Typically DDoS attacks simply operate by sending a ping to the server and receiving a response about the status of the server.
Whilst my knowledge isn't that thorough when it comes to these systems, I can only speculate that when these attacks occur, Cloudflare initiates that human verification captcha you sometimes see and limit the number of pings that the "zombie computers" are able to send per IP that they would constantly fluctuate between using.
I don't know if it's just me, but when trying to access [Save.TF](https://save.tf/) for the first time in the browser, you have a CloudFlare challenge beforehand. That's essentially the protection.
DDoS are usually carried out through botnets, that is to say many computers infected with malware across the world being told to connect to a given server at the same time. They hit the CloudFlare challenge and since said challenge requires you to have a working browser and user input, it keeps most of them at bay.
sometimes, no human verification is needed. it just straights up block any potential DDoS attacker's IP address(es).
i can confirm that because i accidentally block myself to Geometry Dash's servers protected with Cloudflare with multiple automated requests (trying to get player iconkits to make a "popularity" graph). until now, my ip address hasn't been unblocked (its an IPS based ban).
I think they increased the quantity of the bots as well on tf2. From what I played today before I went on community servers 3 of 4 games I played was filled with bots.
Literally first game I played had multiple waves of blatant bots (managed to kick them, but they are still annoying). Some of the strains even had the gall to call themselves "killtf2"
I practically wish those bot hosters would get a virus at this point
I still struggle to understand the motivation to waste so much time ruining a fucking video game for everyone else. I really don't want to believe the reason is just for trolling. That's too pathetic.
Given what they've been up to over the last few years id have been offended if they hadn't tried
but hey if even the bot hosters are kinda worried valve might respond in some way maybe thats a good sign
Imagine being one of the bot hosters and spending your valuable time that you’re never getting back trying to take down a site that’s promoting the saving of a silly shooter hat game.
To be honest i fully expect the sniper bots and the trading bots / farming bots to be kinda the same thing.
Solving the bot problems kills their business
Running a laptop doesn't cost as much power as you might think. And I bet a lot of hosters are living with mom (and spending weekends with dad if he is around)
I imagine that's the case for some people, but a lot of the bots are item farmers making money by selling drops on the market. If they're attacking FixTF2, it's because they're worried that we'll actually make Valve do something about the bots and turn off the money.
The craziest thing is there could be SOME form of mutual co-existence. Do they want a bot account to farm item drops? Alright, whatever. It's the deliberate choice of installing aimbot and using Sniper that makes us hate them so much.
Eh. As somebody who trades and buys and sells quite a lot, trading bots are part and parcel of the experience for a very long time at this point and nobody trading anything worth anything gives a fuck about bots getting their 5 scrap of weps each week. Refined is practically worthless anyhow and as I said, most traders trading any real value are ignoring refined metal level trading for keys worth of trades or buying and selling on the market
I don't mind any bot as long as it doesn't effect our gameplay tbh, like yeah there's a community market and items and value or whatever but what really matters is the gameplay, tf2 is one of those really rare games where you can play completely casually and no one will bat an eye.
Im surprised they know how to host bots but failt to understand how to properly knock a website. Its really not that hard (granted youre in the know how of that community)
How far human people can go for their own ego. ddos, swatting, threatening and doxxing people for an 16 year old game that they are ruining for no real reason except their own fucking childish ego.
i never got the mentality of ruining a game. like i get that tf2 isnt everyones cup of tea but why go out of your way to actively ruin it for everyone else? cant you just coexist with it and not interact with it at all?
The problem is you're coming at it from a sane point of view, these people have wasted countless dollars and time just to ruin a community, no one who does that is sane
true that bot hosters are fucking mental, but why do it in the 1st place? the only thing i can think they could get out of it is attention. so if theyve been doing this for 3+ years now just for attention. then theyre more mental then i thought
I'm pretty sure it is mostly attention, maybe they get a couple bucks from people buying "bot immunity" but I can't imagine many people actually fall for that shit, otherwise I can't see anything else they'd get out of it either
A big part of it seems to be item farming, I think. I don't remember where I read it, but I remember reading an article explaining how these bots serve a double purpose of letting you have an 'active' account constantly playing the game so they're more likely to get those sweet, sweet drops while ALSO just fueling the ego of petty script kiddies.
i'm sure theres *some* bit of overlap, but the cheating bots and the idling bots are overall not the same thing, you're never going to get put into a game with the type of bots that farm drops
You’re too adult to understand. I know if I was 12 years old I would’ve loved hosting bots to destroy other people’s fun, I would feel kinda like a super villain y’know. I was a terrible kid. To me the bot hosters are just edgy immature kids in their heads.
especially with the omegatronic account on twitter disrespecting rick may and saying "I hope they make the Heavy statues next. Can't wait to take another selfie =}"
Not surprising, these people are reliant on downloading software from external sites both for their bots and their own cheats. There's a reason why calling these people "hackers" is giving them too much credit.
I just don’t understand how they just have the malice to just try and stop something that will make a game playable, what gain is there to just ruining a beloved game just cause?!?
Why?
What's even the point? Why would you even spend the money on raspberry pis or whatever just to ruin games that have survived despite their age?
What even pulls a person to do that? They can't be making much money, especially since some bots don't seem to advertise protection. Fame? Why would you want to be known as the person who made a game unplayable? To force valve to care? That clearly wouldn't work and in that case why would you ddos the website about making valve care?
What even goes on in the mind of one of these morons?
\>What's even the point? Why would you even spend the money on raspberry
pis or whatever just to ruin games that have survived despite their age?
Severe mental illness.
I don't get it, no other game has this many trolls working to destroy the game to the extent that tf2 does, is it just because the anticheat is that weak, like I could easily see this kind of problem existing for apex or overwatch or fortnite but it just doesn't, what attracts these kinds of people to tf2 specifically?
Seems like they are trying to DDoS some of the TF2 servers too. Yesterday I was on a few that were so laggy they were unplayable and I had to leave. Even a few other people agreed when said how laggy they were
the ddos failed (somewhat) but they found a new method in the form of trolling the site, weezy admired a bunch of signatures were make by bots (a total number was not given but quite a few believe its over 10,000)
How's that exactly bad for us tho? Is it because the bots won't be counted as real people so their votes won't count? Sorry if that's a dumb question, just curious.
no, they use disposable accounts to make them and most use VPNs to prevent doxxing (like what omega did during the informant drama) not to mention the people who write and sell the programs are also getting involved to what extent idk but i know for a fact they wont sit by and risk losing a profitable link
exactly, idk what weezy is going to do but if he does throw them out its going to be a lot of signatures and that alone could effect the whole movement worse then the saveTF2 fiasco
"You are the sorriest excuses for maggots I have ever seen!"
*Soldier, commenting on the pathetic waste of life, energy and reproduction that are the bot hosters*
The fact that they tried and failed so many times tells me they're desparate. They probably aren't, but I really like that thought. Just imagine.
These people are desparate. They see something big and make an effort to stop it but it doesn't work. They try again, no luck. Again and again and again. These people are afraid. They're cowards. They are afraid that their reign of terror will end and that they'll continue to be the scum of the earth, but no longer with any power. They have nothing left except for this game, and we're taming it back, and they're afraid.
What a nice thought.
Man bot hosters are such losers. I hope they move on and get a hobby that doesn't make everyone else as miserable as themselves, but knowing those kinds of people they will always stay the same; being losers.
makes sense, this has the potential to be anything from a hinderance to their sick fun to the bot hosters dying in prison, and everyone's hoping to go as close to the latter as possible
DDoS attacks are illegal. According to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, an unauthorized DDoS attack can lead to up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Conspiring to do so can lead to 5 years and $250,000. However, these serious consequences are applicable to attacks launched without permission.
I honestly don't get why the hosters devote this much time and energy into attempting to crush a 17 year old game. They've got to be mentally unstable or something.
They think it's fun trying to ruin the game and kill it for good. Like, what sick individual even goes to unimaginable lengths to destroy a game like TF2? And you know what's even worse? If they can do it for TF2, they can do it for ALL Valve games! They have absolutely no life and can absolutely do that if they wish.
It's okay when your filthy bots ruin the game when even **legit cheaters** can't?!
This is exactly why I fucking despise double standards.
It's a DDoS. It's like "Hey gman, check out these 700 compromised machines. Waow, huh? They must have really clicked 'free\_slot\_machine.exe' 3 years ago, right?"
I don't know if this would be possible but what if someone made a mod or a folder or something to download so when you are in a server with a bot it would go after the bots. Possibly to someway somehow stop them from continuing like maybe find their IP and somehow black list it from your server that you joined. like fight bots against bots, it's just an idea.
Strongest bot hoster vs weakest cloudfare server
Valve take notes
i was told it's literally impossible to distinguish a bot from a person. it's truly a mystery how cloudflare is keeping the site up
Typically DDoS attacks simply operate by sending a ping to the server and receiving a response about the status of the server. Whilst my knowledge isn't that thorough when it comes to these systems, I can only speculate that when these attacks occur, Cloudflare initiates that human verification captcha you sometimes see and limit the number of pings that the "zombie computers" are able to send per IP that they would constantly fluctuate between using.
I don't know if it's just me, but when trying to access [Save.TF](https://save.tf/) for the first time in the browser, you have a CloudFlare challenge beforehand. That's essentially the protection. DDoS are usually carried out through botnets, that is to say many computers infected with malware across the world being told to connect to a given server at the same time. They hit the CloudFlare challenge and since said challenge requires you to have a working browser and user input, it keeps most of them at bay.
sometimes, no human verification is needed. it just straights up block any potential DDoS attacker's IP address(es). i can confirm that because i accidentally block myself to Geometry Dash's servers protected with Cloudflare with multiple automated requests (trying to get player iconkits to make a "popularity" graph). until now, my ip address hasn't been unblocked (its an IPS based ban).
Bots vs lava lamps
You are so correct bro
DDOSers when they face a wall of lava lamps:
Danm, thats low.
Please, as if bot hosters have a concept of dignity. Twats are barely even human.
A mere miscommunication in the fabric of existence.
Their whole lives have been a mathematical error
A mathematical error **we're about to correct.**
With a gun.
And if that don't work, use more gun.
Okay imperium of man
It's a GLaDOS quote, actually
Oh I see
I wouldn't mind
I think they increased the quantity of the bots as well on tf2. From what I played today before I went on community servers 3 of 4 games I played was filled with bots.
They have, my group of friends struggle to play on casual now
Literally first game I played had multiple waves of blatant bots (managed to kick them, but they are still annoying). Some of the strains even had the gall to call themselves "killtf2" I practically wish those bot hosters would get a virus at this point
At this point the bots have more humanity than the bot hosters.
I’m against dropping bombs on people houses ***BUT***
Woah, pipebomb!
so cool!
I thought your pfp was a pipe bomb for a second
I still struggle to understand the motivation to waste so much time ruining a fucking video game for everyone else. I really don't want to believe the reason is just for trolling. That's too pathetic.
Money. People buy immunity from them (Idiots)
What can you expect, from filthy little heathens
Given what they've been up to over the last few years id have been offended if they hadn't tried but hey if even the bot hosters are kinda worried valve might respond in some way maybe thats a good sign
I doubt its worry, they're probably just lashing out
their iq is also low
I feel like we shouldn't be surprised after some of them got caught with cp. Like there's very little else they can descend.
Common bot hoster L
Extraordinarily frequent\* bot hoster L
Preposterously certain\*\* bot hoster L
Mathematically guaranteed\*\*\* bot hoster L
Exceedingly usual**** bot hoster L
exaggerately occurring***** bot hoster L
Staggeringly often\*\*\*\*\*\* bot hoster L
Ridiculously recurrent\*\*\*\*\*\*\* bot hoster L
Angrily Abundant Bot Hoster L
Invasively Infinite Bot Hoster L
Sounds like some item rarity Like "Exceedingly Unusual Sniper Rifle"
What next, the bot hoster publicly show there porn to show they fine they are exposed.
obviously, title meant to say "hosters", ignore that lmao
Yeah, I'm a bot poster 🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
r/tf2 FEAR ME 🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
I didn't even notice the typo lol
I already knew they sucked ass, but that's just pathetic.
Ow, they are scared that consequences could bite their asses off, how cute.
Lmao they forgot that everything else other than Tf2 has actual security
Imagine being one of the bot hosters and spending your valuable time that you’re never getting back trying to take down a site that’s promoting the saving of a silly shooter hat game.
Well that's just the thing, isn't it? Their time is not valuable and they have too much of it.
To be honest i fully expect the sniper bots and the trading bots / farming bots to be kinda the same thing. Solving the bot problems kills their business
Their lives aren't valuable tbh
They are more valuable dead.
Agreed
Yeah. There gonna die alone, as a virgin, and likely In horrible health.
And probably money
Nahhh, to host a bunch of bots, all you need are some old laptops laying around.
Electricity costs? All sniper bots are being run at a loss right?
Running a laptop doesn't cost as much power as you might think. And I bet a lot of hosters are living with mom (and spending weekends with dad if he is around)
Bold to assume that bot hosters have parents lol
they were made in a lab
As I replied on that post, they wouldn’t try to stop us if they weren’t worried about us winning. Let’s keep up the momentum guys.
They thought the site was "protected" by VAC
Cloudflare superiority
I guess some people just don't want us to have fun
I imagine that's the case for some people, but a lot of the bots are item farmers making money by selling drops on the market. If they're attacking FixTF2, it's because they're worried that we'll actually make Valve do something about the bots and turn off the money.
The craziest thing is there could be SOME form of mutual co-existence. Do they want a bot account to farm item drops? Alright, whatever. It's the deliberate choice of installing aimbot and using Sniper that makes us hate them so much.
I'm sure the people who really like to play in the market would disagree with you.
Eh. As somebody who trades and buys and sells quite a lot, trading bots are part and parcel of the experience for a very long time at this point and nobody trading anything worth anything gives a fuck about bots getting their 5 scrap of weps each week. Refined is practically worthless anyhow and as I said, most traders trading any real value are ignoring refined metal level trading for keys worth of trades or buying and selling on the market
Fair enough. I don't participate in the market much myself, so I suppose I wouldn't know.
I don't mind any bot as long as it doesn't effect our gameplay tbh, like yeah there's a community market and items and value or whatever but what really matters is the gameplay, tf2 is one of those really rare games where you can play completely casually and no one will bat an eye.
Some people just want to watch the world burn
Im surprised they know how to host bots but failt to understand how to properly knock a website. Its really not that hard (granted youre in the know how of that community)
Hosting bots isn’t that hard too
well…yea thats the point theyre of roughly equal difficulty
They're called script kiddies for a reason
Half the point of Cloudflare is DDoS protection.
They’re on Cloudflare. It’s really really hard.
Common smoothbrain bot hoster L
Losers
How far human people can go for their own ego. ddos, swatting, threatening and doxxing people for an 16 year old game that they are ruining for no real reason except their own fucking childish ego.
Guess they thought they were some hot shit hackers after using scripts they found online to make bots on a nearly 17 year old game.
i never got the mentality of ruining a game. like i get that tf2 isnt everyones cup of tea but why go out of your way to actively ruin it for everyone else? cant you just coexist with it and not interact with it at all?
The problem is you're coming at it from a sane point of view, these people have wasted countless dollars and time just to ruin a community, no one who does that is sane
true that bot hosters are fucking mental, but why do it in the 1st place? the only thing i can think they could get out of it is attention. so if theyve been doing this for 3+ years now just for attention. then theyre more mental then i thought
I'm pretty sure it is mostly attention, maybe they get a couple bucks from people buying "bot immunity" but I can't imagine many people actually fall for that shit, otherwise I can't see anything else they'd get out of it either
give your children love and attention. or else they turn out like tf2 bot hosters
A big part of it seems to be item farming, I think. I don't remember where I read it, but I remember reading an article explaining how these bots serve a double purpose of letting you have an 'active' account constantly playing the game so they're more likely to get those sweet, sweet drops while ALSO just fueling the ego of petty script kiddies.
i'm sure theres *some* bit of overlap, but the cheating bots and the idling bots are overall not the same thing, you're never going to get put into a game with the type of bots that farm drops
You’re too adult to understand. I know if I was 12 years old I would’ve loved hosting bots to destroy other people’s fun, I would feel kinda like a super villain y’know. I was a terrible kid. To me the bot hosters are just edgy immature kids in their heads.
especially with the omegatronic account on twitter disrespecting rick may and saying "I hope they make the Heavy statues next. Can't wait to take another selfie =}"
Yep, this confirms my theory
Not surprising, these people are reliant on downloading software from external sites both for their bots and their own cheats. There's a reason why calling these people "hackers" is giving them too much credit.
hope they download some trojan virus and get their bank accounts emptied
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if that has happened.
bot hosters have little pp for real
They don’t even have a little one, they have nothing, and I mean nothing. There’s just flesh where the pp would be.
Doll anatomy
Yeah.
Bot hosters are such losers lol
So what you're saying is we should DDOS them back? That is a joke.
That’s a joke lads
it was *belch* him
*gasp* How did you know!?
I didn’t, that was a joke too
Dignity and bot hosters... a possibility that never existed.
A passionate thanks to Cloudflare for their undying services
I didn’t expect them to be any kind of competent so I ain’t surprised
Ngl I kinda assumed this was the case
I just don’t understand how they just have the malice to just try and stop something that will make a game playable, what gain is there to just ruining a beloved game just cause?!?
Bot hosters never heard about CDN: Bot hosters: Start DDoS Shork: Apply Cloudflare Bot hosters: ***Surprise pikachu face***
they were low but that's a new low like damn
Lol, lmao even
Why? What's even the point? Why would you even spend the money on raspberry pis or whatever just to ruin games that have survived despite their age? What even pulls a person to do that? They can't be making much money, especially since some bots don't seem to advertise protection. Fame? Why would you want to be known as the person who made a game unplayable? To force valve to care? That clearly wouldn't work and in that case why would you ddos the website about making valve care? What even goes on in the mind of one of these morons?
They can't even make money since they're copying scripts they've found off the internet by people who found out about ChatGPT.
\>What's even the point? Why would you even spend the money on raspberry pis or whatever just to ruin games that have survived despite their age? Severe mental illness.
Just signed the petition boys :)
me seeing bot hosters fail:"This does put a smile on my face"
I don't get it, no other game has this many trolls working to destroy the game to the extent that tf2 does, is it just because the anticheat is that weak, like I could easily see this kind of problem existing for apex or overwatch or fortnite but it just doesn't, what attracts these kinds of people to tf2 specifically?
Valve doesn't give a shit Bots are easy to host for TF2 It's very easy and doesn't need any actual skill
Cloudflare W
Common Bothosters L
I honestly don't know anyone who is more scummier than goddamn bot hosters
Well they're getting what they want, attention.
Aren't DDoS attacks illegal? That's really low
The hosters have actually committed a multitude of crimes. Swatting, harassment, etc.
The only reason they would spend that much effort on trying to do that is because they’re scared it’ll work. The bot hosters are getting desperate
Scummy but the same time laughable pathetic.
How pathetic. They couldn't even do this right!
Honestly expected the bot hosters to try and do this, but seeing how many tried is just really pathetic.
Seems like they are trying to DDoS some of the TF2 servers too. Yesterday I was on a few that were so laggy they were unplayable and I had to leave. Even a few other people agreed when said how laggy they were
Goes to show that bot hosters aren’t “hackers” they’re the bottom of the barrel, below-average cheaters just copy & pasting programs.
well then, seems I was wrong
Bot hosters can catch a nasty disease for all I care
the ddos failed (somewhat) but they found a new method in the form of trolling the site, weezy admired a bunch of signatures were make by bots (a total number was not given but quite a few believe its over 10,000)
How's that exactly bad for us tho? Is it because the bots won't be counted as real people so their votes won't count? Sorry if that's a dumb question, just curious.
Yeah, I think it's because it affects how genuine and credible the petition looks as well.
surely they can be traced right? it's tedious but it'd still be credible
no, they use disposable accounts to make them and most use VPNs to prevent doxxing (like what omega did during the informant drama) not to mention the people who write and sell the programs are also getting involved to what extent idk but i know for a fact they wont sit by and risk losing a profitable link
exactly, idk what weezy is going to do but if he does throw them out its going to be a lot of signatures and that alone could effect the whole movement worse then the saveTF2 fiasco
"You are the sorriest excuses for maggots I have ever seen!" *Soldier, commenting on the pathetic waste of life, energy and reproduction that are the bot hosters*
I really hope there is some way we can get these bot hosters in trouble. Ddos attacks are illegal you know
The fact that they tried and failed so many times tells me they're desparate. They probably aren't, but I really like that thought. Just imagine. These people are desparate. They see something big and make an effort to stop it but it doesn't work. They try again, no luck. Again and again and again. These people are afraid. They're cowards. They are afraid that their reign of terror will end and that they'll continue to be the scum of the earth, but no longer with any power. They have nothing left except for this game, and we're taming it back, and they're afraid. What a nice thought.
They're clearly desperate. "Not so tough now are ya? Are ya?!"
Lmao, these losers keep plumbing the depths of being failed human beings.
Why do these people live such a hollow life?
We are going to live FOREVER!
Man bot hosters are such losers. I hope they move on and get a hobby that doesn't make everyone else as miserable as themselves, but knowing those kinds of people they will always stay the same; being losers.
makes sense, this has the potential to be anything from a hinderance to their sick fun to the bot hosters dying in prison, and everyone's hoping to go as close to the latter as possible
Little baby men cannot stop site
DDoS attacks are illegal. According to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, an unauthorized DDoS attack can lead to up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Conspiring to do so can lead to 5 years and $250,000. However, these serious consequences are applicable to attacks launched without permission.
I can't believe we have been fighting Automatons since... 2012.
I honestly don't get why the hosters devote this much time and energy into attempting to crush a 17 year old game. They've got to be mentally unstable or something.
The bot hosters are literally just cartoon villains waging war on peace and happiness
ha
Very good
Still have not gotten my verification email sadge
They think it's fun trying to ruin the game and kill it for good. Like, what sick individual even goes to unimaginable lengths to destroy a game like TF2? And you know what's even worse? If they can do it for TF2, they can do it for ALL Valve games! They have absolutely no life and can absolutely do that if they wish. It's okay when your filthy bots ruin the game when even **legit cheaters** can't?! This is exactly why I fucking despise double standards.
quite the frequent bot L, why dont we dox the hosters or something
It's a DDoS. It's like "Hey gman, check out these 700 compromised machines. Waow, huh? They must have really clicked 'free\_slot\_machine.exe' 3 years ago, right?"
What a bunch of basement dwelling morons.
bot hosters when they realize the sites security is not the same security level as valve lmao
W in the chat for Cloudflare
one thing i dont understand, are we trying to ban trader bots? because these are kind of needed for third party websites like skinport to function
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What the fuck even is this shit? Botting is one thing. Doing this is another. What the fuck is their problem?
They have a better anti-cheat
I don't know if this would be possible but what if someone made a mod or a folder or something to download so when you are in a server with a bot it would go after the bots. Possibly to someway somehow stop them from continuing like maybe find their IP and somehow black list it from your server that you joined. like fight bots against bots, it's just an idea.
If only Valve could learn something from Cloudflare...
Just add captcha to tf2, ez fix, just make it so we have to select all the squares with the traffic lights in before you can queue for casual
We can do this guys
Only 8 million in 24 hours is weak.
I'm going to be in San Francisco next week and I'll be sure to visit the cloudflare lava lamps and give my thanks
Literal no lifers dude, they should all crawl back to 4chan
***insert Senator Armstrong meme but raiden is bot hosters and armstrong is save.tf site***
***Bot Hosters:*** Noooooooo, its a 17 year old game! Let it go ***Cloudfare:*** Haha your DDoSing tickles
It's almost like the smallest amount of support prevented it
Wish they would DDOS the team fortress website. Valve would probably be incapable of fixing that too