Wrongful ban and a warning to those who box to farm

[Nezreck]

I should have titled this differently, Wrongful ban and potentially helpful information to others who box to farm hyperspawns"""

As a few of you know from responding to me in the previous forum post about BFA boxing know, i have been banned for 6 months, a ban that i attempted to fight to the point where blizzard has shut me right out with not a single chance left to appeal, the final response read as followed

Hello, ****
Supervisor Borroq here.

I've reviewed thousands of pages of logs and our detection methods, and have come to the same inescapable conclusion: while you were multiboxing, you were also using automation software.

Multiboxing in and of itself is acceptable, but when that multiboxing crosses over into any level of intelligence or automation, then it is no longer acceptable.

In this case, it's clear that advanced software well beyond key-cloning was in use.

As such, all accounts will remain suspended for the entire 6-month period. Once the suspensions have elapsed, you're welcome to return to them provided you do not return to automating them.

This constitutes the final review of the situation, and customer service will not provide additional reviews or information, nor will any of the suspensions be overturned.If you wish to contest this further, please review your options as laid out in https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/legal...ense-agreement and https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/legal/b2e0b082-fddb-4824-93fa-ee9c1bf814f8/blizzard-entertainment



I'm sure a few don't believe me and that's fine, I would like to put forth any information i can that will aid others in avoiding the same fate i have.

-Mods i was using at the time-

Elvui
Tradeskill master 4
Scrap
Easy scrap
Jamba 8.0.1
ISBoxer
Auctionator
Garrisonmissionmanager
Gathermate2
GTFO
KUI nameplates
LootAppraiser
Weakauras
Whotaunted
Worldquestlist
GnomeSequencer, with a cast sequence macro for sunfire-sunfire-sunfire-starfall
Bigwigs
Littlewigs
Details
Handynotes - BFA
Moveanything
Advanced Interfact Options
GMdurability
Pawn

-Programs i use to box and the set ups i use within-

Isboxer -
Straight broadcasts of 1 through 6 Alt 1 through 5, R-T-E-Q-AltE-AltQ-AltR-
Mouse Broadcasting for gethering/looting,
Interact with target for talking with NPC's/looting
Click bar for broadcasting /camp, a macro that raises my render scale, and a macro that lowers render scale for moving through cities, And a click bar to place battle standards for the leveling process that i had not used since 2 days after the release of the expansion.

-Background programs running While boxing-

Spotify
Voicemeter for splitting discord off streaming
Steam
Innerspace - ISBoxer
Google chrome
Discord
Corsair utility engine - No macros, just color control i just figured out how to use for my keyboard, i use a razer deathadder mouse without razer synapse installed.

That is it, i have nothing fancy, i don't even use isboxer to is full potential, i run a very caveman like set up. Not a thing i do or use would be considered anything even close to " advanced software well beyond key-cloning " unless there is something i don't understand with how i used isboxer, or potentially combined with Gnome sequencer, was my first time using this addon and only had it for 3 days.

But I've almost lost and i don't want anyone else to lose, Please make sure you are keeping an eye on your toons for GM checks and other silly shit going on, because getting banned, scolded and basically shit for not actually breaking any rules is heartbreaking, Everything i have i have worked so hard on and there will unfortunately be no recovery if i cannot win. often bans for botting i am told will cost you you're entire account wide gold balance so resubbing them down the road will be tokenless, and for now with my current financial state i'm out of the game, Thanks for all the chats and good times, Hopefully my situation changes down the line when my accounts are freed but for now i'll just be chillin. Cheers eh

One question if anyone does know, if i find the means to round up a temporary account to keep raiding with my guild etc, Will i be allowed to play with that game license or does blizzard consider this a ban evasion, IE will this cost me more in the long run.

Edited to change the way i worded a few things

[WOWBOX40]

Damn that really sucks.

They have direct access to all your hardrives and thumbdrives etc. Doublecheck those aswell, maybe you had some program/software active at one time, which you tried out at one point.

If nothing happens except one action when you press and hold down a keyboard key, you obviously arent automating keypresses.

He still claims that after thousands of pages of logs, there is signs that a automation type of software was used.
Maybe they dont know which one it is, sounds like they mean their anti botting detection software picked up patterns, suggesting a external computer(robot?) was used.

Whichever pc you have installed wow / battle.net on, they have access to it. Even if you maybe dont use it to play on any longer. If you use that pc for other things while playing wow on a different pc, if any shaddy programs is on the other pc, they can find it. The best way to clear it, is to completely re-install the os, so everything get wiped.

Same goes for your cellphone, if you have installed anything wow related. Quite possibly then "warden" gets installed.

[MiRai]

One question if anyone does know, if i find the means to round up a temporary account to keep raiding with my guild etc, Will i be allowed to play with that game license or does blizzard consider this a ban evasion, IE will this cost me more in the long run.

No, there's no such thing as ban evasion (in WoW) as far as Blizzard is concerned.

They have direct access to all your hardrives and thumbdrives etc. Doublecheck those aswell, maybe you had some program/software active at one time, which you tried out at one point.

Whichever pc you have installed wow / battle.net on, they have access to it. Even if you maybe dont use it to play on any longer. If you use that pc for other things while playing wow on a different pc, if any shaddy programs is on the other pc, they can find it. The best way to clear it, is to completely re-install the os, so everything get wiped.

Everything you said in the above quote is 100% false. Blizzard does not have access to anything outside of the game client.

Same goes for your cellphone, if you have installed anything wow related. Quite possibly then "warden" gets installed.

Wrong again - Warden gets downloaded to your computer when you log into the game client; it's not just sitting in the WoW folder on your computer, and it's certainly not getting installed to your phone when you run a Blizzard app.

[charly]

Nezreck

Everything you said in the above quote is 100% false. Blizzard does not have access to anything outside of the game client.

It's slightly different. Based on the ToS, it says

WHILE RUNNING, THE PLATFORM AND/OR A GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S MEMORY FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING EITHER CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME OR OUT OF PROCESS. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE PROHIBITED BY SECTION 1.C.ii. ABOVE. IN THE EVENT THAT THE GAME DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, (A) THE GAME MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE; AND/OR (B) BLIZZARD MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO YOU.

I can't confirm it, but from what I read here and there, the client will scan the processes (and its memory) that attached themselves to the client. Apparently Warden is not that of a sophisticated application, it makes checks here and there in the client, but that's it. However, the client actively looks for infringing patterns in the memory and processes it scans (based on public bots and well known "cheating" libraries). Now putting my tin foil, you could then imagine that they have the possibility to get your Isboxer setup (passed on to Innerspace) or even your discord discussions when they inject their dll to the game.

To come back to this ban, based on Nezreck's reputation and quality videos, I would guess that it is an unfortunate situation. I would not be surprised that
1) Nezreck's heavy farming to purchase subscriptions.
2) The usage of Innerspace which was used (back 10 years ago) as framework for bots.
3) A reasonable doubt about automation based on raw logs listing the toons' actions
... made the GM to ban the accounts after receiving complains.

That is all a guess, but something to sadly keep in mind when we multibox.

[sorrowharvester]

Nezreck

I can't confirm it, but from what I read here and there, the client will scan the processes (and its memory) that attached themselves to the client. Apparently Warden is not that of a sophisticated application, it makes checks here and there in the client, but that's it. However, the client actively looks for infringing patterns in the memory and processes it scans (based on public bots and well known "cheating" libraries). Now putting my tin foil, you could then imagine that they have the possibility to get your Isboxer setup (passed on to Innerspace) or even your discord discussions when they inject their dll to the game.

What I can confirm is it definitely scans the memory space.
This a vast simplification of the technical details, but, I talked to an old botter back in the day and there were (and probably still are) ways to put the game in a memory space where Warden can't detect other programs.

I won't detail that here for obvious reasons and _I_ will never do this as Karma is always a b*tch to me, I actually have friends at Blizzard and don't want my kids to lose their accounts (and mine of course), but, anyway, there it is

As per the thread, that really stinks to lose all those accounts for 6 months. This is one of the reasons I don't spam farm out in the open because people are complainers and sometimes Blizzard Support may not really dig into the issue

[MiRai]

Everything you said in the above quote is 100% false. Blizzard does not have access to anything outside of the game client.

It's slightly different. Based on the ToS, it says

WHILE RUNNING, THE PLATFORM AND/OR A GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S MEMORY FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING EITHER CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME OR OUT OF PROCESS. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE PROHIBITED BY SECTION 1.C.ii. ABOVE. IN THE EVENT THAT THE GAME DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, (A) THE GAME MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE; AND/OR (B) BLIZZARD MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO YOU.

I can't confirm it, but from what I read here and there, the client will scan the processes (and its memory) that attached themselves to the client. Apparently Warden is not that of a sophisticated application, it makes checks here and there in the client, but that's it. However, the client actively looks for infringing patterns in the memory and processes it scans (based on public bots and well known "cheating" libraries).

When I say "the game client" I am talking about what is loaded into the memory space of your machine, from where the game client is operating from. What isn't true, at all, is what I quoted:

They have direct access to all your hardrives and thumbdrives etc. Doublecheck those aswell, maybe you had some program/software active at one time, which you tried out at one point.

Whichever pc you have installed wow / battle.net on, they have access to it. Even if you maybe dont use it to play on any longer. If you use that pc for other things while playing wow on a different pc, if any shaddy programs is on the other pc, they can find it. The best way to clear it, is to completely re-install the os, so everything get wiped.

-------

Now putting my tin foil, you could then imagine that they have the possibility to get your Isboxer setup (passed on to Innerspace) or even your discord discussions when they inject their dll to the game.

Blizzard is aware of the fact that Inner Space is loaded into the game client—it's 100% visible and not being obfuscated because there's no reason to do that; Warden can see that it's loaded in there, and Warden doesn't care. If Warden cared, multiboxing with Inner Space would have ended a long time ago.

In addition, Blizzard isn't downloading anything from your computer, unrelated to the game, because that's entirely illegal. They don't know what you're discussing on Discord, they don't know what tabs are open in your browser, they don't know your download history, and they don't have your ISBoxer profile. Even if they did have any of this information, simply discussing or visiting sites that offer gold and/or bots doesn't mean that you buy gold, sell gold, or use bots.

I feel that the above needs to be repeated from time to time because people either forget, or new people show up. So, I'm not aiming this at you, specifically, but, based on some of what's already been posted in this thread, some people think that Warden has complete control of their computer.

[charly]

I feel that the above needs to be repeated from time to time because people either forget, or new people show up. So, I'm not aiming this at you, specifically, but, based on some of what's already been posted in this thread, some people think that Warden has complete control of their computer.

I understand the need to repeat that the game client does not invade the players privacy without consent. It would be illegal as you said, and people would quickly find out about it. I obviously did not explain my reasoning correctly. I tried to explain that the game client does not limit itself to its own user space. WoW runs with admin privileges and the process has been caught checking windows title, windows icon and opening binaries from processes that attached themselves to the client. That anti-cheating mechanism has actually no name, and is not related to Warden which only focuses on checks within the game client process. All in all, we don't know exactly what the game client does outside of the game scope, and although I reasonably think it does not invade privacy, we don't know what Blizzard deems to be ethical. My "tin foil" thought was definitely too extreme and not useful to this discussion, but I would not be surprised that, in the future, they would cross more boundaries to improve their anti-cheating mechanism while not making sure that the players understand what's happening on their machine. It is not all black or white in this situation.

[Nezreck]

i'm actually running on a fresh format that i had 3 weeks before BFA, only external hard drive that has accessed my computer at any point was a movie collection i use for the smart TV, i have not downloaded any program for any game that could have done anything for interacting with wow, other programs i do have are things like nexus mod manager, Twitch app, cpuCores "steam app to maximize cpu cores - seemingly did not work and has not been used in 2-3 weeks" Skyrim skript extender, OBS broadcasting softwear, Streamlabs OBS broadcasting softwear, Realtek HD audio manager TSM desktop app. etc

[WOWBOX40]

Its wierd indeed.

He seems very sure:

"I've reviewed thousands of pages of logs and our detection methods, and have come to the same inescapable conclusion: while you were multiboxing, you were also using automation software.

Multiboxing in and of itself is acceptable, but when that multiboxing crosses over into any level of intelligence or automation, then it is no longer acceptable.

In this case, it's clear that advanced software well beyond key-cloning was in use".

Could there be part of addons that have automation? I remember a pet battle addon that allow you to save teams for spesific fights. Like i could make it automatically switch over to a certain petset and spells, the moment i started the fight, vs that named pet. You could spend time creating a loadout for each garrison pet boss, and then after that you never had to remember which pet and spells you needed to use anymore. It was automatically changed to your saved loadout when you started the fight. It felt like cheating, so i barely used it and then removed it.

[Nezreck]

The only addon I can think of is gnome sequencer being that it actively swaps spells out in the sequence, and if that's the case then a massive number of players are in trouble :/