Tech question on Bots

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Fri Aug 02, 2002 4:51 pm

I've never used a bot before like the OLBBL uses I believe ... here's my questions .... how difficult would it be to build a bot that returns a value based on the time on the server when the bot is hit.

Is there anyway to have get the current date and time from anywhere on the net in a manner that could be queried interactively by a program.

Galak

christer · Post by **christer** » Fri Aug 02, 2002 5:35 pm

An IRC bot is simply a program which connects to an IRC server and carries out commands. You can make it respond in any way you like.

Building a date-bot would probably be fairly easy. The largest task would be to have it connect to the IRC. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find some template bot sourcecode somewhere.

As for time and date, it depends on the accuracy you require.. There are timeservers spread out over the world which you could query. Search for NTP. Don't have the technical details on NTP, but it might be overkill depending on your application.

-- Christer

Dragoonkin · Post by **Dragoonkin** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 1:51 am

www.eggheads.org

Pink Horror · Post by **Pink Horror** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 4:06 am

Please, please tell me this is unrelated to the PBeM software. Because, if this is going where I think it's going, you're going to have two problems:

1) Folks like me will easily cheat software that uses some kind of hidden communication.

2) Folks unlike me in other countries will get very angry when Blood Bowl e-mail starts costing them on their phone companies as their ISDN machines automatically connect during Blood Bowl turns.

The game Black & White tried to do a little harmless time & weather check that ran up some people's bills something fierce.

Pink Horror

neoliminal · Post by **neoliminal** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 4:31 am

Pink Horror wrote:1) Folks like me will easily cheat software that uses some kind of hidden communication.

What, exactly, are folks like you?

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 4:47 am

Gotta try something PH .... wouldn't be worth my salt if I didn't look at my options.

Oh and the communication would not be hidden ... I'm looking for something very open ... just a little off system check to patch the hole you used.

I don't think I can make it work ... but I'm going to research it.

Galak

Pink Horror · Post by **Pink Horror** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 7:02 am

Folks like me are cheating jerks with plenty of computer knowledge, computers, and free time.

We're the enemy.

Pink Horror

Pink Horror · Post by **Pink Horror** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 7:04 am

Galak, start with reproducable random numbers and work from there. Your software need some damage control.

Pink Horror

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:14 pm

Okay now you and I already ran through an excercise where the random number generator was checked out over 250 fresh game loads.

So I'm not sure where the value from reproducable random numbers comes from .... the formula that generates the random numbers would be very difficult to fire in string.

I have a good idea of a possible patch, but I need a single off system call to another computer.

As for the software needing damage control .... I agree there are holes, but its the mix of what you need to cheat ... time, knowledge, computer ... its a lot of work to cheat (ie its not easy). Yes, a person can cheat the PBeM tool ... I'm not denying that at all. But damage control ... the folks that you accused of cheating in the league already well .... a lot of that didn't pan out. Brian's Khemri team has only had 2 doubles rolls for skills in all his skill rolls, and he just lost in the qualifying match for the playoffs. Dennis doesn't cheat ... I kick my brother's a** into the next county if he did ... my little brother doesn't get a pass. Jon ... I 99% sure Jon doesn't have the knowledge component to cheat. We catch the majority of the cheaters currently and if we are not catching one ... well then they aren't cheating in any way to raise a questioning eyebrow currently.

If you have an idea for patching the hole you used without leaving the system, I'd love to hear it. Ronald will not allow anyone to have the source code. So I cannot hand you the source code as requested. If you want to talk theory with me ... I'm all ears ... oh and make it a patch that even you couldn't break ... then I'm interested. The idea I have would be a complete patch of the current hole but I don't know if it can be done.

Galak

Dragoonkin · Post by **Dragoonkin** » Sat Aug 10, 2002 8:00 pm

Excuse me if I misread, Galak, but in response to the question I THINK you made: Random numbers are generated using the system timer.

Pink Horror · Post by **Pink Horror** » Sun Aug 11, 2002 12:58 am

Here's the value of reproducable random numbers -

Let's say I know how to reload and I decide to start my turn with a one-die block. I try and it's a skull, so I reload. I try again and get skull, and try again and get skull, and try again and, well, you get the idea.

You'd still be able to cheat with this fix, but the amount of damage you could cause by cheating would be reduced, which is why I said it was damage control. Of course, any change you put on top of that will help, but reproducable random numbers can be a last line of defense for you. By reducing the gain, you reduce the desire to cheat.

I wouldn't need access to the entire source code to implement this, but if I can't do it myself I guess I could blindly guide you through. There are a lot of specifics to keep the system from being easily fooled, but we can cover them all.

Of course, when I install Win 98 on one of my machines and modify the executable in assembly, all this will be obsolete. Check that - reproducable random numbers makes that harder too.

Pink Horror

Dragoonkin · Post by **Dragoonkin** » Sun Aug 11, 2002 1:45 am

Ahh I did misread.

I shouldn't talk, I tend to miss the original point.

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » Sun Aug 11, 2002 9:54 am

Galak: I don't know if there's an NTP (network time protocol) client for windows but that's probably your best bet. It synchs your machine to an atomic clock, factoring in latency etc. If you could get the client to snarf the time with NTP I think that would be your best bet.

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/

Marcus

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sun Aug 11, 2002 1:11 pm

PH .... talk to me via e-mail about the reproducable random numbers ... I understand where you are coming from .... I'm just really not sure how it could be done with the random number generator used by the PBeM program.

Each dice roll made by the tool is a MOD function of a random 10 to 100 D6 rolls. Its all based on an article on how to acheive randomness in programs (like Delphi) where the random number generator is suspect by itself.

http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:ZH ... n&ie=UTF-8

The original article is gone ... soooooo this is from the Google cache ... I'll post the artilce on my web site somewhere as its an important reference to explain how/why the PBeM tool produces random numbers like it does.

Galak