WTS Antispam Security System

[Xeonc]

Hey folks!

 

We are glad to announce our new product - Security against spam

 

First of all lets discuss a bit about this problem. Nowadays this problem is a pain in the ass on almost all popular servers, when tons of different adena martkets promotes their websites. And earn money on your players. Which damage make spammers to your server?

 

1. Economical system on many game servers are built on those fact, that donate coins are tradeable, in that case donators may buy more coins, then they need directly, and sell to other players for adena or other goods. If many adena-markets would work on your server - they could buy adena directly there, and you will loose money.
   
2. Spam is annoying, really annoying, we suppose that somewhere in hell exists a special place for them. They make all chats totally unusable
   
3. Spammers can advertise competitors projects
   

 

So average money loss can be up to 30%. And its obvious that problem couldn't be ignored

 

How admins usually controls it? May be someone have some custom methods, but usually solutions are like:

1. Manual control directly in game. It is enough effective, but with GM characters is imposible to control spam in Whisper, and it requires a tons of time
   
2. Hire moderators for money or some goods. The same like previous solution, you should spend the money, but you'll save some time
   
3. Ban by player reports. Its almost the same then and not doing nothing, because reaction will be very slow
   
4. Set up limits for sending messages and sit on the trade. It makes some problems for spammers, but more problems it brings to legal players who just start on the server, and can't have any conversation
   
5. Chat logs parsing. It will require some knowledge and technical expertise, but could help for very annoying spam. But some random messages it can't detect, WTS/WTB interfaces, Party Looking Room - it can't catch at all
   

 

 

What could we offer?  SaaS multilevel filtering system

1. First layer. Trace application, which are built-in game server and collect data about all chats, trader, Party Looking Room, Mails, Friend Chat. In other words - from all players where could be wrote smth
   
2. Collected data sends to analytic tool. Collecting data and sending process are fully transparent for server owner
   
3. By our own algorithms this data will be analysed and loaded to Web-interface
   
4. Server owner or his support team can ban all the spammers. If detection was wrong - mark detection as false
   
5. If spam will be detected, web-interface will send an pop-up message, and sound-alert. In that case spammer could be erased in less then 2 minutes:https://gyazo.com/fd78a2f56060f2802463b68565d62954
   
6. System detects spam even with huge obfuscation from 21 different adena-markets, and number of markets grows after each new detection
   

 

Which questions are not solved, and under which of them we work right now.

1. Dataset collection for more accurate detection and decreasing false-positive alerts.
   
2. Automatic bans, without human control when spam is obvious. Ban chats, or other soft-bans, when probability is high, but false-positive could exist. This settings defines server owner
   
3. Adaptation for java servers
   

 

Which results we already reached.

It was already tested on 2 highloaded and popular servers. L2E-global GF server in October, and Shock-world Interlude now. During first day of data collection, when we just tested our algorithms - we detected 82k spam messages in 24 hours. When access to the tool was provided to their support team - amount of spam was decreased significant, most of markets dissapeared with their spam totally, who remained got bans very fast.

At December, when Shock-World server started we make some improvements. First of all was redesigned Web-interface for better usability, system started to control all message interfaces, not only chats, added real-time alerts. As fact - with 3k real online server could work almost without spam even without any restrictions on chat/trade. From 21 markets which tried to work there, remained only 3 which appears from time to time and recives fast bans.

 

As extra bonus:) System in "Home" tab shows you all the chat activity on your server

https://gyazo.com/e8f81cf06c4d29fe3f799db033481f16

 

So in any period of time you may read what players thinks about your server, and give punishment for offensive language, or any other negative messages. Also by stop-words is possible to track Real Money traders and bans them too, to avoid money loss

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Xeonc

[Celestine]

Hello, Xeonc You have to use the following prefix at your topic's title [WTS] thanks

good luck also with your product :)

[Xeonc]

Sorry, seems like I can't fix it now:) Someone from moderation team could add this prefix please?

[Celestine]

Sorry, seems like I can't fix it now:) Someone from moderation team could add this prefix please?

 

you can edit it too by editing your thread :)

[∽Ave∽]

Sorry, seems like I can't fix it now:) Someone from moderation team could add this prefix please?

To change Your topic title or add topic prefix, use Edit button located under Your first post and then go into Full Editor:

Take care

Ave

[Xeonc]

To change Your topic title or add topic prefix, use Edit button located under Your first post and then go into Full Editor:

Take care

Ave

Thanks for hint, done :)

[∽Ave∽]

You have add [WTS] text into Your topic. Thats incorrect way for adding prefix. Use "Edit" button under Your first post. Go into "Full Editor" and use this option:

DON'T FORGET to remove the [WTS] text You've added before into Your topic name!

Take care
Ave

Edited January 9, 2017 by aVVe

[AccessDenied]

But you can do same thing in the game without need to send all this info right? I mean 

you can block a range of words such as 

 

Things that start with www or have dots or [.]  or "." or WTS or similar and send him "Invalid message cannot send" right?

[Xeonc]

But you can do same thing in the game without need to send all this info right? I mean 

you can block a range of words such as 

 

Things that start with www or have dots or [.]  or "." or WTS or similar and send him "Invalid message cannot send" right?

Nope.

 

Creating just list of badwords you can make by yourself in any extender or java build I guess :) Our solution is more complicated then just prohibiting some words, which could be easily bypassed. And we collect information, because we need to collect all the information and decissions for the future neuronetwork learning - its the first point. The second point is - we don't want to provide security algorithms to someone, because first of all spammers can get it, and find bypasses more effectively, and second point - system have some updates every day, analytical part, and after update it would be applied instantly for all customers. It will be better for results

Edited January 10, 2017 by Xeonc

[AccessDenied]

Nope.

 

Creating just list of badwords you can make by yourself in any extender or java build I guess :) Our solution is more complicated then just prohibiting some words, which could be easily bypassed. And we collect information, because we need to collect all the information and decissions for the future neuronetwork learning - its the first point. The second point is - we don't want to provide security algorithms to someone, because first of all spammers can get it, and find bypasses more effectively, and second point - system have some updates every day, analytical part, and after update it would be applied instantly for all customers. It will be better for results

 

Yes but my question still exist, what if i put a guy to make me a list of 50000 words and load them and ban them, isn't the same ?

[Xeonc]

Yes but my question still exist, what if i put a guy to make me a list of 50000 words and load them and ban them, isn't the same ?

It isn't, because list of badwords for chat - will not affect trade messages, party looking room, ingame mail

 - its the first point

 

The second point - even 50k bad words cannot ban all the varieties of message, I can write more then 100 variaties only for your nickname :) Any such restriction could be replaced with special words and pseudographic

The third point - will it be cheaper for you?

[AccessDenied]

It isn't, because list of badwords for chat - will not affect trade messages, party looking room, ingame mail

 - its the first point

 

The second point - even 50k bad words cannot ban all the varieties of message, I can write more then 100 variaties only for your nickname :) Any such restriction could be replaced with special words and pseudographic

The third point - will it be cheaper for you?

ok baby

[AlmostGood]

It isn't, because list of badwords for chat - will not affect trade messages, party looking room, ingame mail

 - its the first point

 

The second point - even 50k bad words cannot ban all the varieties of message, I can write more then 100 variaties only for your nickname :) Any such restriction could be replaced with special words and pseudographic

The third point - will it be cheaper for you?

well you could get decent results with regular expressions and constant updates to cover new shuffling ways, but this tool looks more like overall chat audit

interesting, but what about char tittles, shop names or mails? sending it all in real time to external server will cause nice load i bet :D

also i can see admins who will keep away just because its hit to privacy of unaware players if 3rd side can read everything

[Xeonc]

well you could get decent results with regular expressions and constant updates to cover new shuffling ways, but this tool looks more like overall chat audit

interesting, but what about char tittles, shop names or mails? sending it all in real time to external server will cause nice load i bet :D

also i can see admins who will keep away just because its hit to privacy of unaware players if 3rd side can read everything

We made a very good infrastructure and solution, how to decrease load, even if we will collect information from 100 high loaded servers in the same moment :)

 

Your point about privacy is understandable, but I don't think that chat messages could be a real problem. Which real private information could be there? And I hope you understand, that its almost unreal to read all the chat messages by any human. Otherwise - I guess not so many  people realy cares to use some other SaaS products, like gmail, hotmail, facebook, trello, github, etc. this list is really long for every of us

[AlmostGood]

i was more concerned about game server, even if minimal its still cpu/network overhead and if server starts with huge online it might have impact,

 

also how fast will this tool block spammers? because as you said it doesn't include delays on msg sending, so i could easily build list of nicks from towns, save it up, and then send 3k PMs in bunches from 5 characters at same time, without delays it will take like 1 minute and once msg is sent it won't matter when ban will come :D