Interpreting the EULA.
During the recent debacle over the actions of some Denial HC’s I came across some information about Denials internal tools, which along with a quote from the EULA provided by Kargool prompted me to write this thread. I bring this up for public discussion because it lacks direct precedent and thus I feel the community has to make up its mind as to what the stance on it should be. I would ask of each of you to refrain from abusive comments so that we might hold a civil debate on this subject. Thank you.
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a) The game may be accessed only through standard browsers or similar devices. b) Any automation of any actions is prohibited. c) The game content may not be used to create any devices through which the game can be played. How is this then to be interpreted? Various interpretations are possible, but in the interest of brevity I will only deal with the extremes. The lenient interpretation of the rules states that you shall use a standard browser to access the game, each action must be performed by the player himself, and you may not create external measure which either access the game for you or perform actions without your involvement. As such, this forbids the use of bots and various scripts which may serve to automate various actions as well as custom programs for viewing the content provided. This may be seen as the conventional interpretation. The stringent interpretation prohibits the use of any form of external measures which may be used to access the content, automate the use of it in any way or otherwise to play the game. Again, this prohibits the use of bots and various scripts as well as tools which may be indirectly used to automate the gameplay. Now whilst these may seem quite similar, the results are quite different. Taken to its extremes, it might be argued that the stringent interpretation would disallow the use of a battlecalc or a service such as sandmans, because they provide a external way of viewing the content as well as automate various functions of the game. Luckily this is not the case, as Planetarion provides the information these services make use of freely and with the implied consent of their use for said services. Furthermore in law tradition may be regarded as a precedent. As these services are not only enabled by the actions of Planetarion but are also well known and have not been found to be in breach of the rules in the past, it may be concluded that they are allowed. As I said earlier, I have come across some information with regards to Denial and their use of tools which may be considered in breach of the EULA. The tool in question is a IRC-bot which allows the creation of direct links to perform various actions within the game. I would like to stress that I am not proposing that aforementioned actions are illegal, however it seems to me that the use of said automation is in breach of at least the stringent interpretation of the rules, as well as our basic principles as set forth earlier. As basis for this interpretation I provide: a) The bot automates the performance of an action be reducing multiple tasks to a single clicking of a link, thus it is in breach of principle b under a stringent interpretation which includes indirect automation. b) Said automation may be viewed as either a means by which to access the game which is beyond that of a standard browser, or indeed as a means of playing the game itself, in which case it is in breach of principles a and/or c. c) The means by which the bot has been created utilizes game content which is not distributed with intent but as a side-effect of how the game is coded. This implies that the utilization of said content which enabled the creation of said bot is in violation of principle c, and that the bot itself is in breach of the EULA(note that this does not in and of itself render the use of said bot in breach of the rules). d) The use of such a bot constitutes a unfair advantage within the game as it enables/simplifies various tasks which require either synchronization of events or execution of orders. The mere existence of such a bot implies that it is seen as a tool which provides a advantage in the game in terms of simplifying tasks, lowering the amount of effort required, preventing mishaps(misslaunches and such) and enabling a faster completion of tasks than is ordinarily possible. I would like to finish off by stating that just as in law, each person is responsible for their actions. One can not argue ignorance of the rules, as they are made publicly available and each person is required to affirm them as a part of signing up for the game. Neither is the lack of precedence or an ignorance of the possible interpretations of the rules an argument, as rules are not simply written for present cases but for adaptation in judgment of all future cases as well. This is all. |
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1) Someone does !request planet 1:1:1 2) The bot makes a link out of this information, and pastes it to a scan channel 3) A scanner clicks the link and this opens a tab in his browser of choice containing the normal in-game scan page (basically, by clicking the link, the scanner tells PA "hello, I want a scan on these coords, please give me an URL to it") 4) Scanner then copy/pastes the scan URL back to the bot 5) Bot gives the original "someone" the scan URL. Worth noting at this point is the following script (which I just wrote in about 2 minutes): Code:
on *:TEXT:!open http://game.planetarion.com/*:#denial-scan:{ Effectively what Denial has started doing is create a "master bot", which can create URLs for extremely simple IRC scripts to open, reducing the task of actual human beings to logging in every 2 hours to do the bot checker, after which a single person can control as many accounts as he wants. While I'm confident they haven't taken the second step (which is telling all their members to put this script in their IRC client), which would give them a bonafide botnet, this is a worrying loophole that can very easily be abused, if an alliance so wishes. |
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so in a sense: if you're logged in and are a scanner, someone is basically playing your planet for you?
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As for the browser plug-in used by Denial is clearly a breech of EULA contract has its stated in its definition. just my 3cents |
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well, ive never personally seen the fleet launching on a set tick/coords one, but the clicking a link to get a certain scan is pretty prolific in most allies tools that ive seen, and has been for a long time. I cant see how it would go against the eula if all it does is link you to an ingame page that you yourself have to be logged in and click to use. |
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mz just posted a way it can be automated, and you could write a program that would get the url back for the scan and post it into the channel.. is the same as that EULA part where a bot plays your account imo.
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I may have caused some confusion in my first post.
In no way am I suggesting Denial uses the script I just pasted. There is no evidence supporting that allegation, and I'm not so great a fool to accuse people without even the slightest hint of evidence. All I'm doing is putting forward the motion that it's not desirable to be in a situation in which it's literally 2 minutes of work to create a (crude!) bot that automatically does scans. |
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surely using that script would fall under the 'Accessing the pages with another program' part of the eula which would get you closed, though it'd be pretty hard to prove. The bot isnt the issue in that scenario, its the script that logs in.
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Automating game actions that would require user input normally = cheating
Accessing readily available information through the use of a form of automation = not cheating The information had to be created by user involvement. While using an outside source to do the actions required no user involvement. |
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The script that mz mentions however would be in breach of this. |
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I can't believe people care this much about scanning to actually write this much about it!
ON NOES SCANS MIGHT BE READILY AVAILABLE?!?! |
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so scanning like this is okay, which makes people launching your fleets for you like is is also okay? give me a break. this has 'abuse' and 'bot' written all over it.
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edit: I guess i shud elaborate. I understand this post (primarily the launching fleets accusation) to be based on the lies of a bitter ex HC (Kenny) that was removed from our alliance. Some people Sun_Tzu should just know better. |
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ps. The setting of factories to 0 which some Denial HC's were closed for is also doable through this kind of automatically generated link. |
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All it does is assemble a url with the parameters for scanning pre-populated instead of letting the scanner punch those details in manually.
its not possible for it to use anyone elses accounts in its current form - anyone who clicks that link will perform the scan in their own account assuming they are logged in at the time. As such, i dont think its breaching the EULA clauses on bot usage since at no point does the software interact with your game account. If pateam wanted to stop this sort of thing, its a simple matter of requiring all form submission to be done via POST requests. That will kill the possibility of using a 'time saver' like this, dead. ( legitimately anyway. It would force it to be logged in to an account itself this way - and thats strictly forbidden ) |
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If legality is all your interested in why did you post it in the Alliance Discussion forum? |
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Like watching a car crash in slow motion, all that remains is morbid curiosity at just how bad they'll make it for themselves. |
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Phil^, did you bother reading mz's post where it gives an example of how it can be automated?
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As for the ship launch bit, it either doesn't exist and is probably some twisted fantasy coming from the deep and dark recesses of Kenny's skull, passed on to a more than willing propagandist. Anyone whose read his thread on here would be smart enough to realise that we should be careful about what we believe when he says it. |
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And it doesnt make a difference if he quit when ur posting logs of his conversations with u about this launching fleets shit in #ascendancy for everyone to read, from msn. Its amazing how someone can fabricate such things out of thin air with little/no knowledge of whether or not its even possible. And then our propoganda loving friend Sun_Tzu make posts like this. |
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From my run ins with Kenny in Urwins I can safety say the guy has zero credibility to me. Now, maybe you legitimately think Kenny is on the up and up, people have been gullible before. If so, you're a fool. But hey the world is full of fools and you'll fit in nicely. Personally I doubt you do believe him, but trying to make political mileage from is worth a shot I suppose. P.S: The whole idea of Denial HCs trying to cover the closures up when the MHs leak worse than the Titanic is laughable. Seriously, quit whilst you're only moderatly behind... |
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As for Tzu's so-called propaganda, I have yet to see any unfounded accusations. Fact of the matter is, your alliance is creating links for scanners to click, making the scanning process easier. The question asked in this thread is if that's against the EULA. Personally, I think it's an appropriate one, especially when one considers possible extensions to allow fully automated scanning, such as the script I pasted earlier. |
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Let's see if I can remember how you put it...quit while you're atleast moderately ahead? Ofcourse that's a lie, you're not ahead at all... |
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Its not something that directly interfaces with the game. The moment it does - its forbidden. Its also something that trivial to prevent in the game by changing all variables read in form submissions from GET to POST , and altering all forms to use the POST method. a 5-10 minute job, really. |
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As far as im aware, this is a step they havent implemented but its certainly a feasible option. |
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How bad are you guys going to make it for yourselves? If i were you i would seriously stop trying to defend or justify what was done. |
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Quadruple posting? Seriously man, think of the puppies!
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hey, i had dinner to go eat and couldnt be bothered combining them :)
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Also, I'm told the launch sequence is a post-form atm, however if you figured out what the correct post-sequence would be, I understand you could create such launch links anyway? |
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That it didnt really give much of an advantage beyond all of 5 seconds saved entering the data manually Also that it was trivial to block should pateam feel it is necessary The difference between GET and POST is that GET sends the variable data in the URL - therefore anyone clicking the url submits the same data with POST, the data is sent in the http headers, and can only be submitted by the person who enters it on the form - you cant give a link that fills in the fields as the data does not exist there. it is impossible to generate a link which would work on a POST request. You could create something that performs the POST request itself if you wanted to but that means directly interfacing with the game and thats something which is forbidden edit: there *are* other ways which it could be done such as a custom plugin to automate form sending in the browser but thats something that i can see being written into the eula as banned |
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I would say that clicking a link to do something yourself in planetarion should not be against the rules, as ultimately, the player in question has to take an autonomous decision to take that individual action and click the link to actually do that.
I don't view what you described as an unfair advantage, it's just interfacing with the game more efficiently. Sorry to add this so late (I went to watch the football) Code:
Originally Posted by EULA - "to create or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, such as through server emulators and bots." - the only method that this bot would be illegal is through login sharing, which means the people in question would have to be already cheating - so for this part of the rule it merely facilitates cheats, in the same manner it facilitates legitimate players. - " You may not access the Game or your Account through other software than standard browsers, wap phones and alike, nor may you use automated programs / bots / scripts to do so." - the access here is clearly not automated, or at least no more automated than saving your own password in your browser. I often surf between planetarion screens using my address bar on an unscripted version of firefox rather than clicking - this isn't much different from generating links in a bot to let you access screens or execute actions. - as we can see from rule 18.3 - if a browser contained free text fields or on screen buttons to make it able (for example) to launch while you were still looking from your overview screen - this would clearly be illegal. But using generated links is no different to using the address bar in a standard browser. As far as I can see, just because an alliance cheats in one respect doesn't mean they can't be legitimately innovative in another (although I would probably suggest they've done this inadvertently). |
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Secondly, Denial has no fleet launching bot, nor a bot that does any other type of game interfacing. The scan from url thing, that many allies use, is legal according to Cin. So no further interpretation needed there. Our scanners work very hard, and we are grateful. :) :salute: |
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Your word is not what it used to be Reese. Why should we believe you on this given your recent behaviour?
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