Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 109 Location: Lewiston, ME
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:13 pm Post subject:
that's a pretty good assumption. So far its the best I have, but it is only an assumption.
I thought that trillian could have a list built into it or something, but why would they bother putting that much effort into such a silly (and useless) feature? They would have to keep track of new robots as they were created and add them to the list. (but if thats the case, I wouldn't mind having my bot added to the list)
It would make more sense if it were a special character in the screenname or profile. Or even some property that we don't even know about. And if that's true, then OSCAR might use use the same attribute to decide if it should penalize the screenname for abusing the speed limit.
that's a pretty good assumption. So far its the best I have, but it is only an assumption.
I thought that trillian could have a list built into it or something, but why would they bother putting that much effort into such a silly (and useless) feature? They would have to keep track of new robots as they were created and add them to the list. (but if thats the case, I wouldn't mind having my bot added to the list)
It would make more sense if it were a special character in the screenname or profile. Or even some property that we don't even know about. And if that's true, then OSCAR might use use the same attribute to decide if it should penalize the screenname for abusing the speed limit. [right][snapback]47993[/snapback][/right]
No, there is nothing in the protocol that would allow any ordinary screenname to have any special privileges.
What makes AOL's bots unique is that they are administrator screennames, they are given their powers by the AOL server. In addition to not having a rate limit, being unblockable and unwarnable, these bots (if they so desired) could also warn you up to 999%, sign other users offline, terminate your account, and many other administrative functions.
And there's no way you can promote any of your own screennames to administrator without AOL doing it for you (maybe other AOL admins have the right to promote a screenname, but I doubt they would just go right ahead and do that for you though).
But also, it couldn't be a character in their profiles because all AOL bots are AOL members and have AOL profiles, which aren't accessible through AIM, so Trillian wouldn't have any way to find that information. _________________ Current Site (2008) http://www.cuvou.com/
Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 109 Location: Lewiston, ME
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:40 pm Post subject:
some good info
QUOTE(Cer @ Apr 24 2005, 02:22 PM)
What makes AOL's bots unique is that they are administrator screennames, they are given their powers by the AOL server. In addition to not having a rate limit, being unblockable and unwarnable, these bots (if they so desired) could also warn you up to 999%, sign other users offline, terminate your account, and many other administrative functions.
so, if I were to get ahold of a human adminstrators screenname and add them to my buddy list in trillian, would they have the bot icon as well?
QUOTE(Cer @ Apr 24 2005, 02:22 PM)
But also, it couldn't be a character in their profiles because all AOL bots are AOL members and have AOL profiles, which aren't accessible through AIM, so Trillian wouldn't have any way to find that information.
What do you mean the profiles aren't accessible? I just thought they were empty cuz when I click view profile(or whatever the menu command is) on one of the bots, it just says "no info"
What makes AOL's bots unique is that they are administrator screennames, they are given their powers by the AOL server. In addition to not having a rate limit, being unblockable and unwarnable, these bots (if they so desired) could also warn you up to 999%, sign other users offline, terminate your account, and many other administrative functions.
so, if I were to get ahold of a human adminstrators screenname and add them to my buddy list in trillian, would they have the bot icon as well?
QUOTE(Cer @ Apr 24 2005, 02:22 PM)
But also, it couldn't be a character in their profiles because all AOL bots are AOL members and have AOL profiles, which aren't accessible through AIM, so Trillian wouldn't have any way to find that information.
What do you mean the profiles aren't accessible? I just thought they were empty cuz when I click view profile(or whatever the menu command is) on one of the bots, it just says "no info" [right][snapback]47996[/snapback][/right]
Firstly, I didn't say that Trillian recognizes administrators. It's not hard to find the most recent list of AOL bots. Just go to AIM.com and click the link on the left entitled something about bots, and there ya go. You could even use LWP::Simple with Perl and be able to get the list of the bots from that. AOL might have some kind of simplified feed, but it's not hard for a program to obtain the list of bots.
If you've ever used the official AIM client and tried viewing an AOL member's profile, AIM would tell you:
Quote:
Note: AOL member profiles are not accessible through AOL Instant Messenger.
AOL profiles are formatted differently than AIM profiles. AIM profiles are just a <1024 character HTML document. I don't know how AOL profiles are, but I think they're closer to MSN profiles. But these differences make it so that AIM members can't get AOL users profiles, and AOL can't view AIM profiles.
If you use a lesser AIM client, it may not know how to detect AOL users. If you try a get_info (i.e. Net::AIM or Net::OSCAR) it returns a blank profile. There is a way of actually getting a buddy's information to find out if they're an AOL or AIM user, and that's how AIM can find out when your buddies are on AOL.
So, since Trillian apparently doesn't bother to check for AOL members, it just returns a blank profile.
Anyhow, long story short, Trillian either has a database or some source of finding AOL bots, and that's how they can detect them and show an icon. It's not just because it's a special screenname or anything in their profiles.
(also, if you want to see anyway, try adding "administrators" and/or "moderators" to your buddylist, those are both admin screennames. If it shows the same icon, you can reply here and prove me wrong). _________________ Current Site (2008) http://www.cuvou.com/
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:10 pm Post subject: 
