ablender
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Post by ablender on Dec 13, 2015 12:22:03 GMT
Why on earth would SS implement something that instantly would aggravate 99% of their lenders just to "settle" something that very few people seem to be troubled by? If you dislike having to invest time competing for parts on the SM (and plenty of posts on here show that it's perfectly possible to lend substantial sums via the SM) then use pre-funding to invest via the PM instead. That requires almost no effort at all, just a little bit of patience. A totally transparent anti-bot measure (if it exists) would only aggravate the lenders who use bots. I doubt that that's as many as 99% but if might include those posters on this forum who are implacably opposed to any investigation of bot activity. webwiz- I do not support the use of captchas and the connotation of what you imply that I might be a bot is infuriating. Bots or no bots on SS, I can vouch that I manually bought several thousand pounds worth of loan parts on SM, thus trebbling my investment on SS. Edit: to clarify - I am opposed to this idea of "investigating bot activity" in light of it leading to captcha-like systems.
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Dec 13, 2015 12:25:13 GMT
Captcha and its equivalents are, by definition, intrusive by requiring proof of human operation. If you're hoping for something that prevents bots but requires nothing of human users, I think you may be hoping in vain. Stevet - I have my own website and if I look at the data that analyses the website activity (cannot remember what it is called), it shows me when bots or crawlers visit the page (most are search engines mapping www). Do you (or anyone else) know if such systems can be used in this case?
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jonah
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Post by jonah on Dec 13, 2015 12:33:08 GMT
Captcha and its equivalents are, by definition, intrusive by requiring proof of human operation. If you're hoping for something that prevents bots but requires nothing of human users, I think you may be hoping in vain. Stevet - I have my own website and if I look at the data that analyses the website activity (cannot remember what it is called), it shows me when bots or crawlers visit the page (most are search engines mapping www). Do you (or anyone else) know if such systems can be used in this case? Somewhat different things here... A 'robot' as they used to be called, see robot.txt file for more info, is generally an indexer or search engine system looking to find out what is out there. Think google or bing or altavista etc. A 'bot' in the context of this thread is a custom code script which is intended to automate, usually at high speed, a specific task on a specific website, such as buying up parts on the SS SM. This could be a literal script (e.g. python) running against a utility such as curl, or something more sophisticated such as withing a full browser, e.g. Selenium. Very different beasties. That said, the latest I read (and I am by no means an expert) was I think a google experiment which tried to look at the randomness of mouse moves to determine if it was a silicon or carbon based intelligence working the requests. Obviously limited to OS with a mouse.... In short though, by definition there isn't a non disruptive way to prevent bots due to them pretending to be human. You also can't just 'do at the start of the day' as the human can start off the script, pass the test and then leave it for the next 8 hrs or so.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2015 14:22:36 GMT
Exactly. The only way to detect a bot is by analysing the web site activity logs, which usually takes ages. This is something SS have already done. First of all I would like to confirm that writing a bot is extremely easy for those of us with programming skills. I have written many bots (in perl) and they are very very simple to manage. Also it is very simple to make them (almost) undetectable. Analysing (quickly) the web logs will not report them at all, as I (bot) report to the website I am browser 'Firefox 31.0' or 'IE 11.0' etc., so you would need to find deeper traces of not human activity. I honestly doubt SS can bother to do this sort of analysis and cannot care who is buying on the secondary market as long as there is liquidity. At present I don't need to buy, but should the need come in the future and should the secondary market be still so difficult, I will put a bot on...
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Post by stevie on Dec 13, 2015 16:31:42 GMT
Are you saying that no better defence to bots exists? What IS a "bot"? It's just a script, accessing the SS servers in the same way as any browser, that happens to be automated. It might well run within a browser, so look identical to SS as any human user who happens to have quick reactions. So all you can really do is to introduce some kind of manual-intervention check - be that a "type-what-you-see" captcha or something else - at the time of placing the bid. Which, as we know, is time-critical, fastest-finger-first. And any manual-intervention check can be farmed out to a cheap-labour service sooner or later, cheaply and easily. Also there are userability and accessibility considerations for SS. Many captchas are terrible, even with good vision. Now imagine the people that are blind or vision impaired. Also anyone that is already too slow to 'win' loans, is going to have even less chance against users that can touch-type. If 5 people go after the same loan, then my money is on the tough touch-typist.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Dec 13, 2015 16:46:24 GMT
...then my money is on the tough-typist. There's a certain irony in that typo... <grin> But it has given me a mental image of five people trying to get their paws on the same physical loan part, with one of them busy battering the other four out the way with a keyboard.
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Post by stevie on Dec 13, 2015 17:21:12 GMT
...then my money is on the tough-typist. There's a certain irony in that typo... <grin> But it has given me a mental image of five people trying to get their paws on the same physical loan part, with one of them busy battering the other four out the way with a keyboard. :-)
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Post by mrclondon on Dec 13, 2015 18:02:31 GMT
I'm not currently buying on the SS SM so I'm only following this discussion of bots as an interested observer. I'm fairly sure I could write a such a bot if I felt the need.
A question for those that believe bots are operating on the SS SM - do you also believe bots are operating on the MT and FS secondary markets ? (I've not as yet been fast enough to secure any SM parts on MT, or discounted parts on FS)
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Post by highlandtiger on Dec 13, 2015 19:15:26 GMT
I was really using "captcha" as shorthand for whatever are the state of the art anti-bot measures currently.Are you saying that no better defence to bots exists? Obviously if there are any they are not going to be publicised as that would help the bot writers, but I would hope that there is something otherwise the internet is going to lose a lot of its functionality. If there is something I suggest that SS should implement it to settle this argument, and as a protection for the future. Why on earth would SS implement something that instantly would aggravate 99% of their lenders just to "settle" something that very few people seem to be troubled by? If you dislike having to invest time competing for parts on the SM (and plenty of posts on here show that it's perfectly possible to lend substantial sums via the SM) then use pre-funding to invest via the PM instead. That requires almost no effort at all, just a little bit of patience. I couldn't put it better myself. Spot On. 
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2015 14:30:36 GMT
I think its a subject to monitor, not an issue now but maybe it will be so.
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tombraider
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Post by tombraider on Dec 16, 2015 1:04:14 GMT
I feel it is and will be an issue. the only time I have managed to make purchases is during the night......
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duck
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Post by duck on Dec 16, 2015 6:26:54 GMT
I feel it is and will be an issue. the only time I have managed to make purchases is during the night...... I don't operate after 10pm so no chance of me buying at unearthly o'clock.
That said in the last 4 months I have set up an account for my partner and have picked up close to 20K on the aftermarket in 3 months active buying. I could have bought more but I have been balancing against my accounts to avoid holding too much in a single loan. She is currently invested in 39 loans 24 of which were bought exclusively on the aftermarket.
So it can be done and at sensible hours of the day!
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t
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Post by t on Dec 16, 2015 6:42:40 GMT
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Dec 16, 2015 7:28:10 GMT
I feel it is and will be an issue. the only time I have managed to make purchases is during the night...... Doesn't that rather suggest your SM competition is other people rather than bots? Unless SS is blessed with rather strange bots that shut down at bedtime.
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Dec 16, 2015 8:01:12 GMT
Why don't we organise a robot war session? Anyone ready to help me build one? I want it to have rotating blades on all sides.
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