What the fip is a "bot"

[bigred]

Yet another dorky computer term we don't need is weeding its way into mainstream :rolleyes: Translations for an old fart who has little patience for such silliness appreciated so I can pretend I'm hip. Like, I'm all, dude. :cool:

[geni]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_bot

Oh it is a bit wider than than that. For example you could use a bot to do certain things on the stock market.

Quite a useful term in fact.

[bigred]

From the link:

"The most common bots are those that covertly install themselves on people's computers for malicious purposes, and that have been described as remote attack tools."

What isn't "Trojan Horse" cool enough anymore?

[Lisa Simpson]

We have a triviabot in the chatroom that spews out random trivia questions when asked. And also something called the "skepticbot" but I don't know what that does.

[geni]

From the link:

"The most common bots are those that covertly install themselves on people's computers for malicious purposes, and that have been described as remote attack tools."

What isn't "Trojan Horse" cool enough anymore?

No that is mearly the infection method. A Trojan Horse could contian a payload that trashes your hard drive but doesn't try an set up a bot net. Thee are also other ways of seting up bot nets such as worms or in theory by paying people to install your softwear.

[bigred]

OK, thx all.

[geni]

We have a triviabot in the chatroom that spews out random trivia questions when asked. And also something called the "skepticbot" but I don't know what that does.

Most of the bots I deal with are on wikipedia. They do everything from reverting vandalism to (eary in wikipedia's history) writeing articles. I've also run across various bots designed to attack or spam wikipedia.

How bots develop over the next few years is going to be interesting to see.

[CFLarsen]

"Husband".

[Abdul Alhazred]

Some internet forums consist of an admin mod, some arbitrarily large number of bots, and an unsuspecting experimental subject.

Not pointing any fingers, of course. :p

[Ririon]

"Husband".
That just leaves one question: What is "fip"? :p

[RSLancastr]

'Bots co-hosted Mystery Science Theater 3000.

[geni]

That just leaves one question: What is "fip"? :p

A TLA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIP

[CFLarsen]

That just leaves one question: What is "fip"? :p
Ask the wife. ;)

[arthwollipot]

Jargon has a good purpose and a bad purpose. The good pupose is to make it easier to communicate complex concepts quickly and easily. The bad purpose is to exclude people who don't understand the jargon from the "club".

So if you don't want to be excluded from the "club", you can learn the jargon. It's not that hard. And it's not like you actually have to use it, unless you want to. It is usually sufficient to simply understand it. But you will find that it sometimes makes it easier to communicate.

[CP489]

Bots are used in online poker to win money 24/7 without actually sitting at your computer. They aren't really that effective though...yet.

[Beerina]

Bots are used in online poker to win money 24/7 without actually sitting at your computer. They aren't really that effective though...yet.

It would be interesting to see if they draw off the same "deck", or if they re-randomize the entire 52-card deck every hand. It would also be interesting to see if the cards the dealer got (insofar as you see them) are randomly distributed between you and the dealer.

Bots are also a term to define an AI that plays an online game for you, typically a first-person shooter. Some inject keypresses into your client game, as if you had pressed the buttons, others monitor the network traffic between your local game and the server, and send out network messages identical in structure, as if you had sent them from the game.

Bots exist to do the runs on "Diablo" and other boss monsters in Diablo II. They'll go back to town when backpacks are full and sell the "good stuff". You can enter the type or name of an item you're looking for and they'll run the missions over and over until they find the "dropped" item you're looking for.

[This Guy]

We have a triviabot in the chatroom that spews out random trivia questions when asked. And also something called the "skepticbot" but I don't know what that does.

Chat room? Where might that be?

Always looking for another method of inserting my foot in my mouth ;)

Never mind, I found it (gotta go wash my feet real fast now!)

[Morrigan]

On forums, bots are scripts that register accounts automatically and are used to spam. Usually they generate nicknames like "cindy35456", have a homepage to "free.cigarettes.coolweb.com" and flood the board with spam.

Thankfully most forum softwares have security measures against those now.