Detecting Scripts/Macros/EvilDoers

[Ceril]

Greetings.

A simple question thats been troubling me are macroers/scripters that write a script to keep doing things in a game over and over thus Cheating.
Now, say they use Curl which if I remember correctly is simply set to identify itself as a browser sending referalls etc..
Javascript? Since the page dosent require javascript one could check with js to see if javascript is enabled, most people dont turn it off, and thus have a little hint that it might not be a browser requesting pages.

Whats your take on this problem? Any friendly pointers as to how detect an evil scripter in the neighbourhood?

[MarkR]

You can't really do it in the general case.

I'd say the solution is - ensure that people cannot gain any ADVANTAGE by using macros/scripts, but can still use them.

Design your game so that there's no advantage in continually visiting the web site - rather, make it so that things "Keep happening" in the game, even when the user isn't physically present.

Then there's no incentive to use macros/scripts.

Mark