By frank, Jul 11, 2012

The heavy-handed developer of EVE Online has been cracking down on mining botters who use IP-shielding programs like VMWare. But a new software called Red Guard is attracting botters who think it will provide better protection from detection and banning.

Mining botters consist of single individuals who like to farm ISK for their own needs, and large-scale operations that fund the supply lines of RMT sellers. A vast majority of botters from both camps use VMWare to disguise their IP address and allow them to run multiple bots.

But in a post over the weekend, Nosy Gamer revealed that some botters are starting to look into Red Guard as a replacement to VMWare.

“I only lost 2 of my 5 active botting accounts so far. The 2 accounts were on VMware with each using its own subscribed VPN. Only 1 account per VM and VPN so 5 VM's were running in total. I expect to lose all of them shortly so I have taken the precaution to move the assets out of them and monitor the situation over the next few days. I will then use Red Guard with new toons and see how I get on,” said bot user Dinky.

Red Guard offers 24/7 proxy support so botters can fly under the radar, and it also eliminates hard links between accounts so that when an account is flagged it will be difficult to link it to other botting accounts, said creator Civan in his comprehensive guide on how to use Red Guard.

Civan explained that eliminating hard links in the IP and hardware signature is crucial to minimizing the losses related to bot detection.

“Yes, when an ordinary GM goes through the banning song-and-dance routine they will usually only investigate the hard links, especially the hardware sig. However if you are a VIP target (usually RMT), they will try to go after any other links they can find too,” he said.

But Red Guard seeks to erase hard links so “that if you get one account banned it will be hard or impossible for a gm to ban all other accounts that you may have.”

Despite making it harder for the EVE Online anti-botting team to crush botting operations in one fell swoop, Red Guard is still not a 100% guarantee especially for reckless botters engaging in extremely flag-worthy behavior.

“I have noticed that some people use Red Guard as some sort of voodoo treatment meant to banish the evil spirits of detection. I even had one guy complaining that Red Guard did not make it impossible for a GM to ban him,” he said.

“If all your accounts bot 23.5/7 then don't expect miracles.”