edit: so far I received no positive reaction at all. thus this method is dismissed. have a nice day, everyone.


In the face of a problem with the forums, where automated bots monitor the forum, fetching any posted game key before it has been used by real user - I had an idea recently.

So we complain about the fish stolen from under our noses. Why don't we poison the fish?

How about posting fake keys anywhere in your posts, with some short warning text for humans?


You know that you can overcome text filters by inserting special characters or double characters or what not. Learned this from crappy posts by ad bots on some mail forum. :)

The GOG key is typically 5 digit, 4 group, hexadecimal (0-9, A-F).
Let me give you an example of fake key to ruin life of the bot:

---- (somewhere under your post in any thread)
(this one is a faaAk e kei - a b0 t catcher)

1CFFA-00D1E-B0400-D1E00

Sure, go ahead and test the random key, to make sure nobody has a matching world, if you think your randomly made key could indeed exist.

But I am thinking - what happens to the bot? It will waste resources trying to activate it. And if this practice is adopted more-less?

First time, bot master can try text filters. Won't work, because you can jeopardize text search, like I shown above.
Then, he/she tries block the user who does faking regularly. Profit? I think YES.
And clueless users who try to activate this - contact them via chat and give link to this thread. Not via forum so its unsearchable.

What do you think?

Why bother?
Just don't post codes in the open forums

To fix that ^ ^ ^

You think a bot is gonna care if a key is fake?

Why would a bot care, G2A doesn't. :P

^^ far too true ;)

No it won't. Once it realizes the key doesn't work, it moves on to the next key.
That's like asking what happens if a user somehow manages to get the key before the bot does.

The "make a human answer you" method is still the best way, plain and simple.
Or, as Bigs has pointed out, just don't bother posting open codes in the forum. If you're really that desperate to throw your keys to the wind, I have a community giveaway you can dump them on, and on top of that, there's numerous sites for this purpose, such as:
https://www.keygiveaway.com/

^ THIS ^
I stopped doing that years ago because of the bots, and if it wasn't them, it was just leechers in the forums instead of regular GOG members. ^ ALSO THIS ^ ;)

That's like ignoring your satnav's commands and feeling like genius supervillain. Newsflash: It's a machine. It doesn't care. And it is not inconvenienced by your meddling.

Just make a human answer you and don't post open keys. THAT really stops key crawlers dead in their tracks.

To realize that key does not work, it has to solve captcha.

I don't think that current captcha can be solved by machines, so it human force - paid human force.

That means, with increasing amount of key misses, (key for b ot, don1 use 13ABC-CDEF0-CDEF0-CDEF0)
the bot master will have to cash out much more, that its not worth it at some time!


Salting the water(s) - so that worms die.
This is not designed to be replacement for mahayo! Mahayo is like - encryption, for key to survive in a can of worms. This thing is to make can unsuitable for worms.

So, I am going to be using it! More salt is never bad.

----
crap below, ignore
key key 0AE31-12345-543AA-543AA

Why would that require fixing? Where is the problem in not posting keyes like a moron? Even if there were no bots to snatch the keys, I still don't see why dropping a key like that would be a good idea. I've no idea why people do that. Do you also just randomly drop money on the street instead of buying someone a gift or giving it to a street musician?

No, it doesn't. Otherwise the keys wouldn't be gone immediately. Having a human actually solve captchas would cause a considerable delay that's just not there.

Yes!

And this is a really good example what this is about. At first, all such places will be ignored :) Then bots try to ignore users, who do this often :) Until all topics have this, and bots waste their resource much more than they get anything. :)

Its not about stopping being aware. Why do you guys keep thinking two things can´t coexist? There are no conflicts.


grab a key mr bo ot 1234A-1234B-1234C-1234D

Edit: link fixed

It's not that hard people. It shouldn't be too difficult to tell a bot from a real person especially if if if if if

********

if if if if if....../////

It shouldn't be/////////*****

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

You have some data how this is done? I have. And guess what happens, if return of investment for this is 0.00001% ?