Autobuyers

[Diaboli]

Hey admins, thanks for letting autobuyers run crazy again, just look at the pages, there are half as many people with over a million gold than there was 2 days ago, somthing has obviously happened, and im not the only one seeing this, autobuyers are back.

This is really really annoying to players like me who sleep 8 hours a day, go to school, play sports, have a social life, and wake up, and come home with 5+ million gold, im one of the only targets like this, yet about 2000 people have a much larger tbg than me, so yeah, something is going on.

[Xer0n]

yeah autobuyers are annoying as hell. they should do more to prevent them from being used

[Teiresias]

I think the admins are working on improving the system... But it really doesn't work now, it doesn't even matter where on the 'captcha' you click....

[Diaboli]

age 3 autobuyers dont work, they dont recognize the new system, but it would take 10 seconds for someone who knows what they are doing to program a new one that works. I think getting rid of autobuyers should be a top priority

[Stephen]

Hey admins, thanks for letting autobuyers run crazy again, just look at the pages, there are half as many people with over a million gold than there was 2 days ago, somthing has obviously happened, and im not the only one seeing this, autobuyers are back.
That is certainly not a scientific method. You are comparing 2 samples, and drawing a conclusion that would be explained by dozens of things including slight coincidence.


I'm in college, so I always have access to a computer, and I wake up every 3 hours to spend my gold. It's called dedication. You can't whine about other people playing more than you do...

[Jognt]

That is certainly not a scientific method. You are comparing 2 samples, and drawing a conclusion that would be explained by dozens of things including slight coincidence.


I'm in college, so I always have access to a computer, and I wake up every 3 hours to spend my gold. It's called dedication. You can't whine about other people playing more than you do...

even if his conclusion isnt 100% reliable and scientificly proven, it is the most logical solution that comes to ones mind ;)

some people indeed wake up a lot, but when suddenly a lot of people keep their armorys filled, and other people start spamming mailboxes with autobuyers, what do you think the logical conclusion would be? ;) :wacko:

[DragonMagic]

Well they are now out for GOOD!!!!

I like new numbers in armory and merc....train, but demm this take more time then before owell.

Know there will alot gold happy farming:)

[BigBubba]

Well they are now out for GOOD!!!!

I like new numbers


Except when its red x's man...

[Bloodpriest]

couldnt this just be for armory and messages for attacking and sabbing is this really annoying :(

[SuNNYHeirReborn3]

kinda interseting - btw how many of you have multiple pages of yr KOC account open? I use Firefox and Netscape - one attacks / spies then the armour page can be already partly filled in - re the new box with 4 digits....

otherwise you steal some gold - just to have it stolen from under you...

[Stephen]

even if his conclusion isnt 100% reliable and scientificly proven, it is the most logical solution that comes to ones mind ;)
Well that's how people invented God. Look where that got us.

some people indeed wake up a lot, but when suddenly a lot of people keep their armorys filled, and other people start spamming mailboxes with autobuyers, what do you think the logical conclusion would be? ;) :wacko:That everyone simultaneously download and/or wrote autobuyers? Um... no. That's absurd. Statistical anomaly is the best explanation.

[Chaos NOW!!!]

There are better ways of stopping cheaters, without ruining it for the rest of us. However, it requires actual programming skills, which the KoC admins apparently are sorely lacking. An automated system could simply search them out, and ban them... The current counter measures will not stop the cheaters.

Playing is now like clicking. It is about time they rename the game Kings of Clicking, or perhaps Kings of Copying, but that doesn't quite have them same ring to it...

It used to be possible to play KoC without loading images. Now it is impossible. This slows down the game for me and everyone else with dial-up. The copying of text into boxes further slows the game down, and frankly makes it more like work than play.

Of course, the clicking to get more soldiers is as always the real problem. If people didn't get soldiers so damn fast, they would have no need to train them with auto-trainers, and their tbg wouldn't be so freaking large that they feel they need auto-buyers...

The recruiters/clickers is what the admins should make illegal. It is very easy to see who is using them...

Chaos NOW!!!

[domin8ah]

This is really getting annoying.. sometimes you have to recon someone 5-6 times before you can attack them. By the time I've taken their money I've typed in some stupid string of characters 6-7 times :s

[magic_73]

the new system is good but, its not goog for everyone. most of players were using autobuyers so theyre angry now

[Rapt0r-15]

the new system is good but, its not goog for everyone. most of players were using autobuyers so theyre angry now
aren't you use autobuyer :D

[Phyrus]

the new system is good but, its not goog for everyone. most of players were using autobuyers so theyre angry now

ummm.. thats the point. youve just counter-acted on your own argument there.

the whole idea was to kill off autobuyers, so therefore we expect AB users to be angry.

[ducttapefashion]

I couldn't be happier that AB's are gone. Unfortunately it will only be a week or so before someone cracks the current system. I'm tempted to figure it out just to see if I can, but its simply too much bother for someone who's on a 20hr college schedule :s


Lets hope that AB's stay DEAD. THANK YOU ADMINS FOR PUTTING GOLD BACK ON THE FIELD

[Xer0n]

as it is now im stealing 5 mill+ all the time :D hope te autobuyers stay away

[King_Cameleon]

I am happy too that autobuyers are gone atm, probably I was one of the best ranked players in age 3 without using autobuyer :p

I think if they change the system to buy weapons or train soldiers every 1 or 2 weeks it will be very effective, most players who don't know anything about computers will not have stupid ab anymore.

[Diaboli]

I'm in college, so I always have access to a computer, and I wake up every 3 hours to spend my gold. It's called dedication. You can't whine about other people playing more than you do...

no thats not dedication, thats just pathetic

[Elvishlord]

no thats not dedication, thats just pathetic

At least he is working to get somewhere :frusty:


StephenKenny01, respect to you lol

[elvsking]

To band auto buyers you need to get read of the images system, make a random appear button for user to click and some fake buttons, if the buttons change position at every 10 seconds the problem is solve (an auto program will not be effective because he can click a button he don’t know were it is) and a lot of player will stop complaining abut the stupid imagines system.

A good programmer only need an imagine comparing program and a picture and solution data base to make an auto buyer and if you consider the activity in a medium chain of command (1000+) the imagine system can be ineffective in 1-2 days.

[boriszima]

Think of the system as carrot and a stick.
capitalism has big carrot and huge stick
communism had huge carrot and small stick.

what i am saying, not only should admins make autobuyers harder, but actually ban the people who try to use them. this is nothing new and we all know its not that hard to do.
check login times and see anything unusual. if admins wont be banning anybody, this just makes it harder for other people and only a small setback for cheaters. they can always repogram and done deal. but if admins startec banning people, those autobuyer users wont be using them in fear of account termination and public humiliation.

cheaters will be cheating, unless the insentive is gone

[rtsk]

To band auto buyers you need to get read of the images system, make a random appear button for user to click and some fake buttons, if the buttons change position at every 10 seconds the problem is solve (an auto program will not be effective because he can click a button he don’t know were it is) and a lot of player will stop complaining abut the stupid imagines system.

A good programmer only need an imagine comparing program and a picture and solution data base to make an auto buyer and if you consider the activity in a medium chain of command (1000+) the imagine system can be ineffective in 1-2 days.

No. There are billions of possible pictures. You cannot keep a database of them.

The only way to break the CAPTCHA (feasably) would be to pre-process, breaking it down into characters. Further analysis would be done on these characters (i.e. producing skeletons, etc.)

NNs would then be used to actually find the characters. They'd need to be fairly well trained, however.

As for a randomly appearing button - how are you going to do that? The only way to make that work (without consuming a huge amount of bandwidth (i.e. using flash) would be to use js.)

The js would be submitting in a way that will stay the same until you update the page; a program could simply parse it to find out what to POST.

In the same way, if flash or something similar was used (which would be pretty stupid to begin with), there are many programs (an even a firefox plugin) monitoring what is POSTed; this would follow a pattern of some sort.

[Lightwarrior]

Ok the Koc admins have made an effort to stop Autobuyers with the need to input text but it doesnt take a computer genius to figure out that this wont stop Autobuyers or people programming them .Just a hint to the koc admins add a time out so people have to relogin and refresh the armory and training pages every 25mins or so and this will get rid of a few more Autobuyers .

[pitagora]

Ok the Koc admins have made an effort to stop Autobuyers with the need to input text but it doesnt take a computer genius to figure out that this wont stop Autobuyers or people programming them .Just a hint to the koc admins add a time out so people have to relogin and refresh the armory and training pages every 25mins or so and this will get rid of a few more Autobuyers .

i simple refresh once evey 2-30 mins in the autobuyer would counter that. So there is no point in it

[elvsking]

No. There are billions of possible pictures. You cannot keep a database of them.

The only way to break the CAPTCHA (feasably) would be to pre-process, breaking it down into characters. Further analysis would be done on these characters (i.e. producing skeletons, etc.)

NNs would then be used to actually find the characters. They'd need to be fairly well trained, however.

As for a randomly appearing button - how are you going to do that? The only way to make that work (without consuming a huge amount of bandwidth (i.e. using flash) would be to use js.)

The js would be submitting in a way that will stay the same until you update the page; a program could simply parse it to find out what to POST.

In the same way, if flash or something similar was used (which would be pretty stupid to begin with), there are many programs (an even a firefox plugin) monitoring what is POSTed; this would follow a pattern of some sort.



You could use a random function (no pattern nothing) and the it could be a small program to do this not the all page only a small part and the program can be done in other programs and use a application to open this program on the page but this mean the admins need to know that. And they are some auto clickers and that image is very hard to brake uses a character recognizes program. I the max number of combination is 1,679,616 (36^4) but the really number is smaller then this. And you don’t need to keep all the imagine in a data base is easy to divide any imagine in 4 characters and store them in a data base this mean 36 characters * the number of fonts they use let say 100 (in reality I think they are les), this mean 3600 imagine in a data base and this is easy to store, if the player ho make the AB have some knowledge of programming is easy to make a program to auto save all imagine process and their result (the correct one), let take a command chain of 100 this mean every player most resolve 36 imagine (in reality more because some will repeat) and in les the a day you have a perfect running AB. The methods with the login is useless because a lot of active players will get ban without any reason, I’m at faculty and have access to internet from home and from my faculty this mean I stay on koc 12-18 hours a day (of course I do other thing in this time this is the average time I spend on the internet) and I don’t need to by weapons every 30 minutes (some time I do this depends of what weapons I buy) I buy weapons when I have over 2 millions the koc admins can think I’m using an auto buyer, and they more player ho do the same is not write to ban all this player because we have more time to spend on KOC.

[clockhuys]

I think they should just use the UID captcha's. They are the most secure, and hardest to break.

When someone logs in, give him 5mins to spend his money, and then give him a captcha before he can do anything on www.koc.com. From then on, give him a captcha every 30mins. if he logs out and in again within an 8 (or any other reasonable time) hour period, give him a captcha immediatly after login in, before he can do anything.

(him could be replaced with her)

[Chaos NOW!!!]

Anything that would mean that we did not have to put in a code for every action would be greatly appreciated.

Once every hour would be enough. Test at login isn't really needed, as autobuers can be continually logged in anyways.

The test could be just as complicated as they want, as long as we don't have to do it while playing!!! If we knew when we have to put in a code, then we could take a break and do that, and then get back to playing the game.

Chaos NOW!!!

[Phyrus]

no thats not dedication, thats just pathetic

care to explain your assumption?

[elvsking]

clockhuys have a strong point their, put a test any test at 30 minutes let say and when you log in make him more complicated but not pot them when the rang are upgrading or during the beginning of the turn. At the middle of the turn it will be very fine.

[rtsk]

Oh, FFS. There are far more combinations; do you think each letter is in the exact same place every single time? Or in the same orientation? (With the latter probably more of a concern for those who write AB's)

And just how are you going to recognise the letters? It is not a partictularly easy task.

The best way would be to use NNs; very few people would know how to use these; I doubt that even Lor20 or LS would be able to code a NN system in a snap, right now.

And even then, they would need to be trained appropriately. Even if you have perfect training data, it will still make mistakes.

Or are you one of those people who think computers can just do image and voice recognition in a snap, eh? click your fingers and recognise an image. Yeah, right.

Please, read more on the subject (image recognition) before making assumptions about how easy it would be. You cannot just take any image with characters in it and recognise them easily.

As for relogin - erm, don't you think the AB could just login every time it buys? No petty measures like that would work, and if it can beat a CAPTCHA once, it can beat it again. The limiting thing is the nature of the web - a remote web page cannot do much client-side.

[Mishkle]

I believe the system was designed so it was near impossible to create AutoBuyers.
Every single image that is produced, is related to the users IP address (or so I have been told). It would simply be too hard. Someone is probably trying pretty hard to get it working though.

I think we are better off without the AutoBuyers myself. I think if you want to play this game, you have to accept a loss of cash every now and then, if you are not on the game the whole time.

[rtsk]

Every single image that is produced, is related to the users IP address (or so I have been told)


How does that change anything for someone attempting to write an autobuyer? Seriously, that increases the difficulty (i.e. has as much relevance) as a timeout on the logon or using js to create a button after a random time - basically none.

[clockhuys]

it should be pretty easy to make an autobuyer with these images.

Suppose you write a captcha-recogniser that only recognises the "fully filled" characters, or characters with an edge around them. and suppose there are 10 diferent forms of characters (1 filled, open, pickled, etc. probably there are less, and more could be recognised by the same program). this recogniser will recognise 1 out of 5 characters (remember there are already commercial programs that recognise handwriting, so it can be done relatively easy). the chance that the first char is recognised is 1/5, same goes for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, .... So for 4 characters, the chance that you will recognise a complete captcha will be 1/5 * 1/5 * 1/5 * 1/5 = 1/625

This means you need to try buying 625 times before actually buying something. Buying 625 times is easily done in half an hour with an automated process.

So my conclusion: Autobuyers are already made, but the users won't advertise with it, because of the new rules. Last age an autobuyer could be made in a "legal" way, so advertising it was massively done.



About the captcha on login in: It is required. If you just give players 5 minutes every time before the first captcha pops up, you could easily make an autobuyer that logs in, spends, and logs out in 2 minutes, and repeat this every half hour.

[rtsk]

They're still differently oriented and stuff. Don't you think there may be a reason WHY most handwriting recognition programs need to be bought? It is not trivial to recognise characters under any circumstances.

How, exactly, would the potential criminal go about recognising the character? Fine, it's fairly simple to split them up, then, say, make a skeleton out of each one with intersections and endpoints. You would still find it extraordinarily difficult to solve using a static function - that's why a NN would almost certainly be required.

Look it up yourself if you want - many CAPTCHAs have been broken (and the people who have done so generally don't reveal how, for obvious reasons.) But allusions to NNs are quite common.

You do realise the characters are rotated as well, and the lossy compression doesn't make it any easier.

Fine, they may well be able to make one that's accurate once in many hundreds of times. But if I was to make an autobuyer (which I have not, am not, and never will), I would consider that to be a waste of bandwidth, as well as a failure. Even making one that accurate would take a hell of a lot of effort.

If you wrote a recruiter, and it crashed after every 5 links or so, fine, it works, but it's pretty close to broken and is almost an insult.

[elvsking]

Don’t be so sure this is the only way, I make a program then can “learn” using a simply principle and use him in a small game of X-0 and my program is learning I play the game some times and when a wile I can’t beet the computer because he learn all the move. Is the same principle her you don’t need a powerful recognizes program because is easy to make one of your one, is not so hard if you have some programming skills. The big problem is an other if you do this is only a some player could use this because it will need very good internet connection this program will need a lot of recourses. My program is made in a programming language (DELPHI) and is not suitable of internet use, so you need to find another way to make this program in an internet program, and you need a fast server to keep the data base there, it is simple for a player ho is good at internet programming (unfortunates for me I don’t know this). But I’m sure some player already does this the system is easy to brake.

[clockhuys]

If i would make an autobuyer, and I would use it (which I won't), I will use it when I am not around my computer. When I am not around my computer, I don't care about wasting bandwith, because I don't need it. When I am at my computer, I will buy without the AB. For recruiters, it is completely different. Off course it is a failure if you can only click 5 links in 10 minutes or so, but when it takes an AB 10 mins to buy something, it still has 20 mins left.

btw, what is NN?

[Chaos NOW!!!]

I understand the need for a test at login now, but I still say that after that it would be better with a time interval, rather than having to do it all the freakin' time!!!

Chaos NOW!!!

[Lightwarrior]

Well it seems that people have found a way round Autobankerst and have others banking for them instead .Check a random sample of the top 200 and see how many never have more than a turn or two at most gold over a 48 hr period there are a lot like that and before some idiot pipes up that perhaps they get up every hr dont bother .Unfortunately KOC still has massive amounts of lamers who cannot play without resorting to these tactics .

[Chaos NOW!!!]

Hopefully some more juicy betrayals will follow...