I don’t often find myself browsing the forums anymore, however due to a recent Roblox security update I feel like the purpose it serves is being missed by most of the veteran player base. This update exists due to bots scanning playlists and scamming users. I’m certain you’ve received such a message before, but new users are especially vulnerable to this epidemic. Tell me, how many of you tried to google methods for free currency when you first tried out roblox? How many of you attempted to get free items in any massive online game and ended up damaging your computer or losing your account as a result?
The messages are sly, they give you a scenario you want to believe causing you to be inclined to follow it’s instructions. Maybe you wouldn’t fall for them now because you’ve encountered such messages before, but new and returning players might not know, or might not to think to limit their PM access to friends and followers.
It’s honestly sad that the people who feel the need to deceive other users ruin the experience for the entire community, but I’m honestly glad the Roblox staff is taking steps to mitigate the effects of this issue.
This being said, I don’t believe that disabling most servers is the best solution-- but I also feel that it doesn’t deserve the current reaction it’s getting. Petitions bashing on this step forward without giving any fair criticism or alternatives to stop the scamming issue. Keep in mind, it’s hard to moderate everything being sent, and bots are being made smarter just as fast as online security becomes tighter, there is no one solution.
In my opinion, I feel like these might be some solutions. If you can’t stop bots entirely, at least make it difficult.
Heuristics: Along with text filtering, maybe there could be a system that heuristically analysis PMs being sent. If the Roblox servers see a large amount of similar looking messages being sent by multiple account, they could temporarily disable them under suspicion of scamming. It would be incredibly difficult to make something that works this way, but it can be done ; v ;
ReCaptcha: Captcha is a generally a good way to mitigate bots, but it can be fooled. Maybe every 3 messages sent in a day could be subject to a captcha to, if not stop, at least slow them down.
Name scans: Bots usually have a randomly generated names. Sometimes it’s a single name with randomly generated characters at the end. If Roblox sees an absurd amount of accounts being generated from the same location, maybe it could ban that area from making alts, or halt all new accounts finishing a similar name pattern.
Either way, I hope there are better ways to handle bots in the future, and I’m glad the issue is being recognized ; o ;
|