How does Jagex detect bots?

I recently replied to a post about how jagex finds bots and I'm really interested.. Like how was the 'Bot Nuke' pulled off? How was it pulled off? Also, what type of surveillance does jagex do? NSA type stuff?

I would really appreciate the facts and how they do things. I am just really interested

 

Game ticks, bot detectors | detector figure out if your botting by checking your game ticks per minute | hour.
Bots click at the same exact spot exact same pixel, this is what Mod Ronan and Archie said in their livestream.

 

"Not nuke" and "not detection" are completely different things. Jagex pulled the not nuke by completely writing a new obfuscation system (client changes). Not detection can be done by different ways, like randoms (first anti-bot system), monitoring your mouse location, your actions, etc. Bots will always repeat the same actions.

 

NSA type stuff for a video game? Doubt it.

Although, if we knew the answer to your thread title, there wouldn't be any botting bans. Unfortunately, we don't.

 

The bot nuke worked for bots that either change the client or directly grab data from the client without using the screen. Nearly any change that they do to the client will break all of these bots until the makers update. The bot nuke was this just being taken to an extreme in the hopes that it would take too much effort to update the bots for the new client. Obviously that did not work.

Bot detection works in many many many ways. The best public bot that has ever been made is more than likely the robotindisguise mage training arena bot circa 2007. It was good enough that JMods were spending hours in the arena observing players and trying to catch them. If there had been a bot detected on your IP previously they banned your mage training arena account. With technical solutions alone it was basically impossible to detect.

Those technical solutions basically involve collecting tons of data about the inputs that you are giving the game. If you setup an auto clicker that clicks the exact same spot in the exact same intervals, it is easy to tell that you are botting. Bot makers try to introduce randomness into their bots but generally that amount is severely limited in scope. For instance the bot may click a random spot on each inventory slot to drop the entire inventory. However, if you collect all of the clicks over a few days you will see that each possible location to be clicked in each spot are clicked at roughly the same rate. A human would be unable to do that and more likely than not you click in a similar spot in each inventory slot, likely in the middle but maybe closer to a corner or side.

Jagex is also able to detect when your client is modified which gives them a strong indication that they should look into your account further. That is when they would turn on the more intensive data collection on your account. Then it comes down to statistics.

 

SuF nailed it. I think if Jagex wanted to do something more to deter botting they could implement some form of client detection process which would alert the user to the fact they were connecting or "hooking" from a modified client. Truth is however, they cannot afford to mass ban paying members regularly, which is why they don't. Bot or not, they want your money, which is completely understandable.

 

Though the above may be true. It's not widely known how they detect bots. Jagex has already stated that they ban randomly so that developers do not catch on to how they detect bots.

 

Does this mean simba is less detectable?

 

Like life2dmax said, there's no simple right answer Jagex are not going to tell you how exactly because they don't want you to know.

 

similar game clicks and patterns, same paths taken and etc.

 

Client detection

 

Hard to give a simple answer as I dont think anyone knows answer to this question apart from people who have done the coding. Apparently bot detection consists of many different variables that check that everything you do is human like; mouse movements, keyboard commands, reaction speed, breaks, (not just logging out but you check other website while you play etc.) All such things combined will most likely tell whether you are botting or not. I have seen some nature rune bots run for months lately without them getting banned so if you can code a macro program like a pro you might not get caught, macro detection is not yet bulletproof and can be fooled but you have to be ahead of jagex and its not easy.