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On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$?
As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work.
For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way.
Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu
Now I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell.
The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult.
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On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult.
Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits.
The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created.
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On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult.
So you are, in fact, a wizard 
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Canada13407 Posts
On March 17 2015 21:32 ThomasjServo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult. Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits. The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created.
The mobile apps allow you to connect chat only. If the mobile app keeps the rtmp stream open to count the legitimate member of the chat as a viewer then you can see how a rule based on data throughput might become problematic.
But thats just pure speculation 
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On March 17 2015 22:06 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 21:32 ThomasjServo wrote:On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult. Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits. The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created. The mobile apps allow you to connect chat only. If the mobile app keeps the rtmp stream open to count the legitimate member of the chat as a viewer then you can see how a rule based on data throughput might become problematic. But thats just pure speculation
Spitballing as well here, I just can't imagine that mobile would be able to support the viewer numbers that these services offer. That being said an insane percentage of Twitch viewers already do watch from mobile so who knows, it is like 30% from a quick google.
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On March 17 2015 15:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:looks like Winter has been removed completely from the "Team nVidia" schedule on Twitch.tv http://www.twitch.tv/nvidiahe used ot be on weekends 9pm to 12am PST on weekends. possibly, his nVidia sponsorship is in peril. couldn't happen to a nicer guy 
Yea, he also made a statement (more likely a "clarification") concerning this on FB. Don't know if posting the link is okay so I refrain from doing this but I guess everyone who wants to read it, finds it.
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Canada13407 Posts
On March 17 2015 22:27 ThomasjServo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 22:06 ZeromuS wrote:On March 17 2015 21:32 ThomasjServo wrote:On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult. Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits. The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created. The mobile apps allow you to connect chat only. If the mobile app keeps the rtmp stream open to count the legitimate member of the chat as a viewer then you can see how a rule based on data throughput might become problematic. But thats just pure speculation Spitballing as well here, I just can't imagine that mobile would be able to support the viewer numbers that these services offer. That being said an insane percentage of Twitch viewers already do watch from mobile so who knows, it is like 30% from a quick google.
What really interests me is how secure that viewbot website is. I mean people are giving them money, people make accounts there, they appear to have a select number of botnets from a cursory reading of their website. Ah if only i was a script kiddy I cant imagine their security being very good. Seems like a crash grab to me.
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On March 17 2015 22:33 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 22:27 ThomasjServo wrote:On March 17 2015 22:06 ZeromuS wrote:On March 17 2015 21:32 ThomasjServo wrote:On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult. Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits. The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created. The mobile apps allow you to connect chat only. If the mobile app keeps the rtmp stream open to count the legitimate member of the chat as a viewer then you can see how a rule based on data throughput might become problematic. But thats just pure speculation Spitballing as well here, I just can't imagine that mobile would be able to support the viewer numbers that these services offer. That being said an insane percentage of Twitch viewers already do watch from mobile so who knows, it is like 30% from a quick google. What really interests me is how secure that viewbot website is. I mean people are giving them money, people make accounts there, they appear to have a select number of botnets from a cursory reading of their website. Ah if only i was a script kiddy I cant imagine their security being very good. Seems like a crash grab to me.
I would imagine it is a pretty niche market so there is probably a vested interest in maintaining a good rep as far as reliability for payment processing I mean viewbot.net looks super professional. The service isn't illegal persay, just against the ToS for twitch and frowned upon by the broader community(s) around twitch. That being said, I would probably still use paypal if I were inclined to pay for the service.
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On March 17 2015 19:32 Corgi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 17:50 Cascade wrote:On March 17 2015 17:37 rednusa wrote:On March 17 2015 15:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:looks like Winter has been removed completely from the "Team nVidia" schedule on Twitch.tv http://www.twitch.tv/nvidiahe used ot be on weekends 9pm to 12am PST on weekends. possibly, his nVidia sponsorship is in peril. couldn't happen to a nicer guy I wonder which sc2 streamer will pick up that nVidia sponsorship now. Avilo? :D Oh, the threads that would ensue! + Show Spoiler +Was it Avilo with his anti-winter vendetta that bought the viewbots, and then DDOSed winter while himself switching of the bots?? Was it?? :D We will never know! Well, innocent until critial mass pitchforks! + Show Spoiler +Yes, I'm joking and making fun of the entire thread. Nobody. Any sponsor watching Avilo's video should realize that the value of sponsoring him is very low through the words he chooses and the way he communicates.
Personnaly, i think he sould be defeatured for general assholery . He flames against pple who beat him, calling them cheater/hacker. I find this kind of attitude is really harmfull to the community and to the players who're called that way on his stream.
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On March 17 2015 23:03 Cazimirbzh wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 19:32 Corgi wrote:On March 17 2015 17:50 Cascade wrote:On March 17 2015 17:37 rednusa wrote:On March 17 2015 15:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:looks like Winter has been removed completely from the "Team nVidia" schedule on Twitch.tv http://www.twitch.tv/nvidiahe used ot be on weekends 9pm to 12am PST on weekends. possibly, his nVidia sponsorship is in peril. couldn't happen to a nicer guy I wonder which sc2 streamer will pick up that nVidia sponsorship now. Avilo? :D Oh, the threads that would ensue! + Show Spoiler +Was it Avilo with his anti-winter vendetta that bought the viewbots, and then DDOSed winter while himself switching of the bots?? Was it?? :D We will never know! Well, innocent until critial mass pitchforks! + Show Spoiler +Yes, I'm joking and making fun of the entire thread. Nobody. Any sponsor watching Avilo's video should realize that the value of sponsoring him is very low through the words he chooses and the way he communicates. Personnaly, i think he sould be defeatured for general assholery . He flames against pple who beat him, calling them cheater/hacker. I find this kind of attitude is really harmfull to the community and to the players who're called that way on his stream.
No serious sponsor would sponsor someone as toxic as Avilo. Watched him yesterday do nothing but bad mouth a player who out-meched him. Never loses to anyone better than him - everyone either hacks, is a noob (as they demolish him), a stream cheater or uses OP tactics. Even from my perspective he is not a quality player - landing Vikings to snipe unsupported siege tanks works better when you land on top of them not at a distance so they blow you up.
TL did the right thing about Winter - he is way more likable (and skilled) than Avilo but botting is plain unfair to other streamers. I started to watch him because he was the top streamer on TL and I was curious who he was. Hopefully he can be restored once he cleans up his act because he was a good streamer.
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On March 18 2015 01:24 DeadByDawn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 23:03 Cazimirbzh wrote:On March 17 2015 19:32 Corgi wrote:On March 17 2015 17:50 Cascade wrote:On March 17 2015 17:37 rednusa wrote:On March 17 2015 15:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:looks like Winter has been removed completely from the "Team nVidia" schedule on Twitch.tv http://www.twitch.tv/nvidiahe used ot be on weekends 9pm to 12am PST on weekends. possibly, his nVidia sponsorship is in peril. couldn't happen to a nicer guy I wonder which sc2 streamer will pick up that nVidia sponsorship now. Avilo? :D Oh, the threads that would ensue! + Show Spoiler +Was it Avilo with his anti-winter vendetta that bought the viewbots, and then DDOSed winter while himself switching of the bots?? Was it?? :D We will never know! Well, innocent until critial mass pitchforks! + Show Spoiler +Yes, I'm joking and making fun of the entire thread. Nobody. Any sponsor watching Avilo's video should realize that the value of sponsoring him is very low through the words he chooses and the way he communicates. Personnaly, i think he sould be defeatured for general assholery . He flames against pple who beat him, calling them cheater/hacker. I find this kind of attitude is really harmfull to the community and to the players who're called that way on his stream. No serious sponsor would sponsor someone as toxic as Avilo. Watched him yesterday do nothing but bad mouth a player who out-meched him. Never loses to anyone better than him - everyone either hacks, is a noob (as they demolish him), a stream cheater or uses OP tactics. Even from my perspective he is not a quality player - landing Vikings to snipe unsupported siege tanks works better when you land on top of them not at a distance so they blow you up. TL did the right thing about Winter - he is way more likable (and skilled) than Avilo but botting is plain unfair to other streamers. I started to watch him because he was the top streamer on TL and I was curious who he was. Hopefully he can be restored once he cleans up his act because he was a good streamer.
By featuring him, TL sponsors avilo, not with money but with viewers. Avilo is sometimes the top streamer on TL and curious pple come and see someone who's very disrespectful to other players.
Is that the kind of pple we want to be the first glimpse of sc2 for outsiders?
Both winter and avilo are not players(they dont have the minimun amount of skills required to be called that^^), they're entertainers. They're supposed to be the link between newcomers and the sc2 community.
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So according to #7 above
"Full time or regular streamer that is considered insightful and informative who plays at a high level, with at least 100-150 viewers"
Why isn't Lowko a featured stream?
He's consistently had 100-300 viewers when he plays SC2. I personally enjoy his stream and feel that he has earned a spot on the Featured stream list.
http://imgur.com/ImbDdnL
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Considering this whole "assholery" line, I'd recommend un-featuring Avilo's stream.
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Hi, I do have the requirements to be featured on team liquid (according to the opener post here). Could you add me to the featured list? Thank you very much in advance.
http://twitch.tv/lowkotv
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On March 18 2015 03:33 Lowko wrote:Hi, I do have the requirements to be featured on team liquid (according to the opener post here). Could you add me to the featured list? Thank you very much in advance. http://twitch.tv/lowkotv
Poke @TL_Lichter on Twitter or send him a PM
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On March 17 2015 22:06 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 21:32 ThomasjServo wrote:On March 17 2015 21:21 Dumbledore wrote:On March 17 2015 18:39 nimdil wrote:
How does viewbotting work exactly and why viewbotting Winter's stream for a year is ~1000$? As a programmer, I thought I would shed some insight on how the streams on Twitch work. For a programmer wanting to create a viewbot, can choose 1 of 2 ways to do it. The first one would be the noob way where your program just have loads of internet windows open to the stream, but this is very inefficient due to the amount of data the machine would have to handle to maintain the connections, also twitch would also see that all are from the same IP this way. Now, there is a 2nd way, that the more clever programmers could exploit. If you look in to what kind of stream protocol Twitch uses; youll find out they use a protocol called "rtmp" for their stream. This protocol can be abused, a program is able to open up a connection to a rtmp stream, a kind of connection that would not need to receive any video or audio data but still verify as a viewer (thus no ad income). There is a publicly available toolkit for programmers to use to interact with rtmp streams which could easily be used to create a viewbot with called rtmpdump (note that the toolkit is not the there for this purpose...), for anyone interested here is a link: https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.huNow I have done some of my own research a while ago experimenting if Twitch monitors what IP viewers are watching from to detect viewbots. To me it appeared that twitch only check the IPs for users watching through the website or are connected to their irc server. (The twitch chats uses IRC). Thus, if someone wants a fatass viewer count but with no chat bots, itd be easy to achieve this since the rtmp connections do not get monitored if they origin from the same IP. For chat bots a proxy list will have to be utilised. However if they started monitoring rtmp connection ips they could just use a proxy list for that aswell. The logical way for Twitch to detect bots would be to get all connected IPs to their rtmp server, then control check the amount of sent data to the connected clients. View bots would have a very small amount of requested data compared to the legit connections. And thus the efficient way of viewbotting would be detected and view botting large numbers would become much more difficult. Couldn't you then write a rule presumably, using the data that is communicated from the bot to detect them rather easily. Like not having video or audio data? I would assume other information is gathered as well as it is in retail. Thing potentially like screen resolution, browser language, and in the case of chat bots that are intending to simulate chatters a broad stroke formatting for usernames and emails just as the ad bots on TL tend to be actual names followed by three digits. The bot would presumably communicate enough data that twitch could nip a fair shake of it in the bud albeit at some amount of expense. This is the kind of thing we would do to stop fraud online, so I am just spitballing here. I would presume that the data is collected and stored in some way shape and form when these accounts are created. The mobile apps allow you to connect chat only. If the mobile app keeps the rtmp stream open to count the legitimate member of the chat as a viewer then you can see how a rule based on data throughput might become problematic. But thats just pure speculation
People who connect only to chat do not get counted as viewers. If you connect to chat via an IRC client that is not counted as a viewer. Bots such as moobot and nightbot do not get counted as viewers.
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On March 17 2015 04:04 Falling wrote:
I hate a streamer, so I raise him up from obscurity by spending thousands of dollars to raise his profile. I wait for him to get featured on TL, get sponsorships, get legitimate viewers... and then I... ??? Pull the plug? Reveal my diabolical plan and laugh maniacally? He loses a TL feature, which he did not have before I started view botting! How am I ahead in masterplan?
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Yep. Spot on.
Someone previously mentioned that TL is acting like the enforcement arm of /r/starcraft. I for one am glad they are. Because if those in the scene whom have influence don't draw the line and say "unacceptable behaviour", then who will?
Besides all TL are doing is taking a stand against the bullshit, hoping lessons will get learned before things get worse and out of hand. And without sounding like I'm trying to give a group blow job, they do this well.
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As far as I can tell, viewbotting if done properly will be virtually undetectable by twitch. Done properly, the companies hosting would be using botnet slaves, and so coming from totally valid IPs, and could easily run a single stream per machine, assuming they had a small to mid sized botnet. All they need to do is actually consume the data as a normal client would, hey dont even really really need to render it.
I'd assume they count anonymous viewers too (so not in the chat), who aren't signed in, such as through teamliquids in page hosting, and twitchs own site.
Simply put, viewer figures are meaningless when it's so easy to artificially manipulate, and from a technical level, it's almost impossible to prevent. It strikes me that whilst far from perfect, subscriber numbers seems a more accurate indicator, and would be far far more costly to try to game. Again, there's tons of problems with that, but pure maximum/average concurrent viewers, when the numbers can't really be trusted, just seems a weak metric.
Also, when can we crush the idea that people only want to watch GM elite tourny winning geeks. They don't. Mainstream fans want simple shit they can understand, that is fun, and engaging (streamer talking constantly). They don't want to learn how to be super pro to compete with MMA or Life, they want to have some fun, and giggle at silly things, and be amazed and so so skill. There does seem to be some really salty comments here and over at reddit, slamming Winter far harder than he deserves for what appears to be some initial gaming of the system, that nobody really took a strong stance on years ago, and who know what recently, but, sadly for all sides, not a lot of which seems prove able.
Fron a technical point though, I know I can write a botnet that appears 100% like legit viewers, including captcha. It wouldn't be a trivial task, but for some it may appear lucrative enough to give it a try.
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On March 18 2015 08:30 hZCube wrote:
As far as I can tell, viewbotting if done properly will be virtually undetectable by twitch. Done properly, the companies hosting would be using botnet slaves, and so coming from totally valid IPs, and could easily run a single stream per machine, assuming they had a small to mid sized botnet. All they need to do is actually consume the data as a normal client would, hey dont even really really need to render it.
I'd assume they count anonymous viewers too (so not in the chat), who aren't signed in, such as through teamliquids in page hosting, and twitchs own site.
Simply put, viewer figures are meaningless when it's so easy to artificially manipulate, and from a technical level, it's almost impossible to prevent. It strikes me that whilst far from perfect, subscriber numbers seems a more accurate indicator, and would be far far more costly to try to game. Again, there's tons of problems with that, but pure maximum/average concurrent viewers, when the numbers can't really be trusted, just seems a weak metric.
Also, when can we crush the idea that people only want to watch GM elite tourny winning geeks. They don't. Mainstream fans want simple shit they can understand, that is fun, and engaging (streamer talking constantly). They don't want to learn how to be super pro to compete with MMA or Life, they want to have some fun, and giggle at silly things, and be amazed and so so skill. There does seem to be some really salty comments here and over at reddit, slamming Winter far harder than he deserves for what appears to be some initial gaming of the system, that nobody really took a strong stance on years ago, and who know what recently, but, sadly for all sides, not a lot of which seems prove able.
Fron a technical point though, I know I can write a botnet that appears 100% like legit viewers, including captcha. It wouldn't be a trivial task, but for some it may appear lucrative enough to give it a try.
You're ignoring IP neighborhoods and naming conventions that make the automation process much easier than creating every account manually. There are always indicators, but it is pure speculation as to what Twitch is willing to/can enforce to maintain their ToS. Sure there is no way to 100% iron out bots from the equation, but there is reliable modelling that could be put in place to require markedly more effort to make such a service a viable business model and more accurately represent viewership to all concerned sponsors and fans.
Watch who you want to watch, if you love Winter love him, no one can tell you what content you choose to support, but it is pretty clear that the broader community has decided the behavior by one of the people generating, "simple shit they can understand, that is fun, and engaging," was knowingly manipulating factors and misrepresenting himself to that same community and sponsors as well. It isn't a function of content it is a function of behavior, if Winter wanted to forgo salty comments about his viewbotting, he shouldn't have done it in the first place. You can't falsely represent yourself for an extended period of time to the community and sponsors and not expect backlash. For every action, there is a general overeaction, Newton's third law of media, if you aren't ready for it, don't take the risk.
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EPT
