a problem. And then various small changes in the game can allow for people who are chatting/observing the game to do it without disadvantaging a team (for CTF specifically).

Is having people in spec a problem in FFA and BTR? I usually play CTF so I'm not really sure, but I've never noticed it being an issue when I drop into FFA.